Wilderness

The Handsome Family - "Wilderness" (2013) - Carrot Top Records

Hello Friends,

Wilderness is the tenth studio album by Chicago's best married duo of gothic country-folk rock, The Handsome Family.

All the songs, I suppose, are supposed to be about things you see in a wilderness but with songs like "Eels", "Octopus", "Glow Worm" & "Wildebeest",  we're not sure what kind of "wilderness" these weirdos are hanging out in... 

Rennie & Brett Sparks aka The Adaams Handsome Family

Good record overall. Very spooky and atmospheric. Lyrically, it sounds like a series of fucked up, noirish children's stories.

Earlier this year, The Handsome Family provided the opening credits song ("Far From Any Road") to the fantastic HBO series, True Detective.

Alright! Alright!

RATING: 4 Yellow Kings of Carcosa out of 5

The Life and Times of KISS

Chuck Klosterman (a favorite of ours here on Vinyl In The Valley) has written perhaps the best article we've seen on KISS for the website, grantland.com.

Check it out here:

http://grantland.com/features/chuck-klosterman-kiss-hall-of-fame/

\m/

The Magnificent Moodies

The Moody Blues - "Go Now" (1965) - London Records

Hello Friends,

Picked up this early Moody Blues record at Record Store Day last weekend.

Sounds absolutely nothing like any Moody Blues' albums we've ever heard before.  Its R&B and Merseybeat tunes sung mostly by Denny Laine (who would later join up with the McCartneys to form Wings).  Not proggy in the least. No mellotron.  No psychedelic album artwork.  No spacey concept tying the album together.  Sounds more like a slightly above average British Invasion record that anything on the Moody's second album (which many people regard as their proper debut), Days of Future Passed.

In England, it was released in a slightly different incarnation as The Magnificent Moodies, while here in the U.S. they re-named it, Go Now - The Moody Blues # 1 to capitalize on the success of their Number One single, the cover of the R&B song, "Go Now."

There's also a James Brown cover, "I'll Go Crazy"; Ellie Greenwich & Jeff Barry's "I've Got A Dream"; the Gershwin's "It Ain't Necessarily So"; Willie Dixon & Sonny Boy Williamson's "Bye Bye Bird"; et cetera.  Mister Sunshine Superman himself, Donovan, wrote the album's liner notes! 

The final track, written by Laine & organist Mike Pinder, is the British Invasion hit-that-never-was, "From The Bottom of My Heart".

Within the next two years, Laine and bassist Clint Warwick would be replaced by Justin Hayward & John Lodge, respectively, but we'll revisit the Moodys one night this Summer on a Prog-Rock Saturday.

Here's a live clip of Denny Laine performing "Go Now" as a member of Wings.

RATING: 4 Mitchells & Butlers Breweries out of 5

Hoppy Easter!

Happy Easter courtesy of Polish black metal band, Behemoth and their song, "Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel"... 

Have fun with the nightmares!

\m/

Movie Night: Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Hello Friends,

Grab your popcorn and pull up a stool, its Movie Night again on Vinyl in the Valley!

Tonight we're watching Inside Llewyn Davis, a 2013 movie written and directed by the great Joel & Ethan Coen.

No one quite portrays the existential crises of modern man as enjoyably as the Coen Brothers do in their films.  From Barton Fink to Big Lebowski to their terribly underrated masterpiece, A Serious Man, the brothers Coen seem to be drawn to characters who are on psychic journeys-- road movies not necessarily of a specific place or time, but rather of a state of mind.

Inside Llewyn Davis is a film that could have only been made by the Coens.  The story revolves around the ups and downs (mostly downs) of the title character, Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), a folk singer bouncing around clubs & coffee shops in 1961 Greenwich Village.  Musically, 1961 is kind of in a creative abyss taking place between Rock and Roll's first Golden Age and the next generation of greats like Bob Dylan and The Beatles. 

Based very loosely on real life folkster Dave Van Ronk, Llewyn's odyssey is one of just scraping by, never quite "making it", playing folk covers in cafes, sleeping on couches, burning bridges and chasing cats.  Along the way, there's the last of his "friends", folk duo Jim & Jean (Justin Timberlake & Carey Mulligan); a revealing trip to the abortion clinic; a road trip to wintery Chicago; beatnik poets (Garrett Hedlund), junkie jazzmen (John Goodman) and a brief glimpse of this new folky upstart (Dylan) who's about to turn this entire world on its ear.  And cats, cats, cats.

The entire cast is great.  Adam Driver who plays Al Cody (loosely based on Ramblin' Jack Elliott) is a real standout!

Although we agree its a little bit of a tough and challenging movie at times, we give Inside Llewyn Davis two cocktail glasses up!  Au revoir!

We'll see you next time, friends, until then the Tiki Bar is closed*.  

(* not really)

Music to Change her Mind

Jackie Gleason - "Music to Change Her Mind" (1956) - Capitol Records

Hello Friends,

Its been a while since we've had The Great One on the VITV turntable and tonight we've got a classic piece of Gleason "mood" music spinning.  And just what mood is that?  How about the mood to feed our date some red wine and sleeping pills while taking complete advantage of her! 

You think we're kidding?  All the clues are there friends.  Something is amiss! Just check out some of these song titles: "You've Changed", "GUILTY", "It WAS so Beautiful", "She's Funny That Way", "All By Myself", "You and the Night and the Music", "Dancing in the Dark", "You Call it Madness", et cetera.  It reads like some creepy night stalker's diary entries!

