This One's For Pinky Tuscadero

Various Artists - "Fonzie Favorites" (1976)

Aaaayyyyyyy Friends!

Step into my office and order yourself a malted because tonight on Vinyl in the Valley we're listening to Fonzie's favorites on the ol' turntable.  And its coooooool!

People might forget how huge "Happy Days" was in the late 70's.  Amongst all of the merchandising inspired by the show was this little treasure of an LP containing over 20 tracks of early rock standards like "Splish Splash", "Barbara Ann", "Charlie Brown", "I Only Have Eyes for You", "Great Balls of Fire", "In the Still of the Night" and, of course, "The Happy Days Theme Song".  As the liner notes state:  "No!!! The Fonz has not taken to singing on this album.  Better!!! He has chosen favorite 50's records to share with you."  

Fonzie gives this album
"Two Thumbs Up!"
(Potsie could not be reached for comment!)

There's even a cardboard fold out on the back cover so you can stand the album upright while listening to it!  Its like the Fonz is right there in your living room!

One of the LP's "novelty" tracks, "The Fonzarelli Slide" contains speaking parts from Happy Days characters interacting with characters from "Laverne & Shirley" and "Welcome Back, Kotter."   This is pretty amazing because (a) the voices are clearly not those of the original actors and, in fact, are poorly imitated, and (b) not to nitpick but these fictional characters existed in different decades and thousands of miles apart so chances are there's no way Fonzie could have been been the "new leader of the Sweathogs!" 

Which reminds me, let's all pour out a little malted in remembrance of actor Ron Palillo ("Horshack") who passed away this week!

RATING: 3.5 Ralph Malphs out of 5

Alternate Titles for this post: 
"Sit On It!"
"Fonzie Schemes"
"Jumping the Shark"
"Exactamundo"
"Wisconsin Cheese"
"Where's Chachi"

Prog Rock Saturday: Brain Salad Surgery

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - "Brain Salad Surgery" (1973)

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends... Vinyl in the Valley!

From the H.R. Giger designed album artwork to the prog rock opus contained in its grooves, Brain Salad Surgery is the quintessential prog album of the Seventies. 

Side One begins with ELP's take on the hymn, "Jerusalem" (based on a William Blake poem).  Its churchy-sounding and although it was banned by the BBC for being "degrading" to the traditional English hymn, its anything but sacrilegious.  The instrumental "Toccata" follows.  Its based on a Piano concerto by Argentine composer, Alberto Ginastera, and features some pretty weird-sounding synthesizer and drum effects.  Basically, its spazzy, unnerving and like much of their work, show-offy. 

Next up is "Still... You Turn Me On", a pretty acoustic song featuring some fine Greg Lake fingerpicking and vocals.  Best lyric: "Everyday a little sadder / a little madder / Someone get me a ladder!"

"Benny The Bouncer" is atrocious and Side One concludes with the First Movement of the 30 minute futuristic suite, "Karn Evil 9".  Yowsa!

Side Two picks up where Side One left off with the more familiar, "Karn Evil 9, First Impression, part 2" ("Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...") and for the next 22 minutes the entire album side is a journey into the deep bowels of progressive rock!  Lots of sci-fi sounding keyboards and lots of drumming in weird time signatures courtesy of Carl Palmer.  The song is seemingly about some futuristic, dystopian carnival.  However, by the Third Impression there seems to be some sort of man versus computer war going on.  Its all really confusing and I got a headache listening to this!       

It can be said that Keith Emerson did for keyboards in the 1970's what Jimi Hendrix did for guitar in the late 1960's.  The sounds coming from the Emerson's fingertips are precise, bombastic & otherworldly.  The thing is keyboards aren't as exciting as guitars.  They're TOO mechanical; really show-offy and not very sexy.  Back in the day, no one was getting laid listening to this album!

Which reminds me of this fun fact: Did you know the phrase "Brain Salad Surgery" is code for "Oral Sex"?  Its true!  Look it up!

