Behind the Candelabra

Liberace and Paul Weston - "Concertos for You" (1953) - Columbia Records

Hello Friends,

We just finished watching Stephen Soderbergh's Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra on HBO.  Starring Michael Douglas as the legendary (and troubled) pianist and Matt Damon as the much younger object of his affection; its like a cross between Boogie Nights and Mommie Dearest and it gets two thumbs up from up here on the tiki bar!

SPOILER ALERT:  Hate to ruin it for you folks, but Liberace was gay!  Really, really gay!  Coulda fooled me!

In keeping up with the Liberace mood, we pull out this early Columbia LP.  Liberace was best known for his over-the-top showmanship and his large, Las Vegas-style stage shows.  However, he was a first-class piano virtuoso with roots planted firmly in the classics.  This album is from the pre-schmaltz era of Liberace's illustrious career.  

There's some fine ivory tickling going on here.  Even if you don't play piano or know much about the instrument, you can tell that Liberace was good!  You can also tell on songs like "Chopin's Fantasia", "Laura" and "Spellbound Concerto" that the pianist had a flair for the dramatic. 

Born Vladziu Valentino Liberace, his father was Italian and his mother was Polish.  He pays tribute to his mother (played by Debbie Reynolds in the movie btw) on the lush and melodramatic, "Warsaw Concerto", written by Richard Addinsell for the 1942 English film, Suicide Squadron, a film about a Polish airman and concert pianist who flies a suicide mission during the Nazi invasion of Poland.  In the record's liner notes, Liberace dedicates this piece to his mother and "to all the Polish people the composition that expresses the wonderful faith, hope and great courage of these peace-loving people during the merciless bombings of their capital city during World War II."   

As I always say, whats better than roses on your piano? Tulips on your organ!

RATING: 4 muddy candelabras out of 5*

* - eww!

Kiln House

Fleetwood Mac - "Kiln House" (1970) - Reprise Records

Hello Friends,

Kiln House is Fleetwood Mac's fourth LP and first of the 1970's, a decade which they would eventually dominate.   The album is more evidence that early Fleetwood Mac is one of the most underappreciated and overlooked bands of the late 60's and early 70's.

Kiln House is a transitional album for the Mac.  Its their first without founding member Peter Green, who left the band in May 1970 to pursue a solo career, drop lots of acid and slowly start going cuckoo-bananas.  Guitarists Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan pick up most of the songwriting and lead vocal duties.  This would be Spencer's last gig with the band and soon after the album's release Christine McVie (née Christine Perfect) would become a full-fledged member.  (In addition to some piano parts and background vocals, McVie would also be responsible for the album's cover art!)  This would also be the last Mac album before the Bob Welch-era of the band. 

Confused?  You probably should be!  Its a more complicated family tree than a "best of" episode of The Maury Show!

To add to the charm and confusion, Kiln House has blues and early Rock & Roll in its foundation but nearly every song has a different sound and feel to it, making it sound more like a mix tape and less like a cohesive LP.  Although, one thing that it absolutely doesn't sound like is the more pop-oriented Fleetwood Mac sound that would follow.

• The album kicks off with Jeremy Spencer's rockabilly shuffle, "This Is The Rock" which sounds vaguely McCartney-ish.  Good opening track.   

• The bluesy, guitar-driven "Station Man" sounds like a cross between something by Delaney & Bonnie and The Band.

• "Blood on the Floor" is a tounge-in-cheeky country-blues lament by Spencer that wouldn't feel out of place on Sweetheart of the Rodeo or on a Burritos Brothers' record.

• The Fats Waller / Ed Kirkeby-penned, "Hi-Ho Silver" is a sneering, raucous delight. 

• The crown jewel of the record is Danny Kirwan's awesome, "Jewel-Eyed Judy"--  a soulful pop "gem" which sounds more like something from Big Star or Badfinger.  

• Side Two kicks off with the Buddy Holly tribute, "Buddy's Song" (writing credit here is given to Holly's mother, Ella, but actually its a "Peggy Sue Got Married" cover with lyrics made up of Holly songs titles.)

• Kirwan's subdued instrumental, "Earl Gray" follows.  A nice follow-up their earlier recording of "Albatross".

• The chameleon-like Spencer is back on "One Together" a ballad reminiscent of something on Workingman's Dead.  (In a good way!)

