One Album Wonders: A Cross, A Ross, And An All Around Wonderful Record

The British music scene in the early 70s had an interestingly active group of bands that were trying to mimic the sounds that came splashing over the ocean to their shores. More precisely, the sounds that had travelled across the U.S. mainland before going on a transatlantic journey. The sounds of the westcoast. Bands like Brinsley Schwartz were shamelessly mimicking Crosby, Stills & Nash, while the Jess Roden-led Bronco or Hookfoot were trying their own spin on So Cal country rock. And then there were these two blokes, Keith Cross and Peter Ross, two songwriters who briefly teamed up to make one of the most Westcoast-sounding albums of all time. Oh, and also one of the best. Bored Civilians is the sun-kissed place where the influences of The Byrds, and The Beach Boys meet, and ir's glorious. Not bad for two Brits. 

Just take the album opener and instant classic "The Last Ocean Rider". Almost seven minute of pure bliss. The song itself is over by the three an a half minute mark, the rest is a long vamping section that I normally would look at suspiciously at the very least, but this is the equivalent of Martin Scorsese's "it's a quick three hour movie" (guess the picture he said it about!), it doesn't feel like seven minutes while you bathe in that warm ocean coda. There is a spirited cover of Fairport Convention side project Fotheringay's "Peace In The End", which is the only outside number, with the rest of the songs written by either Cross or Ross, and original closer "Fly Home" a co-write. 

I probably prefer Peter Ross' contributions, even though Ross was a bit of the junior member of the association. Not age-wise, but Keith Cross had already played in short-lived prog rock groups Bulldog Breed and T2, and was a bit of a name, at least to insiders. Besides "The Last Ocean Rider", Ross ' other highlights include the catchy "The Dead Salute" (which sounds like it could have been a single) and the atmospheric b-sides "Blind Willie Johnson" and "Prophets Finders". Keith Cross seems more responsible for the slower songs and ballad side of things, though he does get a little bit funky on the lengthy "Story To A Friend". That last track, together with "Rider" and the equally lengthy "Fly Home" plus Cross' past work is no doubt responsible for this album still being lumped in with progressive rock (or prog folk, more precisely), and while I don't find anything overtly proggish in it, besides these extended instrumental sections, the labeling doesn't matter, though it might have mattered back in 1972. 

And it might have mattered, because artwork and promotion for this album were..., let's say, suboptimal. The original cover for Bored Ciivilians is a great shot by itself, it just isn't very representative of the album and doesn't represent the sunny sounds within at all. It's a great cover shot, but for the wrong album. The new cover art is based on a pastel painting (ha!) by Australian artist Tricia Reust. CD back cover art is included for CD folks like myself! While the cover shot was great but ill-fitting, I never liked the original album title. Bored Civilians? Who is that supposed to entice to pick this up? I don't know if the newly christened Pastels would have sold more copies, but it is an improvement I'd say. It's certainly more indicative of the great music within. 

I love this image, but it sucks at selling the music within properly...

Changes, however, aren't limited to packaging. I thought the sequencing left room for improvement. I didn't like the eleven minute "Story To a Friend" taking up so much space in the middle and slowing it down. This track, rather then a closer for side a seemed destined to be the long run-out groove at the end of the record, which is where I placed it. And I thought that the three non-album songs "Can You Believe It", "Blind Willie Johnson" and "Prophets Guiders" were so strong, that they deserved to be included in the album proper instead of being merely attached as bonus tracks extra limbs, so that's what I did. The latter two songs, both b-sides and both by Peter Ross, are interesting in that the vocals are quite a bit grittier than the conventionally beautiful leads on the album, on "Prophets Guiders" Ross does sound a faint bit like Mercury-era folk rock Rod Stewart. 

Mixing in these three extra songs means that this alt album version of Bored Civilians breaks a little bit with one of the principles I have maintained on my alt albums from yesteryear, namely respecting the vinyl limits of the time to have an authentic record as it could have come out at the time of release. So most of my alt albums clock in between 35 and 45 minutes, as they would or could have at the same time. But, seriously, who cares about fake historical possibility when it's about the music, right? So you get a vinyl recording-limit spraining 55 minutes of fabulous music by Cross and Ross, time-period authenticity be damned! At least I don't leave no damn tracks off for no damn reason! 

