Magyar Melodies

Kalman Banyak - "The Outstanding Gypsy Violinist and his Orchestra play Magyar Melodies" (1960?) - B & F Records

Hello Friends,

We're once again keeping it classy today on Vinyl in the Valley.

Fun record of Gypsy-inspired folksongs played by the expert violinist, Kalman Banyak. Never heard of him?  Neither have we!  Still, its a pleasant record for a rainy Sunday morning in early October.

B & F Records was, apparently, a record label out of Cleveland, Ohio that released exclusively Hungarian-related music in the 50's & 60'.

RATING: 4 In My Little Garden Roses Never Bloom Out of 5

The Box Tops - "The Letter" (1967)

Happy Friday Friends!

Here's a clip of The Box Tops singing their hit, "The Letter" on Cleveland Ohio's syndicated variety show, Upbeat in 1967.

Alex Chilton was only 16 years old as this song skyrocketed to # 1 on the Billboard Charts.

When I was 16 I was practicing how to remove a bra using a bra I stole from my sister on a Winnie The Pooh doll!

Enjoy! 

Having a Heatwave

Heatwave - "Central Heating" (1978) - GTO Records

Hello Friends,

Heatwave is a 70's-era disco-funk band that featured a real Benetton ad of a line-up that looked more like a Model UN meeting rather than an on-the-rise boogie band.  Their "classic" lineup featured members from Dayton, Ohio, a U.S. Serviceman stationed in Germany, guys from England, Switzerland, Jamaica, Briton & Czechoslovakia.  

Central Heating would be the band's second album and probably captures them at their creative peak.  (In 1979, founder and lead-singer Johnnie Wilder would be paralyzed in a car accident which would severely limit his ability to perform with the group he founded!)

Overall the sound of the record is pretty middle-of-the-road disco.  What's most interesting about the record is probably the fact that there seems to be one or two guys in the band who were more into early Genesis than they were, say, Donna Summer.  So you do get some weird, tricked out guitar/keyboard flourishes throughout.  (For instance, the fills on the opening track, "Put the Word Out" or the opening arrangement on the title track.)


Side Two's opener, "The Groove Line" was a big hit and probably the album's standout.


The aforementioned title track, unfortunately, sounds like it could be a poorly-produced television ad for a local HVAC company.

"Mind Blowing Decisions", "The Star of the Story" & "Leaving for a Dream" are buttery-smooth ballads with some fine vocal harmonizing making them sound closer to something by The Carpenters, Earth, Wind & Fire or even Steely-Dan-On-Downers!  In fact, at times we think this album is closer in sound to a particularly-funky Steely Dan or Bee Gees record rather than some of the grittier stuff being done at the time by The Ohio Players, The Village People or anything by Giorgio Moroder.

FUN FACT: Hey kids, did you know that Heatwave's keyboard-player and main songwriter, Rod Temperton would go on to write some HUGE hits for Michael Jackson like "Off The Wall", "Rock With You" and "Thriller"?

RATING: 3.5 better get your central heating don't get left out in the cold, no use trying to save it for later, got to turn on that old radiator* out of 5 

* these are actual lyrics

Skin Tight!

Ohio Players - "Skin Tight" (1974) - Mercury Records

Hello Friends,

We've got Dayton, Ohio's favorite funk band on the turntable this Saturday night and Holy Crap its funktastic!

Skin Tight would be the band's fifth LP, their first for Mercury Records, and the first to feature more jazz-based & disco arrangements which would eventually launch the band into a much more mainstream direction.

Its a soulful and funky affair with lots and lots of layers of vocals and music which makes it a particularly good listen on vinyl.  Every time you put this record on the turntable, you're almost guaranteed to hear something you haven't heard before!  (Not to mention, it continues the tradition of the Players' super sexy and risque album covers!)

The title track gets things started and the Vinyl in the Valley headquarters is rockin'.  Its officially our favorite funk song of the moment.

Check out those capes!

Things get turned up even higher on the next song, "Streakin' Cheek to Cheek" featuring a driving wah-wah, some killer Fender Rhodes soloing & a right-up-in-your grill horn section to really get your juices flowing.  The layering and complex, but accessible, arrangements in a song like this would lay the groundwork for everything Prince would revolutionize within the next ten years or so! 

