Kate Bush and her sky of honey

Ah, Kate Bush, the elder stateswoman of art pop. How satisfying it was two years ago to see her belatedly get to number one with "Running Up That Hill", undoubtedly one of her best songs. Sure, it needed Stranger Things, but quality is quality, and considering what else is floating around in the charts these days...

Bush worked steadily, if slowly, throughout the late 70s and 80s and into the early 90s, but then - poof - she was gone. 1993's The Red Shoes, arguably her most streamlined and conservative pop effort, including guest spots for Eric Clapton and Prince, wasn't the start of her second career phase as some sort of adult contemporary pop star. A planned one year hiatus turned into twelve, allowing Bush to start a family and otherwise drop out of the public eye entirely.

And then, without warning, she was back. Aerial, in 2005. A double album, with pretentious titles, just like in the old days. Disc 1, A Sea of Honey, was fine, a collection of art pop songs in different style. But for me the real treasure was Disc 2, A Sky Of Honey. A conceptual piece, it is designed to show 24 hours passing by. It has a narrator and recurring characters. It is, in short, Kate Bush's fully fledged prog album. But its status as, essentially, a bonus disc of sorts makes me think that A Sky Of Honey is both underappreciated and simply not heard enough. Considering its structure as a song cycle, A Sky Of Honey makes no sense as individual pieces, so I decided to edit its songs into one album-long track. I kept the parts mostly untouched, shortening and tightening up some of the track transitions, but that's about it. I want the pieces (or now, the piece) to speak for itself.

There is one (well, one and a half) notable exception: Bush's witchy voice has its raison d'être, and can and does get used effectively, but I didn't need to hear it at this long end's journey into the night, so I did bring in my scissorhands right for the end. I found some of the noisy (and, uh, witchy) excesses of "Nocturn" and "Aerial" too much. Three quarters of A Sky Of Honey are pastoral and lush, so the intrusion of a noisier sound right at the end wasn't my cup of tea. It broke the spell of what came before a little bit, so those pieces got shortened. You will still get the gist of Bush's night's end, but in a slightly gentler way.

So, I need about 36 uninterupted minutes of your time to get lost in A Sky Of Honey. Its a trip well worth taking...

Meet Mike and Rick, shadow men of California pop rock

For guys who didn't really leave much of a mark in terms of their own name value, Richard and Michael Curtis sure left a mark. Who had the only non-member song on Fleetwood Mac's eponymous 1975 smash? These guys did. Who wrote the framework of the song that gave Crosby, Stills & Nash a Top Twenty hit in 1982? These guys did. Who was part of a legendary group that - like the aforementioned 'Mac - was a rhythm section looking for creators up front? These guys were. And yet, despite propping up Crazy Horse after all the big guns left, despite getting a leg up from old pal Lindsey Buckinham when he recorded their "Blue Letter", and despite being positioned to make some sort of dent in the California soft rock scene, the Curtis Brothers never really did. But their music is here, and its is well worth hearing, so here at One Buck Records, we want to celebrate the contributions of these two men,  constantly lurking in the shadows of California rock and pop, but never really attracting the spotlight themselves.  

Like so many other musicians closely associated with the West Coast music scene, the Curtis brothers weren't from anywhere near California. They came out of Goshen, Indiana, and music was part of the family business. These Vizitors, the band they started as teenagers included fellow brother Tom and sister Patty, their dad was a local DJ. These Vizitors recorded two singles for Capitol which both charted, but no albums or follow-ups were coming. The band had relocated to Palm Beach, Florida but when it became clear that These Vizitors had run their course, Michael and Rick moved to Southern California. 

They were hired by Billy Talbot & Ralph Molina, a rhythm section who had the right to a classic band name - Crazy Horse, obviously - but not much else. Being neither singers nor songwriters, Talbot & Molina split singing and songwriting duties between the Curtis brothers and Greg Leroy. The resulting album At Crooked Lake has its moments, but is otherwise relatively unremarkable country-influenced rock, though Rick especially brought an interesting psychedelic undercurrent to his songs. Crazy Horse became dormant after the failure of At Crooked Lake, so Michael lent his talents for one album to jazz-inspired Canadian band Truck (previously featured on All Pearls No Swine Vol. 8). 

The Curtises then reconvened in L.A. to plot their next move. Finally securing a record deal with Polydor, they became friends with a duo of musicians - a pair both professionally and in private - who had just recently recorded and released their debut album. Their names? Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Both played and sang on a handful of demos, including a song the brothers had written, "Seven League Boots" (previously featured on All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 3). The song wasn't great, with the Curtises still getting the hang of writing (hint: it's not a rhyme if the words are the same! "If I had to go around the world / just to find your world" is a pretty awful chorus. Who are these guys, Kid Rock's ghostwriters?). But hook and melody of the song was solid, so Stephen Stills rewrote it almost a decade later, turning it into the much more coherent "Southern Cross" for Crosby, Stills & Nash's Daylight Again album.

