From The Spiderweb-Covered Attic: Still The Ass-Kickingest Horror Music Compilation You'll Ever Hear...

Halloween, baby, time to bring out the scary again. This time with real emphasis on the word again. Long-time followers of the blog will know Best Of Horror Vol. 1 already. But hell, a little repost from time to time hasn't hurt anybody and it has been two years since I originally posted this, when this blog was still in its infancy and fighting to slowly crawl into triple digits , so a number of you might not have this, but should get it. 

I lacked time - and, let's be honest here - motivation this year to compile another compilation of music from horror films. And, being honest, and a little full of myself, again, why would I? I recently listened to Best Of Horror Vol. 1 again, and that compilation still holds up splendidly. Those suites that I did for the Friday The 13th series, and John Carpenter's The Fog and Prince of Darkness? Still an excellent way to get the strongest moments from those scores all in one place. 

classic film, classic poster

But since we're not all in on the lazy recycling business, here's the kicker for collectors: A special, exclusive, only on this edition, unavailable elsewhere BONUS TRACK (What, too much?!). Yup, even here on One Buck Records, we go for collector's bait. Actually, this morning in the school where I work, during class breaks, we were, ahem, celebrating Halloween. Lights out, scary sound effects and music on the comm system, that kind of thing. And, completely unbeknownst to my two bosses, on one of the scary music Cds that they no doubt picked up completely at random there was...the main theme from Suspiria! Good choice, compilers of unknown Halloween-themed CD. So, that gave me an idea. 

I have never liked Goblin's soundtrack to Suspiria much. I know it is held in high esteem by both horrorfilm score and prog rock fans, but I find the whole thing a taxing experience, with the prog side of Goblin meaning that they often stretch out the music unnecessarily, which goes into the straight up annoying when they do yelling witch voices and such. The tracks on the album are reminiscent of the ones in the film, but not quite the same. So for the extra special bonus track, I mixed two tracks ("Suspiria" and "Witch") together to approximate the feel of the score that's playing in the opening minutes, during Suzie's taxi ride through the forests to the dancing academy. It has to be said, that Suspiria's opening is its pièce de résistance, and one of the most stonishing sequences ever put to film. It's an assault on the senses - sound, music, color - that Argento never did again in such concentrated form. That first reel of Suspiria is so outstanding, that unfortunately the rest of the film can never really match it, and the finale is sadly kind of a dud. But that opening, man, even as a short film, that thing is killer, literally and figuratively...

The inclusion of "Suspiria Witch" means that I'm breaking a rare principle, as I also break the 80 minute plane with that track included. If, for some crazy reason, you would want to burn this to disc, you'd have to kick something off or overburn. But then again, the tiniest percentage of you is even thinking 'CD', so I'm probably worrying for nothing. 

Anyway, here's the 2025 special bonus track edition of Best Of Horror Vol. 1. Have a happy All Hallow's Eve everybody...

The Very Long And Very Strange Halloween Of Garth Brooks

 

In 1999 Garth Brooks, the biggest music star of the 90s, took one of the biggest gambles of his life. Or he lost his mind, depending on point of view. Brooks was to become Chris Gaines, an Australian-American rock star who sprang - and this is truly interesting - from the mind of Brooks himself, who seemingly made up Gaines' back story, life details and major parts of the story for the film The Lamb that was going to present the life story - succes, tragedy, sex drugs & rock'n'roll - of the enigmatic Gaines. The Lamb,backed by Paramount Pictures and scheduled to come out in 2000, would have been scripted by Jeb Stuart, screenwriter for Die Hard and the big screen version of The Fugitive. The accompanying album was going to be produced by Babyface. What could possibly go wrong on Brooks' march towards world domination via the pop charts and Hollywood? 

Well, a lot, really. Though, to be fair, you can't accuse Brooks of half-assing it. He slimmed down considerably for his new alter ego, losing about 40 pounds, and grew out a soul patch - hey, it was the 90s! - to better incorporate Chris Gaines. Alas, it was (almost) for nothing. It certainly didn't help that the wig, dark mascara and pouting faces not only didn't make Brooks look like a brooding alt rock star,  they made him look like Ben Stiller's Derek Zoolander had walked into the music business. On top of that, the whole concept and presentation - failed makeover and all - was more interesting than the music itself. Most of it is plodding adult contemporary rock with mild r&b undercurrents here and there that could have been monster hits only in Brooks' megalomaniacal imagination. 

Derek?!? The fuck you doin' here, man?

