From The Record Shelf: Meet The Mull Historical Society (a.k.a. Colin MacIntyre)

The one-man band has always fascinated people, probably ever since Brian Wilson wrote and produced his 'pocket symphonies', and while having the Boys around was nice, for a lot of people the Beach Boys were essentially a one-man band, at least until Wilson lost the plot (and arguably never found it again). Then, in the 1970s Todd "A Wizard, A True Star" Rundgren was considered a veritable one-man band. And from there on, every decade seemed to have a couple of one-man bands. At the beginning of the 2000's, the biggest name in the one-man band business was Badly Drawn Boy, who became a critical sensation with The Hour Of Bewilderbeast and stayed a critical and (on a modest level) popular favorite for years. 

But my favorite one-man band from that time, as you have seen from the title, is a young (at the time) Scotsman named Colin MacIntyre, who spent his youth on the Isle of Mull, with an ad inspiring him to choose the venerable Mull Historival Society as the namesake for his pop project. And what a fabulous pop project this is. Luscious melodies laid on top of luscious melodies. 

MacIntyre's immersive search for the perfect pop song sometimes leads him to excess - "Barcode Bypass", his first single that won him NME single of the week in 2000, is prolonged, somewhat unnecessarily, with an elongated coda to seven minutes. But those first five minutes are a hell of a tune, as is pretty much everything here on Loss. I didn't keep tabs on MacIntyre or Mull Historical Society afterwards. But from time to time, when the mood is right for some lush pop, I return to Loss. 

For once, I'll leave things short and sweet and instead direct you to Mr. MacIntyre and Loss. It won't be yours, if you check it out...

The French Connection: La Calif' à la Française...

One advantage of living in the land of people who eat frogs and snails is that I get exposed to music I otherwise wouldn't have, though I suppose that's true for any country you live in. So, in this very first edition of our loose series called The French Connection I will present one of my adopted countrymen. I this case: Geyster, an artist that even here in his home country is somewhat obscure, apart from a very specific fan base. That fan base? Fans of the smooth sounds of the 1970s and 1980s soft rock, as well as fans of friendly, shiny electro-pop. But really, more fans of the former. 

I first became aware of Geyster when I picked up California Groove, a beautifully produced French Warner Brothers box set that presented what (so the booklet told me) some French call "la Calif'", a.k.a. the yacht rock mostly associated with California and L.A. The last CD included some modern flagbearers of that style, including a certain Geyster. Geyster was at first the name for a music project from musical partners Gaël Benyamin and Pernilla Grönlund, but soon became to become the musical alter ego of Mr. Benyamin, one of pop's most eclectic one man bands. And I do mean one man band: He writes, performs, arranges, produces and mixes his own music and plays all instruments a band usually requires: guitar, piano, bass, drums, keyboards - it's all him. His love for 70s and 80s pop means that there are a number of covers of artists such as Hall & Oates ("Kiss On My List"), The Alan Parsons Project ("Eye In The Sky"), Christopher Cross ("Ride Like The Wind") and others. But everything else, apart from the occasional guest vocal or guitar part is him. And he does have a knack for writing a good pop hook, as well as for mimicking the kind of music he likes. There are touches of what is now known as synthwave to the proceedings, rarer some loud rock guitars, but most of it is big, shiny pop. Sometimes a little funky, sometimes even a little jazzy, and always stylish. If you have some appreciation for the yacht rock of the late 1970s/early 1980s, or if you just love pop music, then give this a try. 

                                     Oh la la, encore plus français et tu meurs...frimeur!

As the title implies, this is quite the package: 50 tracks (some of them quite short), spread out (if you are still counting in such things as I do) across two CDs of almost full capacity, showing the breadth of his work and covering about fifteen years of Geyster's career, from his first album in 2003 to about 2018. In many ways, it's perfect summer music, so during this cold and grey winter time, at least around these parts, let Geyster bring some sunshine pop in your lives...

