Hoo boy, do I have some pearls (and no swine) for you...

I like all of my APNS compilations, obviously. But hearing some of these back, years after making them, while prepping them now for release on the blog I realize little issues with flow, sequencing or song choice that I might do different now. But these comps are what they are because they are what they were when I put them together. However, you can still have favorites in the middle of all these albums that you love. Some you just love a little bit more. And All Pearls No Swine Volume 11 is one of those. It is, no doubt about it, one of my personal favorites from the series. 

Why? For one thing, it has - as do all volumes - a number of fantastic songs, but overall maybe more than some of the others. And it definitely has a flow that some of the other APNS volumes don't have, there are no dead spots here and I think it flows really nicely from its different sections and selections to others. 

Our three favorite Frenchmen Yves, Serge & Victor are back with more fab country rock, and so is Danny "Kooch" Kortchmar, still in a New Orleans kinda mind. Doug Firebaugh offers another small Americana vignette and when I say small, I mean it. "Moon Upon The Sea" is 35 seconds long, but the'yre fabulous 35 seconds. Country offer up another fine - you guessed it - country song and Jay Bolotin is back with "Dime Novels", a hidden classic that I now belatedly wonder why I didn't keep it on my Bolotin compilation. Ah well, it works fine here. 

And those are just the APNS alumni. We have a bunch of new faces, some known, some less so. Sometimes it's all in the name. You probably know "Danny's Song" and the singer's voice also sounds strangely familiar. That's because it is indeed Kenny Loggins, and vocals and arrangements are very similar to the later hit version he recorded with Jim Messina. But he spent some time in the Florida group Gator Creek, where he cut this first version. You of course also know the James Gang, but this is the less heralded version without Joe Walsh, though the combo of vocalist Roy Kenner and guitar slinger Tommy Bolin is a more than capable replacement at times, as for the hot rocker "Wildfire" presented here. And you might remember Dana Gillespie, one-time Bowie paramour, who had some mighty singing pipes lodged in some mighty...erm, good lookin' packaging. (You might have noticed above)

And we got the same healthy assortment of self-published and mini-label acts,mainly from the country and country folk ranks. Say hello to, among others, Jim Wise & Sky High, Paul Edwards and Richard Dobson. Fine music all around. 

So, let's get to it. 

 

Sail On Sailor: How Holland got bigger, bolder and better

So, let me tell you a little story about how an album that never was could have come to be. 

It is 1972 and the Beach Boys are busy working on their new album, far from prying eyes in far away Baambrugge in the Netherlands. In this reality, "Sail On Sailor" isn't the result of record company pressure for a hit single, but Brian Wilson came up with the track idea and structure and then lets the Boys finish the track. Manager Jack Rieley soon realizes that with all the tracks the Boys are working on, the album will clearly run too long for vinyl limits. In this reality, Carl & The Passions doesn't exist and All This Is That, the album that does, isn't stupidly packaged together with Pet Sounds in one of the worst marketing decisions ever (thanks, Mike!). So, Rieley can hatch a plan to let the band's creative energy intact and convince the brass at Warners/Reprise to let the band issue a double album. But Rieley's ambitions don't stop there. 

Always aiming to have the Beach Boys be (or appear) hipper and with the time, Rieley notices an undercurrent of wanderlust, of going places that permeat almost all of the songs the band worked on (and even some of the CATP/ATIT outtakes which will come into play later). With the exception of “Only With You”, “Hard Time” and “Funky Pretty”, every song either directly sings about traveling, describes a place to travel to or makes allusions to leaving town, finding a new place to live etc. So Riley presents his plan to the band to market the new record as a concept album, a loose travelogue that is united by the wish to  move and discover  in the lyrics, as well as the music itself. The band agrees, and together concoct startegies how to make the concept more visible. Soon the band and Rieley decide to structure the album around recurring elements, notably different versions of “Sail On Sailor” and “Steamboat” which serve as the album's Leitmotive. 

Waitaminute...is that Lou Reed driving the car? Oh, nevermind, it's good ol' Jack Rieley. How fitting.

Rieley's and the band's ambitious plans run into a bit of a snag, however, when Brian finally unveils what is supposed to be his new stroke of genius, Mount Vernon And Fairway. As in real life and history, everyone but Briaan and Rieley is aghast when Brian unveils his newest quote-unquote master piece. But unlike real-life, where the band pacifies deeply hurt Brian with its inclusion as a bonus EP (pushing the already astronomical budget even higher), here it's gone, terminated, deep-sixed, except for a small part: The powers that be, both in the Beach Boys and at Brother Records, recognize the drawing power of the name Brian Wilson, and having not only a new composition besides the “Sail On Sailor” and “Funky Pretty” co-writes, but also a Wilson vocal is too tempting, so parts of the music are edited into a ‘new’Wilson song, “Pied Piper”, here subtitled ‘A Dream Voyage’ to better fit into the concept of the album. The aforementioned snag, however, is that Wilson's work was pencilled in for almost an entire album side of the newly formatted double album. So, this is then the moment where the band begins to dig in the archives for suitable replacements, and come up with "Out In The Country" and "Sweet Something". And the rest, as they say, is history...