Seriously, how hard could it be, though, to collect all the songs of this glorious, but brief collaboration? Really fuckin' hard it seems, because throughout two re-issues they couldn't get it done. The original 1994 re-issue had an extra single, a-side "Can You Believe It" and b-side "Blind Willie Johnson", but somehow failed to include the b-side to lead single "Peace In The End", "Prophets Guiders". For years I could only unearth a crackly period version of it that sounded so much worse in terms of fidelity compared to the rest, that I had no choice but to attach it at the end, sort of as a quick encore, after Cross and Ross have finished their album 'set' with "Story To a Friend". Then, when Esoteric Recordings reissued it 20 years later, it had "Prophets Guiders", but now "Can You Believe It" was missing. Are you kidding me? Specialist re-issue companies and they can not manage to include everything their core audience want from such a release? Hell, Cross and Ross only recorded these twelve songs, so why the fuck are they not all here from the start, remastered and presented as they should? So now sites like this one have to do the job 'cause these doofuses can't get their shit together...(Gee, I curse a lot here, huh? This needless idiocy and avoidable treasure hunting seemingly really goats my get, if you drift my catch...). 

But now all our imaginary pain over these botches is over, as I'm proud to present what I think is the best way to hear the entire output of Cross & Ross. New artwork, new and improved sequencing, all tracks presented and accounted for. What more can you ask for? More music from these two, obviously, but it wasn't to be. After Bored Civilins bombed, both seems to have walked away from the music business, as Discogs has no rntries for them whatsoever after this album. But what a glorious one-shot it is! Cross & Ross might've only worked together for a small amount of time, but Pastels is proof that when you hit the bull's eye right away, sometimes once can be enough...

Wanted: Clyde "Skip" Battin, Classic Country Rock Band Killer

I know, that's a little mean, but is it entirely unwarranted? If you are a classic country rock band in the 70s, and you're thinking of giving Skip Battin a call to join your group of merry men...well, I got some bad news for you...your band is in creative decline, and it's probably terminal. Battin, by all accounts a jovial, easy-going guy that would fit easily into your band was also, unwillingly and accidentally no doubt, a harbinger of doom for the bands that hired him.  

Think about it: He joined The Byrds, and while he actually held up the most stable, and longest-lasting line-up in the volatile history of that band, the Battin years are usually considered a long, at the end drastic decline. Those of you who have followed my Byrds retrospective via alternate albums know that I have a special love for the twilight Byrds, but there is no denying that Battin contributed some of the all-time worst songs the band ever put to tape, and well...those Byrds were goners. After the demise of the CBS Byrds, a new country rock band came calling - The New Riders Of The Purple Sage. They had just come off one of their most popular and by most accounts best albums, The Adventures Of Panama Red, a year before and after a stop gap live album set out to work on their new studio album, Brujo. Result, largely helped by four (including three back-toback!) novelty songs of the infamous Kim Fowley-Skip Battin combo: arguably the worst album to date by the band and an ongoing quality decline through the last years of recording for Columbia. 

Jump to 1976: The re-formed Flying Burrito Brothers have made a respectable, better than expected 'comeback' album. The reviews are scathing, though (mainly based on the impression of usurping and sullying the band name, despite the group having two original members, just not the right ones), and band founder Chris Ethridge quits in disgust. And who is that wondering through the door to replace him? Why, it's ol' Skip Battin, to rejoin old comrade Gene Parsons (who would only stay for that one common album). Result: The following album Airborne was anything but and took a huge nosedive, quality-wise, compared to its predecessor. At least Battin had no songs on that album. 

Anyway, enough of that, even though the point is hard to argue. As a steady hand, Battin's presence was appreciated by those bands, with problems coming up as soon as he mentioned that he and Kim had written a couple of songs to look at...But, for a brief moent in between band adventures, Battin was also for the briefest time a solo artist. Right after being fired by McGuinn in 1972, he issued his solo album Skip for Columbia, and invited his old Byrds band members to play on it. Most mischieviously, he had Roger McGuinn add his typical 12-string Rickenbacher sound to "Captain Video", the standout track, which was also a really funny send up of McGuinn, who was very likely oblivious to that very fact: "They call me Captain Soul, but I'm Captain Video!"