Brooks is both playing it safe with this music and taking a risk with his whole outrageous and plain weird alter ego, meaning that the Chris Gaines experiment falls in between all possible target groups, is incoherent and finally satisfied no one. It also meant that the concept of these real songs as a companion to a fake career fall apart. Whoever wrote Chris Gaines' liner notes talks about their fake boy band's song being the demo instead of the fancy big money studio version, but the song never sounds like a demo, much less a cheaply assembled one. When he talks about songs coming from "a very dark and angy album", why do none of those sound dark or angry in the slightes? Everything sounds here exactly like what it is: a middle-aged music star trying out his hand at expensively made, trussed-up AC pop-rock. If Garth Brooks had really commmitted to the concept, he could have really had something here. If he had, say, really gone for an 80s instrumentation on the tracks supposed to come from that era, or tried out his version of alternative rock or grunge on the supposedly early 90s recordings. But the Brookster couldn't bring himself to do it, which means that the fake liner notes and the music are often at odds with each other. 

Brooks' insistence that this was just an experiment, a little swerve due to the upcoming movie, and not 'the real Garth Brooks' was a bit of a cop-out, a way to protect himself from sell-out accusations. He even went so far in an interview as to suggest that it was Paramount who pushed him into the whole Chris Gaines thing, when that whole deal was 100% the brainchild of the Brookster. And what a weird, warped child it was, the packaging showing already the unwieldiness of the project. The album, identified on the label as "The Pre-Soundtrack To The Film The Lamb" had a front cover and booklet preseting it as the Greatest Hits of Chris Gaines. But since retailers and consumers would have been confused at equal measures, on the back page of the booklet was the same cover, but with the title Garth Brooks In...The Life Of Chris Gaines, which was also the title on the spine and the official title of the album, which was finally usedas the cover. Akward, dude, akward. Much as some of the content pertaining to his alter ego's fictious back story and imagined discography. Not only did they hire a young model to play young Chris Gaines but also some, uh, swimwear models for the 'sexy' artwork of Gaines' albums. No doubt Brooks approved these, so this is where in the hidden space of a booklet and a fictitious character, he let his freak flag fly. Fornucopia, anyone? 

Garth Gone Wild!

(or, all the tits, neon and weirdness he couldn't have on his real covers...)

I said up there that the music is, unfortunately, the least interesting part of the whole Chris Gaines fiasco, as it's for long stretches a snooze, but there are some good things on here: "That's The Way I Remember It" with its shuffling drum loop rhythm, warm piano and guitars is a very nice number, and beautifully sung by Brooks. The same is probably true for "Lost In You", the single from the album that crazily enough made in in the Top 5, yet is a song that nobody remembers. It is, for certain, a contender for least-remembered Top 5 song of all time. I'm not a huge fan of the song, it's too slow and falsetto singing is rarely a favorite of the house. The title of "Snow In July" sounds like a Prince song, and goes for a Prince feel (and in the fake liner notes it says that the media dubbed him 'The New Prince', yeah, sure Jan Garth), while the most Brokks ever gets to rocking on this disc is the Wallflowers-soundalike "Unsigned Letter". 

When the album came out and Brooks was now ready to conquer the pop world after having dominated country music for almost the entire decade beforehand - the album came and went as a huge disappointment, if not outright fiasco. That's obviously a weird thing to say about an album that went all the way to number 2 and made double Platinum. That's of course how crazy the 90s were for Brooks, this would be huge for any other artist, but Brooks was collecting Diamond certifications at the time, so the return was hugely underwhelming. Within weeks, stores were starting to sell their overstock of the album at discount prices.  

I'm a weirdo, baby, so why don't you kill me? 

In The Life Of Chris Gaines was also a huge disaster for Capitol Records, who had gone along with the plan and really put the money behind it. The album itself supposedly cost an astonishing five million dollars to produce, and to really sell the Garth-as-fictitious-rock-star thing they allocated a frankly astonishing 15 milion dollar advertising campaign budget. that included a fake VH1: Behind The Music special. Meaning they sunk more than 20 million dollar in an album that confounded the public, crept to hugely underperforming sales, killed The Lamb and any other related projects deader than Dillinger and was relatively quickly deleted from distribution. Evenmoreso, as, with a sort of Stalinist fervor, Brooks tried to eliminate any traces of poor ol' Chris Gaines: The album isn't part of his official discography on his website, it's scrubbed (or almost scrubbed) like all his music from You Tube and of course it's not available digitally. Garth Brooks would very much for you to forget that Chris Gaines ever existed. But who could foget those bangs, that pout, that eyeliner..? 

In 1999, as if karma was out to spite the most succcessful musician on earth, things went from very weird and reasonably bad to undeniably weird and undeniably worse, as Brooks' long and strange months-long Halloween of course ended in the only way it could...weirdly. He brought out a Christmas album, Garth Brooks & The Magic Of Christmas that was also a companion piece to another media adventure - in this case a TV special called Call Me Claus - and, as with the whole Chris Gaines fiasco, things didn't go as planned. The November release date had already been locked in, while Brooks was still trying to get the Gaines thing back on track, and to add insult to injury finally the special wasn't finished in time and pushed back an entire year, leaving that album stranded without the multimedia tie-in Brooks had counted on. So he went from a pre-soundtrack to a movie that would never exist to a (pre-) soundtrack to a film that would only come out a year later. Hey, how're things goin' there, bud? Oh, also: it has one of the weirdest, most ill-fitting covers of all time. Just look at that thing:

I will capture your souls in this cursed crystal ball...and devour them while you scream in endless agony...Merry Christmas, everybody!...Not!!!