Alternate history, of course. But yeah, having an entirely different Holland doesn't sound as impossible or improbable as before, right?! As said in yesterday's write-up the release of the Sail On Sailor – 1972 box set was a gamechanger. Some of the stuff was a revelation, like the backing track for “Steamboat”. I mean, I always liked the tense soundscape with its quasi-industrial steamboat sounds at the beginning and the slashing guitar riff. But hearing the backing track for itself left me still marveling at how well-constructed this is. No Brian Wilson needed, we’re good here, guys. More proof that the talent for writing and arranging in the band didn't just reside with Wilson the Eldest. 

"Say, fellas, is this what that famous wanderlust is all about? 

Other tracks were both challenge and opportunity: The two versions of “Out In The Country” seem to have little to do with each other – one a fast country gallop, practically bluegrass, the other slower and organ-driven and arguably incomplete. The Allmusic review mentions that the song is “presented in two rough versions – pity they were never combined and finished”. Pity indeed, but I did my best. So I did combine these, as best as possible, and I think it works pretty well, having the quicker bluegrass sections alternate with the more pastoral vocal passages. Actually, the story of "Out In The Country" is a whole lot more complicated than these two outtakes let on. The 'country version' was a finished track (and it shows in the superior sound quality), possibly dating back all the way to the Sunflower sessions, but was prepped for release on Carl & The Passions before getting binned in a malicious 'accident'. The original “Out In The Country” has lead vocals from co-writer Don Goldberg, though they do sound a lot like Al Jardine's and would have been fine to my ears. 

But Bruce Johnston then 'accidentally' 'misplaced' the tape for this song because he didn't want an outsider have lead vocals on a Beach Boys album (and, coincidentally him having no lead vocals on said album). Thankfully, he himself got misplaced shortly afterwards, entirely voluntary, for basically being a dick around the Wilsons and/or Jack Rieley (depending on who tells the story). Cowardly and stupidly, the powers that be still wiped Goldberg's vocal from the finished version of the box set (in 2022! Come on!), but both versions of the song are strong enough to deserve to be heard, methinks, so the original “Out In The County” shows up as Part I, while the hybrid mix is now Part II. These tracks, like "Sweet Something", also widen the already wide palette of Holland: The two Carl &The Passions outtakes are a clear outgrowth of the rootsy feel of that album, straight-up crossing into country territory. Overall, a very rich album became even richer with the inclusion of these outtakes. 

As usual, sequencing proved complicated. In early test run versions I'd often skip the 'California Saga', good as it is for Mike'n'Al standards, to get to the more intriguing things on this album. The solution: break up the saga and spread its three parts across three album sides. Balance the Chaplin/Fataar numbers with everyone else's (in real life, Mike Love absolutely would have blown a casket at the prospect of having lead vocals on a single song out of twenty!), get the right mix of uptempo, midtempo numbers and ballads and end each side on an obvious closer. Done, done and done. 

Seeing the fantastic cover art of the box set, it was immediately obvious to me to want to use it, as it is almost custom made for the 'concept' part of the album. As Hannibal Smith would say, I love it when a plan comes together. 

So, here it is. Sail On Sailor - A Travelogue In Twenty Chapters. Get on board and join the journey. 

The Beach Boys' other masterpiece: The Beauty of Holland

Holland is the best Beach Boys album post-1966. That is probably only a semi-bold statement. It goes to show that the quality of every Beach Boys album post-Pet Sounds was, uh, variable and quality control was sometimes...lax. But is it frivolous to suggest that Holland is the best Beach Boys album, like, ever?

Conventional rock and roll writing since, uh, well, pretty much the time that Pet Sounds came out tells us so. So let’s call it down the middle and say that Holland is by far my favorite Beach Boys album. I never tire of it, and I don’t need to be specifically in the mood to put it on. Pet Sounds, for all its brilliance, is an album-long mood piece, and it you’re not into some long, bitter-sweet melancholy, you might find yourself pushing it back into the shelf. There’s no question that the best songs on Pet Sounds – “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, “God Only Knows”, “Caroline No” – beat the stuffing out of most of Holland, because they’d beat the stuffing out of most albums. But overall, the quality of songwriting on Holland is amazingly high, especially considering that Brian Wilson was missing in action for pretty much all of it, and out of it when he was in. And there is an amazing variety on it that the single-mindedness of Pet Sounds can’t compete with. Almost every one of the songs here does something fresh and different, apart from maybe the throwback signature sound of “California”. 

I already mentioned in the write-up for All This Is That, the alternate Carl And The Passions – So Tough, that the “Durban Beach Boys” era including South Africans Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar as band members is easily my favorite. For the first time in years, the band was taking actual risks and ventured into a modernization of their sound. For years they had been running behind, constantly being out of step with the times and prevailing music trends. But put Holland on, without any other information for the prospective listener, and you couldn't tell when it was made. Could it be from 1969? 1972? 1975? 1978? There’s no telling. It’s a fantastic album, top to bottom, and the one time the latter-era Beach Boys sounded of their time. Or timeless.

Holland is arguably the high point for the band as a creative unit. Unfortunately, it was also the end of the road for the Beach Boys as any kind of viable, musically interesting band. The end came swiftly. In late 1972, even before Holland was released, hip manager Jack Rieley was sacked or quit (depending, again, on who tells the story), only to be replaced by Chicago manager James William Guercio (leading to some weird crossover attempts) and finally, the decidedly less hip Stephen Love – yes you guessed it, Mike’s brother. By mid-1973 Chaplin was gone and the last hold-out from this period, Fataar, finally left in late 1974. The same year saw the release and success of Endless Summer – a compilation of their surf’n’car hits – profiting from the nascent nostalgia of the burgeoning me-generation for a simpler time sealed the deal. From that point onwards, the Beach Boys would essentially be a Mike Love-led oldies oriented show band. They perked up briefly in 1979 with L.A. (Light Album), the last Beach Boys album of any worth - and, not incidentally an album with more Carl And Dennis and less Mike and Al - but artistically they were essentially done after Holland. So that album is the testament to the Beach Boys being worthy of acclaim as a band, not just the singers and executors of Brian Wilson’s music. And what a testament it is. 

