US 1960s Aug-Sept 2009

NEIL AND DELIVER
The long-mooted, hotly-anticipated first instalment of NEIL YOUNG’s archives series is here. MIKE FORNATALE expects to be confounded.

NEIL YOUNG
Archives Volume 1: 1963-72
Warner-Reprise CD/DVD box sets
www.neilyoung.com/archives
Majestic, genius, transcendent, breathtaking, singular, difficult, confounding, impossible, a complete and utter pain in the kidneys and well worth every second of grief. Am I describing Neil Young himself or this small army of DVDs that’s sitting in front of me? Okay, too easy. The answer is of course, “yes I am.”
Neil isn’t going to make any new fans with this set, nor was he supposed to. It’s a multi-layered, labyrinthine exercise in total absorption – without, oddly enough, being “completist”. Buffalo Springfield’s albums, for example, are represented by exactly seven of the originally released songs – not counting a few demos from their box set, a few demos not from their box set, and (finally) the magnificent ‘Sell Out’.
No, this isn’t the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink vault full that some fans were expecting. Nor, however, is it the kind of tedious minutiae-laden stalker’s dream of a box that focuses on fifty alternate takes of the guitar solo from ‘Cinnamon Girl’ (you really DO only need one note if it’s the RIGHT one) and excruciatingly dull interview excerpts that even obsessed fans couldn’t make it all the way through even once, let alone want to do so again.
No – this collection is, to borrow a term from Pete Townshend, a “scoop”. And a great one. It’s wonderfully thought-out, if confoundingly implemented. Once you get the lay of the land (and, trust me, you WILL be tempted to throw large objects before you’re through) you’ll realise that this collection can be navigated hands-free as a truly marvelous and deep “Best Of Neil” set – or, with a little digging, a fantastic glimpse under the covers – or, with a lot more digging (you should lay in some provisions for the ride first) an unprecedented crawl into the deepest recesses of the vault.
First, the raw data. This set comes in three versions. Eight audio-only CDs, without the extras; ten DVDs; or ten Blu-Ray discs. Just in case the choice is yours to make and not your wallet’s, note first that the CDs do NOT contain all the audio material. The hidden tracks, interview excerpts and such are not there. Nor do you get the Journey Through The Past film – the full theatrical version of which comprises the last disc in the DVD and Blu-Ray sets.
Okay then, DVD or Blu-Ray? For me the choice was easy: I don’t have anything to play the Blu-Ray discs on. Done. So here’s what I did not get: 1) 192kHz audio; 2) Hi-Def video; and 3) updatable download capability. That’s right – the Blu-Ray edition includes your ability AND license to download whatever newly-discovered-and-approved content Mr. Young comes up with (some of it is already on his website, inaccessible to the rest of us) which actually adds itself to the timeline on your Blu-Ray discs.
Alright, I’m running out of space. So, um, what’s ON this thing? The ten DVDs (which are, of course, numbered 0 through 9) are painstakingly chronological. Each one contains the option of playing the “regular” set of tracks from start to end. And the video for the originally audio-only tracks will either delight you or annoy the socks off of you, depending on your temperament. I loved it. It usually consists of a vintage turntable spinning the actual disc as you listen to it; or, in the case of unreleased archive material, a vintage tape recorder playing the tape.
If, on the other hand, you choose the “song selection” option, you enter the fourth of fifth Circle Of Neil, as it were. You can play each track, or look at corresponding photos (MANY photos) or read the lyric sheet (many of which are the original sheets) or look at the complete list of personnel on the track (many surprises here) or – in most cases – click on a half-hidden window behind the main window and find some corresponding archival audio or video connected somehow to the song you’re on – sometimes it’s a radio interview, sometimes an original commercial for the album, sometimes a tantalizing video nugget (how about the ENTIRE recording session for ‘A Man Needs a Maid’ and ‘There’s a World’?) – but rest assured, you will stay busy for hours and hours if you’re so inclined. Another example: the brilliant Fillmore East recording of ‘Sea Of Madness’ has, half-hidden behind the selection, complete video and audio of the same song as performed in the film Celebration At Big Sur.
And then there’s that Ninth Circle Of Neil: the “more” button. Here you can find another wealth of data, as well as the full timeline connected to the set. This is precisely what it sounds like, but wait a minute – while each disc includes the entire timeline for the ten discs (a nice idea, that) it also includes, in its own section of the timeline, little push-pins that correspond to FURTHER hidden audio and video. Would anyone like to hear some hitherto-unknown audio from the last-ever Buffalo Springfield show, in soundboard quality? I’m not kidding. I’ve never seen this performance bootlegged anywhere before.
That’s STILL not all: on the “more” page on several of these discs, you’ll find – (or maybe you won’t) – sly little “easter eggs” to click on. Hidden behind a light switch or a pickup on an acoustic guitar you’ll find video of Neil with Gary Burden and archivist Joel Bernstein – talking about the project, about some of the timeline, about some bad concert reviews, and one very telling one in which Neil remarks that he has forty albums of material to draw from and his concert audiences seem to want the same handful of songs every time.
There are many nuggets herein that will make longtime fans literally gasp out loud, but here’s a spoonful: SIX tracks by The Squires; four pre-Springfield demos of songs you’ve never heard; an early run-through of ‘Birds’… BY CRAZY HORSE; A pristine-sounding demo of ‘Everybody’s Alone’ – also by Crazy Horse; ‘Tell Me Why’ by CSN&Y – live and perfect – with Stills on double bass, with video; beautifully shot film of The Stray Gators feeling their way through the songs that would become Harvest in Neil’s barn; Neil laying on the grass outside the barn, listening back to the first take of ‘Words’ blaring across the entire ranch; Live At Massey Hall, Live At The Riverboat and Neil Young And Crazy Horse Live At The Fillmore East in their entirety. And, as mentioned earlier, the film Journey Through the Past.
The set also includes a massive 236-page hardbound book, which unfortunately I can’t tell you anything about (the review copies do not include the book or the box itself) but I have a feeling your eyes are going to pop when you see it, if you’ve read this far.
This is ultimately a very rewarding piece of work – albeit one which requires the viewer/listener to work almost as hard as the artist himself did. And, since we’re talking about Neil Young, that makes perfect sense to me. It’s always been so. Why change now?

