Ok, Ok, I Know This Isn't Da Capo...

 

...much to the disappointment of some. I had thought about that album, because it came up in the thread on A-sides and B-sides, and a reader had already asked me to do an alternate, read : better version of Love's Da Capo, to which I can only say: I would if I could but I won't 'cause I can't. Other than a couple of single edits and b-sides, there is simply nothing in the can that can replace “Revelation”, which is exactly what everyone thought it was at the time: a cheap and easy way to fill a record side for a band that only had half an album's worth of songs, while also simultaneously proclaiming hipness Two birds with one stone, though the third bird, a pigeon, was the record buyer in this scenario. But unless someone finds an old cookie jar in Arthur Lee's estate with long-thought lost tapes from the period, Da Capo will probably have to stay as it is.

But there's another, less heralded album that has the exact same problem of Da Capo: A useless and seemingly neverending, tiresome long jam that takes up almost an entire record side. The band, as you have wildly guessed from seeing the above cover art is Poco, and the scene of the original crime was their second, self-titled album. The year before Poco had issued Pickin' Up The Pieces, their debut album that was not without drama, when controm freak Richie Furay pushed Randy Meisner out of the band. Recently relistening to Pickin' Up The Pieces, I can say that that album hasn't held up particularly well, it's very twee-sounding, with some cheesy 60s countrypolitan orchestration , the constant forced 'yee-haw's and laughter are grating and the band had not yet really figured out how to put the rock in country rock. The self-titled follow-up was supposed to change that, showing to the public a more hard-edged sound. And the best way that the band thought up to do so, was to record their own extended jam number.

Poco decided to re-record “Nobody's Fool” from their debut album, which would then lead into a quasi-sidelong jam (they squeezed in one number before it, but at 18 and a half minute that jam could have filled up its own side easily). Here's the thing: It's not even memorably dreadful, just dreadfully dull. Pure boredom for about fifteen minutes straight. They thought they had what it takes to pull that off, but they don't. There's no real musical ideas, no development, no musical themes or motifs that emerge. Just a steady, unchanging rhythm, then Messina noodles a bit on his guitar, then Rusty Young gets to make his pedal steel sound like an organ – which can be impressive for a short spurt, but grows tiresome very quickly, as everything else here – then George Grantham gets a short percussion solo, and then rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, snore, zzzzzzzzz, oh I'm sorry, did I miss something?

As indicated by the Spanish name for the jam section (“El Tonto De Nadie, Regressa”, or Nobody's Fool Revisted) Poco decided to style their jam after Santana. Terrible idea. Not only because they don't have the chops to do it, but why would you want to listen to these guys try that (and, inevitably, fail)? If I want to listen to Santana-style Latin guitar jams, I can just listen to Santana, I don't need a country rock band that has no business doing that kind of music doing a second rate imitation of it. So, “El Tonto De Nadie, regressa” is no bueno, and thus needs to go. Or almost. For this alternate version of Poco's second album I didn't have quite enough material to entirely say Adios to “El Tonto De Nadie, Regressa”. But I cut down that jam drastically, by about three quarters. Out goes almost all of the fake Santana stuff, and everything else is there in very small measures, including the little wordless vocalizing section that should have been the end of the jam, if they didn't had to akwardly go back to the Latin stuff, and then even more akwardly tack the refrain of “Nobody's Fool” onto the end, just to remind people that this was supposed to be the same song. If you think that even at four minutes the jam section drags a bit, imagine this being four times as long with no significant upgrade in interest.

Long-time readers will be familiar with a trope of my alt albums: The newly-minted title song as bookends, made easier by the Poco anthology The Forgotten Trail offering an acoustic version of “You Better Think Twice”. It probably annoyed the deathly jealous Richie Furay to no end that the sole Jim Messina-written number became the signature tune of this album, but there you go. It certainly wouldn't be the end of his frustrations. It also feels appropriate to name a sophomore effort You Better Think Twice, and just to amuse myself, instead of going the song & reprise route, both versions' titles are differentiated by their (Once) and (Twice) tags. Finally, there was an unused Rusty Young instrumental, “Last Call (Cold Enchilada)”, more country and much more sprightly than the “El Tonto” stuff. With that back in, it was all about balancing the longer, instrumental sections (of which the seven minute “Anyway Bye Bye” also has quite a bit) with the shorter and more succinct songs – et voilà, here's a way more listenable version of their second album minus the braindead jam deadweight.