And yet. And yet. Something about it disturbed me, especially after picking up the very good In Concert album issued in 1973. It’s liner notes mentioned that the extremely enjoyable Champlin-Fataar song “We Got Love” was kicked off Holland at the last second to make room for “Sail On Sailor”, after the Reprise record men complained that “we don’t hear a single”. But they kicked off the wrong tune! Because if Holland has a weak spot, it’s the Chaplin-Fataar song that stayed, “Leaving This Town” with its (to me) slightly tedious and long-winded Moog solo, as well as the tendency for all Chaplin-Fataar songs to run a little long, or at least longer than strictly necessary, due to having extended vamp sections at the end. But that one also has Wilson and Love in the credits (and thus, ready to get royalties), so I can see why “We Got Love” got voted off the album while still giving the two ancillary members a token number.

Luckily for fans, the Beach Boys is one of the most-bootlegged band out there, so two other fascinating Holland outtakes were very well documented: the hot little Fataar-Chaplin rocker “Hard Time” (often called “Hard Times” on bootlegs) and the incredible “Carry Me Home”, a co-write between the South Africans and Dennis Wilson. The story of a dying soldier praying that he – or at least his body – make it back home could have been an unusually timely song for a Beach Boys album had it been included – a moving prayer for the boys and body bags coming back home from Vietnam. But, alas, it was maybe abandoned for that very reason, and I have my suspicion that a stout patriot like Mike Love probably has something to do with it.

This is going to be my second stab at an alternate version of Holland, after a first try as a single album I called Nether Lands a couple of years back, posted somewhere in the comments of a Beach Boys thread on the now dearly departed False Memory Foam Island. It essentially swapped “Leaving This Town” for “We Got Love” and reinstated the two mentioned outtakes, while shortening the long run-out grooves the Fataar-Chaplin team favored to make it work as a single album. But before the release of the big Sail On Sailor – 1972 box set two years ago, that was the best I could do, and I thought I was done with Holland. The box set yielded a heretofore unbooted Carl &The Passions outtake with another Fataar-Chaplin number, “Oh Sweet Something” as well as two versions of an aborted Carl &The Passions number, “Out In The Country”. Plus a wealth of backing tracks, a cappela versions and other tidbits. And the game was on, again...

End of part one.

Yup, folks, we're gonna stop here. The write-up for my alternate version of Holland kept getting longer and longer, slowly but surely marching towards the 2000 word mark, and more and more unwieldy to fit into a single blog post. So I decided to do what greedy Hollywood producers have done for years to double their profits: Split the damn thing in two! So, today's post has the back story and my impressions of Holland and its track selections, while the second part, which will drop tomorrow on these very pages, will have a deep dive into the what's and why's and what-have-you's of my alternate album.  

But, faithful readers, it would be unfair to have you read all my musings and then go away entirely empty-handed with the promise of the good stuff coming tomorrow. So, you'll find attached, as a little teaser, a couple of live "Durban Beach Boys" tracks (not from the official Live album, neither from the box set, I transferred a concert from You Tube, but can't tell you the date or venue) and my NAM Mix of "Carry Me Home", in case you haven't picked that one up with Volume Two of All Pearls, No Swine. 

See you tomorrow for Sail On Sailor, the double album concept record re-imagining of Holland...

One Album Wonders: Cometh A Lawman!

Since we can never have enough series on this here blog, here's another one for y'all. One Album Wonders will look at artists who for a number of reasons - lack of success, music industry malfaisance, change of lifestyle, what have you - managed only a single album. But not only that, the Wonder part already gives it away: These albums are really good! They deserve to have follow-ups and being heard by thousands instead of the hundreds or handfuls that most of these managed! And we're gonna start with one of the all-time best One Album Wonders, the kind of album that makes it worthwhile to rummage through loads of obscure stuff of unknown quality. 

If you've never heard of George Law, then you're probably not alone. A singer-songwriter who toiled away in his home state of Alabama, his sole, eponymous album was issued twice, in 1977 and 1979, both times without success. His slightly goofy look, well captured on the album cover, maybe wasn't going to help sell millions? But what a marvel it is. I don't want to throw out superlatives here, because there's a chance that folks will go "Huh? What's the big deal here?", and of course it helps that the Lawman hits my personal sweet spot, landing right between some polished country rock and a singer-songwriter album. 

Discogs has this listed as soft rock, which I think is overexaggerated, and some sites list this album as Southern Rock, which is even more exaggerated. To be fair, there is a single song that fits that mold, and it is dutifully titled "Southern Fried Rock'n'Roll". It also exemplifies what I like about this album: There is nothing fancy or show-offy about it, and unlike some of his fellow Southerners, he isn't tempted to draw things out needlessly. There is a drawn-out instrumental section, but it starts one minute into the song and is over about 45 seconds later, and the whole song is done in less than two and a half minutes. Some people can listen to various versions of The Allman Brothers Band's "Mountain Jam", all coming in over or around half an hour. I am not one of these people. I'd rather listen to Law getting the whole Southern Rock thing out of his system in about 8% of that time. 