RATING: 3.5 Pictures at an Exhibition out of 5

I Wanna Be Sedated

Jackie Gleason - "Opiate d'Amour" (1960) - Capitol Records

Hello Friends,

Back in an earlier post, we compared a Jackie Gleason record to taking Nyquil.  That was nothing! As the title implies, this LP is literally like being on some strong, strong opiates!  This is mood music for heavy eyelids.  Sleepy and sedate, but in the best possible ways!

As the liner notes state, 

Into this intensely romantic album, Jackie Gleason has decanted a tranquilizing potion as dreamily hypnotic as a warm breeze caressing a field of poppies.

Whoa!  They ain't kidding!  Pass the morphine!

Here the songs flow into one another, calmly and uninterrupted, like a lazy river.  Each album side is a medley of sorts with no pauses between songs.  Not sure if this is the first time something like this was being done on a non-classical LP?  Anyone?  

The songs feature more of those lush & laid back string arrangements punctuated by brass sections that sound as if they're playing inside a fog!  Side One is an ethereal sixteen minutes of some of the best "mood" music you're ever likely to hear!  However, if this keeps up we're probably gonna nod off before this record's even done!  

Side Two opens with "Melancholy Serenade"-- a Gleason original that is also more famously known as the theme to "The Jackie Gleason Show".  This lithely segues into the Jerome Kern standard, "Yesterdays" which in turn floats into another... zzz...  zzz... zzz... zzz... zzz... zzz...

RATING: 4 poppy fields out of 5        

Welcome to the "In" Crowd

The Ramsey Lewis Trio - "The In Crowd" (1965) - Cadet

Hello friends,

Imagine for a second that its May 1965 and you're out carousing in our Nation's capital.  You and your girl are few drinks in when you stumble upon the Bohemian Caverns, a dark, basement nightclub on 11th Street.  You hear the strains of live jazz music seeping into street and you decide to pop in for a nightcap (or two.)

Inside is a crowd of mostly young people engulfed a low cloud of thick smoke.  On stage are three black guys: Eldee Young on upright bass, Red Holt on drum kit and Mr. Ramsey Lewis on the black & whites.  Alright, you think to yourself, this is The Ramsey Lewis trio that's been all the talk around these parts.  

What you didn't realize is tonight's concert would turn out to be an historical one as their performance was being committed to tape and would soon be released as an LP entitled, "The In Crowd".  This album would become a jazz classic, popularizing the rhythm & bluesy title track into a chart-topping standard.  Other cuts like "Since I Fell For You", "You've Been Talkin' 'Bout Me Baby" and Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday" capture Ramsey Lewis and his virtuoso rhythm section their absolute live best.      

You take your seats, order some drinks and your date smiles and looks at you approvingly.  You're in the "In Crowd" tonight for sure! (wink, wink)

RATING: 4.5 dark, smoke-filled nightclubs out of 5 

Sitting in the stand of the sports arena, waiting for the show to begin...

Wings - "Venus & Mars" (1975) - Capitol Records

Hello Friends,

We've got a bit of British Fever with the 2012 Olympics going on in London right now, so we're drinking warm pints and playing darts while listening to a little Wings on the turntable tonight!

Recorded in New Orleans, Venus & Mars is the fourth album by Wings.  Its not as good as its predecessor-- Band on the Run-- but much better than its follow-up-- Wings at the Speed of Sound. 

Setting the mood is the lo-fi opener, "Venus & Mars"; an acoustic, minute-long song about the anticipation in the audience before a rock concert begins.  This blends right into the raucous and aptly-titled "Rock Show" (best lyric: "It looks a lot like the one used by Jimmy Page / It's like a relic from a different age").      

Next up is the pretty-- and criminally underrated-- ballad, "Love in Song" featuring some fantastic McCartney melodies.  This might be the best song on the entire album! 

"You Gave Me the Answer" is an old-timey, show tuney-thing and "Magneto & Titanium Man" is a fun tribute to some of McCartney's favorite Marvel comic characters.  Side One ends with the bluesy, soulful "Letting Go", featuring some very New Orleans-style horns.  