Now, you should really think twice about leaving that album behind. It's not quite top notch Poco, but the pieces are not only picked up, but falling into place. The evolution of Poco will indeed be a topic worth following, as I have been on a bit of a Poco bender recently, so there will be another couple of albums of improved Poco coming your way in the next weeks. So, get on board right now with one of the most underrated bands of the 70s...

Get ready for the biggest, baddest All Pearls, No Swine Megapack ever...

 

Ha, promise upheld. Last week, a new reader (Hi Dave !) asked for an upload of the precedent All Pearls No Swine Megapacks. But instead of hiding those in the backpages of this blog, I'd say I put this up on the front page, so any other newbies, johnny-come-latelies or folks wanting to stuff holes in their collection can do so in one fell swoop. Yup, you read that right dear reader, for the same very very low price of nothing, you'll get not one, not two, but all three Megapacks, for the biggest and baddest All Pearls, No Swine Megapack ever.

This pack contains All Pearls, No Swine Volumes 1 – 30. That's 600 songs across tons of genres and five decades and change. Literally hundreds of songs to discover or rediscover, if you are just getting with the All Pearls, No Swine program. Fifty years of music that didn't bother the charts but hopefully find their way into your hearts. So, go and unpack the big All Pearls, No Swine Megapack and start discovering!

And for dessert, here's some completely gratuitous free cheesecake.

What If It's April's Fool's Day And Van Morrison Does The Fooling..?

 

George Ivan Morrison is not known to be a jolly good fellow, he's known - and has forever been known - to be a cranky, cantankerous old man, even when he was still a young man. So it takes a lot to get a guy like Van Morrison to do practical jokes. Like a recording contract that Morrison felt limited him brutally in his creativity for example. His contract with Them's former manager ans his new label BANG Records – despite netting him a top ten hit and the song most associated with him in “Brown Eyed Girl” - quickly became an albatross around his neck, when Berns issued eight tracks – that Van Morrison thought was going to be the a- and b-sides of four singles – without the artist's permission or even knowledge.

Morrison's fortune seemed to turn when Berns's turned bad, keeling over from a heart attack in late 67 at only 38 years old, belatedly victim of a chronic weakening of the heart as a child following a bout of rheumatic fever. Warner Brothers bought him out of his contract with Bang records, enforced by Berns' widow Ilene, who herself seemed to be a piece of work. Let's just say it certainly sounds shady when a record label does a buy-out in cash in an abandoned warehouse. So, Van Morrison was free to pursue the songs and recordings he had started before the whole BANG Records misadventure and that would shortly turn into the all-time classic Astral Weeks. All's well that ends well, right?

Except, except, except...in that infamous, and infamousy lopsided contract with Bang Records that Van the Man had, in true rock star fashion, failed to read entirely or in detail, called for a sort of 'severance fee' of no less than 36 songs still due to Berns' publishing company within a year. So, if you're Van Morrison, what do you do? Well, you take an out of tune guitar, make up a bunch of nonsense songs which are mostly extremely short doodles (the longest one clocks in at an amazing minute thirty three, the magnificent opus known as “The Big Royalty Check”) and often parodies of existing songs like “La Bamba”, “Twist And Shout” and “Hang On Sloopy”.

The latter two are of course no coincidence, rather an example that Morrison's humor could be quite sharp and cutting – not above mocking a dead man, the two are Bert Berns co-compositions. Man, when Van gets a chance to twist the knife in...(into a dead man's body, that is). George Ivan Morrison secetly – or not so secretly – is the Hulk: you better not make him angry, you wouldn't like him when he's angry. And he is probably angry most of the time.

This is hilariously, viciously uncommercial stuff that of course Ilene Berns could never use, at least officially. (The jury is still out when this showed up on bootlegs and gray market releases whether these were stolen or let go for a small fee). But it's indefinitely more listenable, than, say, Machine Metal Music, and for what is essentially a send up, he didn't charge people any money like Neil Young did with Everybody's Rockin'.

So, what to do with this stuff, that you astute readers have surmised will be an April's Fool's Day-approved One Buck Record of the day? Well, I don't expect this to be anyone's favorite Van Morrison album anytime soon. Or ever. But it's fun while it lasts, and everyone should hear it once, just to acknowledge that the Vanster does have a sense of humour, twisted as it may be. Some even claim they have seen Van smile once or twice, but those reports have been unconfirmed. Actually, listen to him crack himself up with the completely ridiculous nonsense vocalizing of “Chickee Choo”.