Music to Change Her Mind is the sound you hear in the wee hours of the morning, just before you fall asleep, with a good buzz going, after you smoked your last cigarette.

It's the sound of your brainwaves in a dense fog: misty, muddled, familiar and dreamlike.

The ethereal horn of Bobby Hackett is present throughout like a beacon in the night guiding us to shore!

FUN FACT: Side One's haunting "You're My Greatest Love" is also the theme music to The Honeymooners!

RATING: 4 Strings of Poloponies out of 5

13th Floor Elevators: Headstone - The Contact Sessions

The 13th Floor Elevators - "Headstone: The Contact Sessions" (1966/2010) - Contact Records

Hello Friends,

Tonite we're listening to the first LP in our recently acquired Music of the Sphere's box set.

Recorded in early 1966 by legendary psychedelic producer Walt Andrus, Headstone was supposed to be the Elevators' first LP (it was to be released on Gordon Bynum's Contact Records), but for reasons too convoluted to go into here, the finished product never saw the light of day! Luckily for us, The Elevators "lost" first album wasn't really lost all and they would eventually be signed to Houston's International Artists record label and get a proper debut with The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators.

Headstone (recorded in mono) sounds raw and raucous. Loud and electric.  A mix of original and cover tunes. Perfect in all its imperfection.  

Its a proper-sounding album and not just a collection of demos and outtakes.

It should also be noted that by early 1966, most of the members of the band were subsisting on a steady diet of marijuana, various pills and LSD.      

The opening track-- what would become the band's signature song-- "You're Gonna Miss Me", sets the stage not only for the rest of the album, but for the rest of the band's too-short career. 

At first, "You're Gonna Miss Me" sounds like pretty much any other post-British Invasion garage rock song, thunderous power chords (played by guitarist Stacy Sutherland) lead to a chaos-fueled drum beat that sounds as if both the drummer (John Ike Walton) and the drumset are tumbling down a flight of stairs while never quite losing the beat.  And what's that sound weaving between the beats like a swarm of stoned bees?  Why its an amplified jug being played (er, rather, being vocalized) by Elevators' founding member, Tommy Hall.  Within the first 20 seconds you can tell this band is going to be something more than just another Yardbirds-influenced blues band! 

Then... there's the voice! Like a demonic freight train breaking through the gates of hell, the barbaric yawp of lead singer, Roky Erickson, pierces through the music sounding just as frightening and unhinged today as it must have to audiences back in 1966. Amazing! 

You're gonna wake up one morning as the sun greets the dawn,
You're gonna wake up one morning as the sun greets the dawn,
You're gonna look around in your mind, girl, you're gonna find that I'm gone...

"You're Gonna Miss Me" is followed up by another original written by Tommy Hall & Stacy Sutherland, "Tried to Hide".  Then there's a cover of the Solomon Burke blues tune, "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love".  Next up is the the aching ballad, "Take That Girl" written by fellow Austin bohemian and frequent Elevators' collaborator, Powell St. John.

"You Can't Hurt Me Anymore" is another Hall-Erickson composition.  Side One closes with a nod to another fellow Texan, Buddy Holly, with the Elevators covering "I'm Gonna Love You Too" which sounds a little like what Holly himself might have sounded like if he would have made it to 1966-- stoned, world-weary and jaded, and with an electric jug frantically going at it in the background.

Side Two opens with another Powell St. John composition, "Monkey Island".  Its creepy and psychedelic as Erickson sings (yells) his heart out with lyrics literally about living on a monkey island.  ("Living home on Monkey Island, baby, right in the middle of a zoo / Living home on Monkey Island, baby, pretended to be a monkey too".) 

If a Southern and stoned Bob Dylan sang lead for Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, it might have sounded something like the next song, "Roller Coaster".  Another Erickson composition complete with tempo changes and very psychedelic lyrics about "opening up your mind and letting everything come through".

Things quiet down a bit on the gorgeous ballad, "Now I'm Home (Splash 1)", co-written by Erickson and Tommy Hall's wife, Clementine.  More melancholia, more paranoia and a killer guitar solo. Sample lyric: "The fierceness of my feelings rocks me like a roar / Its good to know we won't be strangers anymore".  (Supposedly Roky began writing this song after meeting yet another Texas native, Janis Joplin!)  On the song "You're Gonna Miss Me", Erickson declared with little uncertainty, "I'm not coming home!"-- on "Now I'm Home", midway through Side Two, he's apparently had a change of heart!  

The record ends with early versions of two more great psychedelic originals, "Where Am I? (Thru the Rhythm)" and "Fire Engine".  The former reaching new heights in lyrical neurosis while the latter is a surf tune written as a tribute to a mind-expanding DMT experience ("The Empty Place" = "DMT Place", get it kids?)

Again, there's some long story as to why Headstone wasn't released as the band's first album.  It would have made a fantastic debut.  But take a bunch of loud rock & roll, some rowdy Texas teenagers, a bunch of mind-altering substances and a very public drug bust and I guess its lucky that anything survived!

    Here's an early version of "You're Gonna Miss Me" courtesy of Roky Erickson's first band, The Spades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qan7lVj3KtM.  

Can't wait to hear what's up next, the band's actual debut, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators!

RATING: 4.5 Let Me Take You To The Empty Place On My Fire Engine out of 5