His real strength are the mid-tempo tracks though. Songs like "Montgomery Town", "Ridge Song" and "Madison" sound like old friends, and once you've heard them you'll never want to let them leave. Well, I don't. Not to mention that in between these and Steve Young's "Seven Bridges Road", Madison County starts to sound like the most beautiful place on earth. Law at times has a perfectly 70s cosmic cowboy thing going, getting metaphysical on tracks like "Tomorrow's Always Today" or "Shine Sunshine". Or, you know, maybe good ol' George was just a heavy stoner, after all he did name his label Bongwater Records. 

He is backed on the album by jazz-prog group Backwater, which includes producer Tom Nist. This might also explain the rich instrumentation, including flugelhorn, clavinet and electric organ. That is probably also one of the secrets to the beauty of this album: The warmth and richness of its sound, certainly unusual for a self-released, private press record. 

George Law really does sound like the best parts of your favorite 70s music, or at least, well, mine. "Martha's Song" sounds like Jackson Browne wrote and sings it, while on beautiful album closer "Shine Sunshine" he sounds a little like Jimmy Spheeris. Even the least memorable track on this album (my vote: "Clouded Mind") is never less than beautifully played and sung. But really, there are no losers here. All killer, no filler, as they like to say, and all that in half an hour. Short and sweet.

Listen to this, it'll be the best half hour you can spend on music, or almost. Trust uncle OBG on this, or even better, tell me what you think of Mr. Law in the comments!

And now, let Law ring throughout the land...

Let me give you some flowers...blue roses, maybe...

You probably have to be both Europe-based and have a specific affinity for Americana and all kinds of roots and country rock to know the label Blue Rose. They're a German specialist label for distributing  exactly this kind of music, which - as you might have noticed - is exactly up the One Buck Guy's alley. So the idea of doing a little Blue Rose album sampler - albeit from yesteryear - came up quickly in thinking of fun things to post on this blog, especially because they feature artists that aren't universally known. It's sort of like an All Pearls No Swine, exclusively featuring roots-based artists from around the turn of the Millenium. Some of these were getting "next big thing" hype, some were probably always bound to being loved by hundreds rather than thousands. What they have in common, besides the chosen area of musical interest, is that there is some very fine music gathered here for your listening pleasure. 

The biggest name on here is most likely Ian Matthews, whose album A Tiniest Wham got distributed by Blue Rose, of  which "The Power And The Glory" is featured. The other big name is Alejandro Escovedo, whose masterpiece A Man Under The Influence got distributed in central Europe by Blue Rose."Rhapsody"showcases the sustained excellence of that album. And the Continental Drifters, Blue Rose's first signing and release, were of course a sort of Americana supergroup, including The Bangles' Vicki Peterson, the dB's Peter Holsapple, the Dream Syndicate's Mark Walton and Susan Cowsill from, uh, the Cowsills.  

                      It ain't no cheesecake, but that Trish Murphy is a purdy girl for sure...

Blue Rose Bouquet also shows the flexibility of the genre, which is mainly defined by how little defined it is. The Volebeats with "Radio Flyer" are essentially twangy power poppers, recalling Big Star. The Waco Brothers come from the rock, even punk-ish, side of the equation. Fred Eaglesmith's "Time To Get A Gun" is punk folk country, whereas Mount Pilot with "Last Respects" are pure bluegrass. The lovely Trish Murphy is coming from the pop side of the Americana spectrum. Blue Rose Bouquet also shows that the genre isn't defined by where it's from. The Volebeats hail from the Motor City, usually known for other music than country rock, whereas Reto Burrel is an Americana specialist from that well-known hotbed of American roots music: Switzerland! The Schramms continue the underknown and underrated tradition of country rock bands coming from New Jersey, in this case Hoboken. Ans Jim Roll, here with the ultra-catchy "1955" is from Chicago's suburbia. 

Jupiter Coyote is a Southern Rock band out of Brevard, North Carolina. Arthur Dodge is a grumpy taxi cab driver from the lovely town of Lawrence, Kansas (Go Jayhawks!) by day, country rocker leading his band The Horsefeathers by night (or vice versa). "A Delightful Disease" is as bad ass as country rock can be. Andy Van Dyke has the honor of being featured twice, first leading his band Rainravens - stalwarts of 90s alt country - through "Travellin' Heavy", then going solo acoustic with the fantastic "Taking You With Me". And there's more to discover within this lovely bouquet of hand-picked roots music for the discerning Americana fan. 

And now, just follow the advice of Hensley Sturgis in the lead-off track: Just enjoy the ride...

All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 10: I found some 80s stuff lying around...

Time for another round of our semi-popular series discovering unknown gems, and we're back in the 80s. This volume splits the difference between the first two 80s-themed volumes, half in the singer-songwriter, folk and country rock sound left over from the 70s, half embracing the shiny new sounds of the decade. So, on one hand this volume gathers up a bunch of stuff left from after the first 80s-themed volume was finished, so you'll find alumni like Jan Schim, Geoffrey A., Dan Knight and A Little Road And A Stone To Roll, as well as other self-published/micro-label folks such as Adrian Calandra and Chris Montgomery with the blissed oout respectively fitfully drugged out sound of "Narcotic Abusers". Did someone here say "psych folk"? A label that probably also works for Paul Mowbray, Scott Key and Dan Knight with the dramatic "Forever Grey Afternoons".  