And yet, that sole album from 1972, later joined by two solo discs in the early and mid-80s that were issued in Italy only, had a real follow-up, to come out less than a year after Skip. An ambitious plan foresaw a huge country rock revue touring the U.S. in the fall of 1973, including both ex-Byrds Parsons (Gram and Gene), Battin, fellow ex-Byrd Clarence White and bluegrass group Country Gazette (whose members were part of the last Hilllan-led Flying Burrito Brother line-up). Every one of the participants was to bring out an album to tour behind. Now, that huge country rock tour - a sort of 'Rolling Thunder Revue' od Byrds alumni and associates - never took place, for reasons not everyone agrees on, though various mayors voting against the presence of hippie longhairs in their repsectable towns might have played a role in it. A huge damper on things was of course Clarence White's senseless death in July 1973, when he was hit and killed by a dunk driver. White was working on his own solo album that was never to be, and was also scheduled to go into the studio mere days later to support old comrade Battin on his second studio album. 

Despite everyone being shocked and in giried by the sudden loss of White, the session stook place, with members of  Country Gazette, the aforementioned Chris Ethridge, Clarence's brother Roland, Herb Petersen and, replacing White, Al Perkins, then from the Souther-Hillman-Fury Band. An L.A. country rock all-star band that convened to cut a number of bluegrass standards as well as a number of typically skewed Battin-Fowley originals, before the project was finally abandoned. No tour, no album...thus Battin joining the New Riders Of The Purple Sage. For almost forty years that abandoned second album by Battin existed only in the memory of the players, before finally being issued by Byrds-associated act specialist Sierra. Topanga Skyline finally saw the light of day in 2012. 

But it was an album presentation  that was not entirely successful or well-thought out: To bolster the skimpy running time of a little more than half an hour - feasible in 1973, but unreasonable for the CD age - Sierra Records added the two most country-ish tracks from Skip's real second solo album, 1981's Navigator (featuring other Flying Burrito Brothers founding member Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel). Two different takes on the standard "Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms" were unceremoniously glued together. And a snatch of "Old Mountain Dew" showed up as a hidden bonus track, glued to an ill-fitting partner. There is good work and some very fine music on this album, but the presented form just missed the mark. 

Enter the One Buck Guy. Here is Topanga Skyline in the way it could have come out in 1973. No bonus tracks from a decade later, only songs recorded in 1973. A more balanced sequencing. And a rightful place for "Old Mountain Dew" and that second, rather loose take on "Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms". These two tracks, taken from a demo/jam session are believed to be the very last rceordings of Clarence White before his untimely death. So while technically, they might not be as good as the rest of the album, they have their place as a reminder of what everyone lost when Clarence died, and a tribute to White. 

As for the music: The playing of some of the finest that the L.A. country rock scene has to offer is the highlight here, while Battin's idiosyncratic songs and lead vocals are spirited, but definitely a bit of an acquired taste. If you liked Battin in The Byrds, Burritos or New Riders Of The Purple Sage, you'll like this, and if you like bluegrass and country rock, or any of the bands mentioned thus far, then you'll probably like this as well. The obvious highlight here is a truly inspired reworking of bubblegum hit single "Hully Gully", that just stomps out the original. That one is almost worth the price of admission alone, though Battin also delivers some fine ballads with the beautiful "Relax With Me" and "Wintergreen", and holds up his end of the bargain when plowing through "Foggy Mountain Top" or "Salty Dog Blues". 

Woof, that write-up got a little long there, whoops. So, let's cut the chit-chat and join Battin in a bluegrass-flavored trip to that Topanga Skyline...

 

You may know Gordon Lightfoot's life in song, now get ready for his secret life...

When you promise something, you better come up with that promised thing, and sooner rather than later. So, here it is, folks. When I finished my three disc-retrospective on Gordon Lightfoot, I dangled the possibility of a Lightfoot rarities set in front of you, and like two users, said 'yeah, bring it on', which around these parts counts as somewhat of a mass movement. So, I said I'll bring this out and here it is. To go along with A Life In Song, here is now A Secret Life In Song, the collection of outtakes and rarities that completes that other box set. Unlike A Life In Song, you get the whole deal at once, two discs full of rare goodies from the Gord. 