But the Curtises were still waiting for something big to happen, and finally in 1975 things got moving. They got a record deal with Polydor and went into the studio to record their first album as The Curtis Bros. (or The Curtis Brothers Band). And who was in an adjacent recording booth, purely by accident? Old pal Lindsey Buckingham, recording with Fleetwood Mac. Liddy Buck heard the Curtises' "Blue Letter" and spontaneously decided to record it for and with the Mac. This should've given an additional boost to The Curtis Bros. , but when their album (with their own version of "Blue Letter") came out in 1976? Crickets. If the album isn't a work of genius, it's a very fine record straddling the line between pop and rock, sometimes verging on soft rock,. It probably deserved better than the absolute non-reaction it got. 

The band went back into the studio two years later for International Artists to record a follow-up, including a couple of tracks - sign of the times - that start to have a bit of a disco flavor but that album was then unceremoniously shelved, and so was for all intents and purposes the career of Mike & Rick. In Rick's case, literally, as he seemingly quit the music business after the failure of The Curtis Brothers Band. Michel went the opposite direction, hustling for jobs, becoming a touring musician with Hoyt Axton, then later Gene Clark and others. Rick Curtis dies suddenly and unexpectedly, not to mention too young, from a seizure in 1995. 

Family Affair: A Curtis Brothers Anthology compiles pretty much everything I could find from and featuring Rick & Michael Curtis, including four tracks from These Vizitors, four tracks from Crazy Horse (with the respective lead singer mentioned first in the tracks ' credits) and every tracks from The Curti Brothers Band, both their eponymous album and the shelved follow-up. I thought that Michael's work with Truck didn't jibe well with the rest, so some of that will feature on future volumes of All Pearls, No Swine but the anthology also features a handful of Michael Curtis solo tracks, including his cover of Gene Clark's "Gypsy Rider", recorded after spending years with Clark on the road, first as part of the infamous Byrds tribute that later morphed into the Django Band (as they were credited for the live rendering of "Southern Cross" featured here). Both discs (yup, I'm still compiling these as ready-to-be-burned to disc! Sue me!) end with Michael on acoustic guitar, from only a couple of years ago. At the end of disc one he laments "Man's Inhumanity To Man", while disc two ends bittersweetly with the only solo track from Rick I could find, a mid-60s recording of him doing an acoustic folk version of "Wendigo", followed by Michael's "It's Hard To Say Goodbye", his moving eulogy for his fallen brother. 

They might have mainly operated in the shadows of bigger, more important bands and artists, but Rick & Mike deserve their hour (or two) in the spotlight, which is exactly what Family Affair - A Curtis Brothers Anthology will provide you. So, towards the light and the sweet sounds of the Seventies, folks...

  

 

Saddle Up...with Beyoncé

A couple of weeks ago I wouldn't have thought I would post an album (or rather, a variation thereof) from 2024 and I would have even less thought it'd be an album by Beyoncé. I probably haven't thought about Beyoncé in fifteen years, because in 2009 "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" was everywhere and had the potential to annoy the heck out of you. The last time I looked forward to hearing Beyonce is probably about twenty years ago (sheesh...) when "Crazy In Love" came out, which was a great single, no matter how you slice it. So color me as surprised as you are by what ended up our One Buck Record of the day. 

Beyoncé released Cowboy Carter at the end of last month as part of an ambitious multiple album project (this is seemingly 'Act II', so all i's in the songtitles are doubled. Artistic or silly, you ask? Both, I'd say!), this time venturing into country territory. And, as you all by now, you can always lure the One Buck Guy with something country-related. When I posted my little Hick Hop compilation a couple of weeks ago, I was probably unconsciously pushed to do so by having heard "Texas Hold 'Em" a couple of days before, which in turn reminded me of Bubba Sparxxx' "Deliverance" which in turn...well, you know. So rather than just letting that spark of inspiration lay where it came from, I decided to dive deeper into Beyoncé's so-called country record. And boy, is there some diving to do. Because Cowboy Carter (I'm sure the title has some gender-critical point to make that I can't care to bother with) suffers from what I called in the comment thread of my Hick Hop platter the rap album problem, namely a tendency to overstuff their albums with too many songs and a number of skits and interludes. Cowboy Carter might not be a rap album, but it suffers from that exact issue, running a rather unreasonable 78+ minutes over a whooping 27 tracks, including skits with country outlaws Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, plus a bunch of other guests. 

Cutting through all the clatter and filler was the first issue. There is some very good, and some very interesting music on that record, but it gets bogged down by too much of everything a bit everywhere. However, the idea of saving the highlights and have a much more streamlined alternate album took root almost immediately. The idea was to keep mainly the vaguely country-related stuff and build around that. Cowboy Carter isn't strictly speaking a country album, it is rather - like hick hop - a hybrid between beats, country instrumentation and imagery, and Beyoncé's background in modern r'n'b. But the country stuff does give a through line to what is now Saddle Up, a leaner by more than half collection of some of the strongest Cowboy Carter material, including her covers of the Beatles' "Bluebird" and Dolly Parton's "Jolene", complete with new lyrics. 

Highlights written by Beyoncé and her collaborators are the two singles, "Texas Hold 'Em" and "16 Carriages", the sultry "Alligator Tears", the beautiful ode to her daughter, "Protector" and "American Requiem" which is both personal and political ("Can we stand for something? / now is the time to face the wind", while interpolating Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth"). Cowboy Carter runs for more than 78 minutes, Saddle Up runs a vinyl-era appropriate 38 minutes. If it were a vinyl record, tracks 1-7 would be the a-side, and tracks 8-13 the b-side, for all you nerds (like me!) out there. 

