Hello friends, Going back and forth from the tiki bar to the turntable all night long really makes you work up a mean, mean thirst! Tonight we're taking a break from record reviews and instead we're focusing our attention on one of the world's most delicious (and misunderstood) libations-- RUM. Described by Marco Polo in the 14th Century as "very good wine made of sugar", the history of rum is as interesting and complex as the drink itself. The story of Rum is the story of slavery, of pirates, of Navies, of the New World, of exploration, colonization, capitalism, rebellion and of course, hot, drunk college girls on Spring Break! YO HO HO, indeed!
APPLETON ESTATE V/X
Distiller: Appleton Estate Country: Jamaica
Cost: $21.00 Proof: 80 Size: 750 ml Description: A blend of Rums of at least 5 years of age, matured in smaller oak barrels before marriage in casks. Ned Tugent says: "Sweet & peppery. Hints of vanilla & caramel. Nice spice; medium bodied. Balanced. Great on its own; even better in a Hurricane! Grade: B+" Tiki T says: "Smoky. Cedar. Pretty smooth but I wish it had a little bit more of a fruit/citrus component. Grade: B-"
Tiki T. seems to be a tough little judge! A very good, very reliable Jamaican Rum. Big fruit flavors with a little bit of bite. Makes a fantastic mixer!
Ms. Joy Spence is Appleton's Master Blender-- she also has the distinction of being the first female master blender in the spirits industry! Joy seems like our kind of gal! Here's the Appleton's website.
The Monkees - "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd" (1967) - Colgems
Hey Hey Friends,
We're listening to The Monkees again tonight on Vinyl in the Valley!
Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd is the fourth Monkees album and second of 1967. Bucking the trend they started on Headquarters, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd found the boys once again relying more heavily on studio musicians and outside songwriting contributors. The result, oddly enough, is not only one of their best records, but one of the best records of 1967. Which is nothing to sneeze at! Great record from start to finish! Not coincidentally, its also the most Nesmith-y of all the Monkees' records with Mike singing lead on five of the thirteen tracks! Interestingly, we noticed a lot of parallels between this record and The Beatles' Revolver album. From the pencil drawings of the band on the album's cover to the lead-off track, "Salesman" coming off like a deliberate and tongue-in-cheekish response to "Taxman"- Revolver's cynical, George Harrison-penned opener. "Salesman" features Mike Nesmith on lead vocals. Future star of television's The Brady Bunch, Davy Jones takes over lead vocals on the next track, the very Beatles-sounding rager, "She Hangs Out", written by Jeff Barry. Nesmith is back with a twinge of country-rock on "The Door Into Summer", which might not sound out of place on a Byrds' record or even on an early Crosby, Stills & Nash album. Revolver had the Lennon classic, "I'm Only Sleeping"; Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd has the equally amazing, "Love is Only Sleeping" again featuring Nesmith doing some of his best Brit-style singing! Songwriter, singer and Beatles-pal, Harry Nilsson wrote the creepy "Cuddly Toy" and the Monkees turn it into a British Invasion-sounding classic! Did we mention that its creepy? I honestly think (hope) it might be about a gang-bang...
"You're not the only cuddly toy that was ever enjoyed by any boy
You're not the only choo-choo train that was left out in the rain the day after Santa came
You're not the only cherry delight that was left out in the night
And gave up without a fight"
Side One ends with the groovy and somewhat psychedelic "Words" featuring Mickey Dolenz & Peter Tork on dueling lead vocals.
Side Two kicks off with the loungey, "Hard to Believe" which is basically a Davy Jones torch song. I don't think any other Monkees appeared on this track and, in fact, this is the only song on the record NOT to appear on an episode of their television show!
