These Pearls Have Been A Long Time Comin' (But They Ain't A Long Time Gone)

Well, this has been a long time coming. And no even longer due to some unexpected recent events. First off, OK, OK, I admit it, I neglected the OG of this blog a bit. It has been a month since the last episode of All Pearls, No Swine, and I used the time I had this summer to work on a bunch of long-gestating projects - rejiggered soundtrakcs, the ever-expanding Bluegrass Chartbusters and Alternate Albums like the recently posted reworked Tales Of Mystery And Imagination - without necessarily thinking of, or spending time, on All Pearls, No Swine. For years, literally, this was the ol' faithful of this blog. Knowing I had this rich stock of volumes ready, whenever I wasn't sure what to post or didn't have another projct ready, I'd just post an All Pearls, No Swine. But now that the stock is used up for a while, I have to remind me to compile and get these things on the road. 

The good news: I had fun compiling this last volume, which came together realitively easily and quickly, hopefully a good omen for the immediate future of this series. Now that some bigger and more time-consuming projects have ended, I should find more time to post these in shorter intervals, for old-school blog visitors who kind-of got into One Buck Records via these comps. But, you know, circumstances also somewhat conspired to make the three and a half of you waiting for a new dose of All Pearls, No Swine even longer. This write-up was supposed to go up wednesday last week, but then Catherine Ringer died and I did the Rita Mitsouko tribute. So I pushed it back to Saturday, but then Duncan Sheik died and the spot was taken by a tribute to him, and then I wrapped up the Ringer and birthday business and now we finally have arrived at All Pearls No Swine Vol. 43. A Long Time Comin', Not A Long Time Gone. 

The M.O. is pretty much the same as always: some rock, some funky stuff, some folk, one or two country rock tracks, and one or two slightly psychedelic adventures. By now, you know what you'll get with these. Again, no big names on this one, with the biggest name possibly the not-too-long-ago anthologized Arrogance, with early single "A Foreshadowing" which is a good song but I didn't like it in my chronological anthology, as it would have slowed things way down too early in the disc, so it got relegated to All Pearls, No Swine duty, which is - all in all - a fine place to be. 

Looking back on the list of artists, and seeing that we have hit an anniversary-ish volume 25 of 70s-set All Pearls, No Swine, it gets harder to see how many APNS alumni are around, but Doug Firebaugh is here with another of his miniatures that nowadays we would call Americana, and so is Germany's finest finger-picker of the 70s, Werner Lämmerhirt, this time with a fine cover of "If I Were A Carpenter". I love Lämmerhirt's smoky voice, too bad he wasn't a songwriter and didn't really make a name for himself, it's always nice to hear him. 

We have the patented mix of rock, folk, some country rock. as with the last 70s-set volume, I was in the mood for some groovers, so we have a bunch of those, including Game's "Stop, Look, Listen", Zazu's "Country Eyes", Cameron's "I've Been Down" and The Cates Gang's "We All Got To Help Each Other". Folk lovers will probably dig Ryan Trevor's "By The Water", Bureman & O'Rourke's "Ol' Bill", John Southern's "On The Isle Of You" or Lackey & Sweeney's "Good To Cry". Oh, and for the secret glam fan in you, there's ex-Spider from Mars Woody Woodmansey with his follow-up band U-Boat glamming and rocking it up in album opener "Oh La la".

If you're an All Pearls, No Swine veteran, you'll recognize my usual tricks. If I make some room for psyhedelia, it's usually towards the end of the album. So this volume ends with the triple whopper of the aforementioned Arrogance track, Ethel-Ann Powell's "The Elephant Patch" and Fred's "A Love Song", which certainly shows his love for distorted guitars (and distorted lovers?). 

So, either way, lots of good, unknown stuff from the 70s that bears the one and only OBG level of approval. Quality-tested, as usual, as well as volume EQ'd and the rest. So, it was a log time coming, now let's hope you have a good time with All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 43. 

P.S.: Nothing to do with APNS, but I've seen that the giftbag in the birthday thread contained only one album, the Sinners soundtrack, which obviously wasn't the plan. It seems the last upload in a common folder somhow erased the others. Anyway, I upped Manassas and Dennis Wilson's Bambu in their respective threads for those interested...