The Holy Modal Rounders - 'Stampfel & Weber' (Fantasy)

This is a mid-70s issue of the first two Holy Modal Rounders albums, originally recorded for Prestige in 1963-64. I was glad to find it because I like this early material of theirs; it's goofy but still relatively sane, at least compared to the later releases, and sometimes it's just nice to listen to. Unfortunately Prestige sequenced these backwards, with record 1 being the less memorable Holy Modal Rounders 2, but that's not the biggest crime, and it's easily solvable. The liner notes here are a gas - Ed Ward writes about the halcyon days of the early 60s NYC folk scene and how these two jokesters came around upsetting the apple cart, but nonetheless with a discipline and understanding of traditional musics that allowed them to break such rules. I don't know Mr Ward or what he looked like but I can't help but think of F. Murray Abraham in Inside Llewyn Davis, a blowhard reminiscing about some mythical era of which he's largely responsible for the myth. Or maybe I'm just sore cause he calls Indian War Whoop and Moray Eels 'close to unlistenable' - hey man, your liner notes are close to unreadable! Even the uncredited/technical notes to this reissue says that 'none of the albums recorded since these ... have been nearly as successful'. Maybe they're just speaking of commercial success but it feels like a cheap shot at the esteemed ESP and Elektra labels. Anyway. The second Rounders album, coming first in this sequence, has some lovely moments - Stampfel's banjo playing on 'I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground' is precise and ragged, and 'Junko Partner', written with Michael Hurley, is one of the only originals and a nice goof. But it is record #2, album #1 that I like more, maybe as it contains a few more original compositions, and the performances sound more fresh. 'Euphoria' could be the Modals raison d'être, capturing the simplicity and spirit of their early approach. 'Reuben's Train' is fierce and the fiddle cuts like a knife. 'Blues in the Bottle' is a great opener, and when Stampfel starts to play after each verse it revs up like a jet engine. 'Better Things for You' is maybe the best original composition on either record. This is only a decade or so after Harry Smith's anthology but these two clearly studied it like a bible. Clarence 'Tom' Ashley's 'The Cuckoo' never sounded so raw, and it's brilliant how the Rounders celebrate American music so joyously, tying it directly to the underculture which birthed it. This is music that takes itself seriously while also being able to laugh at itself; they realised the need to preserve these songs before they became enshrined in the same glass towers that ruined American jazz culture. Music has to live, and Stampfel & Weber found a humour, inherent in even the most serious subject matter, and also injected it with a streak of rebelliousness. I think actually the Rounders sound more radical today, as their quest was unsuccessful; folk music has become sanitised and its conservative tendencies emphasised. Harry Smith surely turns in his grave now, but maybe if enough people play Holy Modal Rounders records simultaneously, he'll stop, or at least pause.

Jowe Head - 'Pincer Movement' (Hedonics)

That's an aesthetic I like - a strange cover, strange title, and contents that are definitely rock music but, well... strange. But it's fun! I know Head more from Swell Maps than Television Personalities, and that makes this feel rather contiguous since these songs are murky, deconstructed and generally kinda fucked up. Plus, it opens with 'Cake Shop Girl' which is also on Jane From Occupied Europe and actually on Head's second solo LP a few years later, too. I guess he really liked that song. I do too - it's fast, nervous, and cryptic while being sort of catchy at the same time. Pincer Movement's 'Loco Train' could also be a Swell Maps song, and maybe it is - I find all those Maps compilations confusing and their entire discography beyond the two proper albums is just a blur to me. Anyway, there are only a few full-fledged 'songs' on Pincer, with a lot of little ten second interstitials tying them together.  And some are just loose structures to jam over, though it's a Swell Maps style of jamming - not guitar solos or melodic improvisations, but textural jamming, if that makes any sense. 'Quatermass and the Pulpit' is a great example of that - a looping beat, with vocals chanting 'Kyrie elision!' and percussion sounds get freaky (both acoustic and electronic), various other treated instruments whirl and jigjag, and the whole piece turns into a psychedelic gel. It could easily keep my attention for 20 minutes, yet it ends after 5 (which is a classic showmanship manoeuvre).  There's a theme set by the titular pincers - songs about sea life, crustaceans, and mermaids abound. 'Mermaid', for example, is a dubby number occasionally erupting into layered shrieks, with all manners of odd keyboards, wind instruments and other affected experiments overtop of the pulsebeat. 'Wimoweh' is a cover of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' and it's a mad descent into layered tones and insanity. 'Crawfish' appears on both sides, first the 'Son of' and then the full version, and it's probably the album's most memorable track, herky-jerky and bold. Things get borderline goofy - 'Glass Animal Colony' seems to privilege the vocal hysterics over the textures - but everything is moved through quickly, which leaves me wanting more. By golly, Pincer Movement is great, a document of an unapologetically experimental time for art-rock in the UK (1981) and one that holds up well especially against the never-ending revivals of post-punk mannerisms. The band members all have great pseudonyms such as 'Phones Sportsman' and 'Prince Empire' -- plus, 'Crawfish' is technically an Elvis cover. And this can be yours for a relatively inexpensive price - for some reason this record has never become that collectible.