Nesmith definitely gave a country-feel to Side One's "The Door into Summer" but he goes full out country on Side Two's "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?" which predates Sweetheart of the Rodeo, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Gram Parsons. Nesmith is hardly ever brought up in conversations about alt-country icons (like Gram Parsons, The Byrds, The Band, The Burritos, etc.) but he was definitely laying some groundwork for the genre on this record. Maybe it had something to do with his goofy wool hats! Gerry Goffin & Carole King wrote the album's hit single, "Pleasant Valley Sunday" for the band. Producer Chip Douglas takes over bass duties here freeing up Peter Tork to play keyboards. Douglas & Nesmith decided to double-tracked his lead guitar riff modelling after Harrison's double-tracked lead on Revolver's "I Want To Tell You". Nesmith wrote the trippy, "Daily Nightly" (which would be the Monkees at their most psychedelic until 1968's Head) which once again owes more than a nod and a wink to the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" from (you guessed it!), Revolver! (Dolenz sings lead!) Mike takes his cowboy boots off and puts on his best lounge act to sing on the torchy "Don't Call On Me". Goffin & King are back to write the album's closer, the fun & frenzied ode to groupies, "Star Collector" featuring Davy Jones on lead vocals and some funky-sounding keyboard sounds courtesy of a recently invented synthesizer by Robert Moog. Fun Fact kids! Pisces Aquarius Capricorn & Jones Ltd in addition to being arguably The Monkees best LP also has the distinction of being one of the first records to feature the Moog as an instrument. (It appears on "Love Is Only Sleeping", "Daily Nightly" and "Star Collector") Here's an interesting article outlining some of the Moog's earliest recorded appearances: Moog: A History in Recordings by Thom Holmes. Classic record! Probably The Monkees' best! RATING: 5 Local Rock Groups Down The Street Trying Hard to Learn their Songs out of 5
Genesis - "Nursery Cryme" (1971) - Atlantic Records
Hello Friends,
I first heard Nursery Cryme in its entirety about two years ago and wasn't terribly impressed. Sure, some of the Peter Gabriel wordplay and melodies seemed interesting but listening to it sort of felt like a homework assignment and I thought to myself, I'll get around to this later. Honestly, I figured it was something I just wasn't going to get. Sometimes when it comes to listening to music the stuff has you singing along before the final chorus often seems great at first, but over time it may leave you feeling a little flat or slightly underwhelmed. I guess one of the great things about Prog Rock is that once you get past all its weirdness, its virtuosity and and its bombastic nature is that, in general, good progressive rock will reward the patient listener. Something you might have heard and cringed at two years ago you're now drunkenly singing along to at high volumes on a Saturday night causing record skips with your high leg kicks and spilling beer all over your dog! Its like a Eureka moment. That moment when everything clicks in and you get it. When the guitar solos don't seem so serpentine and the lyrics don't seem so fucking strange. This is pretty much what happened with Tiki T. and I when we pulled out Genesis's third record, Nursery Cryme this past Saturday night! Things start out relatively quietly with the eleven-minute "The Musical Box" opening up the album. Some gentle guitars, keyboards & flute accompany Gabriel's high-pitched and particularly vulnerable-sounding vocals about a young Victorian boy's ghost being awoken by the sound of his old musical box ("play me my song, here it comes again.") The thing is its his sister who has woke up his spirit and she's the one who is responsible for the boy's death (she beheaded him with a croquet mallet... hence the inspiration for the album's cover art!) If that wasn't weird enough for you, the boy's conjured ghost is now horny as hell and he makes lustful advances at his sister ("I've been waiting here so long... Why don't you touch me? Touch Me? Touch Me Now? Now? Now?...") before the song builds to a fantastic guitar solo crescendo/climax and ends. The pretty and quiet ballad "For Absent Friends" brings things the listener back down to Earth for the next two minutes. Nursery Cryme would be the first Genesis album with new drummer (and sometime vocalist) Phil Collins and guitarist Steve Hackett. "For Absent Friends" features some very melodic, Renaissance-ish type guitar-picking by Hackett with some very pastoral-sounding vocals by Collins