The Runaways’ sole hit “Cherry Bomb” was included on the tape Awesome Mix, Vol. 1 that was prominently featured in the 2014 mega-hit Guardians of the Galaxy. Not surprisingly, an album called Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix, Vol. 1 has also been released, and it too includes “Cherry Bomb”. In his Allmusic review of the album, Stephen Thomas Erlewine says that “the ‘Awesome Mix’ . . . offers a nostalgia trip that’s potent even if you’ve never seen the film”.
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David Gates had been in various local bands in Tulsa, and his high school band backed Chuck Berry for a concert in 1957. David Gates also wrote “Saturday’s Child”, and the Monkees included this song on their first album, The Monkees. Writing for Allmusic, critic Matthew Greenwald says that “Saturday’s Child” has a “proto-heavy metal guitar riff” and is “one of the more interesting curios of the early Monkees catalog”.
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In 1967, Kim Fowley produced the sole album by the Belfast Gypsies and also co-wrote some of their songs. The band included some members of Van Morrison’s first band Them before he left to become a solo artist. The album was misleadingly named Them Belfast Gypsies (particularly as the title is laid out on the cover). Allmusic gives the album 4 stars, and Richie Unterberger notes in the write-up for the album: “Their tense version of ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ is one of the greatest obscure Dylan covers, and the magnificent harmonica on ‘Midnight Train’ is a highlight.”
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One of Kim Fowley’s best known songs is “The Trip”, the first single to be released under his own name; it was included in the soundtrack for the 2008 Guy Ritchie film RocknRolla. The song is included on the album that started the garage rock/psychedelic rock revival that began in the 1970’s and continues to this day, Pebbles, Volume 1. In his review of the Pebbles series for Allmusic, Richie Unterberger comments: “Though 1972’s Nuggets compilation reawakened listeners to the sounds of mid-’60s garage rock, it only focused on the tip of the iceberg. Behind those forgotten hits and semi-hits lurked hundreds, if not thousands, of regional hits and flops from the same era, most even rawer and cruder. . . . More than any other factor, these compilations [in the Pebbles series] were responsible for the resurgence of interest in garage rock, which remains high among collectors to this day.”
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About Ear Candy, the album that I have, Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing in Allmusic says: “Ear Candy qualifies as a genuine oddity in Helen Reddy’s catalog, a record that finds the queen of Australian soft rock paired with the king of L.A. sleaze, Kim Fowley, and his henchman Earle Mankey, a pair who were just coming off of the teenage kicks of the Runaways. Fowley and Mankey pushed Reddy toward unusual territory, but that doesn’t mean they lead her toward the gutter: They encouraged Reddy to write, prompting a surprising five originals on this ten-track album, let her dabble with synthesizers on the lurching ‘Long Distance Love’, and had her do a Cajun stomp with ‘Laissez Les Bon Tempts Rouler’ [French for “Let the Good Times Roll”, and a frequent slogan down here in Mardi Gras country]. . . . [W]hile there are no big hits here, there are few dull spots, and the odd moments help make this one of Reddy’s most interesting LPs.”
(January 2015/1)
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The Under Appreciated Rock Band for this month is the Crawdaddys; while I know of no connection with Kim Fowley, the anachronistic R&B stylings of this San Diego band sound like something that would be right up his alley. The Allmusic article on the Crawdaddys leads off with this (by Matt Carlson): “In a time of trendy discotheques, bombastic arena rock, and sonic punk barbarisms, the Crawdaddys were truly a peculiarity of the late ’70s.”
The first album by the Crawdaddys, Crawdaddy Express – recorded in monaural; talk about looking back! – came out in 1979 as the initial LP on Voxx Records. Allmusic gives the album 4½ stars and states in the review by Matt Carlson: “The Crawdaddys started their recording career properly, releasing a record with nothing but ’60s R&B, British Invasion, and blues standards (in addition to two original compositions).”