Anyway, if you're mentally and physically ready to hear Morrison masterpieces such as his two part epic “Blow In Your Nose”/”Nose In Your Blow”, “Want A Danish”, “The Wobble” or “You Say 'France' And I Whistle”, well here is your chance.So, check this out, maybe your new favorite Van Morrison song is just a click away (I wouldn't put money on it). Approached with the right state of mind, this should bring a smile to your face, as you listen to Van Morrison gleefully piss all over the concept of contractual obligation.

The One Buck Guy Has Some Cheap Tricks To Lure You...

 ...as well as some old ploys and a bunch of shenanigans. Joe Ely on thursday was a good start, but I thought to myself, "Gee, OBG, it's been a while that you had some really crunchy music on here", and who can provide more crunch, plus more knowing ridiculousness, plus one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time, than Rockwood, Illinois's finest? 

And since me and you and everyone we know own already all the Cheap Trick classics - ok, maybe you don't, but we all know you should - today's One Buck Records is obviously something a little different, which hopefully has even the Cheap Trick connoisseur have his ears perk up. Because, as it should, this is an exclusive comp that you won't find in stores or elsewhere, collecting most of Cheap Trick's rare material from their heyday - I didn't bother with stuff from the last years (ok, decades now). What you get is the Cheap Trick we all know and love from the mid-70s to the late 90s. 

I'm also throwing in a couple of rare Robin Zander solo tracks, because why the hell not. Who's gonna stop me, right?! Also, as said, one of the finest voices in rock'n'roll, and he doesn't always get his due (Zander solo tracks are nos. 13,14,17 and 19 on disc two). Most of the tracks here are sourced from their box set Sex, America, Cheap Trick, that offered a huge amount of alternative versions, demos and live cuts. This was of course to lure in the collector, as well as not devaluing entirely the original albums. (Whether that really worked is another question for another day) Having all these albums brought me to the idea of collecting only these rarities in one place, aided and abetted by another dozen cuts of outtakes, live or bonus tracks.

And that is that. Old Ploys, Cheap Tricks & Other Shenanigans is the rare anthology that I sequenced chronologically, mainly because their music didn't change much over the twente years and change this set covers. Disc One presents music from 1977 to 1982, though to have a kick-ass opener (or, say, a more kick-ass opener), the single version of "Southern Girls" is presented slightly out of order.

You also get such Cheap Trick classics as "High Roller" and "Everything Works If You Let It" in different versions, as well as such unexpected treasures like their live medley take on Velvet Underground – not an obvious inspiration for the band – with "Waiting For The Man/Heroin". These four years were arguably the high point of the band, and even this alternate history gives you a good impression of how and why.

Disc Two covers more ground, going from 1982 to 1999, from one of their last indisputable classics in "If You Want My Love" to "That 70s Song", their reworked version of Big Star's "In The Streets" for modern sitcom classic That 70s Show, brought the band back to mind, if not into a huge spotlight. Quality is arguably and admittedly slightly spottier, kind of like the band's career itself. Of course, if you want to complete your collection of rarities, be sure to check out the re-upped Cheap Trick – Ruckus At The Movies, that collects all their original soundtrack contributions in one tidy package.

Et voilà, that is a bunch of old ploys, cheap tricks and shenanigans to immerse yourself in, full of trademark Rick riffage, Zander zounds, and the rock-solid support of the band's rhytm section (Beauty and The Beast?). Get your airguitar poses ready, ladies and gentlemen, Cheap Trick are going to rock the house...(and not with domestic problems, fingers crossed !).

That Mr. Ely, He Was One Of A Kind...Here's More Proof

When I posted Easy Street in December to honor the then recently deceased Joe Ely, I mentioned that the outtakes from his MCA sessions in the mid-80s were split into two for more reasonably timed and balanced albums. So here is the promised part two, One Of A Kind. Which he was. As with Easy Street, the sound is indeed very mid-80s, though maybe a touch less so than on the first album. One Of A Kind is a record that puts the rock into roots rock, starting straight off with three uptempo rockers, only slowing down for (imaginary) side closer "They Sing Of Her Beauty". a trademark beautiful country ballad. 

And then it's pedal to the medal again with the newly minted title song and "Back To My Molehill", a Zydeco-styled number that reminds us that Ely was an Americana artist in the truest sense, mixing different music styles into his music that isn't bound by the sometimes rigid style codes of the alt country crowd he influenced.  This is also abundantly clear with expansive album closer "Take Me Down", which has some reasonably avant garde keyboard sequences mixed in (New Wave oblige?). 