What the fuck is Brooks celebrating here? Is it Christmas or the coming of the antichrist? What's with the spooky night sky? Or with the black outfit and sucked-in cheeks? Is this Chris Gaines who has bodysnatched poor unsuspecting Brooks? Why does he look menacingly into the camera and seems to have a soul-trapping crystal ball of the damned in his hands? Which part of this cover screams 'Christmas' to you? Well, it truly is a Christmas album for the whole family...if it is the Manson family we're talking about. Sheez, Garth. What. The. Fuck. No wonder decades later someone invented the 'Garth is a serial killer' meme. 

Anyhow, you can tell that despite the music being probably the weak link of the whole enterprise, I am strangely fascinated by this whole weird-ass saga. This is what happens when a music multi-millionaire gets weird. It didn't work, but damn, if it isn't an interesting story. And so now I told this story. And you will get at least a teaser of what Brooks' weird Gaines adventure sounded like. I wouldn't want to bore you with the whole thing, so I compiled a six-track EP version, The Way I Remember It, with pretty much all the worthwhile Gaines tracks: The aforementioned "That's The Way I Remember It", "Lost In You", "Snow In July" and "Unsigned Letter", plus the singalong "Main Street" and the r'n'b-rock-ish "Diggin' For Gold". These songs will not change your life, but they show that underneath all the layers and layers of bullshit, there might have even been some salvegeable music in the Chris Gaines project, if Brooks had played it straight. 

Ain't I dark and mysterious?...oh, people will love it...

But then again, he would have deprived us of one of the strangest and most curious (and overexpesnive) footnotes in music history. He might not see it that way, now or ever, but it turns out that his biggest failure was also possibly the most interesting - not to mention deliciously wacky - thing he ever did. And for that, Troyal Garth Brooks, we salute you!

David Bowie's Long Goodbye And The ForeverNextDays

Whether you liked the concept of my David Bowie Mixtapes/Megamixes or not, by the end I was quite 'mixed out'. I finished Babel because I had put all foreign language songs specifically aside, but yeah, the time of the mix has come and gone, at least for the time being. So instead you get a good old fashioned compilation, a One Buck Records exclusive of course, that ends up covering Bowie's autumnal period and the last roars of the lion in winter. There were no specific guiding principles, other than the songs going together. One principle, that the title already hints at, was to do something with the bonus tracks from The Next Day, as well as those of Blackstar/Lazarus. So you get a lot of old man Bowie staring age and death in the eye, and doing it with a defiant rock stance. Because while at least during the production of Black Star, Bowie knew the end was coming for him, there is surprisingly little larmoyance and outright melancholy on the album. Instead, on the set of outtakes from The Next Day and Blackstar, Bowie regularly puts the pedal to the medal and delivers a bunch of freewheeling rock songs. David Bowie would not go gently, or quietly, into that good night. 

Personal highlights for me are the retro-rocking "Atomica", the wonderful "God Bless The Girl" (part of The Next Day's line-up until practically the last second), the inscrutable "The Informer" and the very fitting space odyssey in two parts that is "Born In A UFO" and "Like A Rocket Man", the latter a cheekily jaunty acount of Bowie's cocaine years. Speaking of cheeky: I can't deny it, sequencing these two titles back to back was at least partly for my own amusement, as was the "Plan/"No Pan" combo. And speaking of the latter: What a beautiful song and performance, Bowie for once allowing himself the sentiment of a 'last song', (with the fitting working title of "Wistful"), a man who knows he will die soon in a netherworld or limbo  appearance as a ghost from the beyond in his last months of living: "Here, am I nowhere now? / No plan / Wherever I may go / Just where / Just there / I am" and finally "All the things that are my life / my moods, my beliefs, my desires, me alone / nothing to regret / This is no place/ But here I am / This is not quite yet". Hold on there, folks, I think I got some dust speckles in my eyes there...

"Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them"

The other trigger to launch this was that I read somewhere a short mention of the Loner Mix of "Bring Me The Disco King", which has always been a favorite of mine and was actually for a good while the only version of the song I knew, so when I heard the original, I was a little disappointed, obviously going against the grain once more. For a lot of folks, "Bring Me The Disco King" was the highlight of Reality, but I largely prefer this version by Steve Lohner (geddit?) from Nine Inch Nails. Originally, the song was written and recorded for Black Tie, White Noise, where Bowie intended it as a real cheesy disco number, but the joke fell flat and the number was scrapped. He retried in the mi-90s to no better result, then stripped the song down to just him and a drum loop, with the idea of building gradually a full band version around it, then decided that the stark, lonely sound of just him and Mick Garson on piano was enough. Lohner completely rethought the track with a fuller (and rockier) arrangement for strings, guitar and keyboard. lead guitar wasn't done by Lohner himself, but Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante, while Lisa Germano mans (womans?) the keys. Most controversial, for sure, was Lohner's decision to have Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan re-sing some of Bowie's lines in a sort of ghostly echo. Sue me, that's probably my favorite part of this version. 

Considering the fact that half of the line-up was made up of the last years of his life plus "Disco King", whose opening lines serve as a sort of prelude  to the compilations occupation with, and ultimate gestures of defiance towards one's own mortality: "You promised me the ending would be clear / You'd let me know when the time was now". So I picked songs that in one way or another woud fit - thematically and sonically- and since a lot of the The Next Day/Blackstar tracks took care of the more boisterous side of Bowie, I chose a number of more melancholy numbers to redress and balance the sound: His re-reading of "Quicksand", from ChangesNowBowie, the wistful "Thursday's Child" (albeit in its 'rock mix'), the stately remake of "Conversation Piece" with Bowie's young foolish writer now replaced by an old fool drowned in his unfinished work and loneliness, the acoustic reading of Tin Machine's "I Can't Read" (very similar to, but not the same as the ChangesNowBowie version I used on the Where Are We Now? Mixtape), the bright and beautiful "Strangers When We Meet" that was the Coda to 1. Outside and finally my own mash up of "Where Are We Now," and "The Mysteries", saved from that same-titled mixtape as the closing track here. 

The oldest track here is from 1995, and that is neither surprise nor coincidence. In the mid-90s Bowie was closing in on fifty, a little like the author of these lines is right now, and he was both starting to take stock of his life, his past, his possible futures. That's why the autumn songs really start around this time period, because Bowie started to realize that he - the Ziggy of yesteryear, a generation's Major Tom, a thin white duke that defied white lady - was now probably closer to the end of his life than to the beginning of it. So his thoughts turned autumnal sometimes, not often, but regularly, while the rocker in him still strolled out, raging, raging against the dying of the light. 

And that closing track, a mash-up I did to really sustain the melancholy of its lyrics? A closing prayer, really. "My prayer flies like a word on a wing" he sang in 1976, but the real Bowie prayer that counts is at the end of "Where Are We Now?":

As long as there's sun...

as long as there's rain...

as long as there's fire...

as long as there's me...

as long as there's you...

...there will be forevernextdays...

Creedence Clearwater Revival : An American Band

It's probably not quite right to say that Creedence Clearcater Revival are underrated. They are very much appreciated by everyone, and everyone that hears one of their tunes can probably sing or whistle along and would agree that that is a very fine tune. Therein lies the problem me thinks. If CCR aren't underrated they are somehat taken for granted. Almost everyone likes their music just fine, but when the discussion turns to great American bands, how often does the name Creedence Clearwater Revival come up? Not very often I fear. The very fact that their monster hits were monster hits that still play on classic rock stations everywhere gives them, at least in some quarters, the reputation that they were somehow bubblegum rock'n'rollers, not, you know, serious artists.

And John Fogerty, for better and worse, the head, voice and main hand of the ensemble wouldn't have liked it any other way. CCR is the rare band that didn't search out critical approval, that never went for the 'serious album statement' or really any album statement at all. For Fogerty, and CCR, albums were what they were: You collect the hits, a couple of album tracks, then fill out the rest with a couple of well-chosen covers. Bam. That makes for good to very good albums, but arguably not a great one, at least not the kind of venerated great album that shows up in Greatest Albums Of All Time list, though Green River, their most consistent album, should probably be a candidate for such a list. As a matter of fact, I'd say that their run between 1969 and early 1971 is one of the best runs in American music history. Five albums, tons of great songs on them, and oll that in a little more than two years. I'm not sure who has a better hit rate in such a short time. 

The idea to post some CCR came while I was working on the Bluegrass Chartbusters series (and boy has that one ballooned out of proportions since last we mentioned them...) and I realized that I put a CCR cover on almost all volumes, not only because the covers were very good, but also because of how great these songs really are. For this little compilation, I kept things simple: I stuck with the best songs which most of the time also were the biggest songs. No need to try and go for the deepest deep cut and sell that as a lost classic. Sure, there were some contenders that could have been on here, like "Pagan Baby", or "Effigy", or "Cross-Tie Walker", or half a dozen others, But considering my 80 minute time limit, there were tough choices to be made. Hey, you still get 27 great CCR numbers, programmed for maximum listening pleasure, or so I hope. I didn't want to sequence chronologically ( as the Chronicles - the name oliges - did), so I sequenced - say it with me, kids - for feel and flow, making sure that the uptempo ravers would be buffered by a midtempo number from time to time. 

