False Start is Love’s most blatantly commercial album since their 1966 self-titled debut. Less than half the length of Out Here, False ditches the psychedelic excesses for terse, cowbell-happy pub-rock. Supposedly, the album’s marquee track is “The Everlasting First”, which lacks any discernible hooks or insight but does feature some wah-wah wanking from one Jimi Hendrix, a phoned-in performance that, if uncredited, would be unidentifiable. And its lyrics are pretty puzzling: Lee begins with a love song, and ends up talking about the unjust persecutions of Jesus, Lincoln, and MLK.
As a no-frills rock album, False Start is perfectly serviceable, diverse even. But as a Love album, it falls short, due more in part to lyrical superficiality than radio-ready concessions. Lee’s more pessimistic inclinations are masked, or chemically suppressed, with a hollow, up-with-people mentality. The man who once warned of water turning to blood and shooting bluebirds now sings of riding vibrations and sunshine. “Open up your heart and let the sun come shining in”, he suggests, a far cry from the fire-and-brimstone sermons he once recited. For finger-wagging sage advice, Lee can do no better than “You’re gonna reap just what you sow / I’m here to let everybody know / If you don’t do your best, you’re gonna find yourself in an awful mess”. “Stand Out”, a lesser track from Out Here, is duplicated in a rudimentary and no more impressive live version, and jaunty goofs like the immaturely titled “Slick Dick” (where Lee even admits “I know what it sounds like but it ain’t”) and “Gimi a Little Break” (note the Hendrix-fied spelling) further trivialize the album.
The band is tight and funky, the melodies are generous, and Lee is a versatile pop singer, probably more versatile than Hendrix even. It’s just that Lee is or was capable of so much more than these simplistic exercises. The double meaning of Love (hey, it’s an emotion, and it’s also the band name) is toyed with repeatedly, as on the eleven-minute “Love is More Than Words or Better Late Than Never” and “Love is Coming”, which might as well be a Monkees-esque self-referential theme song. At the end of “Keep on Shining”, Lee repeatedly shouts the word “love”, as though it’s imprisoning him, keeping him from shining, in fact.
And perhaps that’s the lesson of these albums. Forever Changes is a work not simply of prophecy, but finality, digging the grave for ‘60s idealism before the movement even peaked. In its aftermath, both Love the band and love the concept are debunked myths and irrelevant jokes. The man who once proclaimed “the things that I must do consist of more than style" is now prizing style over substance. On Out Here and False Start, Lee has become a casualty of that which he once railed against: it’s a sad, harrowing portrait of one more artist harnessed by the shadow of his own masterpiece, and the certainty of his own convictions. In that respect, these albums represent the shortcomings of peace-love utopianism every bit as much as Lee’s more regularly heralded work.
by Charles A. Hohman, 17 Jul 2008
Tracks
1. The Everlasting First - 3:01
2. Flying - 2:36
3. Gimi A Little Break - 2:10
4. Stand Out - 3:24
5. Keep On Shining - 3:52
6. Anytime - 3:26
7. Slick Dick - 3:08
8. Love Is Coming - 1:23
9. Feel Daddy Feel Good - 3:18
10.Ride That Vibration - 3:34
All songs by Arthure Lee axcept track #1 co-written with Jimi Hendrix
Love
*Arthur Lee - Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Piano
*Gary Rowles - Lead Guitar
*Frank Fayad - Bass
*George Suranovich - Drums With
*Jimi Hendrix - Lead Guitar (track 1)
What happens when the life you expected to end continues? Such was the predicament facing Love frontman Arthur Lee, who famously recorded his mortality-obsessed 1967 masterpiece Forever Changes under the impression he’d been worm food within a year. While Forever did not mark the end of Lee, it did mark the end of Love, at least its original line-up. By 1969, the still-very-alive Lee had assembled an entirely new band under the same moniker: players who, unlike Bryan MacLean (author of Love classics like “Alone Again Or” and “Softly to Me”), wouldn’t question or infringe upon Lee’s often dictatorial leadership. Indeed, these Phase 2 Love albums often play like Arthur Lee solo discs, with new musicians offering backup rather than additional (possibly competing) perspectives.
After Four Sail, Love’s final Elektra album, the band moved to Blue Thumb Records, and promptly released the double album Out Here in 1969, and the ten-track False Start a year later. These first two Blue Thumb albums have recently been reissued on Collector’s Choice, and both illustrate Lee’s concerted efforts to distance himself from his old band, his old music, his old life, and his old self.
Culled mainly from the Four Sail sessions (a more cohesive, though not superior, album), Out Here is, like many two-discers of its time, messy, indulgent, sporadically brilliant and often infuriating. For example, “Doggone” is a lilting tune of loss, until it unravels on an eight-minute (!) drum solo. Many good tracks end too soon to feel complete, and many bad tracks squander early promise on meandering jams.
Like many of his contemporaries, Lee was consuming drugs pretty liberally at this point, and the music reflects this. “Signed D.C.”, a tender acoustic plea to Love’s drug-addled first drummer from the group's debut, is reworked as a blistering rocker. Where on the original, Lee seemed distant and preachy when inhabiting the first-person perspective, he now seems to be living the drug fiend’s life. It’s a tacit there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-went-I moment: he demonically repeats the word “dealer” and omits the title entirely, thereby leaving the viewpoint unshifted. In essence, Lee has become D.C.
