TICKETS
Crystal Mansion had one more shot with a third self-titled album in 1979, Crystal Mansion (also called Tickets) that was released on 20th Century Fox Records, the same label that released Milan’s only LP in 1964, I Am What I Am. A notice in Billboard magazine calls the band “a new record act” and notes that some of the “top veteran local jazzmen” have been recruited to accompany them, among them “saxophonists Jim Horn, Bill Green, Bud Shank, Buddy Collette, Marshal Royal, and Tom Scott, bassist Richard Davis, trumpeter Jerry Hey, trombonist Bill Watrous, keyboard man Steve Porcaro, and percussionist Alan Estes”. Three-time Grammy winner and album producer Brooks Arthur (who was the engineer on the band’s other two albums) is quoted as saying of the band: “I feel so strongly about Crystal Mansion’s musicianship and ability, I felt only guest artists of that caliber could perform well enough with this band.”
(August 2015)
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I think that I have now purchased all four of the albums by past UARB the Loons, one of three UARB’s that number Mike Stax among the bandmembers. While I still do not have the EP 5 x 4 by past UARB the Crawdaddys (which also included Mike Stax), I did pick up the 45 that features “There She Goes Again”. Even more surprisingly, I came across the other two albums by past UARB Crystal Mansion in some record store or other: their 1969 album Crystal Mansion and also their 1979 album Crystal Mansion that is also known as Tickets. (More recently, I did come across a copy of the Crawdaddys EP 5 x 4 on Bomp! mailorder, along with the original 7-inch Jesus Loves the Stooges – but I still don’t have a copy of the green-vinyl Kill City by Iggy Pop and James Williamson that also came out in 1977).
(Year 10 Review)