Side Two starts out a little on the proggy-side of things.  There's a reprise of "Venus & Mars", except this time the lyrics are about boarding a starship and going away on a "strange vacation."  Sticking with the prog-inspired theme, next up is "Spirits of Ancient Egypt" with ex-Moody Blue, Denny Laine, on lead vocals. 

Venus & Mars is the first Wings album to feature British guitarist, Jimmy McCulloch.  Not only does he contribute some great bluesy leads, but he writes and sings the drug-addled, "Medicine Jar" (Sample lyric: There's more to life than blues and reds / I know how you feel, now your friends are dead.)  McCulloch sounds like a cross between John Lennon & Ace Frehley;  it sort of makes me wish that he and McCartney collaborated on more tunes together!  (McCulloch would die of a Heroin overdose in '79.)

Paul is back on lead vocals for "Call Me Back Again"-- an incredibly soulful tune that features some of McCartney's strongest vocals since his days as a Beatle.  What a showstopper!   

Oh Darling! If the album had only ended there it would near perfect!  Instead, the over-produced, slick-sounding hit "Listen to What the Man Said" sticks out like a sore thumb.  If I wasn't drunk right now, I'd pick the needle up and skip right over this song!  Enough with the sax solo!

The album ends on a nice, redeeming nostalgic note with "Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People".  Venus and Mars are alright tonight, indeed!

RATING: 4.5 glasses of strawberry wine* out of 5

(* yuck!) 

click thru for the first three songs from Wings 1976 concert film, Rockshow...

Fleetwood Mac Attack

Fleetwood Mac - "Greatest Hits" (1971) - CBS

Hello Friends,

Are you ready to hear some "Landslide"?  What about "Go Your Own Way", "The Chain", or "Rhiannon"?  How about some (gulp) "Little Lies"?

Well, if so, you've come to the wrong place!  On tonight's "Vinyl in the Valley" we're listening to Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits-- greatest "hits" before they became super successful megastars of the late 70's.   And this stuff rocks!

Fleetwood Mac started out as a British blues band in the late 1960's and this compilation LP captures some of their best bluesy & psychedelic tunes from 1968 to 1971.  Fronted by guitarist, songwriter & vocalist, Peter Green, the early Fleetwood Mac was in the same league as late-period Yardbirds or bands like Ten Years After.  Just listen to the opener, "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)" and you'll see that this band couldn't be more different that the Lindsey Buckingham-Stevie Nicks version of the band!



Founding & perennial members, drummer Mick Fleetwood & bassist John McVie are present here; as is a piano-playing Christine McVie on a song or two.  But by 1970-- due in part to the large amounts of LSD he was taking--  Peter Green would leave the band, find religion and basically drop out of the rock'n'roll life for a while.  He would later be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, undergo multiple ESTs and spend much of the decade in and out of psychiatric hospitals!  Sounds like a party!!     

Also included on this LP are great forgotten classics like the incomparable "Oh Well", "Shake Your Moneymaker" (by Elmore James), "Need Your Love So Bad" (by Little Willie John), "Rattlesnake Shake", the heartbreaking "Man of the World" and the original version of "Black Magic Woman", which was covered by Santana in 1970.  (The Santana version is a bit "smoother" sounding, but we definitely prefer The Mac's original!)

Here's a clip of the band performing their instrumental, "Albatross", in 1970.  Supposedly, John Lennon has said this song influenced his song "Sun King" from Abbey Road...

RATING: 4.5 Green Manalishis with the Two Prong Crowns out of 5    

I Put a Spell on You!!

Ooga Booga Friends!

Don't think it's lost on old Tiki T. that the record review below is borderline racist.  But we here at "V in the V" feel that nobody who reads our material will get too offended.

So on that note, slap on your black face and beat that drum, cuz we're drinkin' tonight!!

Dawa literally translates to "medicine" or "magic potion" in Swahili so you know this is a cocktail to cure what ails you on a Saturday night. The original recipe calls for a stick from the Dawa tree, but if you can't get your hands on this, a wooden honey stick will do.