Out Here is full of stellar highlights: two brief and funny country songs (“Abalony”, “Car Lights on in the Daytime Blues”), two gospel-inflected ravers (“I’ll Pray for You”, “Run to the Top”), trippy drug songs (“I Still Wonder”, “You Are Something”) and some righteous throwaways, including “Discharged”, an obvious yet amusing anti-army rant that semi-blasphemously quotes “America the Beautiful”. Lee contributes his share of pretty tunes, but where Forever was meticulous and timeless, Out Here is often tossed off and dated. It has more in common with the garage-psychedelia of Love’s earlier albums than the folk-pop beauty of Forever. There’s little to impress those who adore Forever: Lee’s vocals are more forceful hard-rock strutter than stoic prophet, and his lyrics eschew epigrammatic wisdom for uninspired bromides.
by Charles A. Hohman, 17 Jul 2008
Tracks
1. I'll Pray For You - 4:16
2. Abalony - 1:46
3. Signed D.C. - 5:15
4. Listen To My Song - 2:24
5. I'm Down - 3:47
6. Stand Out - 3:00
7. Discharged - 1:36
8. Doggone - 12:00
9. I Still Wonder - 3:05
10.Love Is More Than Words Or Better Late Than Never - 11:20
11.Nice To Be - 1:50
12.Car Lights On In The Day Time Blues - 1:10
13.Run To The Top - 3:00
14.Willow Willow - 3:20
15.Instra-Mental - 3:00
16.You Are Something - 2:05
17.Gather Round - 4:50
All songs by Arthur Lee axcept track #9 co-written with Jay Donnellan Love
*Arthur Lee - Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar
*Frank Fayad - Bass Guitar
*George Suranovich - Drums
*Jay Donnellan - Lead Guitar With
*Paul Martin - Lead Guitar (track 5)
*Drachen Theaker - Drums (track 3)
*Jim Hobson - Piano, Orga, (tracks 1, 13)
*Gary Rowles - Lead Guitar (track 10)
My favorite Love album is Four Sail (Elektra 1969). None of the original band members save for Arthur Lee are on this one. This album is an extraordinary voyage across genres. If it wasn’t so diverse and well-executed I might have written this album off as “pretentious, too proggy, jammy, etc…” but the musicianship is superb and tasteful, and everyone minds each other’s boundaries even at the album’s most intense moments.
The album opens with “August,” which wails away for five minutes. “Your Friend and Mine” is the perfect counterpoint/follow-up to the opening track; a beautiful baroque pop tribute to a friend who’d overdosed and died. The lyrics are heartfelt, yet vague enough to be played at any funeral.
“I’m With You” is a very fluid and sweet uptempo number. “Good Time” starts out smooth as a pebble with a muted jazz guitar tone, and then transitions back and forth into shaking foundations and rocking the fuck out. “Singing Cowboy” rocks with a soulful mannerism and an awesome extended break. “Dream” is just a damn good ballad about nothing in particular, with really cool overdubbed whispers.
“Robert Montgomery” sounds like Eleanor Rigby only for just a second, then turns into a totally different song. “Nothing” seems to be written about exactly that. The weird, enigmatic lyrics hint at this having been a leftover for the Forever Changes album that didn’t get recorded.
“Talking In My Sleep” is an absolute treat with exemplary vocals and some odd harmonies that are totally reminiscent of Queen. I have long speculated that Freddie Mercury and/or Brian May dug this and used it as a sonic blueprint for part of their sound. “Always See Your Face” is a sweet and beautiful soul ballad which was featured in the movie High Fidelity. The brass treatment gives it a very English feel.
One of the recurring themes throughout this album is the doubled vocals. Listen to the way Arthur Lee adeptly recorded another nearly identical vocal track over the original takes, making only subtle differences (sometimes in pitch, and sometimes with lyrics).
It is my opinion as a long-time musician and songwriter that there is not a bad tone or a single poorly-recorded instrument on this album. From croon to howl, shout to whisper, Arthur Lee covers just about every verb in the vocalist’s lexicon. I can’t be sure that Arthur Lee was responsible for writing every song on here, but the bottom line is, I’d like to see more musicians dedicate more effort and attention to detail into crafting songs like these. They are irregular and odd, yet somehow wonderfully palatable and diverse. They are original and enjoyable, excellently non-linear, and most importantly turn your brain on. Four Sail, indeed.
by Kyle Hoffman, October 14, 2014
Tracks
1. August - 5:08
2. Your Friend And Mine - Neil's Song - 3:50
3. I'm With You - 2:43
4. Good Times - 3:33
5. Singing Cowboy (Arthur Lee, Jay Donnellan) - 4:48
6. Dream - 2:49
7. Robert Montgomery - 3:29
8. Nothing - 4:48
9. Talking In My Sleep - 2:49
10.Always See Your Face - 3:29
11.Robert Montgomery" (Alternate Vocal) - 3:35
12.Talking In My Sleep" (Alternate Mix) - 2:55
13.Singing Cowboy" (Unedited Version) (Arthur Lee, Jay Donnellan) - 5:52
All songs by Arthur Lee except where noted
Joe Cocker’s delightful second album is ample proof that the imagination that transformed a song so fixed in our minds as “With a Little Help From My Friends” has not run out of things to do, nor fallen into the trap of “stylization.”
