Hear, My Dears
In the future the posts may be coming less frequently because I'm working on some other stuff. Nonetheless, I'll try to give some highlights of the listening project over the past few days.
First of all, The Psychedelic Eskimo--paramour, bicyclist, and book designer of great accomplishment--and I went to Grooves yesterday. Kee-rist, the vinyl virus is back just when I was being such a good, disciplined, frugal fella. Yeah, yeah, tell us another one, pally...Anyway, my strange haul as follows: Let's get it out of the way first...ahem...Yes, I bought a David Crosby record! His very strange solo debut, If Could I Only Remember My Name. As A.C., the sage Streetlight Records guy put it so sagely in his "shelftalker" for this record, it's Crosby's Tonight's the Night. His grief record, his end of the Sixties freakout record. It's too bad that the SF crowd didn't make more records like this in the Seventies (most of them are playing on If Only...). It actually fits quite nicely next to the Judee Sill records I recently greedily bought.
Another record I got is P.F. Sloan's Songs of Our Times. I was hipped to P.F. Sloan by friend, co-worker, chocolate cake artist, Punkinhead. Sloan was a successful L.A. pop songwriter who occasionally made records of his own--somewhat Dylanesque but more hook-filled. His version of "Eve of Destruction" (he wrote it) is much more tolerable than Barry McGuire's heavy-handed hit treatment, in my opinion.
Yet another record is Harry Nilsson's Aerial Pandemonium Ballet, his remixed versions of some songs from his albums Pandemonium Shadow Show and Aerial Ballet. It's been one of my aims to delve more deeply into the work of Nilsson this year, so there it is.
Finally, I picked up The Dukes of Stratosphere's--aka XTC--psychedelic homage, Psonic Psunspot. It sounds like they're forcing it too much in spots, but perhaps that opinion will change upon further listenings. In any case, it inspired me to get rid of more junk that was sitting in my closet...
Back to the alphabet though, okay?
As a fan of concept albums it's been a good time in the ol' alphabet: Let's Get It On; Marvin Gaye--A Musical Testament; Hear, My Dear--all concept albums of one kind or another by Marvin Gaye. I've never dug the entire Let's Get It On album. I find Side One to be superior to Side Two. Side Two has "Distant Lover," but the definitive version of that song is the live one, which among other places you can find on the peculiar Musical Testament album.
Peculiar, how?, you might ask. Well, Gaye's longtime colleague, Ed Townsend, compiled a two record collection of Marvin's work and arranged them thematically--Crossroads; A Parting of the Ways; A Witness to Love; Introspection. I'm always a sucker for thematic compilations, and mostly I find that this collection works (I doubt it ever made it to CD). You get that fantastic version of "Distant Lover"; Marvin's transcendent "Star Spangled Banner" from the 1984 NBA All-Star Game--perhaps the true treasure of this comp, and very poignant when you consider that he'd be shot dead in a few months; the superhits like "Heard It Through the Grapevine"; lesser known gems like "Dark Side of the World." But you have to wonder about the arbitrariness of it as well. It's annoying to hear the What's Goin' On songs severed from their proper sequences--the downside of thematic compiling. And why wasn't "Hitchhike" included on the Crossroads side? Seems like a natural to me.
And what about Marvin's two-record divorce settlement album, Hear, My Dear? Best heard on vinyl, I think, because you can absorb it slowly. I've always liked certain songs from it, but now the entire mad project is working its way into my soul.
My other vinyl "G" has been George Gerdes' Son of Obituary. I wrote about it a few entries ago when I was describing the Uncorrected Proof 2 soundtrack. Look at the Side A entry. I've been looking in vain for his first record, Obituary (so, get it? Son of Obituary, kind of a double joke title). I think this record was responsible for making me a lifelong smartass.
We're really falling behind on the CD's. Alphabetically speaking, I've only managed to finish up Bitches Brew and On the Corner. I dare say, this is a period of Miles that I barely know but want to focus on. I've finally killed off my Miles-must-be-wearing-a-fine-Italian-suit-for-me-to- listen-to-him prejudice. And I'm digging the guitar of John McLaughlin--that one's for you, Big Game James!
