America - Homecoming

The Forest's founder has, of late, developed a compulsive obsession with the "healing powers of 70s soft rock." We hope he'll recover his senses soon, but until then I offer him this.

Their lyrics were about as stupid as anything ever produced in that decade ("The heat was hot"?! - Christ!), but their music - their bouncy, jaunty, wistfully optimistic music - could be pretty damned memorable. These three guys spent much of their youths overseas as army brats. That experience seems to have weasled its way into their melodies and adds a quality that embodies American expats' uniquely idealistic view of home. The music carries an intrinsic sense of homesickness (and by association nostalgia) for the ole USofA - the actual real estate; not the nation - that can be winning on a sunny afternoon with the top down cruising the PCH.

They had their freaking hits, but they were usually surrounded by crappy filler on their LPs. This is as close as they ever came to making a complete album. And it has Ventura Highway on it, which alone forgives a multitude of their sins.

So heal thyself, Forest boy, and then for God's sake, move on.

amg:

Homecoming, America's finest album, refines and focuses the folk-pop approach found on their debut release. The songs here are tighter and more forthright, with fewer extended solo instrumental sections than before. The sound quality is clear and bright; the colorful arrangements, while still acoustic guitar-based, feature more electric guitar and keyboards. The performance quality is more assured, among the most urgently committed the group would ever put on vinyl. Verses are still sometimes banal and clunky ("You can't disregard your friends/But life gets so hard when you reach the end") or cryptic ("Sorry, boy, but I've been hit by purple rain"), but a number of the song subjects here exhibit a yearning sense of wanderlust and love of the outdoors that proves to be highly evocative and compelling (particularly on "Moon Song," "Ventura Highway," "California Revisited," and "Cornwall Blank"). Chordal progressions are sophisticated and contain many subtle surprises. A few new style wrinkles can be seen in the country-influenced "Don't Cross the River," the drivingly gutsy "California Revisited" (perhaps the hardest-rocking song the group would ever produce), and the hushed yet mildly funky "Head & Heart." Chart hits from this release include "Ventura Highway," "Only in Your Heart," and "Don't Cross the River," but each song here has something to recommend it. This top-flight album is a very rewarding listen.

Hear

RIP - Pete Quaife

Pete Quaife, co-founder of the Kinks but wise enough to hit the bricks when the Davies boys made it awful and money became far too important, died last Thursday in Denmark after a long fight with kidney disease.

He had been a successful graphic designer after leaving the band and played music only when the mood struck him.

He was 66.

Metal Urbain - Panik

we are working on some new approaches at Pulpit Central.

24-Carat Black - Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth (1973)

(aka: the Dale O. Warren story)

I just SO adore that Charmaines take

on the timeless standard

(Charlie Chaplin composition)

"Smile"

[see Midwest 45s].

Turns out that the lovely wah guitar is by none other than Dennis Coffey.
But the real discovery for me was the producer /arranger Dale O. Warren.
-- turns out this dude arranged that track, this album and so much more...

allmusic saith: Dale Warren (sometimes credited as Dale O. Warren) was a classically trained musician who made his mark as an arranger and conductor in soul music, first in his native Detroit working for various labels (including Motown) and later, much more visibly, at Memphis-based Stax Records.

His first notable work for the latter was on Isaac Hayes' version of "Walk on By," and its success and the impact of the resulting album soon made Warren into a mainstay of the company's production department.

He subsequently served as an arranger for Billy Eckstine, the Staple Singers, and Albert King, among many others, but his greatest triumph was probably his string arrangement for Hayes' soaring rendition of Jerry Butler's "I Stand Accused," from 1970. Warren's most visible contribution to music came two years after that, at the Wattstax Festival.

He was heavily featured as a composer and conductor at the legendary Wattstax concert and on one of the albums and in the movie that followed — he conducted what was billed as the Wattstax '72 Orchestra and also wrote the extended instrumental piece, "Salvation Symphony," that opened the event (a portion of which, eight minutes long, was included on one of the eventual album releases from the event).