What really pushed me to go for A Secret Life In Song was the outtakes from the Songbook box set. When Songbook came out, I didn't buy it, because it retailed for between 60 and 80 bucks if I remember correctly, and, having bought most of his albums, I already had about three quarters of the music on it. The real draw for me were the outtakes that were sprinkled throughout the set, but yeah I couldn't bring myself to shovel over that much money. And then, well, the box set went out of print relatively quickly, and with it these outtakes, because when Songbook was made available digitally, it came out without the outtakes, almost completely rendering that version of Songbook useless, because it's now more of an extra-long greatest hits package. 

So for years (well, decades...) I was unhappy that I missed out on these tracks, though it took me the immersion earlier this year into all things Lightfoot that got me to search for these again. And, hurray, some enterprising person had finally put the original Songbook online, and I could finally hear those fabled outtakes. Now, let's be honest: These outtakes aren't the slices of greatness that I had built up in my mind, mainly due to their absence and unvailability. Some things never change. But they are pretty good, with the occasional better than good song on it. The highlight of these tracks you know already from my alt version of Old Dan's Records. "Nothing To Lose", the re-recorded track Lightfoot put up for Cool Hand Luke, is a song that can easily stand with his released work, and a track like "Stone Cold Sober" or "Borderstone" would have been fine additions to the albums of the period. But none of them stand out as egregious omissions. 

The outtakes follow the general trajectory of Lightfoot's career, with his work from the early 80s on dipping heavily into a synth-heavy adult contemporary sound. Considering that a major part of these outtakes come from this period, this means that around the half point of disc two you get towards the 'last disc problem' of the material dipping noticeably. Let's just say, Lightfoot wrote one of these songs for Kenny Rogers, and it shows. The three highlights above all come from his golden period as a performer, from the mid-70s, but the pickings from these years are relatively lean. Then again, the United Artists period is even less represented with a mere three outtakes, all decidedly o.k. 

But of course you get plenty more than just these outtakes. Superior live performances from a performance for the BBC in 1971 and a track from the Montreux festival in 1976 help fill out disc two, as does a really nice acoustic medley of "Spanish Moss/Shadows" from 1987. There are also two tracks whose rarity depends on point of view. The 1975 remake of "Affair On Eight Street" is of course not rare for the thousands of people who bought the double vinyl version of Gord's Gold, but members of the CD generation (like me) got the short end of the straw, because to fit onto CD, in the early days when Cds could only hold up to 73 minutes of music, this track was dropped from the line-up. So I only heard it decades later when the digital version of Gord's Gold put it back into its proper place. And the last track on the disc is the one new song that was collector's bait on Gord's Gold Vol. 2. As said in my write-up to disc three of A Life In Song, the only one of the remakes worth saving was "The Pony Man", which is on that disc, so here is the other song worth keeping. 

You have probably realizd by now that I haven't said anything about Disc One, which has a lot to do with Lightfoot's, erm, difficult career beginnings which were, not a straight arrow towards success and adulation, rather a crooked, winding river. Lightfoot first went into the studio to cut ten tracks in 1962 of mediocre to outright awful MOR country pop, that, as Lightfoot himself noted, had him "sounding like a cross between Jim Reeves and Pat Boone". I decided to keep one of the tracks, "Negotiations" to open disc one, as it's at least worth a chuckle hearing Lightfoot of all people try out a rockabilly sound quite reminiscent of Gene Vincent. Then its off to the so-called Warner publishing demos. While Lightfoot was reluctant to perform his own material, he wrote dozens of songs as publishing demos for other artists to pick up. These recordings have never been officially issued, so sound quality will vary. I picked the highlights of these, including "Roll On", which still has a side-eye on rock'n'roll and rockabilly, the protest song-ish "Where Are The Martyred Children?" and songs that already hint at Lightfoot's later sound like "Betty Mae's A Good Time Gal". 