Joe, his Grease Band, and their friends — who together form one of the toughest rhythm and blues bands outside of the Motown studios — start from the bottom up in re-arranging material as familiar as “Dear Landlord” or “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window.” It’s not a matter of “improving” the songs, but of removing them from their original sound and conception to such a degree that they remain great music and still don’t really remind the listener of the original versions. The feeling one gets when listening to, say, Aretha’s version of “The Weight” — “Wow, they must have really been reaching on that one” — doesn’t happen when Joe and his band make music.
Not just anyone can carry off lines like those, from Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on the Wire”: “Like a bird on the wire … I will try, in my way, to be free.” When Joe sings it those words seem as timeless as the wisdom of the blues.
If Cocker himself is beginning to sound like a master, his band has surprised as well. Their introduction to “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” sounds like a fat man splitting his pants — and then Cocker falls in like he slipped on a bar of soap. The song itself has that hilarious circus sound of Dylan’s “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window.” And maybe that’s not a coincidence.
It would be fun to hear Cocker experiment with different sorts of back-up groups. While there are certainly limits to what he can do, they are broad enough to keep him going for a long, long time. Limits or no, what’s special about Joe Cocker is that he is so much fun to listen to, because the fun he’s having — on stage, picking his phantom guitar with mad frenzy, or on record, letting his own excesses communicate his real emotion — is completely infectious.
by Greil Marcus, February 21, 1970
Tracks
1. Dear Landlord (Bob Dylan) - 3:26
2. Bird On The Wire (Leonard Cohen) - 4:29
3. Lawdy Miss Clawdy (Lloyd Price) - 2:14
4. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) - 2:37
5. Hitchcock Railway (Don Dunn, Tony McCashen) - 4:41
6. That's Your Buriness Now (Joe Cocker, Chris Stainton) - 2:57
7. Something (George Harrison) - 3:32
8. Delta Lady (Leon Russell) - 2:51
9. Hello Little Friend (Leon Russell) - 3:53
10.Darling Be Home Soon (John Sebastian) - 4:42
Perhaps the fact that Lou Reed’s curious career continues is more important than what he does with it at this particular stage. Had he accomplished nothing else, his work with the Velvet Underground in the late Sixties would assure him a place in anyone’s rock & roll pantheon; those remarkable songs still serve as an articulate aural nightmare of men and women caught in the beauty and terror of sexual, street and drug paranoia, unwilling or unable to move. The message is that urban life is tough stuff — it will kill you; Reed, the poet of destruction, knows it but never looks away and somehow finds holiness as well as perversity in both his sinners and his quest.
Since leaving the Underground for a solo career at RCA, Reed’s star has shone very brightly commercially, less so artistically. Lou Reed, his first RCA LP, had strong songs, inept production. Transformer, excellently produced by David Bowie, brought Reed an AM radio hit, “Walk on the Wild Side,” but the paucity of much of the rest of the material was alarming. Berlin, unforgettable in many ways (not all of them good), has probably been underrated but was certainly not helped by the pretentiousness of the rock-opera/”masterpiece” ad campaign or Bob Ezrin’s soap-opera, cast-of-thousands overproduction. Sally Can’t Dance had one brilliant song: “Ennui.”
Which leaves us Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal and its sequel, Lou Reed Live, both recorded at New York City’s Academy of Music December 21st, 1973. As it happens, I had seen Reed and a mediocre pickup band at Lincoln Center some months earlier in his first New York non-Velvets appearance and he was tragic in every sense of the word. So, at the Academy, I didn’t expect much and when his new band came out and began to play spectacular, even majestic, rock & roll, management’s strategy for the evening became clear: Elevate the erratic and unstable punkiness of the centerpiece into punchy, swaggering grandeur by using the best arrangements, sound and musicians that money could buy; the trimmings, particularly guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, were awesome enough so that if Reed were merely competent, the concert would be a success.
And it was, as one can judge from the resultant albums. The band does not emulate the violent, hypnotic, dope-trance staccato power and subway lyricism of the Velvet Underground, but rather opts for a hard, clean, clear, near-royal Mott the Hoople/Eric Clapton (Layla) opulence and Reed sings out most of the songs in his effective street-talk style. Animal, coming first, naturally contains the best performances (“Intro/Sweet Jane,” “White Light/White Heat,” the first half of “Rock ‘n’ Roll”), but Live, while less satisfying, is not a tremendous letdown (“Vicious” is first-rate, “Satellite of Love” and “Sad Song,” nice). It’s hardly a classic, but it’s good. Perhaps it will put an end to the Lou Reed jokes. The man’s accomplishments may be few of late, but he is still one of a handful of American artists capable of the spiritual home run. Should he put it all together again, watch out.
by Paul Nelson, June 5, 1975
Tracks
1. Vicious - 5:55
2. Satellite Of Love - 6:03
3. Walk On The Wild Side - 4:51
4. I'm Waiting For The Man - 3:38
5. Oh, Jim - 10:40
6. Sad Song - 7:32
All songs by Lou Reed
Ever since Beatlemania, it’s been standard operating procedure for rock bands to write, record, and perform their own music. We’re so used to this being how it is that no one ever stops to think how weird this auteur-driven, “all-in-one” approach to creating and disseminating rock product truly is; how hugely inefficient and sub-optimal, this idea that the person coming up with a song should also be the person tasked with presenting it on record and in concert. After all, the architect doesn’t pour the concrete herself, and even celebrity chefs usually delegate the messy chore of execution to their sous foot soldiers.