singing about a couple of old widowers who walk to church in the cold to remember they're departed loved ones. Its something that sounds unusually sweet and harmonious-- almost like a Revolver-era McCartney tune-- but not necessarily out of place on the record. This tranquility doesn't last long as Gabriel returns in his most manic state telling us the tale of "The Return of the Giant Hogweed". WTF? Actually, this is another song that grew on us. The song seems to literally be about a Giant Hogweed that some scientist brings to London's Royal Gardens from Russia and it takes over the landscape in apocalyptic fashion. "Still they're invincible, Still they're immune to all our herbicidal battering." Its funny because a lot of Genesis's Prog Rock counterparts (Yes, ELP, King Crimson) would be singing about something totally fantasy-based (Starship Troopers, Tarkuses & Larks Tongues in Aspic). Here, Gabriel & company, with their over-the-top theatrics may sound like they're from outer space but actually the lyrics and concepts behind the songs come off sounding very sincere, very naturalist, some may say childlike, others might say proletariat. Whatever, when it comes to songs about weeds (non-marijuana types) this one's right up there with Guided by Voices's "Weed King." Side One is bookended by two Lewis Carroll-inspired epics. Side Two has four songs which tie in to the whole Nursery Cryme theme which seems to be stories that are closer in spirit to a Brothers Grimm fairy tale than anything by Mother Goose. "I heard the old man tell his tale..." opens the awesome "Seven Stones" featuring Peter Gabriel at his most delicate & sincere in another cryptic song about a ship lost at sea, perhaps? Maybe there's a "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" thing going on here? There's also some fantastic Mellotron playing by Tony Banks, which reminds us of something that might have been done by early King Crimson. On the three-minute, uptempo, "Harold the Barrel", Gabriel's vocal acrobatics are on full display in a song seemingly about a restaurant owner who's about to jump off a ledge! ("You must be joking! Take a running jump!"). A song like this wouldn't be completely out of place on Abbey Road. Also clocking in at under three minutes, the delicate & pastoral "Harlequin" sounds as if Peter Gabriel is doing his best Jon Anderson impression. Actually, with the quiet guitar lines noodling throughout and the harmonizing vocals, you could probably fool your friends and tell them this is some sort of Crosby, Stills & Nash outtake! Things return to a more epic scale on the album's closer, the eight minute, "The Fountain of Salmacis" about a mythical Hermaprodite-- a creature containing both Male & Female sex organs! SWEET! Just when you thought these cats couldn't get any weirder!!
"Both have given everything they had. A lover's dream had been fulfilled at last, Forever still beneath the lake..." A perfect, weird and proggy ending to this almost perfect, weird & proggy album*!
RATING: 4.5 Dense Forests of Tall Dark Pinewood out of 5 * Jamie Lee Curtis would probably agree!
Hello Friends, Tiki T. and I have recently started collecting the Pebbles LP series courtesy of the BFD & AIP Record labels. Awesome compilation records, first released in the late 70's, subtitled as "Artyfacts from the First Punk Era". They're a good companion to the more popular NUGGETS series-- records filled with 2 or 3 minute punk masterpieces mostly from the years of 1966 thru 1969. Bands consisting of pimply-faced kids in basements and garages scattered throughout the country. Some bands (and band members) would go on to bigger and better things, but most would only end up playing local teen centers, VFW Halls, dive bars and local college radio stations. Only a few would be fortunate enough to open for a touring national act like Herman's Hermits, The Jefferson Airplane or The Animals. A handful would be fortunate to record a 7" or two and then call it a day fading off into rock & roll obscurity. One-Hit and No-Hit Wonders. Footnotes in the Rock & Roll History Books. Some of the greatest rock and roll songs ever written may have only been heard by a handful of ears. These records provide a time capsule into an honest and less-cynical past. Behind every band, there's a story; some are triumphant; some are tragic; many are uneventful... but who doesn't love a good rock & roll story? Tonight we've got the fourth Pebbles LP on the turntable, better known as "The Surf One". Eighteen tracks that are a bit of a departure from the usual Pebble LP as these songs are all unified by a surf rock theme! Honestly, its not our favorite Pebbles LP thus far. Its fun but not as weird or grungy or dangerous as previous Pebbles' entries! Surfs up kiddies! Side One 1. "Summer Means Fun" - Bruce & Terry. Sounds like an early Beach Boys record and there's probably good reason for that as "Bruce" was longtime Beach Boy Bruce Johnston and "Terry" was Terry Melcher-- producer extraordinaire, son of Doris Day, friend of Charlie Manson. 