He also took under his wing a Detroit-based group

called the Ditalians

renamed them 24 Carat Black,

producing one stunning album

entitled Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth

Sad to say, Warren also suffered from various personal problems, including alcoholism — he was known for showing up at sessions with a supply of gin on hand, and apparently, if all accounts are to be believed, was drunk at some live engagements — that made him unreliable. His fortunes faded after he left Stax Records in 1974, that year did see Warren earn his first (and only) screen credit as a musician, for his work on the scoring of the drama The Klansman (1974).

He lived only just long enough to see this album turn into a cult favorite, embraced by hip-hop artists of the next generation, and to witness the first phase of the full-scale revival of interest in Stax and its history.

HEAR

Jules And The Polar Bears - Got No Breeding

For somebody who loves pure powerpop there's no finer example what it is that fuels the passion than this little gem. A classic case of wrong place/wrong time ended up burying it, but over the years it dragged itself from the grave and got recognized for the perfection it is.

amg:

Jules and the Polar Bears' debut album, Got No Breeding, fell into a commercial twilight zone shortly after its release in 1978; the music was too quirky and the wit of the lyrics was too curious for the mainstream rock audience, but the band's approach was too firmly rooted in mainstream pop for the new wave crowd, who Columbia thought would be the record's likely target audience (and the shaggy picture of Jules Shear and his bandmates on the cover wasn't likely to encourage the skinny-tie wearing record buyer). However, in time Got No Breeding became a cult favorite, and with good reason — it's a superlative collection of smart, well-crafted pop tunes played with enthusiasm and élan by a great band. The studio-savvy guitar work of Richard Bredice and Stephen Hague's piano have one foot in mainstream rock & roll, but the slightly strangled cry of Shear's vocals takes these songs into another place, though he's able to keep up with the band when they shift into high gear on tunes like "Convict" and "Driftwood from Disaster," and he generates some genuine soul on "You Just Don't Wanna Know" and the title cut. Shear's songs also take a skewed but heartfelt look at life and love in the Modern Age, and there isn't a less than memorable tune in the bunch; close to thirty years on, Got No Breeding's fusion of polished studio craft and idiosyncratic pop experimentation sounds prescient rather than eccentric. Got No Breeding is where Jules Shear's career as a cult hero really took off, and with good reason — it's a thoroughly enjoyable album and one of the finest records his name has ever been attached to.

Hear

Audio Sports - Strange Fruits

Smoother, slicker than Baywatch's preceding post of Era. Bigger jazz influences. It still gasses.

I actually prefer this one, but just by a little bitty bit.

Hear

Audio Sports - Era of Glittering Gas, Eat+Buy+Eat (1992)

!!!REBOOT!!!

this is not really a new post, but a repost.

see I

was hanging with my pal The Hen t'other night

in my kitchen, when he requested, as he always does

to hear Audio Sports. I've come to realize that it is the only

record in my collection he does not possess but wishes he did...

and so we listened to it and it sounded as fine as ever

but then today when i wanted to hear it at work

i tried pulling it offa the froxx here, alas

only to find my link was crossed

with a Sonny Sharrock boot

well, hah and lol

sorry!

it's been fixed

now

i urge you

to check this out

if you have not yet

+++

the beats are smoof

and eye's rhymes flow

in a most pleasant mode

Trouser Press: For fans of space-a-delic rap, Audio Sports resembles nothing so much as the Beastie Boys being choreographed by a tag team of Neil Tennant and John Zorn. With its surreal cutting (provided by DJ Kool Jazz Takemura) and stun-gun BPM levels, Eat+Buy+Eat uses basic hip-hop elements as a base for wiggy gibbers and rasps that effectively skewer consumer culture icons. Yamatsuka is less of a presence on Era of Glittering Gas, but his hijinks add an edgy goofiness to the maliciously playful "Outlaw in Wonderland."

HEAR