101 STRINGS
Astro-Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000
Righteous CD
www.cherryred.co.uk
The tale of how this slice of madness came into being is stranger than any fiction. Described in the original sleeve notes “a space odyssey in the beat of today – with the far out sounds of tomorrow’s uncharted trip beyond the now generation”, Astro-Sounds was in fact a vehicle for the notorious pop exploitation tactics of Al Sherman and his label Alshire records.
The project started life as a series of out-takes from The Id’s ultra rare psych album The Inner Sounds Of The Id with the ubiquitous strings added later along with some sitar by arranger Monty Kelly with the re-modelled sounds then released on Alshire under the name The Animated Egg. Sensing there were more bucks to be made, Sherman adding some organ, weirded out the vibes with some psych-ploitation effects and turned the whole thing into a cosmic cash in. Titles like ‘Astral Freakout’ and ‘A Bad Trip Back In ’69’ tell their own story but furthest out has to be ‘Whiplash’ with its hints of Girl On A Motorcycle style kinkiness.
Grahame Bent

CROSBY, STILLS & NASH
Demos
Rhino CD
www.rhino.com
As members of one of rock’s first supergroups, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash provided a large part of the soundtrack for the Woodstock generation with their gilt-edge vocal harmonies, deeply resonant songwriting and intrinsic commitment to social causes.
This 12-track release offers a candid peek at their early days with salient group and solo demos, all previously unreleased, recorded between 1968 and ’71. Neil Young appears on one selection, joining Crosby and Nash on ‘Music Is Love’, which the three co-wrote.
Two titles date from the trio’s blockbuster ’69 debut album as all three harmonise on the Nash-penned ‘Marrakesh Express’ and Crosby and Stills offer a free-form version of the cautionary ‘Long Time Gone’. Most of the remaining cuts comprise nascent renditions of songs destined for solo projects each member undertook after the success of the group’s #1 album Déjà Vu. Stills’ ‘Singing Call and ‘Love The One You’re With’ along with Nash’s ‘Chicago’ and ‘Be Yourself’ are particularly noteworthy in that regard.
Gary von Tersch