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With his fractured vision and his frantic singing and playing style, Mojo Nixon perhaps best personifies what is meant by “psychobilly”; he is a native of Chapel Hill (real name: Neill Kirby McMillan, Jr.). Steve Huey provides a cogent synopsis of his mystique in his biography for Allmusic: “One of the most out-sized personalities on college radio in the ’80s, Mojo Nixon won a fervent cult following with his motor-mouthed redneck persona and a gonzo brand of satire with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Nixon had a particular knack for celebrity-themed novelty hits (‘Elvis Is Everywhere’, ‘Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child’, ‘Don Henley Must Die’), but he was prone to gleefully crass rants on a variety of social ills (‘I Hate Banks’, ‘Destroy All Lawyers’, ‘I Ain’t Gonna Piss In No Jar’), while celebrating lowbrow, blue-collar America in all its trashy, beer-soaked glory. All of it was performed in maximum overdrive on a bed of rockabilly, blues, and R&B.”
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Besides their own albums and popular concert appearances throughout Southern California, the Beat Farmers collaborated with numerous musicians; Allmusic lists Mojo Nixon, John Doe of X, Rosie Flores, the Bangles, Los Lobos, Katy Moffatt, blues singer/pianist Candye Kane, and guitarist Dave Alvin, formerly of the Blasters. For his part, Country Dick Montana had several side projects over this period, including the Incredible Hayseeds, Country Dick’s Petting Zoo, Country Dick’s Garage, and the Pleasure Barons.
(January 2015/2)
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The most famous music folklorists are in the Lomax family, specifically, John A. Lomax and his son Alan Lomax – Allmusic calls the latter man “a vastly influential ethnomusicologist, archivist, and field recorder who, by capturing the sound of rural America, begat the folk boom.”
John A. Lomax began chronicling cowboy songs in the early years of the 20th Century. He had grown up in rural Texas and began transcribing these songs as a hobby at a young age. Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr. notes in Allmusic:
“[H]is first book, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, in 1910, [was] a groundbreaking work that helped establish the validity of the American folk song outside of the British tradition. He also joined with Professor Leonidas Payne in establishing a Texas branch of the American Folklore Society, an organization committed to preserving folklore before it disappeared.”
However, John A. Lomax fell onto hard times, losing his teaching position and suffering from poor health that was compounded by the death of his wife. Allmusic notes that his son John Lomax, Jr. encouraged his father to go on a lecture tour to revive his spirits. Beginning in 1933, this led to his being commissioned by the Library of Congress – together with another son, Alan Lomax – to tour rural America with a traveling recording machine that weighed 315 pounds.
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The entry on the Carter Family in Allmusic (by David Vinopal) begins: “The most influential group in country music history, the Carter Family switched the emphasis from hillbilly instrumentals to vocals, made scores of their songs part of the standard country music canon, and made a style of guitar playing, ‘Carter picking’, the dominant technique for decades. Along with Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family were among the first country music stars. Comprised of a gaunt, shy gospel quartet member named Alvin P. Carter and two reserved country girls – his wife, Sara [Dougherty Carter], and their sister-in-law, Maybelle [Addington Carter] – the Carter Family sang a pure, simple harmony that influenced not only the numerous other family groups of the ’30s and the ’40s, but folk, bluegrass, and rock musicians like Woody Guthrie, Bill Monroe, the Kingston Trio, Doc Watson, Bob Dylan, and Emmylou Harris, to mention just a few. It’s unlikely that bluegrass music would have existed without the Carter Family.”
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Writing for Allmusic, Mark Deming raves: “Most of the tunes on Brian Olive are rooted in rhythm & blues in one way or another, but the man sure isn’t shy about showing how many ways he can bend the sound to his will; ‘Stealin’’ is a funky New Orleans second-line shuffle, ‘Jubilee Line’ has a bassline James Jamerson would have been happy to call his own fortified with free jazz sax wailing, ‘High Low’ reveals echoes of 1950’s cool jazz for bachelor pads, and ‘Killing Stone’ is a piano-based rocker that recalls the early-’70s Rolling Stones. [Brian] Olive also dips his toes into breezy faux-tropicalia on the light and sensuous ‘Echoing Light’ and some tripped-out acoustic psychedelia on ‘There Is Love’. Olive clearly scores high on the eclecticism checklist, but he’s also a fine songwriter, generating memorable tunes regardless of his stylistic bag. . . . Overall, Brian Olive is an impressive and pleasing solo debut that shows his chops as a producer, arranger, and songwriter make him more than just some Midwest sideman, and he should get back into the studio posthaste if there’s more where this came from.”
