GRAND FUNK RAILROAD
Grand Funk Railroad, sometimes shortened as Grand Funk, is an American rock band popular during the 1970s, when they toured extensively and played to packed arenas worldwide. David Fricke of Rolling Stone magazine once said, “You cannot talk about rock in the 1970s without talking about Grand Funk Railroad!” Known for their crowd-pleasing arena rock style, the band was well-regarded by audiences despite a relative lack of critical acclaim. The band’s name is a play on words of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, a line that ran through the band’s home town of Flint, Michigan. (More from Wikipedia)
My own theory is that Crystal Mansion suffers from the same “problem” as last month’s UARB, the Human Zoo: The band has real variety in its material and doesn’t sound the same all through the record. The Allmusic article on the band, by Lars Lovén, starts off: “The Crystal Mansion’s relatively short story is that of a white R&B band moving towards groovy psychedelic rock in the ’70s.” Joe Viglione writing for Allmusic grudgingly acknowledges this about the final track: “‘Earth People’ is reminiscent of ‘Calling Occupants’, the hit for the Carpenters and Klaatu. It is the highlight of the album. Let’s call it Crystal Mansion’s ‘I’m Your Captain/Closer to Home’.” The reference of course is to the closing song on the Grand Funk Railroad breakthrough album, Closer to Home (1970), “I’m Your Captain”, although Crystal Mansion was able to craft their memorable song in barely one third the playing time of the Grand Funk track.
(August 2015)