                                                    Like a rhinestone cowgirl...

In order to get the music into a shape I like and enjoy listening to, I mercilessly cut things down to the bone, both in terms of tracks used (I think "Ya-Ya" and "II Hands II Heaven" are great songs on their own, but they didn't fit what I wanted to do with Saddle Up) and the tracks itself. "American Requiem" is entirely re-edited to eliminate some parts I didn't like, "Sweet Honey Buckin'" lost more than half of its running time (and the, uh, 'buckin' part, thus the title change), I didn't much care for the opera stylings in the second part of "Daughter", so turned it into a medley with" Flamenco" and so on and so forth. Cowboy Carter is ambitious and overstuffed, and deserves credit for the former while the latter is now being taken care of. The album's overreaching is actually to its favor, as Beyoncé reckons with country music, its history, its meaning - especially on a personal and family history level - and its makers and listeners. 

A part of the project was seemingly to counter the harsh rejection of parts of the country establishment (you can easily guess which ones) to her first country foray, "Daddy Lessons" in 2016. This is what she is referring to in "American Requiem" when she sings "Used to say I spoke 'too country' / and the rejection came and said I wasn't 'country enough' / Said I wouldn't saddle up". But saddle up she did, ain't no doubt about that. 

Cowboy Carter is one of the most talked about albums of the year, if not the last years, or if you believe Stevie Wonder (one of the cast of thousands who played on this thing), "of the 21st Century". Yet I imagine most of you probably haven't heard it, because it's not your jam. I didn't think it was mine, either, but now, as Saddle Up, maybe I can get some of you to check out what Beyoncé's ambitious, messy, complicated take on country is about...

So, folks, let's all saddle up...

The Byrds' adventures in stone cold country...

Your old pal and mine, FTIII has chimed in with some swell cover art that blows my low-budget b&w original (in which I was very disappointed) out of the water. As he would say "Should youse bums be desirous..." (and why wouldn't we be?)

Roger McGuinn knows about best laid plans of mice and men. His ambitions often outweighed the results he had to show for them. Like the musical Gene Tryp!, a hippie reworking of the Peer Gynt story, he was working on with Jaques Levy throughout most of 1969 and parts of 1970 that never came to fruitition. When Sweetheart of the Radio hit shelves in August 1968 and reintroduced the new, very different Byrds as all-out country players, this wasn't the record the ever ambitious McGuinn had planned. His big project after The Notorious Byrds Brothers closed the book firmly on the classic era of the band was to lead the Byrds into jazz and a vaguely defined "Space Music", composed on his beloved Moog. Well, Sweetheart of the Radio was...not that. As they say, plans changed. 

Plans mainly changed due to one Ingram Cecil Connor III, better known as Gram Parsons. As McGuinn half-humorously, half-horrified explained: "When I hired Gam Parsons, it was as a jazz pianist...I hired a piano player and I got George Jones in a Nudie suit!". Yup, that he did. And got way more than he bargained for. Parsons' love for country music reignited Chris Hillman's own soft spot for the genre, and while it took some convincing, soon McGuinn was on board, hatching another super-ambitious plan that, again, didn't come close to fruitition: an album presenting an all-encompassing American musical history of the 20th Century, starting with traditional old-time bluegrass, then country music, then rhythm'n'blues and rock'n'roll to finally move into - you guessed it - the music of the future, "space music". But Parsons' traditionalist country leanings soon put the kibosh on McGuinn's expansive plans and any notions of "space music". Instead it was all country, outfitted with enough rock energy to appeal to the counter-culture. 

But that, of course, wasn't the end of the story, either. Parsons more or less hijacked the group from underneath McGuinn's nose, not only dictating the musical direction, but also taking the lion's share of lead vocals, essentially refashioning the Byrds as his band and relegating McGuinn to a bit player, while simultaneously lobbying to include pedal steel player J.D. Maness as a full-time Byrd. Then fate, in the shape of a possible contract dispute with Parson's old label, Lee Hazlewood's LHI, intervened. Not being sure that Parsons had fulfilled his contractual obligations over there, CBS wanted Parsons' vocals to be wiped off the album, so McGuinn began re-recording all of Parsons' lead vocals. When the dispute got cleared up, only Parsons' sentinemental classic "Hickory Wind" hadn't been touched. To appease Parsons, two covers with his lead vocals, Merle Haggard's "Life In Prison" and 'You're Still On My Mind" were put on the album, but as Parsons himself rightfully pointed out, these pedestrian covers were recorded as warm-up numbers, not necessarily serious contenders for the album. Not to mention that a Parsons outtake such as "Lazy Days", could have been put on the album instead. In the end, this reversal of fortunes was no doubt something McGuinn was secretly happy about. His status as King Byrd had been re-established while forcing Parsons in the supporting role he was originally supposed to have. 