Like Easy Street, One Of A Kind's eight tracks show a performer who has a unique take on the genre, and these tracks should have been issued a lot earlier (as in, ever). For some fine music that brings to mind folks like The Mavericks or even Los Lobos (on "Molehill"), switch lanes from Easy Street and listen to the one and only Joe Ely, truly One Of A Kind...

Edit: I wanted to set a link to Easy Street and reup that one, but initially forgot. Both is now done, in case you want the double shot of Mr. Ely...

No Cleaning Required: All Pearls, No Swine Still Shine...

Even if the gaps in between volumes of the OG of this blog are getting wider, this isn't part of my spring cleaning program. You'll get your fill of All Pearls, No Swine at least once a month, so with Volume 37 we're back on schedule, with another volue harking back to its roots, i.e. it's set in the 1970's, birthplace of some of the greatest hidden gems in this series. and there's no reason why this volume wouldn't add to that list. Take the opening track, for example, an exquisite version of "Drift Away", recorded shortly after English actor and former teen idol Mike Berry cut the first version for his vet-goes-country routine that almost every early rock'n'roll star did at the time, but a year before Dobie Gray made it a hit. John Henry Kurtz ony ever recorded one album, but I think his version of "Drift Away" might be my favorite, more soulful than Berry's, but a little more rocking than Gray's, it really is the best of both worlds. 

Speaking of: This volume carries a number of songs that are genre-hybrids with a vague soul or funk influence, as shown by the horn sections used: Johnny Jenkins' swampy "I Walk On Gilded Splinters", Jack Bonus's southern-fried, soulful "Chicago Wind", Danny McBride's "Believe In Me" and The Jerry Hahn Brotherhood's uptempo "Martha's Madman". There's also some oddities on here, such as the remains of The Flying Burrito Brothers hiring (or rather, lending) a new lead singer and trying their hand at discofied soft rock. Really, guys? I selected "She's The Tall One" as a historical curio, sung by the drummer, which makes it better than the ones with nominal lead singer Bobby Cochran, it's also pretty much the only decent cut from that (mis-)adventure. 

Ugh, Rhinestone Cowboys? Disco Inferno? Sign Of The Times For Sure...

As usual, we also have our share of sensitive singer/songwriter stuff and some Americana/country rock  (plus some crunchy new wave/power pop courtesy of The Tearjerkers). We're not gonna change a winning combination now, are we? The somewhat sightly akwardly named Fishbaugh, Fishbaugh and Zorn (doen't quite roll of the tongue like Crosby, Stills & Nash, does it?) are back with the beautiful "Stuck In The Fog In London". as is Huckle with the lovely "Hello Sunshine". and Tom Eslick with "Girl by The River". Oh, Heartwood have definitely shown up, with their rustic country rock, too. There might be some other APNS alumni in there, but over twenty volumes is a lot to browse just to check so I'll leave that task for...no one in particular, probably, but feel free, folks.

Oh, I almost forgot: in between the collection of unknown or little remembered folks like Doug McArthur, Jim Spencer, Marc Jonson, James McCarthy or David Mattson, one name sticks out: Why, it's good ol' Paul Simon with the demo of the classic "Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard". So now we can still wonder together what i is that mama pajama saw that was against the law. Rhymin' Simon, indeed. 

That's some bad hat hood, Harry Paul. 

So, folks, another day here at One Buck Records; another volume of All Pearls, No Swine; another seventy minutes and change of fine music from the 1970s, with guaranted original vinyl crackle from back in the day for the vintage experience! Dig into All Pearl, No Swine Volume 37 and see what you'll find...

...And He Just Keeps On Truckin': The Ballad Of Will Beeley

In my very first post of music here on One Buck Records, Will Beeley was there, as part of the line-up of the very first All Pearls No Swine more than two a,d a half years ago. And as said in that APNS write-up, I planned to post more of some of the folks on it, with the first APNS being both a teaser for the series itself, as for the type of music and artists that would end up here on One Buck Records. So it was planned from the beginning that I would post a Will Beeley compilation titled So Many Miles Down The Road - The Music Of Will Beeley which incidentally was ready at the time this blog started, and then got pre-empted, and passed over for something else, again and again, and left waiting in the shadows. Kind of like Will Beeley himself. 