As you will see from my track selection, I am not a huge fan of the band's first two albums. Their eponymous (suck it, Ed!) debut album was really a product of its time, coming out in 1968 and sounding like it with its long, relatively aimless jams that are prevalent on these albums. CCR were never particularly interested in aligning themselves with the other San Fran rock bands, but they soon realized that the long jam was not only en vogue, but could also serve to fill out time when material was scant, a trick they repeatedly used when an album had to be made in the usual record time and Fogerty hadn't come up with enough numbers. I mean, I like Cosmo's Factory just fine, but the only reason "Ramble Tamble" is seven minutes and "I Heard It Though The Grapevine" a mind-numbing eleven is to reach vinyl album running time. 

So the debut is represented by a single number, or rather: half one. I liked the song portion of "Walk On The Water", but that part is a very concide (and indicative of the future) 1:45 minutes long, then has a jam section attached that stretches it out to almost five minutes, uselessly I might add. The jam isn't even particularly well integrated, it is literally just tacked on at the end. Not here, though, on the first of two 'An American Band edits'. The second is "Born On The Bayou" from sophopore effort Bayou Country, were the band was starting to come into its own but hadn't shaken off the kind-of sludgy jam band stuff from the beginnings quite yet. So I mercilessly cut the song down for an imaginary single version of "Bayou" with both of the mid-song instrumental sections either completely or mostly gone and the song clocking in at a breezy three and a half minutes instead of a slovenly five and a half...

You might have guessed by now, but yeah, I largely prefer Fogerty's sub-three minute 'get in, get the job done, get out' songs. And boy, did he have a great number of those, and aren't they all swell. With a band like Creedence Clearwater Revival you can really talk about a 27-track comp that is 'all killer no filler'. Just top notch stuff, even on some of the slightly lesser-known numbers I included like "Don't Look Now", "Sinister Purpose" or "Molina". Speaking of sinister purpose: One of the interesting - and not that often discussed - aspects of Fogerty's songwriting in CCR is how dark and scary it is. The music is often upbeat and bouncy, but the sentiments aren't: Fogerty is often evoking fear and paranoia in songs whose titles say it all: "Tombstone Shadow", "Sinister Purpose", "Gloomy", "Bad Moon Rising". 

Just take the latter song, the newly-minted opening number here. When you sing and tap along you tend to forget how dark and ominous the lyrics really are: "Hope you got your things together / I hope that you're quite prepared to die / looks like we're in for nasty weather / one eye is taken for an eye". Fire and brimstone from doomsday preacher John Fogerty, set to one of the bounciest beats to accompany the apocalypse you'll ever hear. Total masterpiece of course...And just as easily Fogerty could be goofy and cute in the whimsical fancy of "Lookin' Out My Backdoor" or serve up realer-than-real Sun single imitations on "Don't Look Now" and others.

So, because you can never have enough CCR in your life, here's a generous serving of some of the best from one of the best of the American rock bands...

The French Connection: Le Punk...Le Rock...Le Punk Rock!

I have never been much of a punk guy. I was born too late for its first wave, or its second, or its third (depending on how you count), so I was only there for the genre's afterglow as punk-pop. I was there when Green Day were big, and when The Offspring broke through, and I liked the occasional song, but have never been a punk-fiend. Later I picked up some of the classics (Ramones, Clash, The Replacements) which I like fine enough but wouldn't play for hours on end either. But other than, say, The 'Mats the whole second and third waves throughout essentially the whole 80s completely passed me by, I mainly know bands like Black Flag or Hüsker Dü for the bands they inspired, mostly in the alt country genre. My beloved Uncle Tupelo or Whiskeytown were heavily influenced by these acts, but that didn't necessarily entice me to check them out more, and when I did I didn't find much that spoke to me. 

You know what I know even less about than punk rock from the U.K. or U.S.? Why, punk rock made in my current homecountry. Which of course will not stop me from posting some, of course. A little taster, un hors-d'oeuvre if you will, was Trust's apparition with "Antisocial" at the tail end of my last foray into French rock'n'roll, La Vraie Rockollection. These guys were right on the line between hard rock and punk rock, "Antisocial" also dutifully shows up here, in a cover by Martin Circus. These guys probably merit a word, starting as one of France's first prog rock groups, then slowly turning into a pop and even disco outfit, before trying their hand without much success at new wave before calling it quits in 1987, only to briefly reunite in 2001 to record this one tracks for a tribute album to Trust. 

I could fill pages with ridiculous pictures of Martin Circus...eh, les gars, c'est ne pas très punk, ça!!!