THE GRATEFUL DEAD
Road Trips Volume 2 #2: Carousel 2.14.68
dead.net CD
www.dead.net
With the Dead currently in regeneration mode (a gig at Obama’s inauguration ball and a US tour currently underway), this timely release takes us back to the band’s formative years. It’s also a trip into their collective musical id; a wired, high-energy demonstration of what makes them tick.
All aspects of early Dead are here: Pigpen’s lascivious, blues-boy holler; Phil Lesh’s probing, investigative bass; reedy Vox continental organ and a ‘Dark Star’ excursion that’s like swimming around in your own head, with its constantly shifting haze of abstract ideas and images, and tumbling, stream-of-conciousness motion.
‘Spanish Jam’ is a hazy, acid-drenched invocation of Miles Davis’s ‘Sketches Of Spain’ and ‘Turn On Your Lovelight’ just burns.
There’s still nothing that sounds like this – a combination of bluesy primitivism and out-there experimentation that can still melt minds.
Blissful.
Neil Hussey

TOMMY JAMES & THE SHONDELLS
Crystal Blue Symphonies: The Psychedelic Years
Rev-Ola CD
www.revola.co.uk
Not one but two Tommy James albums and, more to the point, two albums which reveal contrasting sides to what is commonly perceived as one of the archetypal ’60s pop acts.
Conceived and created as as two distinct yet complimentary albums and released on Roullette in January and October 1969 respectively, Crimson And Clover is conventionally seen as the pop psych side of the equation while its sequel, Cellophane Symphony, is held to be the darker, spacier and more experimental audio experience of the two.
Of the former tracks like the frankly irresistible ‘I Am A Tangerine’, ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion’ and ‘Sugar On Sunday’ are definitive late ’60s pop psych at its definitive best while from the latter, the near 10 minute long meandering electronic title track shows the band to be heading off on a different kind of trip all together.
But for all the differences in approach it’s still pop, albeit pop approached from all manner of diverse and unexpected angles including the comedic ‘On Behalf Of The Entire Staff And Management’. In other words there’s probably something for just about everyone here.
Grahame Bent

THE PEPPERMINT TROLLEY COMPANY
Beautiful Sun
Now Sounds CD
www.nowsounds.co.uk
For many years The Peppermint Trolley Company were known for nothing but having sung the theme song to the first season opening credits of The Brady Bunch. This CD means we can do away with that nonsense and concentrate on what the band should be known for, which is a gorgeous album filled with sunshine pop and baroque pop; a yin/yang that will please many fans of ’60s music.
One can definitely hear The Merry-Go-Round on the album opener, the breezy ‘I’ve Got To Be Going’, while harpsichord-laden gems ike ‘Put Your Burden Down’ and ‘Reflections (On A Universal Theme)’ come off The Left Banke chalkboard. There’s also a very nice version of the soft-pop classic, ‘Trust’, as well as the obligatory late ’60s requiem/political statement, the 7 minute 30 second ‘Fatal Fallacy’.
The massive number of bonus tracks on this reissue include several previous incarnations of the band along with non-album 45 sides like the sunshine-y ‘She’s The Kind Of Girl’, the (yes) obligatory late ’60s everyman song ‘9 O’Clock Businessman’ and the unlisted gem ‘Lollipop Train’.
David Bash

QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE
Quicksilver Messenger Service
BGO
www.bgo-records.com
Castles In The Sand
Charly
With its distinctive Rick Griffin sleeve artwork, Quicksilver’s self-titled debut appeared in the spring of 1968, in the wake of the trailblazing maiden releases by the Airplane, the Dead and Big Brother and arrived as the last major label debut from the principal Bay Area acts. Co-produced by the triumvirate of Nick Graventies, Harvey Brooks and Pete Welding, ironically, given the timing of the album’s release, Quicksilver’s debut wound up being recorded with the band reduced in numbers to a four piece while front man Dino Valente was languishing in prison on a marijuana rap. With vocal duties shared between Gary Duncan and David Freiberg Quicksilver’s impressively debut laid down the blueprint of what had become the band’s instantly recognisable live sound based around the highly fluid twin lead guitar interplay of John Cipollina and Gary Duncan. Highlights here include the opener ‘Pride Of Man’ which to this day remains one of the songs which best typifies Quicksilver’s highly distinctive sound. Elsewhere, ‘Gold And Silver’ and ‘The Fool’, with their lengthy instrumental passages, bear testament to the central role played by Quicksilver’s legendary jamming instincts in helping to forge what became the band’s instantly recognisable sound.
With the session credited as having taken place at Corte Madera in California most likely sometime between October ’69 and April ’70 following Dino Valente’s release from prison, Castles In the Sand may be the earliest known recording of the newly reformed Quicksilver Messenger Service (here with Nicky Hopkins on piano) yet to surface. With the mood very much a rehearsal cum jam session the band are heard playing their way through rough working versions of new songs - ‘Senor Blues’ and an embryonic version of ‘Subway’, a selection of standards and covers including ‘I Know You Rider, ‘Walk In Jerusalem’, Hank Williams’ ‘May You Never Be Alone’, ‘Wake Up, Dead Man Parts 1 & 2’ and the lengthy exploratory jams of ‘Castles In The Sand’ and ‘The Fool’. All things considered, Castles In The Sand is an absolute must for all serious Quicksilver collectors offering as it does an intruigingly informal snapshot of a specific moment in the life and times of one of the West Coast’s most inspirational bands.
Grahame Bent

VARIOUS ARTISTS
2131 South Michigan Avenue
Sundazed CD
www.sundazed.com
A shrewd move indeed on the part of my editor in getting a native Chicagoan for this review so I will not waste anymore intro time as I roll up my sleeves and dust off my excavating instruments.
USA started out as a predominately R&B based label competing for space with the other labels of the day on Chicago’s (then) record row. It wasn’t until producer Jerry Gold came on the scene – eager to capitalize on the burgeoning rock ‘n’ roll market flourishing in Chicago and neighboring states of Michigan, Indiana & Wisconsin – that the roster that we know and love fell into place.
USA/Destination had a handle on quality control as they released a veritable smorgasbord of garage punk killers and jangle pop confections.
The Shady Daze’s anger management classic ‘I’ll Make You Pay’ gets a new lease of life thanks to the fine remastering job as do local thugs, The Lost Agency, with their feminist rights anthem, ‘One Girl Man’.
Chart toppers The Buckinghams in their early incarnation show that they were just as comfortable with garage menace as they were with Top 40 hits.
The Dick Wagner-produced Cherry Slush prove that you could do wonderful things with fuzz box, reverb and a little pop know-how as do The Boyz, whose two single output was criminally overlooked by the record buying public. There are five stompers from Oscar Hamod & The Majestics sporting their muscular hybrid of garage punk and blue-eyed soul that really hit the spot while The Park Avenue Playground and The Flock show their numbers in the freak quota as the musical landscape broadens.
Further musical thrills come from Lord & The Flies, The Ricochettes and The Sheffields and, if that’s not enough, unreleased tracks ‘Stop Cheating On Me’ by The Counts and an alternate take of ‘Time To Dream’ by The Lost Agency should be enough reason to get your wallet.
Throw in the excellent packing and informative liner notes, and the answer should be clear.
Eric Colin Reidelberger

VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Golden Age Of American Popular Music: Hits With Strings & Things
Ace CD
www.acerecords.co.uk
In the late ’50s stereo was invented and it was the emerging LP format that benefited most from the development. Whilst every Joe in America sought fame in rock ’n’ roll, the easy listening/orchestral market moved onto even greater success through the instrumental magic conjured in highly-polished studios. This latest compilation in Ace’s Golden Age series showcases some of the hits scored.
Kicking off with smooth, ‘Telstar’ aping Kai Winding, Hits With Strings runs through 70 minutes of laid-back loveliness. Highlights include the sunshine pop of Paul Mauriat’s Eurovision masterpiece ‘Love Is Blue’, the Nashville dreamscape of ‘Our Winter Love’ from Bill Pursell and the warm, tasteful delights of Sir Chauncey and his ‘Beautiful Obsession’. Special mention goes to The Islander’s ‘Enchanted Sea’, which incorporates wild west whistling into a low bubbling soundtrack soliloquy.
As commercial as music of the time could be, these exotica sounds – though occasionally veering towards novelty and schmaltz – should still be celebrated.
Phil Istine