Side One winds down with the oozing, sexy, soulful ballad, "It's Your Night / Words of Love" that ends with a minute-or-so long piano interlude that could have been written by Gershwin (or Vince Guaraldi). (Plus we really, really like the muted guitar fills in the chorus!)

Flip the record and we're off to the races once again with the amazing "Jive Turkey", a funky kiss-off anthem to end all funky kiss-off anthems!  One of the guys singing even sounds a little like Fozzie Bear... Waka Waka!

Things get a little schmaltzy and lovey-dovey on "Heaven Must Be Like This".     


The record's sixth & final song is the ballad, "Is Anybody Gonna Be Saved?"  It starts out dark & menacing (like a foggy night under a street lamp) and builds up to a full-blown gospel-funk epic!  Damn!

Dayton, representin'.

RATING: 4.5 Bad Bad Missus in those Skin Tight Britches out of 5

Pebbles volume 2

Pebbles, volume 2 (1979) - BFD Records 

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 second Pebbles LP on the turntable.  Sixteen more tracks (plus one fun bonus track!) that are pure garage rock gems!   

Side One
1. "Makin' Deals" - The Satans.  WOW!  What a great song to start things off!  A 1966 fuzz-fueled rocker about selling your soul to the devil and told from the point of view of Satan himself!   It bears more than just a passing resemblance to the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" (released in 1968!) It even contains the repeated line, "Can you guess my name?"  Is it possible that Mick Jagger would have heard this song while touring the States in '66 or '67?  Maybe Keith Richards picked up the record in a West Coast record store and played it on the tour bus!  One never knows! The Satans hail from Fullerton, California.

2. "99th Floor" - The Moving Sidewalks. Have you ever wondered what guitarist Billy Gibbons was up to before he formed ZZ Top?  Well the answer, kids, is shredding guitar in the Texas psych-blues band, The Moving Sidewalks.  A Houston-based band that would gain a lot of local recognition touring the area with Roky Erickson and The Thirteenth Floor Elevators.  Great song!   

3. "Feathered Fish" - The Sons of Adam.  And we're three for three with great songs! This band started out in Baltimore, MD (where they were called Fender IV) but relocated to sunny, Southern California where they would frequently play clubs along the Sunset Strip and eventually be produced (and renamed) by Kim Fowley.  Guitarist & singer Randy Holden would later form The Other Half and join Blue Cheer. If you think this song sounds a little like the band Love, extra points for you!  It was written by Arthur Lee!

(Bonus Track) "Vox Wah-Wah Pedal Commercial" - The Electric Prunes.  Fun little nugget with the Electric Prunes shilling the Vox Wah-Wah pedal! 

4. "You Rub Me The Wrong Way" - The Road.  Not much is known about this band of Ohio teens (also sometimes known as The Hard Road) except for the fact they knew how to play their Fuzz!

5. "So What!!" - The Lyrics.  Great bluesy garage tune (with some killer harmonica) from Cardiff, California band.

6. "Lost Innocence" - The Buddhas.  Next we head North to Bakersfield for this fun, psychedelic garage tune.

7. "Bad Girl" - Zakary Thaks.  Good British Invasion rockin' blues tune from Corpus Christi garage band.  This single gained some national attention and the band even got to open for The Yardbirds (their heroes), The Jefferson Airplane and fellow-Texans, The 13th Floor Elevators!

8. "Green Fuz" - Randy Alvey & The Green Fuz.  What a lo-fi treat courtesy of this teenaged Texas quintet.   I'm sure most listeners in 1968 would have criticized this track as being poorly recorded, but its muddled, crude and raw sound predates the Punk movement of the late 70's and the indie DIY movement of the early 90's.  Primarily a covers band playing around the dance halls in and around the Dallas/Ft Worth area, The Green Fuz would, unfortunately, only record this one single (b/w their song, "There is a Land").  The Cramps would cover this little nugget on their 1981 record, Psychedelic Jungle.     

Side Two
1. "Go Ahead" - The Squires.  This B-side to the amazing, "Going All The Way" (from Pebbles Volume 1) is heavy on the Byrd's influence.  Nice song, not nearly as amazing as its A-side, however.