Evil ol' Netflix made me do it! (It's all good, though)

This might strike you as an odd addition to this blog. Robbie Williams is decidedly mainstream, while most of the music here at One Buck Records is - not. Blame it on Netflix. Luring me in with one of their trailers on the main page, I only wanted to check out the first episode of their new four-part docuseries and - whoosh - watched the whole damn thing. On the one hand, it's a typical Rise and Fall of, with the overnight success as a member of a (boy) band, the even bigger success as a solo artist, paparazzi, paranoia, prescription drugs...then rehab, love, redemption. Nothing much that is unexpected here. But on the other hand, the series does have an interesting narrative device. It mostly consists of vintage footage of the Robster's adventures and misadventures, as commented by a now almost fifty years and somehat wiser Williams, who often discovers this footage for the first time while the documentary crews cameras are on him. So he sees his younger self being a dick, being mortified on stage etc. It's not the most riveting stuff on earth, but it'll keep you watching. 

And of course it did, what music documentaries (or articles) generally do: They bring me to pull out the albums of the artist in question, in this case Williams' first three. And what can I say: They're pretty damn good! It's been years that I listened to them, and I gotta say I didn't remember the consistency of the records. I remembered of course the big hits that were unescapable on the radio, but I gotta say that even the album tracks are for the most part good, further proof that the songwriting team of William and Guy Chambers really had some fantastic alchemy between them for a couple of years (it ran out on Escapology, their fourth and last album together). Robbie could've gone the classic "a couple of hits and a bunch of filler" approach, but these are sturdy pop/rock records all the way through. Not genius music by any stretch of the imagination, but really good pop and rock music, which is nothing to sneer at, either. He can be pretty funny, too. The first verse of "Strong" always makes me smile: "My breath smells of a thousand fags / and when I'm drunk I dance like me dad / I started to dress a bit like him. / And early morning when I wake up / I look like Kiss, but without the Make-up/ and that's a good line to take it to the bridge" (cue: bridge to chorus). Cheeky little rascal. 

So what we have here is a sampler of the best of those first three albums, plus a couple of rarities from the early days, including Williams covering Bowie's "Kooks" and The La's' "There She Goes", plus a pretty funny piss-take on his old boy band's "Back For Good", sung half as a ballad, half as a heavy-metal/screamo song. Relatively funny stuff. The credo for this comp could come from George Michael, who Williams covered for his first single (also present here): Listen without prejudice...

The 1.000 Faces Of Randy VanWarmer

O.K., the title is slight hyperbole. More like two and a half faces. Which is still one and a half faces more than I originally thought, having crossed VanWarmer and, presumably, his signature song "Just When I Needed You Most" a couple of years ago when I dipped my feet into soft rock. And that song was so soft, that I wrote VanWarmer off as an artist of potential interest. Imagine my surprise when a couple of months later - while still on a bit of a soft rock kick (if such a thing can exist) - I found "Suzie Found A Weapon" on a soft rock comp, but it didn't sound at all like soft rock, more like some punchy new wave. I made a mental note to check out that VanWarmer, then of course promptly forgot about him. Somehow, this year I fell in with VanWarmer again, this time taking the time of checking him out, especially his early stretch for Bearsville Records. And I wasn't disappointed. Apart from the first album - which is all softer-than-a-baby's-butt soft rock - he showed encouraging signs of being a secret enfant terrible: Bringing out ten-minute faux prog rock, alternating with power pop/new wave songs, and being generally a lot more irrevent than something like "Just When I Needed You Most" would suggest: Whether its proposing cocaine to his girlfriend to get her to hang out with him (in "Hester's Song") or mocking televangelists in "Amen" ("Send us your money, we will pray for you").  

VanWarmer was hip to what was happening around him. His version of the old gospel classic "Farther Along" suggests he had listened to Adam & The Ants, with the Burundi drums coming in on what is certainly one of the most interesting takes on that old chestnut. He also loved 60's pop, as evidenced by his faithful cover of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe In Magic". 

Waitaminute, you might say, didn't he talk about 1.000, or at least two and a half faces? Where's face number two and a half I hear you murmur? Well, turns out my first encounter with VanWarmer was many years ago. When checking out his work from the 90s and 2000s, I realized that I had first encountered RVM in the mid-90s when my dad was subscribed to a magazine called "New Country" and VanWarmer had put his soft rock bona fides to good use by adding some country instrumentation and hanging out with the new 'hat acts' as a mulleted soft country pop guy. Really sentimental stuff, but what can I say, I have a soft spot for such fare, so even that side of Randy I'm fine with. 