The irony of Lightfoot's early career is that he was hired as a songwriter for Warner Brothers, then very briefly in 1965 as a recording artist, bringing out a single of "I'm Not Sayin'" that had sucess in Canada and nowhere else, and Lightfoot got dropped right away, only to find a home at United Artists for the next four years and five albums, before returning to Warner Brothers via Reprise Records in 1969, just in time for his commercial breakthrough, and stayed with Warner until the end of the century. United Artists hadn't been right away an open arms environment for Lightfoot, forcing him into recording a cover of Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" instead of one of his own compositions for his debut single. It's a very middling performance, so it isn't included here. What is included is "Movin'", the title song for an industrial film made by the Canadian National Railway, which became so popular as to even run in cinemas! United Artists have been notoriously shabby and haphazard in their treatment of Lightfoot's non-album material for them, never giving these a proper release.

Included as a means to look at Lightfoot as performer of contemporary folkies, there are some live performances from a concert in early 1966 (that sourced "The Ballad Of Yarmouth Castle" on Shanties) that see him perfom The Youngbloods' "Get Together" and "Turn!Turn!Turn!", just popularizd by The Byrds. A 1968 live performance of "I'm Not Sayin'" is included because it's a duet with Johnny Cash done on Cash's tv show and while Cash's live vocals are a little rough and off, it's a charming period moment. I also found the original demo of the aforementioned "Too Much To Lose", a charming first try that should have led to the song being published somewhere sometime. 

Nope, it's not Johnny Cash, but close enough. No Kristofferson on the disc, but I love this pic

Other than the sprinkled in Songbook outtakes, the disc then concludes with most of the live in studio acoustic recordings Lightfoot made for Skip Weshner's radio show from 1968 to 1970, including the unreleased "Seabird Song", several classics off If You Could Read My Mind, an early version of "Looking At The Rain", and a cover of Elton John's "Your Song". All in all, Disc One has 26 songs dating from 1962 to 1970, while Disc Two covers 1970 to 1988 in 19 songs. 

So, there it is, Gordon Lightfoot's Secret Life In Song. For budding music historians and confirmed Lightheads alike, or really anyone who is more interested in retracing the steps of this outstanding singer-songwriter. Let these songs flee out of their secret existence and into your music collection.

Since compiling this collection, I have found a number of other rare Lightfoot songs that are possibly of interest, so if I find some time and some of you are interested, it's not impossible that a super secret bonus disc to Secret Life In Song will be compiled. Let me know what you think...

Ice Ice Baby! Extra Helpings! You Want Some? Come And Get Some!

Ok, ok, I lied a bit in my write-up for The Best Of Both Worlds, when I said that with that you have all the Icehouse that you'll ever need. You don't! You also need this! As a matter of fact, you might like this more than the big anthology I posted saturday. After all, 37 tracks and more than two-and-a-half hours of Icehouse is a lot, though I'm happy that after a slow start some of y'all have turned up at the Icehouse. But if you just want some cool music from Iva Davies, The Best Of All Worlds will do it. The album was conceived as a sort of bonus disc to the two-disc anthology, the kind of thing you would get back in the day where normal fans would buy the two-disc version and super fans would get the three disc limited edition version for remixes and rare stuff. 

If you have checked out The Best Of Both Worlds, you've maybe realized (or not) that it ends in late 1993, because that's where for all intents and purposes Icehouse's official recording career stopped. But, you know, not really and entirely. So, The Best Of All Worlds collects the best moments of the afterlife of Icehouse, meaning remixes, live tracks and tracks from The Berlin Tapes, which was credited to both Davies and Icehouse, but anyway we established that Davies *is* Icehouse for all intents and purposes. So, once Icehouse's ongoing career more or less ground to a stop with the relative flop of the Big Wheel album, Davies got involved again with the Sydney Dance Company, with whom he already worked in 1985 for an original  production called Boxes. The company was putting on Berlin, a production by choreographer Graeme Murphy, scored with music from Berlin-related artists like David Bowie and Lou Reed, but also, among others, XTC, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Psychedelic Furs, The Cure and Simple Minds. Davies worked with pianist Max Lambert on adapting these songs for the project. 

The Berlin Tapes make up a good third of The Best Of All Worlds. Davies' re-readings of Bowie's "Heroes" and "Loving The Alien" - a song whose overproduction even Bowie himself despised - are simply spectacular, and for good measure I've also thrown in a rocking live cover of "The Jean Genie". But he also did excellent takes on Talking Heads' "Heaven", Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties" and, perhaps surprisingly, Simple Minds' "Let There Be Love". I feel like that track is one of the best of Kerr & Co. who are generally not in grand standing with serious music fans, and Davies' reading of it is again, absolutely splendid. It also makes sense that Icehouse would cover Simple Minds, considering the very similar paths both bands went on in parallel throughout the 80s. 