And you also get to hear old heroes try out new things! Hear Rick Nelson go for a chunky 80s sound for "Chump Change Romeo"! Hear Ian Matthews continue his new wave adventures with Hi-Fi, though comrade David Surkamp is assuring lead vocals on "Time After Time"! Hear John Stewart do him one better, firing up the sequencer and going full Vangelis on "Behind The Wheel"! 

For some variety, hear Idlewild South declaring that Southern Rock isn't dead, stopping by at "Pedro's Bar and Grill". The song is the b-side of the lone single they issued in 1980 before splitting up a couple years later, then reuniting and cutting their debut album in 2014! This album even has known artists incognito, such as Elliott Smith showing up with his teen band Stranger Than Fiction. And some international flair, as folkie Nick Lambing is from Switzerland!

So, friends and neighbours, there's a bunch of cool little known and unknown music within, as is customary for the series. Enjoy, and tell me what you think of these folks in the comments, if you ever get around to it...

A change to this blog's flight plan...

A ton of things to be featured are lying on their dedicated space on my HDD for a good long while now, while other things just come up in the moment, while I post some of those first things. In more plain words: I tend to get distracted. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, since it means I'm still discovering and researching and reworking on the fly. Life is constant flux, so why should a music blog be any different. All this is a long-winded way to say that when I posted Yes' From A Page (A Single Page) a week ago that got me thinking of the Drama and Fly From Here era bands, which in turn got me interested in the origins of the latter album's centerpiece. I knew it was based on a piece Trevor Horn and Geoffrey Downes a.k.a. The Buggles had presented to Yes and occasionally played live on the Drama tour before that specific version of Yes, lovingly dubbed BugglYes by me as opposed to other fans' more dismissive-sounding The Yeggles, disbanded. It turns out that "We Can Fly From Here" has a much bigger importance for Mrs. Horn and Downes than initially thought, which also explains why that song is the thread that binds the two bands together, over a time span of almost forty years. 

"We Can Fly From here" has the distinction of directly and indirectly starting two bands: According to Horn's introductions in concert, it was the first song the Buggles ever wrote together, then became the song that got them the gig as the bulkheads of Drama-era Yes. They never got to finish a version of "We Can Fly From Here" for their debut album Adventures in Plastic, but - like other tracks - noticed how, well, proggish the song sounded and, having the same manager, decided to offer the song to Yes, who had recently suffered the defections of Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman. Whether the Buggles were angling for this or not, their meeting to offer "We Can Fly From Here" to Yes turned into the remains of Yes offering them a place in the band. A demo version of the song was produced in 1980, but the song seemngly wasn't developed much further and never made it onto Drama, though some archival live recordings exist. Horns and Downes then cut an impressive, elaborate demo in 1981 for possible inclusion on the second Buggles album, Adventures In Modern Recording, but this didn't come to pass, either. Basically , Horn and Downes decided to end their collaboration and Horn finished the album alone, with only three tracks featuring Downes, none of them "We Can Fly From Here". And then that was it, for a long time, for the song that started it all. 

Songs that have such a personal importance for its authors tend to die hard, though, and it seems obvious that Horn never really let the song go entirely.. So when the band reconnected with him in the late 2000s (after having been produced by him through their 1980s chart-making era, a.k.a. the Trevor Rabin years) and where throwing ideas around for a new studio album, Horn brought "We Can Fly From Here" up. Soon the idea was born to turn the original ideas into a long-form piece rivaling their early to mid-70s work, to be further developed from The Buggles' original demos. Oliver Wakeman, the keys man at the time was gently asked to leave to make place for Geoff Downes, because the latter was supposed to have a "greater sensibility for the material". Duh. Also brutally ironic, considering that Wakeman the Younger had suggested to contact Horn to begin with. The songs he developed finally ended up on From A Page, as mentioned in the intro. And so, BugglYes was reborn, or almost. 

Having recruited David Benoit from a Yes cover band to replace Jon Anderson a couple of years earlier, the first version of "Fly From Here", the long-form suite, featured him singing on the album that was named after it, 2011's Fly From Here. But the BugglYes were not quite done yet, and Horn still didn't have this song that was so close to his heart, in the form that he - secretly or not so secretly - wanted. After having unceremoniously fired Benoit for falling ill (history repeating itself for Yes vocalists), Horn - parallel to the band touring with Jon Davison - returned to Fly From Here and recorded replacement vocals for the entire album, including its centerpiece "Fly From Here" suite. The result, complete with new mixing and guitar and keyboard overdubs, was released in 2018 as Fly From Here: Return Flight. And, finally, after almost 40 years, the BugglYes had finally won. Their baby, the first song Horn and Downes wrote together, was finally out - with Horn on vocals and Downes on keyboards, like back in 1979. To be honest, I prefer the original 2011 version of the suite and Benoit's vocals, which seem more emotional and expressive, whereas Horn's vocals are more robotic, perhaps wilfully so, perhaps not. 

So, the album of the day. At four tracks it is probably more of an EP, though at 40 minutes length it's having classic album length. It captures the journey of the BugglYes' work on "We Can Fly From Here" from the relatively rudimentary first demo which is supposed to be Yes, but it's not obvious who besides Horn and Downes is playing on it. Even the drums could easily be a drum machine. Then, off to a live version from the same year's Drama tour, followed by the more elaborate demo Horns and Downes cut in 1981 and finally the suite from Fly From Here: Return Flight in slightly altered form. Some of the transitions of the suite were really iffy and not particularly thought out, glued together with an old piece of chewing gum and some duct tape. So I worked on the suite to get rid of some of these pretty bad transitions and tightened up the thing by eliminating some slow spots and redundancies (including the first part of Steve Howe's "Bumpy Ride" section, which was really badly integrated into the piece). "Fly From Here" is now coming in at a little over 19 minutes, almost five minutes less than the original. I think it works better that way. 