You will find none of that on today's One Buck Record though, which - as the title suggests - focuses on his first four albums for Bearsville Records and there mainly his new wave stuff. It's fresh, it's adventurous, it's a lot of fun. Maybe Art's recent work on Robert Palmer over yonder at Jonder's place pushed me to pull up RVM in the posting queue - like Palmer, VanWarmer is a lot more than "the 'Just When I Needed You Most' guy". So check out some cool Bearsville Beats courtesy of Mr. VanWarmer...

He could've been a contender: Wayne Berry and the fickle footpath to fame

Some folks are unlucky, some are somewhat responsible for their own bad luck, some are a bit of both. Wayne Berry is one of those folks. Here's a guy who had all the goods and who could've conceivably become a star in the early to mid-1970s, if things had broken his way. But a mix of bad luck, jeaousy (fuck Billy Joel and his management!) and his own pigheadedness meant that Berry never made it above the level of also ran and never was. But he could've been somebody...he could've been a contender. The long and winding road of Berry into, then out of the music business has been told very well already, in an in depth article of No Depression (https://www.nodepression.com/wayne-berry-nashville-cat-home-at-last). If, like me, you don't necessarily like to scroll through dozens of screens to read an article (and there are a lot of screens, the whole thing is about 5000 words long...) I've included the article as liner notes of sorts to our album of the day. 

To cut the story very short: grew up in Nashville - hung out with Félice & Boudleaux Bryant and J.D. Loudermilk - moved to L.A., joined the Underground and helped draft dodgers - got signed ton Capitol as a solo artist, but preferred starting a country band, Timber, with George Clinton (not that one, the other one) - solo debut album shelved as a result - after two albums, Timer falls - does a bunch of demos and finally a solo album, the utterly fantastic Home At Last - on his first big tour upsets headliner Billy Joel by doing fantastically in his support slot and gets dumped from his national tour - album thus flops - follow up album Tails Up comes out in a tiny pressing number for about five minutes - hooks up with George Clinton again, for mainstream soft rock project Volunteers - after another failure hangs up his rock'n'roll shoes, goes back to Nashville and becomes a minister. The End.

Berry saw J.D. Loudermilk pitch tunes to artists and agents, "that affected me in a 'Tin Pan Alley' sort of way", and you can definitely see and hear it in his music. Instinctly, he could craft music that was both worthwhile and commercial, without being pandering - if, you know, the commerce and then the public had wanted any part of it. If you listen to Berry's music, you really think he should've been bigger. Not because the music is excellent and it woud have been only fair - the music is excellent, but unlike some other musical heroes of mine (*coughGENE CLARKcough*), it is not wishful thinking to imagine hearing a Berry tune on Top 40 radio. He had a knack for writing memorable hooks, as well as being able to write in a number of styles, incorporating country and folk elements, a whole lot of pop, some reggae...this is where the 'Tin Pan Alley' sort of way really comes into play.  

The attached album is a primer on Berry and his music, a Greatest Hits if you will that just accidentally has no hits in it, but sounds like it should. It breaks down as follows: one track to represent the shelved Capitol Records album (which drowned an insecure-sounding Berry in an ill-fitting countrypolitan sound), three tracks from Timber (from their second album, where Berry really started to find his voice, and a follow-up single), four (high-quality) demos sandwiching his lone single for A&M, the lovely "Beachwood Blues", six tracks from his classic Home At Last album, three from patchier follow-up Tails Out and three from the Volunteers project.  21 tracks to familiarize yourself with Berry and his music, or dive back into it, with some music here that you probably haven't heard before. 

This is also just an appetizer, for a much larger reclamation project to give Berry his due. In the following weeks I will post no less than three Berry albums that never were. High quality stuff all around, from a man who could've been a contender, who could've been somebody. To some of us, he is. 

PS.: If someone needs Home At Last, just say so...