But there's more! You already get your money's worth (ha!) with the first track, Bill Laswell's monstruous remix of "Great Southern Land", which for me is in its original form one of the best Icehouse tracks. But Laswell reworks the thing from the ground up, starting with a traditional aborigines chant, drafted in Bernie Worell and Buckethead to create completely new soundscapes, and let's Buckethead loose on a rock version of Icehouse's central riff, that turn the song into a true rock song in the second part of it's mammooth 15 minute plus running time. Nothing compares to that, though the remixes for "Crazy", "Electric Blue", "Big Wheel", and "Man Of Colours" are very fine additions as well. 

And finally, a teaser of Dubhouse! In December 2013 Davies fulfilled a dream of his by staging two concerts as Dubhouse, proposing reggae-styled versions of Icehouse songs and reggae classics. Not all of these worked, as some songs and medleys came out completely flat, but I included two songs, medleys of "Walk On The Wild Side- Heartbreak Kid" and "Exodus-Great Southern Land", which I think worked best. Lead vocals on "Exodus" are by Tony Kopa from Bigger Than Jesus and The Truth, who Davies hired as hypeman and co-lead vocalist for the Dubhouse experience. 

And in order to go along with the other two discs, I also wanted to end this 'bonus disc' with a short slice of moodiness, so as a special bonus track I added "The Desert" from Iva Davies' score to Russell Mulcahy's excellent outback creature feature Razorback. 

So, The Best Of Both Worlds gives you more cool Icehouse stuff, but also a bit of a different look on Icehouse and its songs. So, warm up to Icehouse once more with some great byways off the band's highways. 

All Pearls, No Swine: Borne Back Ceaselessly Into The Past...

Back to the roots! Back to the start! Back to the Seventies! Back to the birthplace of our popular long-running series, with the usual 20 tracks of rare, ultrarare or underappreciated gems. You might recognize some of the names on this volume - Del Shannon, Ted Neely, Wayne Berry, Dennis Linde - but probably not these songs. Ted Neely, made a (not quite super) star, albeit briefly, by Jesus Christ Superstar, sings Wayne Berry's instant classic "Another's Lifetime", and actually was the first to issue that song, albeit without much success. Berry himself is present with "New Lovers, Old Friends", an outtake from the early 70s that I couldn't fit on any of the three alternate albums (which you can find here, here and here) I did for this ridiculously underrated singer-songwriter and is thus having its premiere here. Shannon was, like many stars of the doo wop and early rock'n'roll era trying to make a comeback by dipping into the then-popular roots music, "Restless" is almost straight country. 

A lot of the songs on All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 32 have a bit of a groove to them, I'm happy to say, as I relisten to this, from opener Texas' "L.A. Lights"'s lit-up country rock with some slightly gospel-ish group vocals to John Randolph Marr's horn-and-soul/gospel-backing take on Delaney Bramlett's "Hello L.A. Bye Bye Birmingham" to Mylon LeFevre's soulful "Sweet Peace Within" to American Eagle's appropriately titled "Gospel" to Aliotta Haynes Jeremy's country rock take on traditional "Long Time Gone/When I Was A Cowboy" to Navasota's rocking "Canyon Ladies".

This is nicely balanced by the folk, folk rock and singer-songwriter numbers that make up the other half of All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 32. Personal favorites include "Holly Lake" from Texas songwriter David Mattson, off his 1975 private press release August Reunion, Ryan Trevor's "Blue Morning" from his only record, the self-released Introducing Ryan Trevor (Now And Then), and Bruce Kosaveach's "Feelin' Together With The World", completing the trifecta of obscure self-released singer-songwriters. Drumming on this is Joe Porcaro, father of Steve, Mike and Jeff, the latter two of Toto fame. 