• Electric guitars are back in a big way on Kirwan's hard rocker, "Tell Me All The Things You Do" (as are the wah-wah pedals!)  Can't understand how a song like this wouldn't dominate early 1970's FM Radio?

• On the ghostly final song, "Mission Bell", Jeremy Spencer seems to be doing his best Buddy Holly impression on vocals on this update of the Donnie Brooks rockin' oldie from 1960.  (both versions after the jump)

"Higher than a mission bell... stronger than a magic spell..."  Spencer would leave the band right after this record and join the Children of God cult-- a hippie/religious group formed in Southern California in 1968 by a guy named Moses David.  The cult is still around today, known as The Family International (TFI.)   Here's a webpage in case you're interested.  Sounds like a bunch of weirdos! 

RATING: 4 Jeweled-Eye Judy's out of 5

Ride Sally Ride

Lou Reed - "Sally Can't Dance" (1974) - RCA

Hello Friends,

Well it seems like we've been on quite the Lou Reed kick lately.

Sally Can't Dance is Reed's fourth solo LP.  Riding the commercial success of Transformer and Rock And Roll Animal, record exec's at RCA thought the time was right for Lou Reed to release a sharp and polished Rock & Roll record that would become an FM radio staple.  But for all his artistry, one thing that sweet Lou never comfortably embraced was the mainstream.

Reed took a backseat when it came to producing the record and only played guitar on one or two tracks.  The result, oddly enough, was his most successful LP yet.  (A trend that would abruptly end with his next release, the feedback/noise opus, Metal Machine Music.)

His harsh, cynical and world-weary lyrics clash with the record's glossy and slick production.  Reed captures the sleaze and grime of mid-1970's New York city better than any other artist.

The characters in his songs have all the familiar Reed traits: men and women who have fallen from grace, who have flown to close to the sun and are now just barely scraping by.  Their experiences have left them completely jaded, cynical and worse-for-the wear.    

Side One kicks off with the Bowie-sounding, "Ride Sally Ride"-- starring another of Reed's  ever popular tortured female characters with a "heart made out of ice."  Plus, we love the line, "Take off your pants, don't you know this is a party?"  Now if I had a nickel for every time I head that...

"Ride Sally Ride" is followed by the over-produced "Animal Language", the homo-erotic, "Baby Face" and the acerbic, "NY Stars".

Side Two kicks off with the super-cynical, sad and autobiographical, "Kill Your Sons", written about Lou's time spend in a psychiatric hospital as a teenager:

All your two-bit psychiatrists are giving you electroshock,

They said, they'd let you live at home with mom and dad instead of mental hospitals,

But every time you tried to read a book you couldn't get to page 17,

'Cause you forgot where you were so you couldn't even read

Don't you know they're gonna kill your sons

Don't you know gonna kill, kill your sons

They're gonna kill, kill your sons 

until they run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run away...

Creedmore treated me very good but Paine Whitney was even better, 

And when I flipped out on PHC I was so sad, I didn't even get a letter,

All of the drugs, that we took it really was lots of fun

But when they shoot you up with thorizene on crystal smoke you choke like a son of a gun

"Ennui" sounds like "Like A Rolling Stone"-era Dylan on some strong, strong downers and sung by a strung-out Leonard Cohen.  

Sally is back on "Sally Can't Dance", now a former-model, she's strung out on meth and no longer living the high life on the Upper East Side.  Instead she's bumming around St. Marks Place and getting raped in Tompkins Square Park.  Ugh... lighten up Lou.     

The final song is the great, "Billy" (featuring Reed playing acoustic and the Velvet's Doug Yule on bass duties), about a childhood friends-- one who gets good grades, plays football and goes to med school (Billy) and the other who drops out of school, plays pool and really doesn't give a fuck (presumably, Lou.)  Ah, but there's a twist.  Billy is drafted to Viet Nam, while the narrator is declared mentally unfit for the Army.   When Billy returns, he is unrecognizable, with shattered nerves, "like talking to a door."  The narrator is then left to ponder, "which one of us was the fool"? 

Forget about dancing, I'm not getting off the couch after listening to this record! 

RATING: 4.5 Dances with Picasso's illegitimate mistresses out of 5

Soft Lights and Sweet Music

Stanley Black and his Orchestra - "Soft Lights and Sweet Music" (1958) - Richmond High Fidelity

Hello Friends,

An imprint of London Records, the Richmond High Fidelity record label was a budget label that re-released mono and stereo LP's in the U.S. from 1958 to 1963 and sold for $1.98.  What a bargain!