First of all, The Psychedelic Eskimo--paramour, bicyclist, and book designer of great accomplishment--and I went to Grooves yesterday. Kee-rist, the vinyl virus is back just when I was being such a good, disciplined, frugal fella. Yeah, yeah, tell us another one, pally...Anyway, my strange haul as follows: Let's get it out of the way first...ahem...Yes, I bought a David Crosby record! His very strange solo debut, If Could I Only Remember My Name. As A.C., the sage Streetlight Records guy put it so sagely in his "shelftalker" for this record, it's Crosby's Tonight's the Night. His grief record, his end of the Sixties freakout record. It's too bad that the SF crowd didn't make more records like this in the Seventies (most of them are playing on If Only...). It actually fits quite nicely next to the Judee Sill records I recently greedily bought.
Another record I got is P.F. Sloan's Songs of Our Times. I was hipped to P.F. Sloan by friend, co-worker, chocolate cake artist, Punkinhead. Sloan was a successful L.A. pop songwriter who occasionally made records of his own--somewhat Dylanesque but more hook-filled. His version of "Eve of Destruction" (he wrote it) is much more tolerable than Barry McGuire's heavy-handed hit treatment, in my opinion.
Yet another record is Harry Nilsson's Aerial Pandemonium Ballet, his remixed versions of some songs from his albums Pandemonium Shadow Show and Aerial Ballet. It's been one of my aims to delve more deeply into the work of Nilsson this year, so there it is.
Finally, I picked up The Dukes of Stratosphere's--aka XTC--psychedelic homage, Psonic Psunspot. It sounds like they're forcing it too much in spots, but perhaps that opinion will change upon further listenings. In any case, it inspired me to get rid of more junk that was sitting in my closet...
Back to the alphabet though, okay?
As a fan of concept albums it's been a good time in the ol' alphabet: Let's Get It On; Marvin Gaye--A Musical Testament; Hear, My Dear--all concept albums of one kind or another by Marvin Gaye. I've never dug the entire Let's Get It On album. I find Side One to be superior to Side Two. Side Two has "Distant Lover," but the definitive version of that song is the live one, which among other places you can find on the peculiar Musical Testament album.
Peculiar, how?, you might ask. Well, Gaye's longtime colleague, Ed Townsend, compiled a two record collection of Marvin's work and arranged them thematically--Crossroads; A Parting of the Ways; A Witness to Love; Introspection. I'm always a sucker for thematic compilations, and mostly I find that this collection works (I doubt it ever made it to CD). You get that fantastic version of "Distant Lover"; Marvin's transcendent "Star Spangled Banner" from the 1984 NBA All-Star Game--perhaps the true treasure of this comp, and very poignant when you consider that he'd be shot dead in a few months; the superhits like "Heard It Through the Grapevine"; lesser known gems like "Dark Side of the World." But you have to wonder about the arbitrariness of it as well. It's annoying to hear the What's Goin' On songs severed from their proper sequences--the downside of thematic compiling. And why wasn't "Hitchhike" included on the Crossroads side? Seems like a natural to me.
And what about Marvin's two-record divorce settlement album, Hear, My Dear? Best heard on vinyl, I think, because you can absorb it slowly. I've always liked certain songs from it, but now the entire mad project is working its way into my soul.
My other vinyl "G" has been George Gerdes' Son of Obituary. I wrote about it a few entries ago when I was describing the Uncorrected Proof 2 soundtrack. Look at the Side A entry. I've been looking in vain for his first record, Obituary (so, get it? Son of Obituary, kind of a double joke title). I think this record was responsible for making me a lifelong smartass.
We're really falling behind on the CD's. Alphabetically speaking, I've only managed to finish up Bitches Brew and On the Corner. I dare say, this is a period of Miles that I barely know but want to focus on. I've finally killed off my Miles-must-be-wearing-a-fine-Italian-suit-for-me-to- listen-to-him prejudice. And I'm digging the guitar of John McLaughlin--that one's for you, Big Game James!
posted by ken at 6:37 PM
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