There is also the original version of "Killing Me Softly With His Song" by folkie Lori Lieberman, who almost certainly was screwed out of a writing credit by the credited songwriting team. Roberta Flack's better known version has more soul, while Lieberman's version is more vulnerable, really selling the 'killing' part, the emotional slaying at the heart of the song.Speaking of folk: Acoustic folk duos were in style, so here we get Lambert & Nuttycombe (what a name!) with "Heaven Knows (Where I've Been)" and Aussies Stuart & McKay with "Tell Me", both exquisitely lovely of course. 

By now you know how I like to do my All Pearls, No Swine, so it should come as no suprise, that the psychiest, spaciest song is kept as the runout groove, it's really more interesting that it is Dennis Linde who is responsible for it. Linde is most known for a writing a string of country hits, most famously Elvis' "Burnin' Love", and did some folkish records earlier in his career, but on 1977's "Beyond The Eye", the title song from the album of the same name, he really lets his freak flag fly. It's three minutes of an uncommonly heavy (for Linde) rock song, and then about two minutes of madness, Linde playing around with synths, vodocer and the like.  

So, same as it ever was, plenty of unknown or little known folks with even less known songs - but all good stuff. For the 20th anniversary of the 70s-bound APNS, we have a truly fine selections of goodies for your delectation today...

Some say their music will end in fire, some say in ice...

Quickly, dear reader, when was the last time you thought of Icehouse? That is, if you ever thought at all of Iva Davies and whoever he recruited around him as Icehouse. They were huge in their home country, but basically a one-hit wonder everywhere else. That hit, though, was huge. "Hey Little Girl" made the Top 20 in most European countries in 1982, and it is still playing regularly on oldies stations these days. Weirdly enough, or maybe not, as the U.S. were slower to embrace synth-pop, "Girl" didn't even chart in the U.S. (though it made both the rock and dance charts), but five years later Icehouse became a two-hit wonder there with "Electric Blue" and "Crazy" both making the top twenty. Not surprisingly, as by that time they had embraced a more openly mainstream pop-rock sound.

Icehouse came, like pretty much any Australian band ever, out of the pub rock circuit, because when you were an upstart band down under that's what you did. But, like INXS who started out at pretty much the same time, Icehouse fell under the spell of the new exciting sounds of New Wave and synth pop acts, and much like Michael Hutchence & Co. they embraced that music for the first couple of years of their existence, alternating icy synth songs and nervy New Wave-style rock tracks. Funnily, of course, their debut album isn't Flowers by Icehouse, but rather Icehouse by Flowers, which was the band's name for the first three and a half years of their existence. But when they got European distribution deals and didn't want to get confused witt Scottish band The Flowers, they essentially switched things around, becoming Icehouse instead. Which, ironically means that retrospectively they got their own theme song with the title song of the Icehouse album.  

Icehouse was, and is, and always has been, Iva Davies' baby. He was the bandleader, and sometimes the entire band. Icehouse's breakthrough, 1982's Primitive Man was essentially a Davies solo record (with some help on percussion from co-producer Keith Forsey), later band configurations would sometimes include early band members   like Michael Holste, but essentially Davies recruited whoever he needed at any given time. (There are at least 24 current or former Icehouse members). The music was as fluid and prone to changes as the band line-ups. Icehouse is, perhaps fittingly, the iciest and most European-sounding of their releases, almost exclusively centred around synthesizers. Primitive Man is still pretty firmly in the synth pop mold, but you can hear the rock guitars starting to knock on the door. Sidewalk two years later still had keyboards, but as a background feature for what was now a robust pop-rock sound, as was follow-up Measure To Measure a year later. Man Of Colours, again released only a year later, shows them at their most AOR, mainstream-ready. The band's last two albums, Code Blue and Big Wheel, have the band plateauing, but on a high level, still churning out top notch pop singles like "Big Wheel". 

Ir's interesting how closely Icehouse's evolution mirrors that of INXS, with both making major strides towards the mainstream in 1984, INXS with The Swing (though really, they had already started a year earlier with Shaboo Shooba) and Icehouse with Sidewalk. While INXS placed their bets on slightly r'n'b-influenced dance grooves and the increasingly Jagger-esque vocals of Hutchence, Davies' version of mainstream pop-rock had the slightest hints of heartland rock tucked under its shiny sheens of keyboard and guitars. Both bands realized that the novelty and reach of synth pop was starting to wear off, and adapted appropriately. INXS of course rode their formula to worldwide success, and while Icehouse's success outside of its homeland and New Zealand was more modest, they made a nice career for themselves. 