Brian Olive did as Mark Deming of Allmusic suggested; he was apparently already working on his second album, Two of Everything (2011) when the first one, Brian Olive came out. Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys co-produced the album with Olive, and the two also share engineering duties on this venture. Auerbach provides backing vocals along with five women.
Mark Deming was just as enthusiastic about this album in his Allmusic review: “Two of Everything doesn’t sound like [Brian] Olive has turned his back on his blues-based earlier work, but he is veering in a different direction; the results sometimes suggest a Midwestern take on Northern soul as Olive and [Dan] Auerbach throw just a little pop polish on Olive’s vocals and let the pianos and saxophones give the music a subtle but distinct retro feel, even as the steady pulse of several tunes nods politely to hip-hop. But even as Two of Everything travels down a smoother road than its precursor, it still sounds organic, committed, and heartfelt; and Olive sure knows how to write a memorable tune: ‘Strange Attracter’ faces a chunky, T. Rex-style guitar figure against an insistent piano-and-drum pattern that fills up the dance floor; ‘Back Sliding Soul’ suggests an unlikely but effective collaboration between NRBQ and Mark Ronson; ‘Left Side Rock’ bounces hard Southern funk rhythms off aggressive horn samples, and ‘Lost in Dreams’ is a beautifully languid bit of stoned soul love pleading. With Two of Everything, Brian Olive is two for two in making smart, distinctive albums that push his blues and R&B influences in unexpected, compelling directions, matching and building on the strength of his debut.”
(February 2015)
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Of course, these are all people who are more or less well known. Other singer-songwriters live in obscurity but still produce their music year after year. One example is Hasil Adkins, the rockabilly one-man band from rural West Virginia that I have discussed previously. Once Miriam Linna and Billy Miller of Kicks magazine brought him to a wider audience, launching one of the best reissue record labels in the process (Norton Records), Adkins had some celebrity in the final years of his life. Wikipedia and Allmusic list 10 studio albums and 6 compilation albums by Hasil Adkins; I’m up to I think 5 albums myself thus far. If not for Norton, Hasil Adkins would have been almost completely unknown, and that would be a tragedy in my mind.
One day, I put in Phil Gammage in Allmusic . . . and nothing came up. Still doesn’t. In some ways, it was less than nothing – there were 7 (yes, seven) albums listed by Phil Gammage, released between 1990 and 2014. But there was not a word of review about any of them, not a biography, not an Allmusic rating (number of stars). In fact, until I just put in a 4½-star rating of his album Cry of the City, there wasn’t even a “user rating” – many albums on Allmusic have hundreds or thousands of them, and I have posted several dozen myself.
But in Allmusic? Nothing on Certain General either – well, almost nothing. Eleven albums by Certain General are listed on Allmusic, coming out between 1984 and 2010. A short review by Richie Unterberger of their first full album, November’s Heat is provided; but this is the only album with an Allmusic rating, and there are just 8 user ratings among the 11 albums. This is from the website which has as its aim to compile “discographic information on every artist who’s made a record since Enrico Caruso gave the industry its first big boost”.
Since Allmusic has nothing else about Certain General, it is not surprising that Richie Unterberger’s review of November’s Heat is lukewarm. After granting them three stars (basically equivalent to a “gentleman’s C” in the Allmusic rating system, which goes up to five stars), Unterberger has some backhanded compliments for the album: “It’s very much a record that’s emblematic of the post-punk dark ages descending on the underground in the mid-1980’s. Funky basslines and mannered vocals (by guitarist Parker Dulany) convey a muted anguish, somber and obtuse lyrics, and not a whole lot of melody. There’s a somewhat goth mood to the sound, though it’s not as over-the-top as that of the true goth bands of the time; there’s also something of a British feel to the approach (especially in the vocals), although again it’s not quite as dyed-in-the-wool UK as actual bands from that country. It’s not as creepy or disturbing as it tries to be.”