Much like my first and so far only foray into garage rock, a genre I know little to nothing of substance about, I sometimes like to post things that are clearly out of my wheelhouse exactly because they are out of my wheelhouse. It brings a little unpredictability when One Buck Records is getting a little too comfy in its comfort zone between country rock, classic rock and singer-songwriter stuff that makes up most of its music offerings. I don't want this place to become inoffcially known as OBG's ol' Americana corner, you know. There are other similarities to The Trip, the main one being that this is also sourced from that weird 100 Titres Rock boxset, that sourced the music on The Trip. As explained there, it's a Warner Brothers release, but it seems they just scooped up some releases from indie labels they gobbled up and threw them all together, ending up with a rather, uh, eclectic group of garage rock, some alternative rock, the occasional hair metal song, and a disc made up of French punk rock and hard rock. 

And so my favorite tracks from the punk disc are making up the One Buck Record of the day. Don't ask me for any inside information on these bands or tracks because I don't really have any. So I'll just be brief and mention that one of my favorite's here is "Darla Dirladada" as done by The Rolling Bidochons, known for parodic covers and piss-takes on songs, also named after French comic book characters. The original was first a sort of ethnic French language schlager by Italian-French diva Dalida (Dirla-Dalida-da?), but this version with its goofy, knowingly ridiculous lyrics comes from French lowbrow comedy classic Les Bronzés and also sufferde a horrible Eurodance/techno makeover by something called G.O. Culture that became the huge, brainless summer hit of 1993 and might still be brought out by a DJ with no taste even nowadays to, you know, laisser commençer la fête, if you pardon my French. 

Speaking of ridiculous: Non, les Rolling Bidochons, vous n'êtes pas bien sérieux, là? 

The term punk rock is kept large as it should be. "Les Fantomes Du Pogo" is ska-rock, while "Allo Le Monde" by Ici Paris is closer to New Wave and "Au Nom De La Race" by Les Porte-Manteaux veers into straight up into the hard rock side of things. More traditionally, "Generation Anormale" by Red Def sounds like The Ramones while managing to reference the ideas of both The Who's "My Generation" and Generation X's "Your Generation".  

Anyhoo, so, not much insight from me today (hey, who mumbled 'thank God' in the back row there?), just the music. Matez le matos, mettez le matos, faites le pogo et puis voilà...

P.S.: C in California, this one's for you, pal! 

One Album Wonders: A Cross, A Ross, And An All Around Wonderful Record

The British music scene in the early 70s had an interestingly active group of bands that were trying to mimic the sounds that came splashing over the ocean to their shores. More precisely, the sounds that had travelled across the U.S. mainland before going on a transatlantic journey. The sounds of the westcoast. Bands like Brinsley Schwartz were shamelessly mimicking Crosby, Stills & Nash, while the Jess Roden-led Bronco or Hookfoot were trying their own spin on So Cal country rock. And then there were these two blokes, Keith Cross and Peter Ross, two songwriters who briefly teamed up to make one of the most Westcoast-sounding albums of all time. Oh, and also one of the best. Bored Civilians is the sun-kissed place where the influences of The Byrds, and The Beach Boys meet, and ir's glorious. Not bad for two Brits. 

Just take the album opener and instant classic "The Last Ocean Rider". Almost seven minute of pure bliss. The song itself is over by the three an a half minute mark, the rest is a long vamping section that I normally would look at suspiciously at the very least, but this is the equivalent of Martin Scorsese's "it's a quick three hour movie" (guess the picture he said it about!), it doesn't feel like seven minutes while you bathe in that warm ocean coda. There is a spirited cover of Fairport Convention side project Fotheringay's "Peace In The End", which is the only outside number, with the rest of the songs written by either Cross or Ross, and original closer "Fly Home" a co-write. 

I probably prefer Peter Ross' contributions, even though Ross was a bit of the junior member of the association. Not age-wise, but Keith Cross had already played in short-lived prog rock groups Bulldog Breed and T2, and was a bit of a name, at least to insiders. Besides "The Last Ocean Rider", Ross ' other highlights include the catchy "The Dead Salute" (which sounds like it could have been a single) and the atmospheric b-sides "Blind Willie Johnson" and "Prophets Finders". Keith Cross seems more responsible for the slower songs and ballad side of things, though he does get a little bit funky on the lengthy "Story To A Friend". That last track, together with "Rider" and the equally lengthy "Fly Home" plus Cross' past work is no doubt responsible for this album still being lumped in with progressive rock (or prog folk, more precisely), and while I don't find anything overtly proggish in it, besides these extended instrumental sections, the labeling doesn't matter, though it might have mattered back in 1972. 