Sweetheart of the Rodeo remains a slightly baffling album, and for me personally, not a favorite of the band. Its importance in the band's discography and in the development and cultural acceptance of crossing the borders between country and rock'n'roll is undeniable and gives it classic status, but as an album of music it just doesn't do it for me. So this Byrds album logically is the first to get the patented OBG alternate album treatment. First order of the day: Chuck those mediocre country covers, while also re-installing some of Parsons lead vocal work. Unlike what has long been reported, not all Parsons leads were irrevokably erased (in fact, traces remain on the original album, with McGuinn and Hillman dubbed over them), so future expanded and deluxe editions wielded a number of tracks with Parsons' original lead vocals in tact. On the finished album, McGuinn had - in what became somewhat typical for him - imitated the source, aping Parsons' vocals rather than singing in his normal style, with questionable results. "The Christian Life" was an especially egregious example. The irony of Parsons - who probably knew every deadly sin's second name and favorite pet -  evoking Christian values and a life of purity was one thing, but in McGuinn's mannered ersatz vocal, the song sounded like pure parody. 

With Parsons' lead vocals on "You Don"t Miss Your Water" and "The Christian Life" restored, I now wanted to rebalance the album, so McGuinn's slightly psychedelic take on the folk standard "Pretty Polly" gets reinstated here. I split the difference between Parsons' own take on "One Hundred Years From Now" and the excellent album version that features co-leads by Hillman and McGuinn, so both get the nod, one as the opener, the other as the closer. Given its presence, it naturally becomes the new title song (I never liked Sweetheart of the Rodeo as a title much either). And there is some small amount of justice for Kevin Kelley, who got the short end of the stick when the band drafted in Clarence White who in turn asked for old bandmate Gene Parsons to join, so Chris Hillman had to tell his cousin that his services were no longer required. For years, Kelley's lead vocals on "All I Have Is Memories" were considered lost, but have now also been recovered, so Kelley at long last gets a highlight spot on the only Byrds album he played on. 

So, One Hundred Years From Now it is, an album that I think genuinely runs better than the original Sweetheart, while also giving a pretty democratic view on the Byrds as a country group with balanced contributions by everyone. 

So, let's revisit those country roads with them country Byrds once more, shall we...?!

My original, very not awesome cover art...

The Byrds At Twilight - A Love Story In Reverse

It happens to all of us. We come to an artist at what is seemingly the wrong time in their career. We are either too early, or too late, or we fall in love with what is - according to public opinion - the wrong album. I came to the Byrds early, then late, then in the 'wrong' order. And I don't much care. The twilight Byrds - the band that was, at least according to a bunch of critics in long, steady decline ever since Roger McGuinn became head Byrd and, for all intents and purposes, only Byrd, plus a bunch of hired guns. Snobs still kind of dismiss this era, basically closing the chapter on the Byrds once Crosby left. Most still agree that The Notorious Byrds Brothers is a masterpiece - and it is - but everything afterwards splits opinions, not least because of the Byrds' hard turn into country music. The hiring of Gram Parsons and the Byrds full-fledged country rock adventure Sweetheart Of The Rodeo usually still escapes unscathed, mostly due to 'The Cult Of Gram', but everything after, starting with the often-maligned Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde is often considered minor work. People who dismiss this era of course totally miss out on the biggest weapon of the twilight Byrds - guitar slinger (or rather: guitar bender) Clarence White, one of the most talented guitar players of his, or any, era. The songwriting might have been wobbly sometimes - especially once Skip Battin and partner in crime Kim Fowley entered the picture - but the music often was still magnificent, in no small part to White's inimitable guitar playing. 

My first exposure to The Byrds was the 'right Byrds' - "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Mr. Spaceman", both featured on one of the first CDs my dad ever bought, a compilation called California Sounds Of The 60s. That album was probably the single biggest influence of my future love for music from that era, a foundation for my love for both The Beach Boys and The Byrds. But The Byrds then disppeared for a long time - my entire adolescence - from my music hearing habits, only to come back in the weirdest avatar possible. Starting my studies, I stumbled in one of the bookstores adjacent to campus onto a huge bin with CDs for a buck - the One Buck Guy was born! But so was a newly rekindled love for The Byrds - via the worst means, a CD featuring completely fake songs by a couple of chaps of dubious intentions, ex-Animals bassist Danny McCullough together with producer Gerry Chapman. Their original songs were god-awful, and so were their Byrds covers. But you can't keep a great song down, no matter how hard you try. The moment I heard "Chestnut Mare", even in this ridiculously bad version, I knew it was a great song. The very next day I went to the record store and bought The Very Best of The Byrds, the U.K. compilation that was at the time the best and most complete Byrds compilation out there. And the rest is history.

Or almost. Because just as I rekindled my love for the Byrds, the band's re-issue program had reached the end of the Columbia era. So the first Byrds albums I possessed were Farther Along and (Untitled). And while (Untitled) rightfully is considered as the highlight of the twilight Byrds and has their last indisuputedly great song in the aforementioned "Chestnut Mare", Farther Along is considered to be pretty bad, or at least mediocre. But I love that album despite its massive flaws, from its sepia cover art to most of its songs. It's, by all objective measures, the 'wrong album' to fall in love with the Byrds, since it has almost nothing to do with the greatness of their classic era, but you love what you love. I continued to (re-) discover The Byrds in reverse, the last Columbia album from them that I bought was their much-heralded debut album Mr. Tambourine Man. And of course my fondness for the Byrds' twilight years has carried over to today and One Buck Records. 