The 2008 album Rogue Escapades by the Scarlet Dukes is another Phil Gammage recording that Allmusic has listed but not otherwise discussed.
(March 2015)
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Although there is nothing about Black Russian in Wikipedia, there is a Wikipedia article about Natasha Shneider that has some information about Black Russian; Wikipedia as well has a write-up about the hard rock band Eleven that included Natasha Shneider and her second husband Alain Johannes. Allmusic lists Black Russian but has no information at all about the album or the artist.
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Their opening album, Awake in a Dream (1991) was praised by Alex Henderson in Allmusic: “Eleven was a so-called alternative rock trio of the early 1990’s that drew heavily on the psychedelic rock and soul music of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Awake in a Dream is much too guitar-oriented to have been played on a Black radio station in 1970 or 1973, and yet, enjoyable selections like ‘Before Your Eyes’, ‘All Together’ and ‘Rainbow’s End’ make it clear that singer/guitarist Alain Johannes, bassist/singer/organist Natasha Shneider and drummer Jack Irons have spent a lot of time listening to the likes of Sly and the Family Stone, Ike and Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder. Shneider is also heard on the clavinet, a synthesizer that was prominent in 1970’s soul and funk but was seldom used in the urban contemporary music that followed in the 1980’s and 1990’s.”
Of their second album Eleven, Andy Hinds wrote for Allmusic: “Anyone who lumped Eleven in with the grunge glut of the early 1990’s simply wasn’t paying attention. Although it’s true that the trio’s excellent self-titled album (actually their second) was mixed with the guitars loud and fuzzy, the musical sophistication that distinguishes Eleven – including not only compositional prowess but sheer chops – leaves most alternative bands in the dust. Led by the husband/wife duo of Alain Johannes (guitars and lead vocals) and Natasha Shneider (keyboards and lead vocals), their primary calling card is a pair of extraordinary voices, both of which are capable of raw intensity and soulful understatement.”
(April 2015/1)
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Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider worked with No Doubt on one of my favorite albums of the early 2000’s, Return of Saturn; Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic notes: “No Doubt’s desire to expand the emotional template of new wave is the perfect match for [Gwen] Stefani’s themes – she may be writing about love, but she’s not writing adolescent love songs. Fragments of her teenaged romantic fantasies remain, but she’s writing as a woman in her late 20’s. She’s tired of being another ‘ex-girlfriend’ – she wants to fall in love, get married, and have a family. It’s a subject that’s surprisingly uncommon in pop music, which would alone make Return of Saturn an interesting album. What makes it a successful one is that the band delivers an aural equivalent of Stefani’s lyrical themes. . . . Surprisingly, they pull it off – it’s a far stronger record than Tragic Kingdom, even if the catchiest numbers don’t have the same swagger and punch as their previous hit singles. So be it. With Return of Saturn, No Doubt have made a terrific, layered record that exceeds any expectations set by Tragic Kingdom. Not only have they found their voice, they know what to do with it.”
(April 2015/2)
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Just a couple of years ago, I finally found out what was going on when I read the discussion by Richie Unterberger in Allmusic about the differences between the American and the English releases of the first Stones album: “[T]he main difference lies in the version of ‘Tell Me’ included here, which sounds about two generations hotter than any edition of the song ever released in the U.S. – it’s the long version, with the break that was cut from the single, but the British LP and the original late-’80s Decca U.K. compact disc (820 047-2) both contain a version without any fade, running the better part of a minute longer than the U.S. release of the song, until the band literally stops playing.” Apparently that DJ had gotten his hands on a copy of the British version of the song, and I was fortunate enough to hear it that one time at an impressionable age.