And it might have mattered, because artwork and promotion for this album were..., let's say, suboptimal. The original cover for Bored Ciivilians is a great shot by itself, it just isn't very representative of the album and doesn't represent the sunny sounds within at all. It's a great cover shot, but for the wrong album. The new cover art is based on a pastel painting (ha!) by Australian artist Tricia Reust. CD back cover art is included for CD folks like myself! While the cover shot was great but ill-fitting, I never liked the original album title. Bored Civilians? Who is that supposed to entice to pick this up? I don't know if the newly christened Pastels would have sold more copies, but it is an improvement I'd say. It's certainly more indicative of the great music within. 

I love this image, but it sucks at selling the music within properly...

Changes, however, aren't limited to packaging. I thought the sequencing left room for improvement. I didn't like the eleven minute "Story To a Friend" taking up so much space in the middle and slowing it down. This track, rather then a closer for side a seemed destined to be the long run-out groove at the end of the record, which is where I placed it. And I thought that the three non-album songs "Can You Believe It", "Blind Willie Johnson" and "Prophets Guiders" were so strong, that they deserved to be included in the album proper instead of being merely attached as bonus tracks extra limbs, so that's what I did. The latter two songs, both b-sides and both by Peter Ross, are interesting in that the vocals are quite a bit grittier than the conventionally beautiful leads on the album, on "Prophets Guiders" Ross does sound a faint bit like Mercury-era folk rock Rod Stewart. 

Mixing in these three extra songs means that this alt album version of Bored Civilians breaks a little bit with one of the principles I have maintained on my alt albums from yesteryear, namely respecting the vinyl limits of the time to have an authentic record as it could have come out at the time of release. So most of my alt albums clock in between 35 and 45 minutes, as they would or could have at the same time. But, seriously, who cares about fake historical possibility when it's about the music, right? So you get a vinyl recording-limit spraining 55 minutes of fabulous music by Cross and Ross, time-period authenticity be damned! At least I don't leave no damn tracks off for no damn reason! 

Seriously, how hard could it be, though, to collect all the songs of this glorious, but brief collaboration? Really fuckin' hard it seems, because throughout two re-issues they couldn't get it done. The original 1994 re-issue had an extra single, a-side "Can You Believe It" and b-side "Blind Willie Johnson", but somehow failed to include the b-side to lead single "Peace In The End", "Prophets Guiders". For years I could only unearth a crackly period version of it that sounded so much worse in terms of fidelity compared to the rest, that I had no choice but to attach it at the end, sort of as a quick encore, after Cross and Ross have finished their album 'set' with "Story To a Friend". Then, when Esoteric Recordings reissued it 20 years later, it had "Prophets Guiders", but now "Can You Believe It" was missing. Are you kidding me? Specialist re-issue companies and they can not manage to include everything their core audience want from such a release? Hell, Cross and Ross only recorded these twelve songs, so why the fuck are they not all here from the start, remastered and presented as they should? So now sites like this one have to do the job 'cause these doofuses can't get their shit together...(Gee, I curse a lot here, huh? This needless idiocy and avoidable treasure hunting seemingly really goats my get, if you drift my catch...). 

But now all our imaginary pain over these botches is over, as I'm proud to present what I think is the best way to hear the entire output of Cross & Ross. New artwork, new and improved sequencing, all tracks presented and accounted for. What more can you ask for? More music from these two, obviously, but it wasn't to be. After Bored Civilins bombed, both seems to have walked away from the music business, as Discogs has no rntries for them whatsoever after this album. But what a glorious one-shot it is! Cross & Ross might've only worked together for a small amount of time, but Pastels is proof that when you hit the bull's eye right away, sometimes once can be enough...

Wanted: Clyde "Skip" Battin, Classic Country Rock Band Killer

I know, that's a little mean, but is it entirely unwarranted? If you are a classic country rock band in the 70s, and you're thinking of giving Skip Battin a call to join your group of merry men...well, I got some bad news for you...your band is in creative decline, and it's probably terminal. Battin, by all accounts a jovial, easy-going guy that would fit easily into your band was also, unwillingly and accidentally no doubt, a harbinger of doom for the bands that hired him.  

Think about it: He joined The Byrds, and while he actually held up the most stable, and longest-lasting line-up in the volatile history of that band, the Battin years are usually considered a long, at the end drastic decline. Those of you who have followed my Byrds retrospective via alternate albums know that I have a special love for the twilight Byrds, but there is no denying that Battin contributed some of the all-time worst songs the band ever put to tape, and well...those Byrds were goners. After the demise of the CBS Byrds, a new country rock band came calling - The New Riders Of The Purple Sage. They had just come off one of their most popular and by most accounts best albums, The Adventures Of Panama Red, a year before and after a stop gap live album set out to work on their new studio album, Brujo. Result, largely helped by four (including three back-toback!) novelty songs of the infamous Kim Fowley-Skip Battin combo: arguably the worst album to date by the band and an ongoing quality decline through the last years of recording for Columbia. 