This very long-winded introduction is the intro to the long-awaited arrival of the Byrds on this blog. I have featured some Byrds-related artists (Gene Clark, Manassas), but nothing from the band itself. I was blocked for months by ambitious plans for cover art on the first of what will be a series of alternate albums of the Byrds' twilight years. Well, all those plans fell through as I'm simply not very gifted in the visual arts department. So, with a resigned sigh I settled for something that had little to do with my ambitious plans, and decided to launch the project anyways. 

So, this will be your weekend double-header: Today's long-ish introduction to the Byrds project, and tomorrow the launch of the first of The Byrds' alternate albums, One Hundred Years From Now. But since some of you hopefully read all the way through my trip down memory lane, you deserve a little something for your trouble, so I compiled an album that covers the Byrds' twilight years, mainly through outtakes, alternative or live versions and single mixes, so as to have not too much overlap with the albums to follow. 

So, enjoy a first stroll down Byrds boulevard, then be back tomorrow to see the boys really saddle up...

 

One Album Wonders: The legend of Lakota

It seems that in the 1970s, every third band dabbling in country rock was named after a Native American tribe, a Native American chief or something other Native American-related. Some of these bands were more improbable than others. Such as one of the handful of bands named Lakota, this one being built around the songwriting, playing and singing of J.W. Grimm (not related to the famous Grimm brothers, as far as I know). These guys were called Lakota, using Native American imagery and came from the dusty plains and rocky canyons of...Long Branch, New Jersey. Lakota was essentially a two-person band: Grimm on lead guitar and lead vocals and J.T. Callahan on drums, percussion and harmony vocals. For their one and only album in 1979 they picked up help from William Sleight on Bass and Chris Norden on rhythm guitar. Published on JBS Records, only a few hundred copies of this crept out at the time. 1979 was of course a time by which country rock was entiely passé, so a straggler like this didn't have a chance. But how wrong people were! 

Unknown or little known country rock records are a dime a dozen and most of them probably deserve to await in attics or one dollar bins. But sometimes you can pull a diamond in the rough from out of that pile of obscure bands with country leanings and Lakota's self-titled album is such a case. It's an excellent listen all the way through, something that a lot of his peers in the genre didn't manage. Grimm was a really solid songwriter and performer. He also liked to play some loud rock guitar, as Lakota definitely come down more on the rock side of the country rock equation. So, if you're not that big on pedal steel and such, but like crunchy guitar and Southern Rock, you should definitely check this out as well. 

Speaking of Southern Rock, Grimm gets a little indulgent on "J.W. Crier", an almost seven minute extended rock jam, but unlike a lot of peers, he actually has the chops to pull it off. I personally am not a huge fan of jams, but I can groove with J.W. to J.W. Whether it's a beautiful country ballad like "Walking In The Rain" or a mid-tempo round-up like "Simple Wave", Lakota offers a constantly good listen. Actually, most songs are kept mid-tempo, giving the album a friendly, almost folk-rock-ish sound at times, as exemplified by the fantastic "If I Wanted To". 

'Nuff said, as they used to say at Marvel. Get this album and play it, it is definitely worth checking out and becoming part of your rotation. New Jersey Injuns rockin' your (virtual) turntable! Who'd have thought?   

Big Macs? That depends on who's cooking them...

Tribute albums by various artists are notoriously difficult to get right. Seeing how every artist is more or less left to their own devices, there is no unifying concept other than the songs itself. Maybe the sound and style of the original artist, but that wields its own set of problems, namely : if you ape that sound or style too closely, what is even the point ? Many a tribute compilation has slid into second-rate karaoke like that. And then there is the problem of variety. Deviating from the original’s template can bring variety and true re-imaginings of the originals, but is a buying audience even willing to have that in spades ? After all, we buy the tribute album to get songs that we know and love, preferably in versions we can recognize as being those beloved songs. So, subtle tweaks and variations are probably a good idea, but be too radical in your reworking and the exercise – at least to a lot of listeners – loses its purpose. Be too close to the orginals, when you can easily have those instead, and it leads to a different kind of pointlessness.

Only a few compilations have gotten this right, and those paying tribute to Fleetwood Mac aren’t among them. Legacy – A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac's Rumours is a case of artists being too reverential to the originals and slipping into second-rate karaoke. It doesn’t help that the roster is a murderer’s row of middle of the road mainstream artists, bordering on adult contemporary mainstays, that more or less exemplify mainstream pop rock radio in the mid-90s. Put unimaginative karaoke in the hands of these folks, and it’s a total snoozefest. A second compilation, from which my version borrows its title and most of its tracks has a much higher hit rate, probably due to it coming out about fifteen years later and being done by a more diverse roster of artists, including a who's who of hip indie artists, from Antony and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy to St. Vincent and Tame Impala. It does get very heavy on electronics at times, and some songs from the original comp went too heavy into re-make/re-model-territory for my personal taste, but the keepers really are keepers. Just Tell Me That You Want Me also had – as a nod to tradition, maybe? - some inclusions of old warhorses on the artist roster that left me baffled (Billy Gibbons?), but I kept Marianne Faithful's version of “Angel” and the Lee Ranaldo/J.Mascis collaboration on “Albatross”.

                                When none of the band or artist pictures talk to you...