2. "Anywhere the Girls Are" - The Fantastic Baggys. P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri's surf & hotrod L.A. studio band. Sloan and Barri would write and sing backup on some Jan & Dean records in '63 & '64. 3. "R.P.M." - The Four Speeds. A hoppin' little hot rod number by another L.A. studio band featuring Gary Usher. Most notable because this track features Dennis Wilson on drums. (This was the B-Side to The Four Speeds only single, "My Sting Ray".) 4. (bonus track) - Jan & Dean Coca Cola commercial. Yawn! 5. "Masked Grandma" - The California Suns. A sequel of sorts to Jan & Dean's "Little Old Lady from Pasadena" (but a little bit meaner!) We like the kazoo solo, I guess. 6. "Top Down Time" - The Dantes. More surf's up, hot rod doo-wop. 7. "Custom Caravan" - The Pyramids. Another Gary Usher-penned hot rod tune featuring some pretty good drumming! Actually, The Pyramids were in reality a complete band and not just some studio geeks hanging out trying to record the next big hit (like a lot of the songs on this collection!) 8. "California Sun '65" - The Rivieras. South Bend, Indiana's own, The Rivieras gave the world this jukebox classic complete with a driving rhythm section, twangy lead guitar, a fun organ. Ramones did a decent cover of this. You could almost hear Joey Ramone singing on this version. 9. "New Generation" - The Trashmen. From the other Midwest surf capitol, Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is probably the most Garage-sounding track on the LP. I guess there's something to be said for landlocked surf bands! This wins our pick for best on the album! A true teen anthem! We especially like the sound affect at the end of the lyric, "You couldn't wake them Sunday with a hydrogen bomb..." Side Two 1. "Pamela Jean" - The Survivors. Written by Brian Wilson. Arranged by Brian Wilson. Sung by Brian Wilson. But this is NOT the Beach Boys (actually, it probably is!) 2. "Sacramento" - Gary Usher. Usher, who co-wrote a number of early Beach Boys hits with Brian Wilson, including the phenomenal "In My Room", co-wrote and co-produced this song with Brian. Its no surprise that it sounds a lot like the early Beach Boys. (But what the hell on this record doesn't? I mean, come on, we're itching for something a little slimier, grimier and sleazy! This is a decent song but where'sthetwang? Where's the Dick Dale-sounding stuff? Heck, at this point we'd settle for some second rate Santo & Johnny!) 3. "Thinkin' 'Bout You Baby" - Sharon Marie. Oh hey, guess what kids? This song was written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love in 1964 and recorded by Brian. It was later reclaimed by the Beach Boys on their 1967 record, Wild Honey. 4. "Hot Rod High" - The Knights. Another Gary Usher hot rod/surf rock studio band. 5. "School is a Gas" - The Wheelmen. More. Gary. Usher. This one a re-working of The Hondell's "School is a Drag." 6. "Image of a Surfer" - Lloyd Thaxton. Kind of a novelty, spoken-word song by L.A. fixture/disc jockey, Lloyd Thaxton aka the poor man's Dick Clark or the West Coast Murray the K. 7. "Beach Ball" - The City Surfers. Co-written by Jim McGuinn. Fun Spector-sounding beach song that wouldn't sound out of place in a Flintstones episode! 8. "London's A Lonely Town" - Dave Edmunds. This seems to be a very un-Pebbles-like entry! Overproduced, slick-sounding rockabilly from circa 1976. Not a terrible song, but definitely doesn't fit in with whole Pebbles-theme! 9. "The Fun We Had" - The Ragamuffins. Bittersweet ending to the record written, arranged and sung (in glorious falsetto) by California impresarior, Gary Zekley, who wrote "Sooner or Later" for The Grass Roots and "Superman" for The Clique (later covered by R.E.M). Like I said, a bit of a let down after some other great Pebbles' LPs. That being said, the weather is great, the girls are in their summer clothes and we're headed down to the local malt shop for a classic car show. Tiki... where's my Pomade? RATING: 3 ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bird-bird-bird-ba-ba-bird-is-the-word out of 5
The J. Geils Band - "Ladies Invited" (1973) - Atlantic Records
Hello Friends,
Shitty cover. Shitty title. But a damn fine record between the grooves!
