Deface the Music

Utopia - "Deface the Music" (1980) - Bearsville

Hello Friends,

Wow! We're not really sure where to start with this sucker!

Todd Rundgren's Utopia started out in the mid-1970's as a progressive rock band formed to pretty much allow the studio savant/infamous control-freak Rundgren to work more in a collaborative band-setting.  The intention, I guess, was to be as different as possible from the "Hello It's Me"/"I Saw The Light" jangly pop nuggets that Rundgren had huge success with in the early 70's.  Utopia would allow him to break out of the soft rock/pop rock mold, allow him to utilize more complex song arrangements, more elaborate live stage shows and help keep his ego in check (presumably!)

By the late 70's, Utopia (now a quartet) fully abandoned its proggy roots to become a full-fledged pop band that fused art rock, power pop, new wave and even disco styles. Basically they were on their way to becoming "Todd Rundgren for the MTV Crowd".  But things came to a screeching halt of sorts with the 1980 release, Deface the Music, a thirteen song, 30 minute long record whose sole purpose was to parody the Beatles.  

It comes off sounding a lot like a Todd Rundgren pet project (see 1976's Faithful), a little too clever for its own good.  To call it overindulgent would not be an understatement.  

The main problem is that as a parody, its just not that funny.  Much of the joke is lost on the listener and the best that can be said about a lot of the songs is that they sound like a second-rate Jellyfish or a third-rate Wings. Deface the Music is certainly no Rutles!  Its no Weird Al!  Its no B Sharps!  No Fad 3! 

Side One seems to mostly parody the Beatles merseybeat days up through the Help!-era. Things get kicked off with the album's first single, "I Just Want To Touch You"...

Side Two gets slightly more interesting with nods to more psychedelic tunes.  "Hoi Poloi" is a tip of the hat to "Penny Lane". "Life Goes On" is a synthy send-up of "Eleanor Rigby". "Feel Too Good" sounds like a mash-up of Sgt. Peppers' "Getting Better" & "Fixing A Hole".  "All Smiles" sounds like vintage Queen!?!   And the final song, "Everybody Else Is Wrong" is Utopia's answer to "I Am The Walrus".

  

I guess the best you can say about this record is that pretty much the whole time we were listening to it, it just made us appreciate the actual Beatles even more!

Yawn.

RATING: 2.5 you can lead a horse to water, you can lead a lamb to slaughters out of 5

Rubber Soul

The Beatles - "Rubber Soul" (1965) - Capitol Records

Hello Friends,

There's already been tons written and researched on every Beatles album and song out there.  If you really wanted to know, you could probably find out how many times Ringo pee'd during the recording of "You Won't See Me".  Here on "Vinyl in the Valley" we're too drunk and lazy caught up in the music for all that.  We're not trying to re-write history friends, that takes the fun out of it all.  We're happy just to kick back, drop the needle and enjoy a classic album, song-by-song, side-by-side, the way it was meant to be heard!* 
(* sort of...)

Squeezed in between HELP and REVOLVER, this is the folksiest of all Beatles' Records.  Recorded in just four weeks-- under pressure to make the December 1965 holiday market-- RUBBER SOUL sounds like a band who are growing up.  On the distorted photo on the cover their hair is longer and gone are the suits.  (Its also the first Beatles album to not feature the band's name prominently on the sleeve!)  The music and the instruments being used are getting more experimental: there's the use of the sitar on "Norwegian Wood", a fuzz bass on "Think For Yourself", harmonium on "The Word"... etc.  The lyrics, too, are getting darker ("Run For Your Life"), more introspective ("In My Life"), paranoid ("Norwegian Wood"), ambiguous ("Its Only Love", "Girl") and existential ("I'm Looking Through You").  Its the sound of band in transition who have recently discovered marijuana and started listening to lots of Bob Dylan.

This is the original American Capitol Records version of the LP we're listening to tonight which varies slightly from the original UK version (and subsequent CD releases).  In case you were curious here's the track listing:

Side One:
I've Just Seen A Face
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
You Won't See Me
Think for Yourself (George Harrison)
The Word
Michelle

Side Two:
It's Only Love
Girl
I'm Looking Through You
In My Life
Wait
Run For Your Life

The British release omits "I've Just Seen A Face" and "It's Only Love" but includes "Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "What Goes On" and George Harrison's awesome "If I Needed Someone."  I think the theory behind this is that they wanted this album to appear more "folksie" for American audiences based on the recent successes of Dylan and bands like The Byrds.  But what do record companies know anyways?  Just ask Tony Meehan of Decca records!

An absolute classic record, RUBBER SOUL provides a nice bridge from the "early" Beatles' sound to the psychedelic stuff that was looming right around the corner.  

RATING: 5 girls who put you down when friends are there out of 5

Number NEIN!

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - "Herb Alpert's Ninth" (1967) - A&M Records

Hello Friends,

Poor Tiki T. is feeling a little under the weather tonight so to "warm" things up we're listening to some Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on the old turntable!