So, all in all, I retained about two thirds of the original Just Tell Me That You Want Me : A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac comp, added a mere two tracks from the aforementioned Legacy (“Second Hand News” from the now all-but-forgotten Tonic and Jewel's “You Make Loving Fun”) and then added two other Mac covers I had lying around. One is the excellent version of "Dreams" by Whiskeytown, circa Stranger's Almanac. Plus a rowdy punk version of "Go Your Own Way" by Seaweed to close out proceedings. This leaves us with an album whose more electronic-based numbers give it a fresher edge, while being more balanced and a little more kick ass with the contributions from the 1990s roster.

Say what you will (ha!) about the Mac after Buckingham and Nicks joined, but they sure as hell had the songs with which you can't argue. This One Buck records version of Just Tell Me That You Want Me : A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac will remind you of what was great about that run, in a number of different voices and styles.

So, go and tell me that you want 'em....

The Berry Project Part 2: Wayne Berry's got them Beachwood Blues...

It's time for part two of the tryptich of Wayne Berry albums that sadly never were but could have and should have been. Last we saw Berry on these pages, he tried (in our kayfabe version of history) to become a pop star by putting a bunch of could-have-been-contenders on ...just a matter of time. Album two, Beachwood Blues actually does have a single song that was released at the time. It's the title song, coming out as his lone single for A&M in 1973, and as usual for Berry, doing nothing charts-wise. 

Beachwood Blues' organizing principle is that it's a very loose concept album about finding and losing love in L.A. in the early 1970s. It starts with one of his most interesting outtakes from the era, because "Stray" sounds like he had taken an early, immediate liking to Bruce Springsteen. It even has some saxophone in it, and a muscular rock sound that sounds a bit like The Boss and his E-Street Band, a direction Berry wouldn't pursue afterwards. It also has some clear aurobiographical elements, which had me put it on the 'aural biography' Country Boy, City Dreams (the upcoming conclusion of the trilogy), but I needed a kick-ass rock song as an album opener. The ballads here, especially "It's Hard Living Without You", are top notch and Berry works his patented mid-tempo magic in the title song. But the more interesting numbers are the ones that show him stretching out a bit. We already talked about "Strays" but there is also "For Your Love", a rockabilly number that has Berry trying out his best Elvis Presley imitation. And if you have picked up the handy Berry compendium Berry's Cherries back in November, then you're already familiar with "The Wrong Man", a really catchy number that's one of his best outtakes from the period. Period. 

So, there really isn't much to add. It's another winner from Berry, which I hope you will agree on. Even his outtakes beat the established work of some charting artists, again. So, have a lovely weekend with some more Wayne Berry, a man who knows about making having the blues sound great...

PS: For the cover, I found a vintage picture of Beachwood Drive which I think works splendidly..

And now for something completely different: Who's up for some hick hop?

Many of you will have realized my penchant for country rock and Americana, but fewer if any will have realized that I have a love for hip hop music, mainly because One Buck Records hasn't featured any hip hop yet. But that'll change. I might be wrong, but I guess a lot of One Buck Records readers are fine with having little to none hip hop in their lives (prove me wrong, people!). But to get a leg into the genre we'll start with hip hop that only has one leg in the genre - and the other firmly planted on a country road.

Country rap, or as I prefer it being called, hick hop has been a genre for about twenty years now. Some would point to Kid Rock and "Cowboy" but other than singing about Rock's wish to be that, it doesn't have particularly firm roots in the genre, though Kid would soon afterwards unironically embrace country music after trying to be Bob Seger for a couple of years. I'm not counting the ever popular duet option of either a country singer with a guest rapper or vice versa. Do it entirely, or don't do it at all. 

So, the first real hick hop artist that really broke through was Bubba Sparxxx. I'm not a huge fan of his debut album (including the hit "Ugly"), but lead single "Deliverance" from the follow-up of the same name is a fantastic piece of business. Timbaland's beats were state of the art then and are still beautiful twenty years later. It's just a beautifully constructed track. Sparxxx himself ain't no slouch himself, coming up with some rhymes that always make me smile: "You took your wealth and knowledge and gave it to the poor / only to find that your savior's manure". And the chorus casts him as a modern day Huckleberry Finn: "I've been travellin' for some time / with my fishing pole and my bottle of shine". Hick Hoppers The Lacs followed in his foot steps a couple of years later, channeling a certain John Denver classic here in "Country Road". 

Sparxxx' work might have been the spark that lit a dozen country rap artists, but Brooklyn producer Rench pushed things further with his Gangstagrass project, which mixed rap and bluegrass to often astounding effect. Half of the album of the day are Gangstagrass cuts, you will probably at least familiar with "Long Hard Times To Come", used as the theme music for the great Justified. 

And then there's of course the third option, country or Americana acts covering rap songs, with two prime examples on this album: Thai-American Hugo's bluegrass version of Jay-Z's "99 Problems" and one of my first exposure's to the sub-genre, The Gourds' hilarious take on Snoop Dogg's "Gin And Juice", complete with the most redneck-y vocals you can imagine. Fun stuff.  

So, ready for some Hick Hop y'all?! Then let's get the hip hop hoedown started...

Gene Clark's No Other? Oh, sure there's another, Geno!