Of course, one place where songwriting, recording, and live performance all collide—not always well—is the live album. Live albums are fascinating. Every live album asks the question: “How does this artist’s recorded work stack up against their ability to recreate it, as mediated by the imperfections of tangible reality?” In other words: How good is the artist at reproducing the music you love through their excitable and possibly drug-addled fingers, throats, and feet, all while sharing the same physical space as other people (fans) like you.
Some bands are better live. Some are worse. Some are the same amount of good or bad, just in a different way. And some sound exactly the same no matter whether they’re strumming into a laptop in their bedroom, sitting behind an expensive microphone at Abby Road, or plugging in in front of 17,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl. But usually there’s at least some variance—whether intentional or not.
My hope with this column is to explore the many different types of live albums—compilations, condensed surveys of a single performance, complete concert documents, etc.—as well as the entire gamut of live concert (and concert album) experiences, from “This sounds exactly like the record!” to “This sounds nothing like the record!” and when each of those things may be good or bad.
So! For our inaugural column, let’s cram in the earplugs and continue babying our $12 stadium kiosk beer as we travel back to the gritty streets of “Me Decade” New York City, to Lou Reed’s and the 1974 glam rock masterpiece, Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal.
I first discovered Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal on weathered vinyl sometime in the late ‘90s, excavating the used crates at Park City, UT’s dearly departed Orion Music. The album remains my all-time favorite Lou Reed product: a digestible, tuneful epic dipped in equal parts grime and glitter, featuring just five songs—“Into/Sweet Jane,” “Heroin,” “White Light/White Heat,” “Lady Day,” and “Rock and Roll”—culled from a December 21st, 1973 concert at the East 14th Street Palladium in Manhattan. Reed’s band for the performance included guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, bassist Prakash John, drummer Pentti Glan, and keyboardist Ray Colcord. Re-releases have included additional material recorded at the same show, but for our purposes here we’ll just be talking about the original release.
Maybe you’ve noticed, but rock critics aren’t allowed basic health services unless they go out of their way to point out the fact that Reed’s Velvet Underground was perhaps the key progenitor of what would shortly become known as Punk. But even as his (slightly younger) New York brethren were, by 1974, gearing up to begin the lo-fi movement in earnest at places like CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City, Reed himself was drifting in a far different direction: glam.
Animal was released hot off the bedazzled heels of Reed’s 1973 rock opera Berlin but also, more crucially, 1972’s Transformer, produced by glitter gods Mick Ronson and David Bowie. Listening to Animal, it’s Transformer I think of most even though the album’s only non-Velvets song is actually a cut off Berlin, a sultry “Lady Day” that unspools like the aural translation of a crushed velvet cloak being dragged across a marble ballroom.
Hunter and Wagner’s static-buzz guitars recall Ronson’s six-string contributions Transformer’s “Vicious” and “Hangin’ Round”—a sound far more in line with Mott the Hoople than Johnny Ramone’s downstroke crunch. And really, apart from Reed’s songwriting, it’s Hunter and Wagner who carry the album, guitars coiled together like rubber tourniquets as they alternately sync up or wander, bathed in an extremely I love the ‘70s array of phasers and wah-wah pedals. (Hunter and Wagner would later become part of the second incarnation of the Alice Cooper Group, playing on such horror-schlock classics as Billion Dollar Babies and Welcome to My Nightmare.)
Kicking off with a four-minute instrumental prologue, the album begins in earnest once the familiar groove of “Sweet Jane” hits, exploding like one of Andy Warhol’s Mylar balloons into ten tons of cellophane confetti. Side One is completed by a majestic 13-minute rendition of the Velvet’s “Heroin” during which Reed and his band are supremely confident, content to let the song’s slower parts float by like royal beatnik coffee bar poetry, then unironically selling the melodrama as the song ascends in narcotized grandeur.
In addition to the aforementioned “Lady Day,” Side Two is bookend by a solid-but-definitely-plate-spinning “White Light/White Heat” and an extended rendition of “Rock ‘n’ Roll”—delivered as a joyous mission statement that unmasks the supposed too-cool-for-school Reed anything but above the fray.