Looking at the journey of the song from its admittedly wobbly beginnings, I'm mightily impressed with The Buggles' version of the song, which probably convinced Yes in 2010 that there was something there. On the suite you can still trace back its opening parts to the demos from 1980 and 1981 and make some other fun observations, like how it takes the chord progressions of "Machine Messiah" at one point in a callback to Drama (starting from the "Sailor...sailor beware" section at 12.50 and re-appearing several times in the four minutes that follow). Spending an entire LP's worh of time on a single song and its progression can only work if that song is worth it, and I think that "We Can Fly" in all its incarnations is worth it. 

I'll let you discover if you agree. Ready For Takeoff in 3-2-1... 

Gene Clark's Rough And Rocky Road Towards Cosmic American Music

The story of Gene Clark's ill-fated 1972 album, the follow-up to his classic White Light, is a complicated one. I'll try (and fail) to be brief: After the critical success but lacking sales of White Light A&M gave another shot to Clark, footing the bill for sessions all across the summer of 1972, with cracks like Spooner Oldham and old alumni like Michael Clarke supporting Clark on his new album, which traded the rather spry acoustics of White Light for a more of a full country rock sound. Disaster struck when - during Clark's absence - engineer and producer Chris Hinshaw invited acquaintance and former clients Sly & The Family Stone into the studio. Stone and his entourage ordered food for hundreds of dollars from nearby restaurants, all on the bill of an unsuspecting Clark. With the budget spiralling out of control and Clark only having eight finished tracks in the can - half of them covers or remakes - A & M angrily cancelled the rest of the sessions, the album and for all intents and purposes, their association with Clark. 

Having stayed with him throughout the fantastic and not-so-fantastic expeditions of Dillard & Clark and the critically successful but non-selling White Light, the production problems here were the final straw, as well as a convenient excuse to get rid of Clark. Faced with an album (or rather, two thirds of an album) of country rock without a seeming hit single and an artist who would not go out on the road to promote the album, they decided to cut their losses. Clark's old handler in the Byrds, Jim Dickson, remixed the finished tracks and convinced A&M to license the tracks - together with leftovers of a never released 1970 single including all original Byrds and a track cut with The Flying Burrito Brothers - for a release in Holland only, then Europe's capital of country rock fandom and home of the busiest bootleggers for such fare. The album was called Roadmaster after one of its (cover) songs, and released with cheesy, ill-fitting art work: a green silhouette of a leather-clad biker Clark (from the first Dillard & Clark album) over some bright yellow with motorcycle pictures. The release was done in order to recover some of A&M's investment and beat the bootleggers, but looked like a bootleg itself. 

Interesting, you say (hopefully), but what about the music itself? 

That story is equally complicated, mainly due to Jim Dickson's decision to remix the album. In John Einarson's Gene Clark biography he claims that, not having access to Chris Hinshaw's original mixes, Dickson could only make what is called a ruler mix, putting all settings at about equal. But that theory never seemed convincing, considering Dickson wasn't some sort of rank amateur who didn't know any better ("Gee Whiz, that sure is a lot of knobs and twiddly things - I'd better put them all to the middle. Yessir!"). It sounds even less likely if you listen to the Hinshaw mixes and consider what has changed. Dickinson wilfully buried a ton of instruments and performances in his mix and basically flattened out the sound of the songs for what became Roadmaster. Dickson had a soft spot for Michael Clarke as a person, but not for his drumming here. On Roadmaster's "Full Circle Song" the drums are so deeply buried in the mix as to barely be audible, so at first it's almost distracting to hear the original drum track in the Hinshaw mix. But the drums seem to generally be mixed down, perhaps also due to some, erm, performance issues from Clarke. In the case of "In A Misty Morning", for example, there seem to be some dropped beats in the drumming (though they could be tape imperfections, as some problems elsewhere, that I tried to eliminate as best I can with my limited audio editing skills, sound like record skips). You know who also has vanished in the mix? Clark's old Byrds colleague Roger McGuinn, not even listed on studio logs, he probably also added some guitar and lent his voice for background vocals. On "Rough And Rocky" and "She Don't Care About Time" you can clearly make him out in the background in the Hinshaw mixes. 

The biggest loss in the Roadmaster mix, though, is the disappearance of Clarence White's spacey guitar lines. White's work here is marvelous and immediately identifiable. Those notes could have only come from White's string-bender, the innovation he and Gene Parsons were responsible for. In the Hinshaw mix, White's twangy guitar stands out, whereas in Dickinson's Roadmaster mix you can hardly tell he's there. And this is where the reasoning of Dickinson's remix becomes obvious. In the Hinshaw mixes, Clark's songs sound a lot trippier, with some of them having an almost psychedelic 'swirling' sound to them, notably "In A Misty Morning", "I Remember The Railroad" and "Shooting Star". Clark is already hinting at the adventurous nature and the cosmic american music of No Other on this album. So when Dickinson got his hands on the tapes he minimized the extravagant backing vocals and trippy guitar lines. The Hinshaw mixes sure sound more adventurous, and that seems to be what Dickson wanted to get rid of. He made the recordings sound more traditional - and duller. In comparison, it turns out that the 1972 recordings in their original version really were the missing link between the austere acoustic folk-country of White Light and the heavily enriched, ornamental sound of No Other. 