I didn't know I'd need or want another No Other for the longest time. For the longest time, it was already difficult to even have the original No Other. Gene Clark's maverick outing was conspicously out of print and never issued on CD for almost two decades, no doubt amplifying the album's reputation as a lost materpiece in absentia. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or so I've heard. But I remember how difficult it could be to get your hands on Gene Clark albums in the late 90s and early 2000s before the great Clark renaissance, spurred by a whole bunch of cool indie artists espousing his genius and especially the genius of No Other. 

It's interesting how that album's reception changed in these lost decades. Nowadays, every music journalist will explain that the album is some sort of masterpiece, even with reservations. But for a long time throughout the 90s the album was considered more of a misshapen curiosity. Allmusic, of course also changed its tune. Now, you've got your in depth five star review pronouncing the misunderstood genius of the album, but the original write-up (for the book version!) was a decidedly different affair, awarding a mere three stars. "These arrangements are just over the top", opines Matthew Greenwald, "and Clark's songs and vocals are clearly weak under the weight." Despite mentioning "some fine songs" Greenwald (not the worst of Allmusic's writers at the time) concludes "Overall though, it's indulgent and the sound of the record say more about the '70s than the songs do. You can almost taste the cocaine."

Thomas Jefferson Kaye's production decisions have been at the heart of the discussions about No Other ever since the album came out. Supported by deep pockets at Asylum Records, Kaye really did indulge, adding overdubs over overdubs on the performances that already included playing from some of L.A.'s best session men. So, do these songs really need orchestral arrangements and luscious backing choirs? The choise is now mine, yours and everyone else's, due to the rennaissance of Clark as an inspiring musician for other musician's that finally led to a re-issue program worthy of its name. No Other had finally been issued as a no-frills edition on CD by Collector's Choice in the late 90s in the U.S. (and EastWest Recordings in Japan), but the rerelase in 2003, complete with liner notes and bonus tracks really got the ball rolling. In these bonus tracks it was also possible for the first time to listen to Clark's songs without the ton of overdubs Kaye imposed on them. 

Interesting as that was, it didn't really push me to even consider trying an alternate album version of No Other. For one thing, the songs seemed to be so intricately tethered to the very sound of the album that I considered the alternate, comparatively stripped-down versions as interesting asides, not the essence of the music. This attitude changed with the appearance of the No Other box set in 2018 by 4AD, not incidentally the home of many of those aforementioned cool indie artists stanning for Gene Clark and No Other. Here you really had a plethora of bonus tracks to skim through, truly being able to see how some songs got knocked in shape, and some roads not taken (you might remember Clark's funk version of "Silver Raven" that I put on All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 3 back in October). Going through some of these tracks two years ago, I finally decided to give a decidedly different No Other a try. 

Well, next time you have an unusual album to promote by a guy notorious for not helping out with said promotion, maybe go easy on the drag queen look...?!

All tracks here are without the massive overdubs of the released version. To really show the difference in approach, I decided to start things off with the title song, presented here in an uncluttered, more percussive version that has an almost agressive edge to it, not to mention that you can really hear a latin music sound influence in it which is difficult to hear in the official version. "Some Misunderstanding" sounds a whole lot more country now, with the pedal steel being elevated to lead instrument in the mix, whereas in "From A Silver Phial" you can now hear old comrade Chris Hillman's mandolin playing much clearer. The biggest change involved "Strength of Strings", which is now only half its original running time. I never was a fan of the 'banshee vocal' interludes, so I cut the opening and closing ones. I originally wanted to retain the one in the middle of the track, but - in what is clearly a run through/demo - Clark, enjoying himself and the music, introduces the bridge with a "here we go", so both the exclamation and the last banshee interlude are gone. What remains is now a surprisingly muscular, sinewy rock song. I wanted to finish with the most ethereal songs as a double climax, so "Silver Raven" and "Lady Of The North" in versions where you can really hear the instruments like Richard Greene's electriic violin, barely audible in the released version. 

An Other No Other is a much more relaxed listen than the original, where Kaye's aural delusions of grandeur have something oppressive and even manic about them, recalling Greenwald's comment about almost tasting the cocaine involved. In this version, we're much closer to Clark's usual stomping grounds between folk and country rock. Interestingly, my alternate albums of Clark zig where the originals zagged. Roadmaster was mixed to be as traditionally country rock as possible, whereas I reworked it into Shooting Star as way trippier and more psych, pointing out even clearer the way to No Other. And now An Other No Other goes the inverse route, toning the album's trippier sound way down, bringing its sound closer to the White Light/Mendocino Dream era. 

I'm not about to claim that An Other No Other is better than No Other, because I - like pretty much everyone - am not a hundred percent sure where I finally stand on No Other's production. I think there's some truth in all points of view. The relatively straight forward country rocker "Life's Greatest Fool" for example did profit from those dramatic gospel choirs that seemed to give it more urgency. It's not a weak song per se, but rather a so-so one that does profit from more production, whereas I think numbers like "Strength of Strings" can feel like they're toppling over under the layers of production. So yeah, No Other stays a conundrum wrapped in an enigma, no matter the configuration. But I think it's worthwhile to check out what a more relaxed, homily No Other would sound like, and that's what An Other No Other does, for whatever it's worth. 

PS.: This concludes for the time being my explorations of alternate albums of Gene Clark, though I might at some point have a look at the Silveradoes/Two Sides To Every Story era. But fear not, Clark fans, there's still a ton of Clark and Clark-related material I want to post here, so, as usual, stay tuned...