Even if this 40-minute album represented the concert in its entirety, it’s hard to imagine anyone going home that night feeling ripped off. With the Velvet Underground, Reed and his bandmates reinvented the druggy gutters of the big city as a chilly art-rock daguerreotype. But at the beginning of his life as a solo artist, Reed took that daguerreotype, turned up the sodium footlights, and dressed it up with a cheap, sparkly costume-jewelry crown.
by Matt Warren
Tracks
1. Intro/Sweet Jane (Steve Hunter, Lou Reed) - 7:46
2. Heroin - 13:13
3. How Do You Think It Feels - 3:41
4. Carolyn Says! - 3:55
5. White Light/White Heat - 5:21
6. Lady Day - 3:54
7. Rock 'n' Roll - 9:33
All songs written by Lou Reed unless otherwise indicated.
Forever Changes, the third album from the Los Angeles band Love, arrived on Elektra Records in November 1967 – the same month as The Moody Blues’ Days of Future Passed, Cream’s Disraeli Gears, The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, Jefferson Airplane’s After Bathing at Baxter’s, The Hollies’ Butterfly, and The Monkees’ Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones. Psychedelia was in the air, not to mention creativity and experimentation in music at an all-time high that is still largely unrivaled. Forever Changes emerged from this artistically fertile era in the mind of Love’s mercurial leader Arthur Lee, who was inspired to reveal his own, layered perspective in the wake of the Summer of Love. Despite lukewarm sales upon its release, the album has only grown in stature over the years. The new, deluxe 3-CD/1-LP/1-DVD 50th anniversary presentation by Rhino reveals it as an album that still sounds like no other, and one that bears repeated listening (preferably, in the various formats offered here). It’s a reflective, sometimes elegiac album of textured acoustic guitars, evocative orchestrations, and vibrant studio experimentation with folk, jazz, and Latin flavors – all in service of some of the most interesting and unusual songs to come out of the period. The new box set makes the case for Forever Changes as a masterwork – not that it was in doubt, anyway.
The album originally entitled The Third Coming of Love featured the five-piece line-up of singer/guitarist Lee, guitarist Bryan MacLean, lead guitarist Johnny Echols, bassist Ken Forssi, and drummer Michael Stuart. Lee, MacLean, Echols and Forssi had been in the band since the beginning, with Stuart becoming part of the seven-piece line-up behind sophomore LP Da Capo. Forever Changes would be the final album from this group, but little tension was evident on the record. Lee co-produced with Bruce Botnick, welcoming contributions both from The Wrecking Crew’s Carol Kaye, Hal Blaine, Don Randi, and Billy Strange; and a 12-piece orchestra led by arranger-conductor David Angel.
The spellbinding, melancholy “Alone Again Or” (one of just two songs on the album not composed by Lee, but by MacLean) not only became the LP’s lone single but also was selected as its leadoff track. It’s not hard to see why; its gentle, cascading, guitar-led melody lent itself to adornment with pensive strings and triumphant horns, including a Tijuana Brass-style trumpet. It proved the perfect prelude to, and set the tone for, the varied music that followed.
Though the title of “A House is Not a Motel” seemingly doffed its hat to “A House is Not a Home” by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, writers of Love’s hit “My Little Red Book,” that’s where the similarities end. “House” is an impressionistic and haunting rumination that touches on the horrors of the then-raging war, a theme that recurs throughout Forever Changes. The mystical folk-ish “Andmoreagain” was one of two songs featuring The Wrecking Crew along with Lee and Echols on rhythm guitar. The other was named for the famous fictional newspaper in which Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, worked: “The Daily Planet.” The track, melding a reasonably commercial melody and production with a world-weary, surreal slice-of-life lyric, is revealed in the liner notes as “the catalyst for this classic album,” as the success of the session with the Wrecking Crew motivated the band members to realize their own increasingly sophisticated musical visions.
“Old Man,” written and sung by MacLean, had been performed by its author as early as 1966, but fit comfortably on Forever Changes. David Angel added its effective orchestration (disliked by MacLean) to what’s essentially a stark folk song with a message that can be interpreted as advocating for one’s discovery of faith (in MacLean’s own case, Christianity). Dark and wry, “The Red Telephone” ended the original Side One. An answer or antidote to The Summer of Love, it finds Lee looking down from his hillside on turmoil and strife. His voice is detached, distant, and ironically calm. The gorgeous string flourishes underscore the drama of the psychedelic ballad. Don Randi of The Wrecking Crew added the harpsichord.
Driven by Michael Stuart’s brisk drumming (encouraged by Lee) and stabs of trumpet, Side Two’s opening “Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hillsdale” was rooted in autobiography as Lee recalled the band’s days playing on the Sunset Strip in whimsical, vivid fashion. Lighter still is “The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This,” a pretty reflection of childhood and innocence that stands in stark contrast to the tone of much of the surrounding material. (Whether Lee is being ironic in the song is up to the listener.)
Rhino’s majestic box set offers Forever Changes in multiple formats. The original mono album is included on CD, and the original stereo album on CD, vinyl LP, and DVD (in 24/96 high resolution). In addition, the box includes an entire alternate mix on CD 3 as well as a full disc of outtakes and singles on CD 4. Most of this bonus material premiered a decade ago on Rhino’s 40th anniversary edition. (The outtake “Wonder People (I Do Wonder)” in the alternate mix was first issued in 2001.) Two previously unissued tracks, however, do premiere here: the backing tracks of “Wonder People” and “Live and Let Live.”