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“Not Fade Away” was not included on any of the Stones’ British studio albums either, although thankfully, it was the opening track on their first American album. A wealth of blues and R&B singles in a similar vein were released by the Rolling Stones and numerous other British bands in this time period, but none of them made much of an impression over here. In fact, Allmusic reports that the Rolling Stones 45 discussed above, “Not Fade Away” is the only one that did reasonably well on the Billboard charts; while the song reached #3 on the UK charts, it managed #48 in the US.
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Unlike several other recent posts of mine where Allmusic really had almost nothing to contribute on the band that I was writing about, there is a long article about the Primitives by Bruce Eder – maybe the longest that I have seen on Allmusic for any of the UARB’s and UARA’s over the years. The opening remarks make it clear how great Eder thinks the band was:
“The Primitives were never, ever exactly a household name, even in Oxford, where they had a serious following as a club band – and that’s a reminder that some things in life and history, and even music, are just so unfair as to be unsettling. The Primitives [were] signed to Pye Records in 1964 [and] never found even a small national audience in England. . . . Castle Communications issued their catalog on CD in 2003. That CD was a delight and a vexation; it proved in the listening that these guys deserved a lot better than cult or footnote status, but it also brought home the unfairness inherent in their status. Even in their second, slightly more pop-oriented incarnation, when they were allowed to cut loose and be who and what they really were – a loud band without a lot of subtlety but power to spare and the sincerity to put over their music – they rated a place near the top of Pye Records’ roster and in the upper reaches of the British Invasion pantheon. Listening to the CD, this reviewer found himself pained, to the point of shedding a tear, over the fact that this band only got to leave 24 songs behind from its prime years. . . .
“[T]heir sound was very similar to the Pretty Things, rooted heavily in American R&B, and [lead singer Jay] Roberts was a serious, powerful shouter who could sound seriously, achingly raspy, rough, and growly; while the others played with virtually none of the niceties or delicacy that usually marred British attempts at the music.”
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The first release by the Primitives was “Help Me” b/w “Let Them Tell”. Both sides of this monster single are included on the English Freakbeat, Volume 1 CD. Bruce Eder has this lavish description of the single in his Allmusic article:
“[The Primitives] could and should have been one of the top groups on the Pye label, based on their rough-and-ready debut ‘Help Me’, a cover of a Sonny Boy Williamson [II] number that was beautifully raw and authentic, and wonderfully intense across an astonishingly long three minutes and 39 seconds, [John E.] Soul’s harmonica and [Geoff] Eaton’s guitar keeping the verisimilitude right up there like a Chess Records session gone out of control, amid [Jay] Roberts’ ever more intense romantic lamentations. The group-authored B-side, ‘Let Them Tell’, was almost as much a showcase for the harmonica and rhythm section as for Roberts’ singing. Amazingly, that November 1964 release even made it out in America, as part of the very short-lived licensing agreement between Pye and Philadelphia-based Cameo-Parkway Records, which also issued the Kinks’ first U.S. single, before Pye headed for the greener pastures of Warner-Reprise.”
Like the band’s first record, the Primitives’ second single for Pye Records, “You Said” b/w “How Do You Feel” did not chart at all in the U.K. About the flip side, Bruce Eder notes: “[A] bluesy cut with a nice, choppy rhythm part, similar to what the Yardbirds did with ‘Here ’Tis’ or ‘Good Morning Little School Girl’ on-stage, only with better singing.”
Mal and the Primitives released just one single in Great Britain; “Every Minute of Every Day” b/w “Pretty Little Face” (the latter song written by bandmember John E. Soul) came out on Pye Records and also made no impact on the charts, like the earlier Primitives singles. About their final U.K. single, Bruce Eder has this praise: “They had a sound similar to the original group, although [Mal] Ryder was more of a dramatic singer, with an intense but less raspy delivery, more along the lines of a pop-soul vocalist like Chris Farlowe in his later 1960’s incarnation. ‘Every Minute [of Every Day]’ was a suitable A-side, similar to the group’s past work, while ‘Pretty Little Face’ was a lot more elegant than anything the original group had ever done, right down to the rather lyrical acoustic lead guitar doubling the opening piano part, similar to what the guitars on Bill Wyman’s ‘In Another Land’ [by the Rolling Stones] do on the middle and final verse of that song.”