It's maybe fitting, in a bittersweet way, that even my mission of redicovering Beeley got waylaid in the same way that the man's music career has. Beeley had three bites at the apple, but many years, even decades apart. And, when those bites didn't stick, Beeley went back to join the workforce. Something's got to bring the bacon home, and if it can't be music, it'll be something else. Like long-haul trucking. Little Feat's Lowell George might have been the king of the truck driving song ("Willin'", "Truck Stop Girl", "Six Feet Of Snow"), but he never hauled ass in a big rig down some highway. Will Beeley did, and happily so, after his music career repeatedly stalled out. Though most websites get it wrong, having him hit the highway in the early 80s after his music career as a performer stalled out.  

Beeley wouldn't haul ass and liquid gases across highways for another twenty years,  taying with the music business, but not necessarily as planned. After a career as a record store owner ended unceremoniously after only a couple of months, Beeley got hired as DJ in a club in San Antonio, then a ouple of years later moved to Albuquerque to work in talent relations & acquisitions for The Midnight Rodeo fpr 13 years. But in 2002, at age 51, he found himself aged out of the job and finally started getting into long-haul trucking, where he and his wife would split the miles between them, transporting cryogenic frozen liquids across the country. 

So Many Miles Down The Road was a nod to that job, as well as how long his sporadixc music career had lasted without taking off. And then, as hinted above, something funny - or not - happened on the way to finally posting that Beeley comp in January. I was surprised, delighted and slightly aghast (for the just started write-up on this blog) when I realizd that he had published an album of demos from 1970 that I had missed when I compiled my compilation. So, Will Beeley got pushed into the waiting queue again as I scouted those 1970s demos, found they were all good to excellent and then went back to the drawing board on that compilation.     

As has recently happened with Bob Welch, the readjustments changed the proposition entirely. What was for years a 24-track single disc compilation called So Many Miles Down The Road is now a gargantuan, 40-track two-disc anthology called A Highway Ain't A Home after one of those newly added demos. Of course, for the last twenty plus years, the highway was Will Beeley's home, but that he couldn't have known back in 1970. 

Uh-oh. We're five paragraphs into what was supposed to be a simple write-up and haven't even talked about the music yet. Beeley is, at his heart, a folk-singer, with clear country influences creeping in over time. His private press debut Gallivantin' - only 200 copies were pressed, and the packaging is ultra-low budget - has him covering Bob Dylan and Buffy St. Marie, but his work at tims also recalls fellow Texan Townes Van Zandt or John Prine. The Allmusic review for his sophomore album Passing Dream wants to position that album as close to Outlaw country and even the alt country of the 90s, but a much closer point of comparison is Gordon Lightfoot, especially on that album. By the late 70s both Lightfoot and Beeley had done some hard living (Lightfoot was still in the throes of alcoholism), and that had put some strain on their voices, which really sound a lot alike on the songs from that album. And Lightfoot of course also let more and more country and pop influences infiltrate his folk during the 70's, much like Beeley here.

Okay, you got a friendly folk-country-pop record, at times closing in on soft rock, to sell. 

aybe don't make it look like a heavy metal album with a weird psycho on the cover? 

jusr sayin'...

Except of course, Lightfoot did it over the course of severeal albums, so you can follow the evolution of his music in real time. With only Gallivantin' in 1971 and Passing Dream in 1979 (barely) issued, the same can't be said for Beeley. His third album, Highways & Heart Attacks is another story altogether. When speialist label Tompkins Square asked to re-issue Beeley's more-or-less forgotten albums, much to its author's surprise, he hadn't counted on the idea, that dece,t sales and write-ups - not to mention the whole trucker angle that almost all articles used - resulted in Tompkins Square proposing to foot the bill for a third album. Highways & Heart Attacks is half songs from the eraly to mid-80s, half written in the 2010s. 

As a result, Beley's three periods of recording activity (1970, 1977 for Passing Dream, and 2018 for Highways & Heart Attacks) are quite distinct from each other - the clear-voiced folkie of the early 70s, the slightly rougher edged folk-pop and country crooner of the late 70s and the grizzled vet from the 2010s, whose voice is now equally grizzled. As such, it is easy to distinguish the songs and you will easily be able to identify which songs is from which epoch. For reasons of variety and flow I decided to mix songs from all eras. 

Whether you like pure folk rock, or its roots-inflected permutations, you should find lots of things to like in here. Will Beeley had three stabs, and even if he couldn't make a career out of his music, but he made each of those stabs count. Join the singing trucker on his trails with A Highway's Not A Home - A Will Beeley Anthology...