2. "I Can Only Give You Everything" - The Little Boy Blues.  Bunch of college kids from University of Chicago covering Them.  What they lack in blue-eyed soul, they make up for in fuzz!  (You might recognize that opening guitar riff, Beck sampled the Them version of this song for his song, "Devil's Haircut".)

3. "She's Gone" - The Dovers. Great, catchy, jangle pop song from Santa Barbara, CA garage rock band who despite recording a number of late 60's gems, never had any national exposure and only released 4 singles in 1965/1966.   

4. "I Must Run" - Phil & The Frantics.  If the Stones, um, borrowed some inspiration from The Satans for "Sympathy for the Devil" then Phoenix, Arizona's Phil & The Frantics probably owe some royalties to The Zombies for their song "I Must Run" which seems to be heavily inspired by the Zombie's 1965 B-Side, "I Must Move". No matter, The Zombies will be remembered as one of the architects of the British Invasion, while Phil & The Frantics probably played some pretty cool pool parties back in the day!  This track was produced by Waylon Jennings.

5. "What Am I Going To Do" - The Dovers. The B-side to "She's Gone".  More great harmonies and jangly guitars! 

6. "It's Cold Outside" - The Choir.  Amazing Brit-influenced pop song by The Pride of Cleveland, Ohio, The Choir.  The Choir started out in various garages around Cleveland in 1964 as The Mods.  After taking Cleveland by storm, the boys went up to Chicago to record some song and changed their name to The Choir.   In 1966, "It's Cold Outside" was released as a single on the Canadian-American label but it was re-released by Roulette Records in the Spring of '67 and actually charted (at number 68) on the Billboard Charts. The Choir would go through several lineup changes and would eventually disband in 1969. Some of the members of The Choir would recruit fellow Clevelander, Eric Carmen, and form the power pop band, The Raspberries, in 1970.  Our pick for best on the record!  

7. "Wine Wine Wine" - Bobby Fuller.  With a title like that, this could be Tiki T's theme song!  Great Texas Rockabilly by that Bobby Fuller ("I Fought the Law") who would die under incredibly mysterious circumstances less than 2 years later!

8. "I'm A Man" - The Litter.  Minneapolis, Minnesota's The Litter kicked things off for us on Volume 1 with the great "Action Woman".  Now they're back to close things out on Volume 2 with their version of the Bo Diddley classic, "I'm A Man" and boy do they bring it! Clocking in at 4 and a half-minutes, the entire second half of this song is a strange, feedback-fueled psychedelic frenzy.  Its tough to say, but their version gives the more famous, Yardbirds' version, a run for its money!   

RATING: 4.5 Things in my pocket keep a lot of folks alive out of 5

Cleveland Rocks!

The Outsiders - "Time Won't Let Me" (1966) - Capitol Records

Hello Friends,

We've got some good old fashioned U.S. garage rock on tap for tonight!

Formed by guitarist Tom King in 1958, The Starfires were a hard-working band of Clevelanders who cut their teeth in the blue collar bars and dance halls of the North Coast.  When they signed to Capitol Records on the strength of their single, "Time Won't Let Me", the band was persuaded to change their name to The Outsiders.  Their debut LP was released in 1966 and is a perfect storm of American blue-collar garage rock, British Invasion-inspired arrangements and healthy doses of blue-eyed soul and Motor City Rhythm & Blues!

The album kicks off with the rousing, "Keep On Running"-- a Jackie Edwards song that was a hit the year before for England's The Spencer Davis Group.   The ballad, "Listen People", is up next and was also a hit for another British band, Herman's Hermits!  

The single, "Time Won't Let Me" combines an uptempo Mersey-inspired rhythm with a driving background of Motown-inspired horns.   Written by King and his brother-in-law, Chet Kelley, the song blew up on AM Radio and ensured that the Outsiders would be slightly more than a footnote in the annals of rock & roll history! 
   

