Summer 2011

The culmination of the past 4 months of crate digging: Summer 2011 at Preservation Sound.  If you see me, ask me for a copy.  Full track list/links follow the pics.

Follow the link for track information…

1.            John Entwistle “Heaven and hell” from “Smash your head against the wall” Decca DL79183.  1971.  A great album all around.  Very dark sonics and dark subject matter.   JE was the bass player for THE WHO for most of his life.

2.             Man “Out of your head” from “The Welsh Connection” MCA 2190. 1976.  MAN have many records; this is the best one i’ve heard so far.  fantastic recording with a lot of quirky lines in the playing.

3.             Michael Stanley “Subterranean Homesick Blues” from “Michael Stanley” Tumbleweed Records TWS106. 1973.  (no link).  OK so the most crazy thing about this arrangement is the fact that MS took it from a different artist – one of my personal favorites, Terry Boylan.  MS does credit Terry on the sleeve, and I think even improves on it.  Terry’s abum “Alias Boona” is a lost classic.  Check it out if you can find it.

4.             Jeff Beck “Shapes of things” from “Truth EPIC BN-26413. 1968.  Unbelievable drumming on this cut.  Yet another classic Rod moment.

5.             Booker T and the MGs “Fuqawi” from ‘Melting Pot’ STAX Records STS 2035. 1971. (no link)  There are other cuts on this record that are even better, but my copy is slightly warped and this one played the best.  This is the best Booker T record; give it a listen and imagine how fantastic these cuts would be with a great singer and song over them.  By this point, BTMGs were not backing singers as a unit; this record was not even recorded at STAX.

6.             Kyle “I think I’m gonna rain” from “Times that try a man’s soul” Paramount Records PAS 6006. 1971.  (no link)  A good record all around.  Kinda Jim Ford/Elvis in Mepmhis vibe.  From the man who could-have-been-Billy-Joel, or so the story goes.  Kyle was apparently a member of THE LOST (classic 60s Boston garage band), although, I don’t see his name on their records.

7.             Gerry Rafferty “Right down the line” from ‘City to City’ United Artists UA-LA840-G.   1978.  A great track only slightly diminished by the fact that it will spend eternity living in the direct shadow of the preceding monolith ‘Baker Street.’

8.             Suzi Quatro “If you can’t give me love” from ‘If you knew Suzi’ RSO RS-1-3044.  1979.  <3 the Suzi.  This is a classic album.

9.             Mike Robbins “Some Cats” from “Long Time Comin’” AVI Records 6021. 1977. (No Link) Amazing.  A great example of the weirdness that results when you take a mediocre pop-rock-country song and layer it with way too many synth lines.  Bring em on, I say.

10.             Speedy Keen “Lesliana” from “Previous Convictions” MCA records MCA-331.  1973.  (no link)  Keen was the bandleader behind the Townsend-produced chestnut “Something In the Air.” This record is pretty mediocre, but this throwaway ending cut (named for the Leslie Rotating Speaker that is responsible for the beautiful wash of sound you hear) is a great piece of atmosphere.

11.             Jackie Lomax “Take My Word” from “Is This What You Want?” Apple SAPCOR 6.  1969. George Harrison produced this record while still in the Beatles; the lineup is predictably all-star.  Good disc all around.

12.             Ace “Know How It Feels” from “Five-a-Side” Anchor Records ANCL-2001.  1974.  (no link)  Anchor Records greatest success was AMERICA, which they had UK rights to.  This cut by ACE is one of the best blue-eyed soul ballads i’ve ever heard.  Right up there with the best of H+O.

13.             Nina Simone “When I was in my prime” from “Nina Simone” Upfront UPF 145. 1968. (originally appeared on “Live in Paris.”  Can’t say too much about this.  As epic as most of her output.

14.             Patti Smith “Free Money” from “Horses”  Sire 0698. 1975.  OK so I allllllllways knew that this album would one day get into my brain.  I resisted for decades but it finally happened last week.  I finally get it.  If you don’t dig this record, give it another chance.  and then again in 10 years, and then again…  it will be worth it.  Her ability to take the tropes and cliches of 60s blues/garage rock and turn them into a platform for something else entirely, something incredibly personal and expressive, is matched perhaps only by Beefheart.  He did a whole other thing with those bits and pieces but you catch my drift?

15.             The Seeds “Painted Doll” from ‘Future’ GNP 2038.  1967.  The kind of stoned doo-wop that I mistakenly thought only the Velvet Underground could really do right.  Great record all around.

16.             Norman Greenbaum “Alice Bodine” from ‘Spirit in the Sky’ Reprise 6365.  1969.  (no link)  Greenbaum’s ‘Spirit in the sky’ is maybe the most overplayed light rock hit of the Nixon era.  And it’s s0 absolutely brilliant and perfect that it does-not-even-matter.  Greenbaum never hit that same level again, but his other material at least shares the same warped sensibility.  Another great cut from this disc is ‘Marcy.’

17.             Randy VanWarmer “Just when I needed you most” from the 45rpm single.  OK yeah so this is pretty firmly in the genre that we all accept as waiting-room music, muzak, etc.  Mawkish sentiment paired to a sentimental arrangement…sure.  But then you learn that Dude’s father died unexpectedly when he was 10; and Dude wrote this only 8 years later…  gets a little more real huh.  Maybe not the predictable love song we thought we were hearing all these years.

18.             Shawn Phillips “Screamer for Phlyses” from ‘Contribution’ A&M SP 4241. 1970.   (no link)  Nothing to add here…

19.             John Lennon “Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)” from ‘Mind Games’ Apple Records SW 3414. 197.  Not an obscure cut by any means; fantastic record all around.  Made sense given the whirlwind of very real revolutionary activity occurring in so much of the world right now.

20.             Kanter Slick Freidberg “Sketches of China” from “Baron Von Tollbooth….” Grunt 0598. 1973.  This is, in many ways, the last Jefferson Airplane record…before the Starship years…  and this is the last cut on that record…  huge huge amazing coda.  Grace Slick sounds better than ever.