British bandleader & conductor, Stanley Black delivers some swinging, late night instrumental lounge music on this 1958 LP.  Lush and softly exotic, its the perfect soundtrack to a balmy spring night at the old tiki bar.

The highlights here include a trio of Cole Porter songs, "Just One of Those Things", "Begin the Beguine" and "Why Can't You Behave?"; the Rodgers & Hart ballad, "My Heart Stood Still"; the Exotica staple "Bali Ha'i"; the South-of-the-Border lounge of "Adios" & "Estrellita"; and the jumpy "Alice Blue Gown"-- which would sound right at home in a Woody Allen movie.

RATING: 4.5 Trips to the Moon on Gossamer Wings out of 5   

Come Fly With Me

Frank Sinatra - "Come Fly With Me" (1958) - Capitol Records

Hello Friends,

If you can use some exotic booze, there's a bar in far Bombay that has Ol' Blue Eyes on the turntable tonight.  

Come Fly With Me is one of Sinatra's "concept" albums with all the songs being about globe-trotting to strange and romantic lands.  It also marks his first collaboration with arranger, Billy May. 

The album kicks off with the inviting title track, written especially for Frank by Sammy Cahn & Jimmy Van Heusen.

It ends with the upbeat "It's Nice to Go Trav'ling" where the tired gypsy traveler returns home and turns his attention away from the frauleins and senoritas to a quiet night at home where he burns his passport, lights a fire, puts on his slippers and makes a pizza!  (Literally, the last words spoken on this record is "make a pizza"!)

In between the departure and the return, there's "The Isle of Capri", "Moonlight in Vermont", "Autumn in New York", "The Road to Mandalay" (based on a Rudyard Kipling poem), "April in Paris",  "London By Night", "Brazil" and a "Blue Hawaii".

Overall its one of Sinatra's most fun and jauntiest records. 

FUN FACT # 1: This album was nominated for album of the year at the very first Grammy Awards ceremony in 1959.  It lost out to Henry Mancini's Music from Peter Gunn!

FUN FACT # 2: Frank Sinatra was supposedly upset with the album cover because he thought it looked like an ad for TWA.  I've never had their coffee, but I really like the TWA Tea!

RATING: 4.5 Paddles Chonkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay out of 5

Happy Birthday Yvonne Craig aka Batgirl! (May 16)

Its Prom Night with The Smiths

The Smiths - "The Queen Is Dead" (1986) - Sire Records

Hello Friends,

Its prom season and you know what that means!  All the cool kids are going to the prom and at we're stuck at home listening to The Smiths! 

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt...

The Queen is Dead is the third full-length released by Manchester, England's favorite sons, The Smiths.   Angst and awkwardness aplenty!  Throw in some drag queens, some Oscar Wilde, some mother fixations and a healthy preoccupation with death & dying and friends, you've got a Classic!

Life is very long, when you're lonely! 

Side One is home to such britpop classics as "Frankly, Mr. Shankly", "I Know its Over", "Never Had No One", "Cemetry Gates" and the title song.

Side Two includes "Bigmouth Strikes Again", "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side", "Vicar in a Tutu", "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" and the classic, heartbreaking and death-obsessed ballad, "There is a Light that Never Goes Out."

To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die...

What is often overlooked in discussions about The Smiths is their great musicianship and ability to arrange a song.  Mentioning The Smiths immediately conjures an image of their iconic, foppish, baritone frontman, Morrissey.  But listen to this album while paying special attention to the things going on around Moz and you're sure to be impressed.  There's some amazing Johnny Marr guitar parts and nifty instrumental and vocal effects on almost every song.  And every song on this album is pretty amazing.  There's not a stinker in the bunch!  We even like "Vicar in a Tutu"!
  

Has the world changed, or have I changed?

FUN FACT: The cover art for The Queen Is Dead was designed by Morrissey.  Its a still from the 1964 French film, L'Insoumis.  Oui Oui!

RATING: 5 Take Me Back to Dear Old Blightlys out of 5

Happy Mothers Day with Queen!

Hello friends!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there!

Once again, we're celebrating Mum's day properly this year: with some flowers, some wine and some Queen!