The alternate mix is derived from a tape that was prepared during the mixing process. It’s a much rougher-hewn mix than the final, polished version and opens a window onto the choices made by co-producers Arthur Lee and Bruce Botnick in crafting the original LP. As for the unique single versions and outtakes, they add to one’s understanding and enjoyment of Forever Changes. Among the treasures are the final single from this iteration of Love (“Your Mind and We Belong Together” b/w “Laughing Stock”), released in June 1968, final and alternate backing tracks, session highlights (for “The Red Telephone”) and even an outtake of “Wooly Bully,” of all things.
The stereo version has been newly and felicitously remastered by Bruce Botnick, while Bernie Grundman has handled the mono mix. This marks the first appearance on CD or a digital format of the mono mix, which was originally created with the Haeco-CSG system. (The process converted a two-channel stereo mix into mono.) Although far from revelatory, the punchier, rare mono mix offers a new way to hear the familiar album. CD 3’s alternate presentation retains the 2008 mastering by Steve Hoffman, and CD 4 has been mastered by Dan Hersch and Dave Schultz. (Hersch and Andrew Sandoval were credited with mastering of the same tracks in 2008.) For the vinyl, Bernie Grundman has cut the lacquers from high-res digital files. Which version one prefers of the original album will largely be up to personal taste; the stellar vinyl is quiet and striking, not to mention authentic. The crispness, definition and intimate, up-front feeling of the stereo mix in 96/24 on DVD, however, is also hard to beat. (The DVD also includes the promotional video of “Your Mind and We Belong Together.”
The set itself, produced with an eye for detail by Bill Inglot and Steve Woolard and beautifully designed by Now Sounds’ Steve Stanley, is packaged within a hardcover book-style package similar to what Rhino has employed for recent box sets from Ramones. A 16-page softcover booklet is included with both a detailed essay and track-by-track notes by Ted Olson. Brief notes on the bonus material are also present, as well as an introduction by Elektra founder Jac Holzman. The discs are all held in pockets. In every respect, this is an attractive and high-quality set that honors the album it represents.
Forever Changes would be the final album from this line-up of Love, and the final album for all members save Arthur Lee. By the time of the band’s last LP (1974’s Reel to Real), he would be the sole true member, backed by a group of hired guns. But Forever Changes captures a perfect moment from five talented musicians ready and willing to push the envelope to movingly chronicle their era. 50 years on, Forever Changes is no less beguiling – an album unlike any other and one clearly ahead of its time, as much as it is of that truly remarkable time.
by Joe Marchese, May 17, 2018
Tracks
Disc 1 (Stereo)
1. Alone Again Or (Bryan MacLean) - 3:17
2. A House Is Not A Motel - 3:32
3. Andmoreagain - 3:20
4. The Daily Planet - 3:31
5. Old Man (Bryan MacLean) - 3:00
6. The Red Telephone - 4:47
7. Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale - 3:34
8. Live And Let Live - 5:26
9. The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This - 3:07
10.Bummer In The Summer - 2:23
11.You Set The Scene - 6:49
All songs written by Arthur Lee except where stated
Disc 2 (Mono)
1.Alone Again Or (Bryan MacLean) - 3:17
2.A House Is Not A Motel - 3:26
3.Andmoreagain - 3:20
4.The Daily Planet - 3:22
5.Old Man (Bryan MacLean) - 3:00
6.The Red Telephone - 4:45
7.Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale - 3:34
8.Live And Let Live - 5:25
9.The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This - 3:06
10.Bummer In The Summer - 2:33
11.You Set The Scene - 6:51
All songs written by Arthur Lee except where noted
Disc 3 (Alternate Mix)
1. Alone Again Or (Bryan Maclean) - 3:15
2. A House Is Not A Motel - 3:33
3. Andmoreagain - 3:24
4. The Daily Planet - 3:40
5. Old Man (Bryan Maclean) - 3:07
6. The Red Telephone - 5:22
7. Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale - 3:38
8. Live And Let Live - 5:37
9. The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This - 3:11
10.Bummer In The Summer - 2:30
11.You Set The Scene - 7:03
12.Wonder People (I Do Wonder) (Alternate Mix) - 3:23
All songs written by Arthur Lee except where indicated
Disc 4 (Singles and Outtakes)
1. Wonder People (I Do Wonder) (Outtake-Original Mix) - 3:20
2. Alone Again Or (Single Version) (Bryan Maclean) - 2:48
3. A House Is Not A Motel (Single Version) - 3:22
4. Hummingbirds (Demo) - 2:41
5. A House Is Not A Motel (Backing Track) - 3:06
6. Andmoreagain (Alternate Electric Backing Track) - 3:06
7. he Red Telephone (Tracking Sessions Highlights) - 2:07
8. Wooly Bully (Outtake) (Domingo Samudio) - 1:25
9. Live And Let Live (Backing Track) - 5:37
10.Wonder People (I Do Wonder) (Outtake - Backing Track) - 3:30
11.Your Mind And We Belong Together (Tracking Sessions Highlights) - 8:16
12.Your Mind And We Belong Together - 4:27
13.Laughing Stock - 2:34
14.Alone Again Or (Mono Single Remix) (Bryan Maclean) - 2:51
All songs written by Arthur Lee unless as else written
Love
*Arthur Lee - Lead Vocals, Guitar
*Johnny Echols - Lead Guitar
*Bryan Mac Lean - Rhythm Guitar, Vocals
*Ken Forssi - Bass Guitar
*Michael Stuart - Drums, Percussion With
*David Angel - Arranger, Orchestrations
*Robert Barene, Arnold Belnick, James Getzoff, Marshall Sosson, Darrel Terwilliger - Violins
*Norman Botnick - Viola
*Jesse Ehrlich - Cello
*Chuck Berghofer - String Bass
*Bud Brisbois, Roy Caton, Ollie Mitchell - Trumpets
*Richard Leith - Trombone
*Carol Kaye - Bass
*Don Randi - Piano
*Billy Strange - Guitar
*Hal Blaine - Drums
The Monks story is, it's true, one of the more truly odd ones in annals of rock. But if it were only about their biography, that'd be one thing; and, instead, Black Monk Time is another thing entirely, far more than the product of an anecdote.