So, is there an album coming you ask, along with all of this info? 

Most assuredly, there is! 

The first idea for Shooting Star was that it should be an album as imagined in 1972, meaning the three tracks of recycled material are gone. (They will show up in appropriate alternate albums). Also, when The Lost Studio Sessions was published in 2017, it unearthed two other songs from the sessions: The traditional "Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms" was thought lost after Clark's vocals were erased to give the instrumental track to Terry Melcher (!) to sing over. The discovery of the track was most welcome, as it's possibly Clark's finest vocal performance from the period. The second track, however, didn't beg for inclusion. Clark's cover of "Bars Have Made A Prisoner Out Of Me" sees him working the country humor vein, something he was notoriously bad at (see: Dillard & Clark's country vaudeville "Corner Car", that absolute rarity: a truly bad Clark song). So, that one definitely wouldn't find its way on the new album I decided to retitle, firstly because it seems more appropriate to name it after one of Clark's own tracks and secondly, because the new title tracks seems to be woefully underappreciated. But, we'll get to that... [He says vaguely threateningly, as this post is about to enters its sixth paragraph]

I then tried to sequence the album, which admittedly is a little high on slow numbers , to spread out the mid-tempo numbers. This bumped the clear choice for a good album opener, "Full Circle Song", to second place, replaced by "In A Misty Morning", with its first introduction to the epic, semi-psychedelic sound the Hinshaw mix permits. At six minutes long, it would have seemed risky to open with that, but it really lets the project's proggy country rock sound fly (or rather swirl), setting up what to expect from this album.  After the aforementioned "Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms" we get to would have been the closer of the a-side, "Rough and Rocky". It's the track I reworked the most. In the original Roadmaster version it's slow and has a mournful violin hanging over it, turning it into a dirge on an album that arguably has too many of them. The original Hinshaw mix with more of a rock arrangement is much more lively, yet the forlorn piano-led version of the song unearthed on The Lost Studio Sessions is also fantastic. So, unable to choose between them I voted for - both, putting them together as a sort of Part I and II. Tell me whether you think this works or not, it does for me. 

Side B would then start with an uptempo number, due to no other contenders, it had to be "Roadmaster", slightly rowdier in sound and with much clearer instruments including some horns you've never heard before in Dickson's mix, followed by the mini-classic "I Remember The Railroad" and his slow, cosmic country remake of "She Don't Care About Time", longer and more elaborate-sounding than the released Roadmaster version. Clark's take on the old country weeper "I Really Don't Want To Know", arguably the album's weakest song, had to be placed somewhere, so here it is, followed by the new title song as the album closer. 

"Shooting Star" is a weirdly underrated song in Clark's songbook, no one seems to have it as a favorite or even a song worth mentioning. Which, I feel, is a great injustice. It follows a tradition on Clark albums that also seems to be weirdly ignored. Like Jackson Browne, whose tendency to put his philosophical stances in the last songs of his albums is always remarked on, the same tends to be true for Clark, starting with White Light. "1975", "Shooting Star", "Lady Of The North" and "Silent Crusade" are a fantastic quartet of Clark at his most philosophical. "Shooting Star" also, again, clearly presages the sound of No Other, floating off into the sky on a string of wondrous notes. 

Wow, if you've made it all the way down here, you probably now know more than you ever wanted to about Roadmaster, about Shooting Star, and about what I try to do when constructing alternate albums. So, now the only thing left to do is - ahem, sorry Tom Johnston - let the music play...

Best Album Eliminator strikes back! It's Sweet Sixteen time, baby!

Okay, so I dramatically announced the possible death of the Best Album Eliminator to the sounds of - absolute silence! You go, commenters! So, technically that thing should be dead. And then I thought to myself: Fuck it, it's your blog, you can put up what you want to. So, even if it's just three or four or us, we'll let it play out. 

Oh, one important thing: All of the last first round bracket match-ups were decided by a tiebreaker that just happened to be mine, because as the chairman of this whole ridiculous enterprise I get double voting power. Unfair you say? Absolutely! Wanna do something about it? Well, go on and vote then, friends and neighbours! Again, you don't need to register anywhere to comment, you don't need to justify your votes (though a sentence on why you voted like you did would be awesome!) and the whole thing is in good fun anyways. And what do they say? The more the merrier! And if not, well it's just the three or four of us, boys...

So, to the sounds of crickets, here's the sweet sixteen: 

Pet Sounds - The Velvet Underground & Nico

Led Zeppelin IV - Nevermind

Car Wheels On a Gravel Road - Revolver

The Band - Blood On The Tracks

------

Sticky Fingers - Ziggy Stardust

Born To Run - Abbey Road

Automatic For The People - Are You Experienced?

Who's Next - Superfly

Now here's some heavyweights fighting for you. Let the blood shed begin...

A lost page from the book of Yes...