The band's fifth LP has more of the same blues-inspired, Rock 'n' Roll party tunes! Nearly every song is a solid R&B rager and the perfect soundtrack to a late night keg party (preferably in the woods!) Side One has opening fist-pumping triumvirate of, "Did You No Wrong", "I Can't Go On" & "Lay Your Good Thing Down". Things get a little bit slower on the soulful ballad, "That's Why I'm Thinking of You" (which sounds like a Sticky Fingers outtake) and the side ends with the blistering rocker, "No Doubt About It" featuring some fine Magic Dick jaw work! Side Two is more of the same with the diminutive hipster Peter Wolf leading the pack. "The Lady Makes Demands" sounds like a groovy E Street Band tune backed up a young American Rod Stewart (which, by the way, kinda describes a lot of early Geils.) "My Baby Don't Love" is another great Stonesy-sounding ballad. Its a mystery to us how the song "Diddyboppin'" wasn't one of those ubiquitous tunes heard at keggers and suburban High School football parking lots throughout the mid-seventies. (At the very least, it should have made an appearance in "Dazed & Confused"!) "Take A Chance (On Romance)" is more fist-pumpin' fun! Damn, I feel like throwing a keg party in the woods just so I can play this record on repeat all night! The album's final song, "Chimes" is a dark, little ballad that recalls The Classics IV "Spooky"-- but a million times better! Wolf sounds strung out and soulful; literally howling like an all night drug-prowling wolf. The music is lumbering and particularly sleazy. Great Magic Dick solo and a fantastically spooky guitar solo by Geils. Its like the album is saying, "Hey kids, party's over! You don't have to go home, but you can't crash here!" Once again, all of the songwriting duties on Ladies Invited were handled by Wolf and keyboardist, Seth Justman. The shitty cover art can be blamed on some artist named Antonio and is supposedly a rendering of Faye Dunaway who Wolf was dating at the time (and who he would marry in 1974). Good for him!
Its Saturday night and the Summer weather is finally here! You know what that means... fancy cocktails on the porch, meats on the grill, the crickets are chirping and we've got some prog rock on the turntable. Kicking off this season of Prog Rock Saturdays is another true classic of the genre, Fragile, Yes's fourth LP and first to feature the cover art of Roger Dean and the keyboard stylings of one Mister Rick Wakeman!
Wakeman, who replaced Tony Kaye, would introduce a deeper keyboard sound utilizing his own Classical influences along with the addition of more Moog & Mellotron.
The album contains nine compositions, five shorter pieces each highlighting an individual member of the band, and four longer songs that feature everybody. Upon hearing the album's first notes, those familiar Steve Howe harmonics at the beginning of "Roundabout", the listener immediately knows they're in for a real proggy treat. Something ethereal and fantastic; a marriage of rock and classical styles. Music that would ultimately define a genre but within a few years would quickly outdate and parody itself.
"Call it morning driving thru the sound and in and out the valley..."
Kicking things off is the eight-minute leadoff single, "Roundabout", which would actually peak at Number 13 on the Billboard Pop Charts in 1972 (albeit in an abbreviated form clocking in at under four minutes!)
Things get classical on Rick Wakeman's "Cans & Brahms", a short excerpt from Brahms's Fourth Symphony. Singer Jon Anderson performs multiple harmonies with himself on "We Have Heaven"-- also clocking in at a very un-Yes-like under 2 minutes. Side One concludes with the driving "South Side of the Sky" which seems to be about freezing to death while on some sort of mountain climbing expedition. Side Two opens with drummer Bill Bruford's 35 second instrumental, "Five Per Cent for Nothing" followed by the unlikely "hit" single, "Long Distance Runaround/The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)", a staple on 1970's FM Radio. Steve Howe gets his time to shine on the classical guitar solo, "Mood For A Day"-- which we enjoy thoroughly more than the ragtime-y, "The Clap" (from The Yes Album.)