The one and only album for the Monks is one of the 'missing links' of alternative music history. Their simple, rhythmic, distorted, confrontational take on rock'n'roll earnt them few admirers at the time, but, with four decade's worth of hindsight, the still-thrilling Black Monk Time stands as possibly the first punk record, and is the obvious birthplace of krautrock.
It's 1964, and five American GIs, living in post-war West Germany, form a rockband. In the beginning, they're a generic, Beatles-aping beat-group, but soon they undergo an evolution into something they called the "anti-Beatles."
Taking under the wing of a pair of Situationist-minded, German advertising gurus, Walther Niemann and Karl-H.-Remy, the Monks are rebranded as a conceptual vehicle.
Composing a point-by-point Monks manifesto, the German managers re-sculpt the Monks as a reactionary outfit whose singular devotion to their band and newfound desire for audience-baiting are symbolized in one singular external gesture.
The Monks take to wearing black cassocks, with tonsures shaved on their heads, and nooses hung around their neck. Their only religious devotion is to the road; the band traipsing throughout West Germany playing show after show, often to audiences who despised them.
The Monks were clearly ahead of their time. With the gift of hindsight, we can see their music —as Julian Cope pointed out in his authoritarian tome Krautrocksampler— as being a clear link between the beat-music of the '60s, and the German krautrock of the '70s. Unlike their contemporaries, the Monks played with a slavish devotion to rhythm. Drummer Roger Johnston played a kit with no cymbals, relentlessly hitting on the beat. Dave Day played a banjo, but treated it more as a percussion instrument; his muted powerchords thumped out as dulled, metallic rhythms.
Black Monk Time is the sound of a combo drilled tight, sounding at once restrained and furious. Largely dodging familiar verse/chorus templates, its songs often lock into repetitive riffs like a needle in a lock groove, occasionally breaking to a complete stop, starting again after irregular pauses. It's, compositionally speaking, fascinating listening; something rock'n'roll of this era rarely is.
Over this rhythmic racket, guitarist Gary Burger lets out frantic yelps; squawking nonsense phrases and ad-hoc poetry with as little sense of melody as his band has. Showstopping opener "Monk Time" —essentially the band's introductory call-to-arms— is still the best example of the idiosyncratic Monks; Burger spewing the poetic equivalents of pop-art ("My brother died in Vietnam/ James Bond, who is he?/ Stop it! Stop it! I don't like it/ It's too loud for my ears") over a frenetic, unchanging tempo. It's lively, alive stuff, even 50-odd years on.
by Anthony Carew
Tracks
1. Monk Time - 02:44
2. Shut Up - 03:14
3. Boys Are Boys And Girls Are Choice - 01:25
4. Higgle-Dy - Piggle-Dy - 02:28
5. I Hate You - 03:33
6. Oh, How To Do Now - 03:16
7. Complication - 02:22
8. We Do Wie Du - 02:11
9. Drunken Maria - 01:46
10.Love Came Tumblin' Down - 02:30
11.Blast Off! - 02:14
12.That's My Girl - 02:25
13.I Can't Get Over You - 02:44
14.Cuckoo - 02:43
15.Love Can Tame The Wild - 02:38
16.He Went Down To The Sea - 03:01
17.Pretty Suzanne - 03:55
18.Monk Chant (Live) - 01:59
All songs by Gary Burger, Larry Clark, Dave Day, Roger Johnston and Eddie Shaw
The Monks
*Gary Burger - Vocals, Electric, 12 String Guitars
*Larry Clark - Vocals, Philicorda Organ, Piano
*Roger Johnston - Vocals, Drums
*Eddie Shaw - Vocals, Bass Guitar
*Dave Day - Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Electric Banjo
John Mayall's debut album, recorded live in December 1964, is a little unjustly overlooked, as it was recorded shortly before the first of the famous guitarists schooled in the Bluesbreakers (Eric Clapton) joined the band. With Roger Dean on guitar (and the rhythm section who'd play on the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton album, bassist John McVie and drummer Hughie Flint), it has more of a rock/R&B feel, rather like the early Rolling Stones, than the purer bluesier material Mayall would usually stick to in his subsequent recordings.