The oft-covered, "My Girl", is a tip of the hat to the songs coming out across Lake Eerie while the Stonesy R&B rocker, "What Makes You So Bad You Weren't Brought Up That Way", is a nod to songs coming from across the proverbial pond!  Side One concludes with a mellow and strings-laden cover of the 1962 hit by Jay & The Americans, "She Cried". 

Side Two contains two more covers-- Buddy Holly's "Maybe Baby" and Bobby Day's "Rockin' Robin"-- and the originals, "Chase Away The Tears", "Was It Really Real" and the tearjerker, "Girl In Love". In addition to being the B-side to "Time Won't Let Me", "Was It Really Real" contains a killer guitar solo!  

The Outsiders would release 4 more LP's, continually change personnel, ceaselessly tour and, by 1968, call it quits!  Another rock & roll dream left to history!  

Fun Fact: Hey kids, did you know that Outsiders' lead singer, Sonny Geraci, had a hit in 1972 with the one-hit-wonder band Climax and the soft-rock ballad "Precious & Few"?  Big Deal! That song sucks!

RATING: 4 Cleveland Steamers out of 5

You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic

Ian Hunter - "You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic" (1979) - Chrysalis

Hello friends,

Tonight on "Vinyl in the Valley" we're listening to what is arguably Ian Hunter's best record since his days with Mott the Hoople!  

Featuring members of the E Street Band as back-up musicians and Bowie's ex-guitarist, Mick Ronson, producing, "You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic" is a great example of what happened to "glam rock" by the late 70's.  Its good, with some really solid rocking songs, but its polished-sounding and not sleazy or sexy enough.  Its glam without the gay... and who wants that?

(Even Barry Manilow had a top 10 hit with a saccharine cover of the song, "Ships", from this album!)

The best song on this LP, by far, is the epic, "Cleveland Rocks".  This song is great for two reasons, (a) it was the theme song to "The Drew Carey Show" and (b) Cleveland does rock!    

The songs are all pretty good, but every time I hear Hunter's voice, I sort of wish I was listening to "All the Young Dudes"...

RATING: 3.5 Alan Freeds out of 5

Bee Thousand: The Director's Cut

Ashes on the turntable, books knocked over, beer spilled in Rorschach patterns on the rug, and crudely drawn UFOs scrawled on cocktail napkins.

Yup, we must’ve listened to a Guided by Voices record last night.

Bee Thousand, the 1994 release by the prolific Kings of lo-fi Guided by Voices, is no small feat. In fact, it’s a rough masterpiece drawing sounds from the British invasion, psych, prog rock and punk. The album is working something out as it goes and you can hear the evolution of songs actually occurring. While a lot of the material may be off-putting (the recording is so piss poor on some of these tracks, it’s like somebody threw cassette tapes in a swimming pool and a lot of the lyrics are about spacecraft and warlocks), the sheer brilliance of lead singer Bob Pollard rears itself in unimaginable ways. The true shame of it all is that so much of his beautiful stuff gets lost in the fray.

I can’t sell you on this band. It’s too tall of an order. Getting into this band means drowning in an endless abyss of record releases. You end up lost in a laboratory full of Pollard’s test tubes and beakers of frothing weirdo genius. And nobody really wants to hear about this band at cocktail parties, believe me.

But while Bee Thousand may be a hurtle for some, it is salvation for others. It really is some kind of indescribable magic.

Tiki’s Track Picks: "Smothered in Hugs", "Tractor Rape Chain", "The Goldheart Mountain Top Queen Directory."

XO! -Tiki T

Way to go, Ohio!

Learning to Crawl (1984) is the third Pretenders LP and pretty much every song is good.   The album's title probably refers to the baby Chrissie Hynde recently had with Kinks frontman, Ray Davies.  A lot of the songs (especially "Back in the Chain Gang") contain hints of longing & regret most likely due to the fact that two former members of the band had recently passed away from drug overdoses.  Just say no kids!

Besides "Chain Gang", there's "Middle of the Road", "Show Me", "My City was Gone" and the xmasy, "2000 Miles."  This is Chrissie Hynde at her peak.  Her voice is gritty and sultry, oozing her devil-may-care sexiness.  Her lyrics poignant and nostalgic.  Great riffs throughout.  

RATING: 4.5 black eyeliners out of a possible 5