I'm a bit of a weird dude when it comes to Yes. Bit of a contrarian, maybe. I mean, I like Jon Anderson just fine with his beautiful high voice, and his penchant for unicorns'n'elves'n'shit. But I prefer Yes' other vocalists. Except for Jon Davison, now that dude totally sucks. But yeah, those other guys. This has, of course, to do with my own history with Yes. My first Yes album was that unloved album of the tail end of their classic era, Drama. So I'm down with the BugglYes. And I thought that Fly From Here, an album involving both ex-Buggles, was a really strong Yes album, so I'm down with Benoit David also. Unfortunately, of course, both of these dudes didn't last. The BugglYes called it quits after that one totally underrated album, and the David-led line-up...well, that is another matter entirely. Recruited in the band to replace an ailing Jon Anderson who didn't want to go out on the road (something that Anderson took really badly, who'd hoped they'd wait for his recovery), David got his pink slip pretty soon after Fly From Here when he developed his own health problems with a respiratory illness. But the band wasn't done doing him dirty! To add insult to injury, quite literally in this case, they revised Fly From Here a couple of years later and replaced all of David's lead vocals with those of producer and Drama-era singer Trevor Horn. That's some cold shit right there. But Yes have stopped being a band a good long while ago, they are, and have been for a long time now, a business endeavor, and if you're not a part of the ongoing business, then you're a problem. 

Another person who wasn't around long enough to see Fly From Here, but was involved in its making: Oliver Wakeman, who replaced his dad Rick, who left when Anderson went/was forced to go, for touring with the group. He was working on possible songs for a studio album before he left/was forced to leave and be replaced by Geoff Downs for being "closer to the material" that had its roots in the Drama era. Most of the material he worked on was replaced by that other, old/new material from the BugglYes. But a couple of years later, Wakeman reworked some of this material, with the authorization of Yes, adding newly finished piano parts to a David composition from the time (and a lead vocal from a later, unrelated album) to three Yes outtakes/early songs from 2010. So, he basically had enough material for an EP, but Yes, never ones to fail to monetize their fan base's faithfulness, added a double live album already issued in 2011, so they could market the whole thing as a mini-boxset. The live album is fine, with Benoit in fine vocal form and the set list having some songs rarely played at the time. But still, Yes were and are the kings of recycling and reselling. The 'new' music coming out of this project is well worth hearing, though, as all four are very fine songs.

Which, finally, brings us to the One Buck Record of the day. From A Page (A Single Page) owes its subtitle to the fact that I greatly condensed the mini-boxset. There's the four studio songs, plus a selection of my favorites from the live album, which of course includes the Drama tracks "Tempus Fugit" and "Machine Messiah"; old favorites like "And You And I" and "I've Seen All Good People", a really good version of "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" and a lovely rendering of "Onward". 

We will be seeing Yes again on these pages, but for now, dear reader,turn the page to From A Page (A Single Page)...

The Berry Project, Phase Two: Pop Goes The Berry!

I announced this back in November when I posted a primer on Wayne Berry, greatly underrated artist from the 1970s (take a ticket, buddy...). If you haven't yet picked up Berry's Cherries - A Wayne Berry Anthology I would strongly urge you to do so, because his mix of folk, country-rock and pop is definitely worth your listening time. I also announced that this was only part one of a bigger project. So here comes phase two. In his career, Berry only published two solo albums, one of which was out for about five minutes. A first solo album for Capitol was cancelled, then his career ground to a halt due to bad decisions, bad luck and bullshit from and around the music industry. (You can read up more on that in the fabulous No Depression profile of Berry I included as a text file with the anthology). 

But just because Berry had trouble getting his songs out to the public didn't mean that there weren't a bunch of them, nor that these weren't worthwhile despite not making the record stage. When his country/folk rock troupe Timber (with future soundtrack specialist George Clinton) collapsed in 1971 Berry's career was put on hold, but that didn't mean that he was just whiling away the time. He continued writing, and from time to time booked studio time to produce demos of his songs. And most of these weren't of the "a man and his guitar"-type spare affairs (though there are a couple), but fully produced songs with full band backing, background vocals, the works. A lot of these demos were essentially ready to be pressed to records that then never came. 

Enter One Buck Records, which will proudly present three albums that never were but should have been, presenting Berry's demos from around 1971 - 1974 in distinct albums, of which today's offering is the first. ...just a matter of time... presents Berry going full pop/rock. There's barely a hint of the country leanings that dominated half of his outstanding sole debut Home At Last, instead Berry tries a number of different pop flavors. There are songs that could have been soft rock hits like "Tell Her That You Love Her" and hints of a calypso beat underlying the ultra-catchy "Still Got You" which also sounds like it could have been a hit. The title song is one of Berry's patented mid-tempo shuffles that sounded like he alchemized the best of 1960s pop (listen to those "aaaah" and "oooh-oh-oooh" backing vocals) with an early 70s rock sound. I don't want to oversell the album, but in many respects ....just a matter of time... sounds a lot like a Greatest Hits album that unfortunately has no hits on it, but again, you can imagine an ultra-catchy song like "A Dream Come True" popping up on classic rock radio. And there's even a hint of a more agressive sound on the sneering "Big Girl Now" where Berry sounds a little like a proto-Elvis Costello, backed by some suitably squealing guitar playing. 

Listening to these songs you can't help but feel that Berry should have been a much bigger deal than he was. He had the songs, ha had the looks (get rid of the lumberjack beard and you could have tried to sell him as a bit of a hunk), but he didn't have the luck. And the fact that the songs on ...just a matter of time... are so relentlessly catchy and good-natured probably means that there won't be a full-fledged renaissance, as his music feels too close to the mainstream for someone to want to 'rediscover' and make a big thing out of it. One Buck Records, however, will do its modest part to try to spread the word on Mr. Berry. And on that note, hit the music...