As the title implies, this is Senor Alpert's ninth record with the Brass.  Unlike what the title (and cover art) implies, this is NOT a record of Latin-themed Beethoven covers!  Most of the songs are pretty lively and shrill in the typical Herb Alpert-style like the top 40 hit, "A Banda", Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy", "The Love Nest", "The Happening", "Flea Bag" and a medley from Bizet's opera, "Carmen."

There's also some more subdued tracks like the Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends" and Judy Garland's-on-Nyquil, "The Trolley Song".

The highlight of this record, however, is Alpert's solemnly exotic tribute to songwriter & guitarist Ervan "Bud" Coleman who died earlier in the year. 



Well, that blows!

RATING:  3.5 rusty trumpets 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    

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
       

Bring a Nickel, Tap Your Feet

Creedence Clearwater Revival - "Willy and the Poor Boys" (1969) (Fantasy Records)

Hello friends,

We're cranking some Creedence tonight and we're loving every second of it!

This record has a real "hootenanny" feel to it!  Its as if John Fogerty & company are inviting us all to join them "down on the corner" for a good old fashioned jam session.  

(Maybe this was Fogerty's attempt at doing the down home American-version of Sgt Peppers... Thoughts?)

"Down on the Corner" opens the album and introduces us to the band's alter ego, Willy and the Poor Boys.

"It Came Out of the Sky" is a rockabilly rocker.  "Feelin' Blue" is a swampy blues jam.

"Cotton Fields" and "Midnight Special" are two Leadbelly covers.

"Fortunate Son" remains an all time great punk-protest song.  

"Side o' the Road" sounds like a classic Booker T & the M.G.'s instrumental.  

The album concludes with the dark and haunting ballad, "Effigy".  Fucking Effigy! With the plodding drums and swampy guitars this might be the band's best song-- which is really saying A LOT! 

Effigy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrL00AxBNJk

Greatest American band of all time?  Quite possibly!

RATING: 5 fires burning on the palace lawn out of 5

Monkee Punch!

Hello Friends,

There's a lot to be said when it comes to the first two records by the Monkees!

On the one hand, there's some really great melodies, some solidly written songs and some really fun, Beatles-influenced bubblegum pop!  On the other, music purists might argue that these two albums are more representative of clever marketing rather than artistic music-making.  Hmmm?

Here on "Vinyl in the Valley" we'll leave these arguments to the intellectuals because tonight we know what side of the Monkee Bars we're swinging on!

The Monkees - The Monkees (1966)

Eleven of the twelve songs on the The Monkees' eponymous debut are written by non-Monkees. Pretty much every track features either Micky Dolenz or Davy Jones singing with a band of session musicians who provide the backing music.  It does have the superhits: "(Theme from) The Monkees" and "Last Train to Clarksville"; the sappy, "I Wanna Be Free"; the sole Nesmith composition, "Papa Gene's Blues"; and the fantastic, Stonesy, "Saturday's Child" (written by David Gates of Bread fame.)

Plus, I always enjoyed Mike Nesmith's scowl on the otherwise smiley cover photo! What's wrong Mike Nesmith?  Is that hat making you itchy? 

RATING: 4 itchy hats out of 5




Click for More of the Monkees...

Wunderland bei Nacht!

Bert Kaempfert and his orchestra - Wonderland by Night (1960)

Hallo friends!

As the sun sets on a chilly, late April evening, we open a bottle of Blue Nun, drop the needle on this enchanting Long Player and reminisce about the good old days (before the War) in Das Motherland.    

Being served at "key parties" since '68

And like that bottle of Blue Nun, this album is lush and nostalgic and gives you heck of a hangover!  


Hailing from Hamburg, orchestra leader and arranger Bert Kaempfert served in the German Navy in WWII before turning full time to composing and playing easy listening music.  In addition to writing the standards, "Strangers in the Night" & "Danke Schoen", Kaempfert is also famous for hiring the Beatles to record "My Bonnie" with Tony Sheridan in 1961.

The highlight of the record are the piercing trumpet solos by Charly Tabor.  They're enough to make you shout "Willkommen!"

RATING: 3.5 Goosesteps out of a possible 5

RAM & Wild Life

Hello friends...

Tonight on Vinyl in the Valley we've got two early Paul McCartney albums on tap.  RAM and Wild Life both came out in 1971.  The former was the only album released as "Paul & Linda McCartney" and features the ex-Beatle McCartney grabbing a goat (er, ram) by horns on the cover.   

"Get baaaaaa-ck!"

Our second LP tonight, Wild Life, is the first-- and oft-overlooked-- Wings album. 

Both LPs are criminally underappreciated masterpieces filled with pretty melodies, quirky lyrics and subtle & not-so subtle jabs at John Lennon.  Both LPs are also much more lo-fi than is usually thought of with Paul McCartney/Wings songs. 

From the cover art to the sound effects to the sounds of the recordings, there's a pretty cool DIY attitude with these that kind of foreshadows a lot of the American Indie rock that will succeed them by 20 years or so.

The biggest "hit" on either of these is "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" from the RAM LP.   However, the title track from Wild Life is the crowning jewel of these two amazing records.   In 1971, I guess the only thing Paul was more passionate about than hating John Lennon was singing about hanging out with animals.

These albums would both pair well with a nice veal shank.

RATING(S):

Both Albums: 4.5 out of 5