The album concludes with the 11-plus minute epic, "Heart of the Sunrise" which starts out sounding like a manic buzz saw but eventually comes around to nice, quiet, ethereal melodies featuring some nice interplay between Steve Howe's fingerpicking and Jon Anderson's elfin vocals. Loud-quiet-loud at its proggy best! Vincent Gallo like this song so much he used it in a pivotal scene in his 1998 weirdo-indie film, Buffalo 66. Love comes to you and you follow...
Great album for listening to loudly on a balmy May Saturday. Fragile, along with The Yes Album and Close to the Edge, form probably the strongest trilogy of albums in the prog rock canon (with the possible of exception of Pink Floyd's Dark Side, Wish You Were Here and Animals!) The band would start to disintegrate and things would start to get way too overindulgent (if you can believe that) by 1973's double album, Tales from Topographic Oceans. RATING: 4.5 Hot Colours Melting the Anger to Stones out of 5
Its our favorite time of day... Cocktail Time! In an age of gimmicks there is nothing more refreshing and delightful than genuine style-- the sort of style that represents a rich background of talent, imagination and good taste; style that becomes the universally-known signature of a great artist. Actually, the above is cribbed directly from this LP's liner notes. Carmen Cavallaro, the self-proclaimed "poet of the piano", delivers eleven easy listening interpretations of American standards and show tunes. And although the liner notes would go on to compare his keyboard stylings "as familiar to everyone who enjoys music as the unique brushwork of Picasso is to an art lover" we really wouldn't go that far. Sure, its laidback and unassuming, but its all background dressing. Its not as lavish as, let's say, Liberace, not as proficient as an Oscar Peterson, and not as entertaining as a Bobby Short. The more we think about it, the more it seems like the guy who wrote these liner notes was a real fuddy-duddy who had a bone to pick with some of Cavallaro's more "gimmicky" contemporaries such as Liberace or the dueling piano duo of Ferrante & Teicher! Geez, get over yourself! RATING: 3 Happiest Girls in the World out of 5
Can I take you back to the Fourth of July, 1992 for just a minute? We were ringing in Independence Day at my Great Aunt Gloria's house in Connecticut. The marshmallow ambrosia was quivering and the pool water was tepid: perfect conditions for a 10 year old Tiki T. But then something happened. Aunt Gloria's son Scott (20 years my senior) was living at home with his parents. He had taken over the huge basement, converting it into the swinging pad of a failed musician. Lava lamps, Zappa posters and a special alcove designated for all the guitars he never really played. Well, he approached me and my cousin Christopher and asked us to come down to the basement, because he had to "really show us something." I could smell sour wine coolers on his breath. Well.. he showed us something, alright. He showed us fucking prog rock. My cousin and I stood, wrapped in our frayed beach towels, while Scott spun Yes, ELP and Genesis. We could not give a shit. Scott smoked cigarettes and conducted in the air while we stared longingly out at the shimmering pool. "You kids are really hearing something interesting, right now!" he exclaimed. "Did I ever tell you about the time I had lunch with Rick Fucking Wakeman??"
I was ten and Chris was five. We had no idea who Rick Fucking Wakeman was. We didn't know the music was special, and we definitely didn't know that Cousin Scott was deep in the throes of alcoholism and depression, to the point of an eventual suicide in 1997. But now when we look back at this memory, it has so much joy. So much rich sensory detail. And it was way way better than getting molested (which seems to be the staple of people's basement memories). Chris and I remember the time fondly, and we laugh about Scott's unbridled excitement about this weird music. We remember the kitschy basement down to every last psychedelic throw pillow. So join us for these extra special Saturdays this summer. We will revisit some prog classics and break out some new ones. Hope I see you there! And hope we can make our own memories. XO! Tiki T.