1 teaspoon of brown sugar 
3 oz vodka
Whole lime, quartered with skin on
ice
1 Dawa stick twisted in creamed honey 

In a tumbler, shake your vodka, sugar, crushed lime and ice. Muddle that lime like you would a mojito. Pour into a tumbler glass and garnish with the honey-coated stick. This little drink should have your special lady doing a fertility dance in no time!!!

XO,

Tiki T.

The Heart of Darkness

Les Baxter - "Les Baxter's African Jazz" (1959) - Capitol Records

Jambo Friends,

We're in store for a sonic tiki trip to the dark continent tonight and there's no better tour guide than Les Baxter.  So brush up on your swahili, put on your safari hats and let's go!

To quote the liner notes from this fantastic LP, "Africa still echoes with the primitive beat.  But the continent is no longer dark.  For ancient Africa has collided with the twentieth century and the result is a flamboyant explosion."  Hmm.

The titles to some of these songs is worth the price of admission alone: "Congo Train", "Elephant Trail", "Banana Boy", "Mombasa After Midnight", "Walkin' Watusi", "Ostrich Hunt", "Cairo Bazaar", "Jungalero" & "Balinese Bongos".  Between the cover art and these song titles, how could you see this record in 1959 and NOT buy it???

The album is all instrumental with all selections composed by Baxter.  There's some jazzy trombone and tenor sax playing, but what stands out are the exotic percussion sounds and sound effects, punctuated by manic bongos, floating vibraphones and tiptoeing marimbas.  (Not to mention some cool-sounding pre-surf rock guitar work on "Cairo Bazaar"!)

There's pretty much nothing not to love about this album... "a thrilling adventure in exotic sound!"

RATING: 4.5 Shrunken Heads out of 5

Prog Rock Saturday: Shades of Deep Purple

Deep Purple - "Shades of Deep Purple" (1968) - Tetragrammaton

Hello friends and welcome to another installment of Prog Rock Saturday!

We're enjoying this midsummer's weather with a few cool cocktails and the sounds of Deep Purple's debut LP.

Now don't get your wizard hats all in a bunch!  Shades of Deep Purple definitely qualifies as an early example of prog-rock.  With long jam-filled songs and a big emphasis on classically-inspired organ, Deep Purple started out as an English proggy-psychedelic band in 1968 and, rather wisely, evolved into a more hard rock outfit by the early 70's.  Plus, founding member and organist, Jon Lord passed away this week at the age of 71 after a bout with pancreatic cancer.  So hush up and enjoy a killer of a debut album!

The LP opens with the bluesy instrumental, "And the Address", which sets the tone for the rest of the album which might be described as "Cream meets the Hammond Organ!" 

Next is the band's earliest hit, the classic, "Hush".  With its howling wolf intro, killer organ solo and lyrics about an extremely obsessed ex-boyfriend, "Hush" helped put this quintet on the map and, to this day, remains a classic of late 60's British rock. 

"One More Rainy Day" is a melodic, yet heavy ballad that sounds not too different from early Zeppelin (think: "Your Time is Gonna Come", also from '68!)       

Side One concludes with a monster Hammond organ solo-- a heavy interpretation of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade-- that morphs into the Skip James song, "I'm So Glad" (previously covered by the aforementioned, Cream, on their debut LP, Fresh Cream.

Named for a hallucinogenic plant that is often used in witchcraft and demon conjuring spells, Side Two opens with the Ritchie Blackmore-penned, "Mandrake Root".  In fact, their six minute cover of The Beatles' "Help"-- which follows-- sounds slowed and stoned as if recorded under the influence of a little Mandragora officinarum!  

Following "Help" is a driving, trippy little tune called, "Love Help Me".  

The last song on the album begins with a Bolero-style dueling guitar/Hammond B-3 organ intro (which as Tiki T. points out, reminds her of the Patti Page song "Conquest", also covered by the White Stripes!)  The bolero breaks and a heavy cover of the garage rock standard, "Hey Joe" closes out the album.  Great, great version of the song to close out one of rock & roll's greatest debut albums!

Here's an awesome video of the band performing "Hush" on "Playboy After Dark" in 1969...

  
  
RATING: 4.5 Dancing Playmates out of a possible 5