Queen - Jazz (1978) - Elektra Records

Queen's seventh studio album-- and last of the Seventies-- Jazz is a hard-rockin', arena-rock LP with three of the band's best-loved songs like "Fat Bottomed Girls", "Bicycle" and "Don't Stop Me Now".

In addition to this trio of hits, Jazz opens with the perplexing Jewish-Arabic (?) anthem "Mustapha"*, perhaps Freddie Mercury's ode to his Parsi heritage.  There's also the understated, "Jealousy"; the overtly theatrical "Let Me Entertain You"* & "Dreamer's Ball"; bassist John Deacon's hard rocker, "If You Can't Beat Them" (which sounds vaguely like "Queen Bitch"-era Bowie); and the forgettable disco number, "Fun It" (which is definitely a precursor to Queen's mega-hit, "Another Bites the Dust".) 

(* "Let Me Entertain You" would have made a MUCH better opening track and should have swapped places with "Mustapha".)  

Brian May's two songwriting contributions includes the spazzy, furious rocker, "Dead On Time" and the sublime ballad "Leaving Home Ain't Easy" (which he also takes over lead vocal duties!)

Jazz also reunited the band with their original producer, the great Roy Thomas Baker.  All the trademark Queen sounds are present and accounted for here.  From May's sharp, overdriven guitar solos to the multitracked vocal harmonies to the bicycle bell solo on "Bicycle", this is more late 1970's rock royalty at its finest.   

Happy Mum's Day!  Now get on your bikes and ride!

RATING: 4.5 Mister Farenheits travelling at the speed of Lights out of 5

Making Bets On Kentucky Derby Day

The Rolling Stones - "Sticky Fingers" (1971) - Rolling Stones Records

Hello Friends,

Its Kentucky Derby day, our bets are placed and we're on our 4th round of Mint Juleps while we wait for the singing of "My Old Kentucky Home".  Meanwhile on the turntable, ladies and gentlemen, its the Rolling Stones.

Sticky Fingers.  From the album's title to Andy Warhol's cover art to Bobby Keys's sax solo on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" this record oozes dick-swinging sleaze!  

Their ninth full-length (and first of the Seventies) every song is an absolute classic.  Produced by Jimmy Miller and recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals Studios in backwater Alabama there's a swampiness to the sound of the entire record.  Drugs and death are pretty much present on every song!  The ghost of Brian Jones looms large and in its place is some serious Mick Taylor shredding!

Take the opening song, for instance, the hit single "Brown Sugar", a solid rocker with a killer riff that's either about interracial sex or heroin use or, most likely, both!  The stage is set friends!

"Sugar" is followed by the slow, demon-swaying blues of "Sway" which is followed by the classic break-up ballad, "Wild Horses".  Funny enough, as the story goes, Gram Parsons convinced the Stones to let his band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, record this song.  When Mick Jagger & Keith Richards heard his version, they decided that they too should release it.  The Burrito Brothers version came out a year ahead of the Stones version.  

Next up is the aforementioned, "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" in all its frenzied, coke-fueled glory!  Side One closes out with a cover of the Fred McDowell gospel-blues tune, "You Gotta Move".

And if you thought Side One couldn't be topped, wait until you get to Side Two kids!

The hard-rocking "Bitch" kicks things off followed by the much slower, more intense & bluesy tune, "I Got the Blues"-- which sounds like a classic Otis Redding soul ballad.

Co-written by Marianne Faithfull, the excellent and nightmarish "Sister Morphine" is next.  Again, this song it oozes paranoia!  Why do we hear sirens? Why does the doctor have no face?  Who's Cousin Cocaine?  Lock the fucking doors Tiki, I'm scared!   

Things come back down to Earth (a little) on "Dead Flowers"--  a junkie love letter with a country-twang, killer chorus and some great F you lines like:  

I'll be in my basement room

With a needle and a spoon

And another girl to take my pain away...

Take that bitch!

The last song, "Moonlight Mile", is the perfect conclusion to this drug-fueled sleazefest!  A slow, lamenting ballad about alienation and life on the road. It ain't all fun and games kids!  Once the drugs run out and the groupies are gone, you're left with a used and abused sticky version of yourself.  Sometimes these moments of clarity, no matter how brief, can be devastating! 

As the song goes, "Its just that demon life has got you in its sway!"

And they're off...

RATING: 5 Headfuls of Snow out of 5