Jump to 1976: The re-formed Flying Burrito Brothers have made a respectable, better than expected 'comeback' album. The reviews are scathing, though (mainly based on the impression of usurping and sullying the band name, despite the group having two original members, just not the right ones), and band founder Chris Ethridge quits in disgust. And who is that wondering through the door to replace him? Why, it's ol' Skip Battin, to rejoin old comrade Gene Parsons (who would only stay for that one common album). Result: The following album Airborne was anything but and took a huge nosedive, quality-wise, compared to its predecessor. At least Battin had no songs on that album. 

Anyway, enough of that, even though the point is hard to argue. As a steady hand, Battin's presence was appreciated by those bands, with problems coming up as soon as he mentioned that he and Kim had written a couple of songs to look at...But, for a brief moent in between band adventures, Battin was also for the briefest time a solo artist. Right after being fired by McGuinn in 1972, he issued his solo album Skip for Columbia, and invited his old Byrds band members to play on it. Most mischieviously, he had Roger McGuinn add his typical 12-string Rickenbacher sound to "Captain Video", the standout track, which was also a really funny send up of McGuinn, who was very likely oblivious to that very fact: "They call me Captain Soul, but I'm Captain Video!"

And yet, that sole album from 1972, later joined by two solo discs in the early and mid-80s that were issued in Italy only, had a real follow-up, to come out less than a year after Skip. An ambitious plan foresaw a huge country rock revue touring the U.S. in the fall of 1973, including both ex-Byrds Parsons (Gram and Gene), Battin, fellow ex-Byrd Clarence White and bluegrass group Country Gazette (whose members were part of the last Hilllan-led Flying Burrito Brother line-up). Every one of the participants was to bring out an album to tour behind. Now, that huge country rock tour - a sort of 'Rolling Thunder Revue' od Byrds alumni and associates - never took place, for reasons not everyone agrees on, though various mayors voting against the presence of hippie longhairs in their repsectable towns might have played a role in it. A huge damper on things was of course Clarence White's senseless death in July 1973, when he was hit and killed by a dunk driver. White was working on his own solo album that was never to be, and was also scheduled to go into the studio mere days later to support old comrade Battin on his second studio album. 

Despite everyone being shocked and in giried by the sudden loss of White, the session stook place, with members of  Country Gazette, the aforementioned Chris Ethridge, Clarence's brother Roland, Herb Petersen and, replacing White, Al Perkins, then from the Souther-Hillman-Fury Band. An L.A. country rock all-star band that convened to cut a number of bluegrass standards as well as a number of typically skewed Battin-Fowley originals, before the project was finally abandoned. No tour, no album...thus Battin joining the New Riders Of The Purple Sage. For almost forty years that abandoned second album by Battin existed only in the memory of the players, before finally being issued by Byrds-associated act specialist Sierra. Topanga Skyline finally saw the light of day in 2012. 

But it was an album presentation  that was not entirely successful or well-thought out: To bolster the skimpy running time of a little more than half an hour - feasible in 1973, but unreasonable for the CD age - Sierra Records added the two most country-ish tracks from Skip's real second solo album, 1981's Navigator (featuring other Flying Burrito Brothers founding member Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel). Two different takes on the standard "Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms" were unceremoniously glued together. And a snatch of "Old Mountain Dew" showed up as a hidden bonus track, glued to an ill-fitting partner. There is good work and some very fine music on this album, but the presented form just missed the mark. 

Enter the One Buck Guy. Here is Topanga Skyline in the way it could have come out in 1973. No bonus tracks from a decade later, only songs recorded in 1973. A more balanced sequencing. And a rightful place for "Old Mountain Dew" and that second, rather loose take on "Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms". These two tracks, taken from a demo/jam session are believed to be the very last rceordings of Clarence White before his untimely death. So while technically, they might not be as good as the rest of the album, they have their place as a reminder of what everyone lost when Clarence died, and a tribute to White. 

As for the music: The playing of some of the finest that the L.A. country rock scene has to offer is the highlight here, while Battin's idiosyncratic songs and lead vocals are spirited, but definitely a bit of an acquired taste. If you liked Battin in The Byrds, Burritos or New Riders Of The Purple Sage, you'll like this, and if you like bluegrass and country rock, or any of the bands mentioned thus far, then you'll probably like this as well. The obvious highlight here is a truly inspired reworking of bubblegum hit single "Hully Gully", that just stomps out the original. That one is almost worth the price of admission alone, though Battin also delivers some fine ballads with the beautiful "Relax With Me" and "Wintergreen", and holds up his end of the bargain when plowing through "Foggy Mountain Top" or "Salty Dog Blues". 

Woof, that write-up got a little long there, whoops. So, let's cut the chit-chat and join Battin in a bluegrass-flavored trip to that Topanga Skyline...