Now even more Millenial Cosmic American Music courtesy of Neo Laurel Canyon Cowboys

My burgeoning interest in modern Americana while simultaneously building a big part of my classic record collection around the SoCal music scene (Jackson Browne, Eagles, et al) would obviously bring me to a place where the two would meet: in the music of Beachwood Sparks, musical friends and collaborators of One Buck Records house favorite Neal Casal and all around purveyors of that golden Cosmic American Music that marries earthly country rock to more heavenly designs. The mystery of Beachwood Sparks deepened with their frequent disappearing acts, with the band going on hiatus several times, sometimes for years on end, to focus on side projects and other endeavors. Which means that a band that started out in 1997 has a grand total of four studio albums to their name, plus a couple of EPs and odds'n'sods.  

Beachwood Sparks is the album that put them on the map in 2000, though most critics really and definitely jumped on the Beachwood Sparks train one year later for Once We Were Trees. Of course, that very train was about to go dead for a decade! Their self-titled debut gives a really good idea of the sunny, twangy, slightly fuzzy and more than a touch psychedelic sound the Sparks give to their take on country rock. Ultralovely stuff.  

1968 or 1999? You couldn't tell, right? 

Beachwood Sparks, at a little more than 40 minutes has the classic running time of a vinyl album from the era they emulate, So, was there really a need to turn it into a double album (in vinyl era terms)? Well, I let you decide. There was something about the sequencing of what would be the tail end of side one, right around "Singing Butterfly" and "Sister Rose", that didn't quite work for me, so I started to play around with resequencing the album, then said fuck it, why not go the whole hog in adding a couple of tracks and making the whole affair a double album. So that's what the One Buck Record of the day is. 

Three tracks from Beachwood Deluxe and two from The Sandbox Sessions thus complement the original album, coming from either the album sessions or roughly the same time frame. What's interesting is that the tracks in question make up only roughly a quarter of tracks, but add more than 50% of music to proceedings. Which is a rather unelegant way to say that the added tracks are longer than most of the tracks on the original album, with some of those being mere doodles. This is the sequencing that made sense to me, with the two Butterfly interludes opening and closing the second record. As it turns out, (imaginary) vinyl sides one and four are the most different, incorporating the extra tracks, whereas side two feels the most like the original, having original tracks six to ten run in exactly the same order! 

So, guys, what if we rename ourselves 'The Monkey Business'? Huh?! Huh?!

So, if you're new to Beachwood Sparks, you're in for a treat, and if you are a long-time Spark..uh...ler (?!), then this will maybe give you a good excuse to listen to this album again, with fresh ears and mind. Either which way, Beachwood Sparks is somewhat of a lost classic from the early 2000s, and deserves to be more widely heard. So, start here, then...