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Honey & Wine: Another Gerry Goffin & Carole King Song Collection
Ace CD
www.acerecords.com
This compilation, with its label-crossing 26 tracks, marks Ace’s second foray into the extensive folio of the Brill Building’s Carole King and Gerry Goffin — one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the pre-Beatles era. As with the initial volume, this deck deftly blends more than a few classics (Gene Pitney’s ‘Every Breath I Take’, The Drifters’ ‘Up On The Roof’, The Monkees’ ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’) with new to CD rarities like Jody Miller’s astonishingly non-PC take on ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)’ and Andrea Carroll’s ‘The Boy I Used To Know’ plus downright obscurities such as Marianne Faithfull’s ‘Is This What I Get For Loving You’ and Jan & Dean’s ‘The Best Friend I Ever Had’.
Informative liners and great sound add to the fun.
Gary von Tersch

MURRY WILSON
The Many Moods Of Murry Wilson
Cherry Red CD
www.cherryred.co.uk
Having been relieved of his duties as The Beach Boys’ manager/ recording director during the ‘Fun Fun Fun’ and ‘I Get Around ‘ sessions in April 1964, the famously volatile and all controlling father of Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson then set about promoting his Beach Boys soundalikes The Sunrays before ultimately and bizarrely deciding to pursue his own solo career.
Landing himself a deal with Capitol Murry started work on his solo debut at Brian’s favourite studios – Gold Star and Western Recorders with the finished album as conceived and produced by Wilson Sr released in autumn ’67. Owing as much to the ’50s as it does to the ’60s with its unthreatening succession of easy listening instrumental versions of a selection of Murry originals plus, among others, The Beach Boys’ ‘The Warmth Of The Sun’ and Al Jardine’s ‘Italia’, The Many Moods Of Murry Wilson couldn’t have been any more out of step with the hip and happening musical world of ’67. One for Beach Boys completists and connoisseurs of the offbeat and curious.
Grahame Bent

MOBY GRAPE
The Place And The Time
Sundazed CD
www.sundazed.com
We scrape, inexorably, ever closer to the last drop of sludge in the Undiscovered Gems Barrel, don’t we? But not this time.
This is a wondrous collection of outtakes, leftovers, alternates, and demos by the best band to ever pound the floorboards of the Fillmore and Avalon Ballrooms in 1967, just to get that out of the way quickly.
If this needs saying again, let’s say it (and I’m stealing my own words to do so): Moby Grape was not a band with an amazing front man and a few of his, er, friends. Nor was it a brilliant songwriting team and a few of their friends. It was one of those truly impossible combinations of talent that comes once in a lifetime – five people, each of whom could have fronted a brilliant band all by himself. Five great players, five amazing singers (one of whom seems to have been somewhat superhuman) and – the oft-missing key, here – five transcendentally brilliant songwriters.
The band’s legal troubles are the stuff of legend – and still are, just when everyone thought it was all over. In 2007, Sundazed released individual CDs of the band’s Columbia albums, each with several bonus tracks – some of which were first heard on the 2-CD anthology Vintage. Sadly, three of the CDs were withdrawn literally days after they hit the shelves and remain unavailable.
Now – almost two years later – here’s a 24-song anthology which neatly ties up all the bonus tracks from the withdrawn CDs, and the still-available ones, and Vintage. Or does it?
Looking at the track list, you’d certainly be forgiven for thinking so. Imagine the pleasant surprise, then, at finding out that several of these tracks are previously unheard alternates. (I wonder how many takes of ‘Big’ there actually are? Or do I?)
This certainly wouldn’t be the collection I’d use to introduce a neophyte to Moby Grape; but it’s truly vital for anyone other than the most casual fan to hear and own. From the earliest audition recording of the still-not-quite-finished ‘Indifference’ to a late ’68 version of ‘Hoochie’ (and not the same recording that appeared on Vintage) this ragtag collection of leftovers never flags, never stutters, never gets stuck in the mud.
Do get this, yes. Before something else goes wrong.
Mike Fornatale