The record doesn't suffer for this, however, moving along quite powerfully, and -- unusually for a British R&B/blues band of the time -- featuring almost nothing but original material, all penned by Mayall. Nigel Stanger's saxophone adds interesting touches to a few tracks, the songs are quite good, and while Dean's guitar and Mayall's vocals aren't on the same level as the best instrumentalists and singers in the British blues-rock movement, they're satisfactory.
The expanded CD edition added five enjoyable cuts that round up everything else recorded by the pre-Eric Clapton version of the Bluesbreakers, including the 1964 single "Crawling Up a Hill"/"Mr. James"; the early 1965 single "Crocodile Walk"/"Blues City Shakedown"; and the February 1965 outtake "My Baby Is Sweeter," which first showed up on the early-'70s British compilation Thru the Years. "Crawling Up a Hill" and "Crocodile Walk" also appear on the original John Mayall Plays John Mayall album in live performances, but the bonus track versions are entirely different studio recordings done for those non-LP singles, and are pretty good as well.
by Richie Unterberger
Tracks Original Album 1965
1. Crawling Up A Hill - 2:21
2. I Wanna Teach You Everything - 3:05
3. When I'm Gone (Smokey Robinson) - 3:08
4. I Need Your Love (Walter Spriggs, Willie Spriggs) - 4:08
5. The Hoot Owl - 2:35
6. R&B Time - Consisting Of Night Train (Jimmy Forrest, Lewis C. Simpkins, Oscar Washington) / Lucille (Al Collins, Richard Penniman) - 2:15
7. Crocodile Walk - 2:26
8. What's The Matter With You - 2:34
9. Doreen - 2:46
10.Runaway- 2:25
11.Heartache - 2:57
12.Chicago Line - 4:10 Bonus Tracks Japan SHM 2008
13.Crawling Up A Hill - 2:19
14.Mr. James - 2:51
15.Crocodille Walk - 2:16
16.Blues City Shakedown - 2:24
17.My Baby Is Sweeter (Willie Dixon) - 3:02 Bonus Tracks Rock Fever 2001
13.I'm Your Witchdoctor - 2:10
14.Telephone Blues - 3:57
15.On Top Of The World - 2:49
16.Lonley Years - 3:18
17.Bernard Jenkins (Eric Clapton) - 3:48
18.Burn Out Your Blind Eyes - 2:57
19.Milkman Strut - 2:23
20.Long Night (John Mayall, Steve Anglo) - 2:01
21.Evil Woman Blues (Peter Green) - 4:02
22.Greeny (Peter Green) - 3:53
23.All My Life (Jimmie Lee Robinson) - 4:22
24.Riding On The L & M (Dan Burley, Lionel Hampton) - 2:27
25.Eagle Eye - 2:49
All songs by John Mayall except where noted
On his third studio album, Randy Newman found a middle ground between the heavily orchestrated pop of his debut and the more stripped-down, rock-oriented approach of 12 Songs, and managed to bring new strength to both sides of his musical personality in the process. The title track, which Newman has described as a sort of commercial jingle written for slave traders looking to recruit naïve Africans, and "Old Man," in which an elderly man is rejected with feigned compassion by his son, were set to Newman's most evocative arrangements to date and rank with the most intelligent and effective use of a large ensemble by anyone in pop music.
On the other end of the scale, "Last Night I Had a Dream" and "You Can Leave Your Hat On" are lean, potent mid-tempo rock tunes, the former featuring some slashing and ominous slide guitar from Ry Cooder, and the latter a witty and willfully perverse bit of erotic absurdity that later became a hit for Joe Cocker (who sounded as if he took the joke at face value). Elsewhere,
Newman cynically ponders the perils of a stardom he would never achieve ("Lonely at the Top," originally written for Frank Sinatra), offers a broad and amusing bit of political satire ("Political Science"), and concludes with one of the most bitter rants against religion that anyone committed to vinyl prior to the punk era ("God's Song [That's Why I Love Mankind]"). Whether he's writing for three pieces or 30, Newman makes superb use of the sounds available to him, and his vocals are the model of making the most of a limited instrument. Overall, Sail Away is one of Newman's finest works, musically adventurous and displaying a lyrical subtlety that would begin to fade in his subsequent works.
by Mark Deming
Tracks
1. Sail Away - 2:52
2. Lonely At The Top - 2:35
3. He Gives Us All His Love - 1:56
4. Last Night I Had A Dream - 3:03
5. Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing - 2:05
6. Old Man - 2:44
7. Political Science - 2:02
8. Burn On - 2:35
9. Memo To My Son - 1:55
10.Dayton, Ohio - 1903 1:51
11.You Can Leave Your Hat On - 3:18
12.God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind) - 3:46
13.Let It Shine - 1:45
14.Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong (Studio Version) - 1:23
15.Dayton, Ohio - 1903 (Early Version) - 1:55
16.You Can Leave Your Hat On (Demo) - 2:47
17.Sail Away (Early Version) - 3:18
All compositions by Randy Newman