For Allmusic, Bruce Eder has this overview of their later years: “Unfortunately, as the records focused more and more on [Mal] Ryder, [the Primitives] became more of a kind of generic cover outfit for English-language songs of all genres. According to annotator David Wells, their R&B orientation gave way to pieces such as ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy’ [by Traffic] and ‘Song of a Baker’ [by Small Faces], but also ‘Love Letters in the Sand’ and (astonishingly) ‘Over the Rainbow’. Their edge was gone and, by the mid-’70s, so was the band.”
(May 2015)
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“Shapes of Things” by the Yardbirds is the first song written by the bandmembers that became a hit; it was released on February 25, 1966 and reached #3 on the UK singles chart and #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. Richie Unterberger has written of this song for Allmusic: “[Jeff Beck]’s guitar pyrotechnics came to fruition with ‘Shapes of Things’, which (along with the Byrds’ ‘Eight Miles High’) can justifiably be classified as the first psychedelic rock classic.”
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Anyway, the music is the hard part when doing psychedelic rock; for many would-be psychedelic rock bands, just about any lyrics will do, and the stranger the better. I was planning to come up with some examples of those lyrics, but they were a little scarce on the Internet. However, this excerpt from the Allmusic review by Todd Kristel of the Pebbles, Volume 3 LP actually does a better job of describing the songs than the lyrics themselves would:
“This compilation features Higher Elevation’s ‘The Diamond Mine’, a showcase for the nonsense rambling of disc jockey Dave Diamond; Teddy & the Patches’ ‘Suzy Creamcheese’, which manages to rip off both Frank Zappa and ‘Louie Louie’; Crystal Chandlier’s ‘Suicidal Flowers’, which sounds like the Doors drenched in fuzz guitar; William Penn Fyve’s ‘Swami’, which is such a self-conscious attempt to evoke 1967 that it’s hard to believe it was actually released that year; Jefferson Handkerchief’s ‘I’m Allergic to Flowers’, which was presumably intended as a novelty song; Calico Wall’s ‘Flight Reaction’, a fascinating acid-damaged glimpse into the mind of a passenger who’s sitting in an airplane before takeoff and worrying about a possible crash; the Hogs’ (allegedly the Chocolate Watchband under a different name) ‘Loose Lip Sync Ship’, which consists of an instrumental passage that mutates into Zappa-influenced weirdness; the Driving Stupid’s ‘The Reality of (Air) Fried Borsk’ and ‘Horror Asparagus Stories’, which feature precisely the kind of grounded lyrics that you’d expect; the Third Bardo’s ‘Five Years Ahead of My Time’, a genuinely good number even though it doesn’t sound five minutes ahead of its time; [and] the Bees’ ‘Voices Green and Purple’, which made the Nuggets Box Set along with the Third Bardo song . . . ”
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The Allmusic review by Mark Deming has this to say: “While the Human Zoo could add a trippy edge to their songs (such as ‘I Don’t Care No More’), they (at least as captured on this album) were at their best when they rocked out, and it’s on numbers like ‘Na-Na’ and ‘Funny’ that the Human Zoo really connect, while ‘Gonna Take Me a Ride’ and ‘Help Me’ reveal they weren’t bad with blue-eyed soul stuff, either. The production is simple, but also captures the performances in a clean and natural fashion and is thankfully short on the studio trickery often inflicted on lesser-known psych acts. The recording seems to favor the band’s live sound, and if the Human Zoo sounded this tight on-stage, it’s hard to say why they didn’t attract greater notice at the time.”
According to Allmusic, Larry Hanson, one of the bandmembers in the Human Zoo, later became part of the touring band with superstar country music band Alabama for 18 years and also performed on a few of their albums. Larry Hanson is also listed as part of the backing band on several albums by the Texas Tenors.
(July 2015)
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