The Best Of Both Worlds gives you pretty much all the Icehouse you'll ever need. I thought a chronological order wasn't the way to go, instead I tried to go for an anti-chronological, flow-based assembly, that is still following an ordering principle. These 37 tracks are spread out over two discs thematically. Disc One (House Of Ice) has the band's more experimental and electronic work, focusing mainly on material from their first two albums and later songs that fit the mold, while disc two (House Of Fire) has the more accessible mainstream pop rock music from Sidewalk onwards. Most, but not all of their (commercially) biggest songs are here, but also a number of album tracks and single b-sides. I know I harp on a lot on this blog about sequencing and flow and yadda yadda, so I'll keep it short. The slice of moodiness called "Coda" was originally the closing track of disc one, but b-side instrumental "Promised Land" already fulfilled the function of a moody, instrumental outro, so "Coda" got placed at the tail end of disc two, fittingly being the short, sweet coda to the entire Icehouse experience of The Best Of Both Worlds. But in search of bookends, I now looked for a moody opening, a sort of overture to go with this coda, and found it in the (slightly shortened) Midnight Mix of "Crazy", which is almost all atmosphere. 

There, that's it. Sequencing discussion over. That was short and painless compared to some other write-ups, wasn't it? So, now it really is off to the music, which - if you are not a somewhat commited follower of early Aussie 80s synth pop or early 90s Australian mainstream rock, a bit of a niche genre in both cases I would think - you are in for some surprises, and a collection of interesting synth and New Wave ditties on one hand, and really well-made pop and rock confections on the other. The Best Of Both Worlds, indeed. 

Hotdayum! Them's Chartbusters back, fellas, so let's start the hootenanny...

Round two for our dip into bluegrass takes on popular songs from...oh...about the last 60 years or so. Volume one was exclusicely sourced from the Pickin' On... series, which will stay the main source of that series, but I decided to open up the series for any well-done bluegrass cover of a popular song. This mainly happened because, Honeywagon, one of my favorite bands on the CMH/Pickin On... roster , well presented on volume one, left relatively quickly. Then again, so did Cornbread Red, who at least left a ton of music behind. So, Honeywagon released at least two albums covering a single artist after leaving the Pickin' On... series, covering Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga. One is more likely to be featured here than the other, I let you guess which one it is.  

Besides stalwarts Honeywagon, Cornbread Red and Iron Horse we also have the return of The Sidekicks, though that is, as I speculated last time around, not a real band, but whatever studio pros mark Thornton is lining up in his Sidekcik Sound Studios in Nashville. Consequently, The Sidekicks have a ton of different vocalists and not really an identifiable style, unlike the three former bands. 

The Sidekicks might be anonymous, but their studio logo is pretty cool

Newcomers to Vol. 2 of Bluegrass Chartbusters are The Petersens, a family band from Branson, Missouri, the "live music capital of the world". The mom as the steadying presnce on upright bass, her three daughters and son, plus a family who mainly plays the dobro. They play gospel standards as well as - more interesting for these comps - pop and rock classics. Also showing up for the first time are Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standards, who produced an album of Lynyrd Skynyrd covers for CMH and Tim May, already featured on these pages with his Neil Young tribute.  

The list of artists covered include, among others,  Steppenwolf, The Mamas & The Papas, Journey, The Doors, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Buffalo Springfield, and Aerosmith for the classic rock era; Whitney Houston, Men At Work, Survivor, and Bon Jovi for the 80s; Pearl Jam, Barenaked Ladies and Green Day for the 90s, and Lifehouse, Aloe Blacc and Colbie Caillat for music from the 2000s. 

This volume follows in the footsteps of the first one, in that I stuck with serious readings of these songs. For now I have excluded acts like The Cleverlys or Boss Hoss (I'm kind of on the fence as far as Hayseed Dixie are concerned), who are really doing a piss-take on the genre, and are really leaning too much into the country yokel humor part for me. No, these aren't parodies, these are well-done, respectful bluegrass renditions of some very fine songs. That may be your gig, or it isn't, but for the former of y'all, there's 75 minutes of very fine music awaiting you. Now, about that hootenanny...