All Pearls No Swine 13: An Eighties Pu-Pu Platter, anyone?!

Time to dip back into our All Pearls, No Swine series once more, this time to go back in the 80s with a number of fabulous unknown numbers, coming from all over the spectrum. This one doesn't have much of a guiding principle, other than, you know, providing good music, and it does so in all kinds of styles. Just look at the first five tracks: Jonathan Jupersmith opens proceedings with his lost power-pop classic "Pauline", The Freemasons play a strange, echoey version of folk rock, Sunhearth & Friends' "Front Seat, Back Seat" is modern bluegrass, Robert Theobald's "It's Alright" is psychedelic pop and The dB's' "Black And White" is somewhere between highly charged new wave (bordering on punk) and power pop. The dB's are probably also the most known name around here, as almost everyone else is again coming from the ranks of self-publishing and micro-labels. 

Later we get some straight up southern country from Dennis Ross and The Axberg Brothers Band, Christian psychedelic rock from Master's Touch, some acoustic finger-picking from Robert Hoke and orchestral dream pop from Carl Schmidt and his "The Phoenix" (while obviously inspiring the cover choice as well). Also noteworthy: Native American Bill Miller and his fabulous folk-rock gem "Whirlwind". And for those that want some heavier guitars, there's Southern rockers Sweet Southern Harmony with "You're The Same". Seriously, you've really got a bit of everything on this collection, though admittedly, power pop has a pretty big place, as we also have Canadian unknowns Peer Pressure asking "When" and Randy Gun apologizing. Alan Dunham's "A Little Bit Longer" loosely fits the genre, but seems to be more inspired by 60's jangle pop. 

So, go on a journey through the 80s that doesn't sound anything like the 80s for 65 minutes before DIY ambient musician Daniel Kobialka whisks us off with the extremely lovely "Minddance/Song For Lisa". So, jump on that Phoenix's wings and take off, it's a journey you won't regret...

Let's remember the GOOd Old Days of Johnny & the boys

Johnny Rzeznik was probably too cute to not become a sex symbol at some point (though plastic surgery has done quite a number on ol' Johnny, he looks like an aging drag queen now. What the fuck, dude?), and he was definitely writing songs that were way too catchy to not become hits and make the Goo Goo Dolls one of the biggest alternative rock bands of the mid- to late 90s. Sure, there is another reality where Johnny never really composes much, leaves the lead vocals to Robbie Takac and the Goo Goo Dolls continue bringing out thrashing, primitive punk rock to the few initiated before quietly breaking up. Instead, Rzeznik - even before making them a hit machine churning out power ballads - brought a dynamism and mainstream-friendy appeal to his compositions that saw the Dolls go from their sloppy, not very impressive punk rock of their first two albums to alternative rock superstars, then adult contemporary mainstays. But to remember how good the Goos could be, let's go back and look at the good old days on GOOd Old Days. 

Opener "There You Are" shows how much more dynamic and more widescreen, for lack of a better word, the Rzeznik-led Dolls are. By 1994, Rzeznik was the undisputed lead singer and main songwriter of the band. The band had at that time put all their effort into Superstar Car Wash, an album and its singles that the band and its label thought was going to break them through to the mainstream. And it does have a number of good tracks, notably "We Are The Normal", Rzeznik's collaboration with his idol, The Mats' Paul Westerberg. It was a long-distance thing, both sending tapes, but still, a thing of the bucket list for Rzeznik. But the album didn't do as well as everyone hoped and by the time of recording its follow-up, Rzeznik was seriously thinking off hanging it up, as far as a full-time rock'n'roll career was concerned. Then, he came in with the demo for the traditional acoustic track. That track was "Name" and became the band's first top ten hit, and from there they were unstoppable for a couple of years. 

It's rare for a band that their commercial and artistic peak overlap. Often, bands get their breakthrough when their musical direction is just starting to go in the wrong direction, or they have their best work right after the mainstream audience zones out. But in the case of the Goo Goo Dolls, their commercial breakthrough A Boy Named Goo and follow-up blockbuster Dizzy Up The Girl with mega hit "Iris" were the best work of the album. Rzeznik tossed off songs that were catchy, commercial and also good. A full ten tracks, or half of the compilation put together by yours truly, come from this time period. By the time they released Gutterflower in 2002 Rzeznik's big power ballads started to come off a bit pandering, and while the band still managed a bunch of chart hits until 2007, the music started to become more formulaic. Incidentally, Gutterflower is also the last album that has a harder edge throughout, as from follow-up Let Love In they really started to drift into the realm of adult contemporay and their early punk days were a distant memory. The last fifteen years or so have largely been mid tempo ballad goo to swim through to find the occasional good song. 

Slightly belying its title, GOOd Old Days tries to turn up some good stuff from the late period towards the end of the comp, including the sprightly "Rebel Beat". The compilation ends with an acoustic version of "Boxes", a wistful tune of a middle-aged man looking back at his life and thanking his life-partner and then a cover of Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down", firmly showing that the Goos have arrived in the realm of dad rock. The Goo Goo Dolls grew into middle age along with us, and they did it without embarassing themselves. But they were better in the good old days, and GOOd Old Days will hopefully make you remember that...