Gong - 'Camembert Electrique' (Virgin)

Gong is one of those bands that you can imagine was more fun to be in than to listen to, but that's not true in the case of Camembert Electrique; their most popular album, I think, or at least the one that I listen to the most. This is the fun side of progressive rock, but it's not really that proggy - the songs are relatively short, mostly built around pop ditties written by Daevid Allen, and while we get some tape manipulations and sax solos and crazy druggie vocals, it's nothing like Yes or Crimson - but rather, a tight rock band with some odd flavours. This was recorded in France, as the title indicates, and you'd think this would bring a more continental atmosphere to these Canterbury boys, but I don't know; I don't think this sounds much like French or Italian prog of the time, and Allen is Australian anyway so it's not like the British-base of Gong meant they normally sound like Tenpole Tudor. Allen's exuberance carries through, whether it's chanting 'O mother / let's do it again', the elegance of 'And You Tried So Hard',  or the irrepressible glee of 'Fohat Digs Holes in Space'. And the band is pretty versatile - a rather tight-knit unit at the point, at least compared to the big messy groups I always think of as characterising later (and Pierre Morlein's) Gong. On 'You Can't Kill Me'  and 'Dynamite' they sound quite pointed, and almost severe - the goofiness is buried, or at least balanced by a harder psych edge, kinda like, I dunno -- Jane's Addiction? But then they also can slip into moments of sweet, sweet melody, such as the chorus of 'And You Tried So Hard', a song which feels like it's changing rock sub-genres with each verse. The album is structured around four sub-30 second experimental tape pieces, appearing at the beginning and end of each side (locked grooves at the end of course, and clumsy ones at that); the 'songs' of 1 finish with two medleys, with the beautiful 'I Am Your Fantasy' (led by the gorgeous, lush vocals of Gilli Smyth) being the standout track, possibly of the whole record. The best moments of swirling space rock use echo effects over a Czukay-like bassline; 'Fohat Digs Holes in Space' runs away with this concept, building up a creeping sense of malevolence until the hook/vocals come in to save the day. And it's got the obligatory drug reference, lackadaisical approach, and noodly sax solo, to make it a truely iconic track. You know, at their worst, Gong could be seen as the proto-Phish; not that Phish are all that bad (I got sucked into a wormhole watching them cover the VU's Loaded on YouTube one night, and it was all right!). But now, they already feel like such a relic, even though this type of goofy druggy prog-pop has never died, but merely evolved.

Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band - 'Wangaratta Wahine' (Image)

I only know this gang of Australian jug-band revivalists because their first LP was (strangely) released on the ESP label. This is their second, from 1974, and it's a pretty solid effort for what it is. I guess I admit a soft spot for liking this sort of thing, which explains it's presence in these pages (and all the Spike Jones CDs I have). As miners of pre-World War II popular music, Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band are certainly competent. This record is loaded with speedy chops, and relatively tasteful arrangements - they were a fairly large ensemble whose members know when to not play. The harmonica was supposedly the big attraction here and it's nice, certainly preferable to the silly fart-sounding kazoo playing that appears a few times. Eleven of the twelve songs are upbeat, usually built around a rock drum kit, which (in conjunction with the good studio recording) dates this music and gives it that slightly disappointing retro feel. The slow tune is 'Wait for me Juanita', which is actually a beautiful, delicate song that transcends the novelty vibe stuck on everything else. The Aussie accents sneak through at times, on the title track or on the pro-smoking bend of 'If youse a viper'. We get lots of cartoony sections, and plenty of goofball vocals, but there's a dedication to the style that is earnest enough. My tastes definitely run towards the Bohemian vibes of 'Lovesick blues' or 'Half a moon is better than no moon' moreso than silly tunes lke 'Your feets to big'(sic). 'Jug band music' is perhaps their raison d'être, which actually is quite stirring and honest. Of course, my taste in jug bands runs closer to 13th Floor Elevators, but I can sort of understand why ESP was affiliated with these guys. Did I mention I bought this in Melbourne? Maybe this kind of retro sensibility comes around every twenty years - the Squirrel Nut Zippers had a hit in '96 so I guess we have a few more to wait for the next one.

Kevin Ayers - 'Collection' (See for Miles)

This is like watching the clip show at the end of a TV series; I've just listened to 5 and a half LPs of Kevin Ayers and now I gotta push through one more that is just a greatest hits compilation. I really, really do not need to own this. The only justification I can offer: I found this cheap; and it sat on my shelf for years while I filled in the others, and I kinda forgot about it. Since I don't (and won't) own any of his later records, side 2 of this can serve as an adequate best-of from the Sweet Deceiver -> That's What You Get Babe years. The first side, drawn from the last few records posted about here, is somewhat painful because they stick 'May I', which I am already sick of, back-to-back with 'Puis-je'. In the CD era this is more forgivable because of remote controls and automatic track indexing, but in my vinyl haze I would be forced to actually get up, turn on the light, and lift the stylus to avoid hearing the same song twice. Except this is Disolcated Underbite Spinal Alphabetised Encourager Templates, where we don't skip anything. 'Carribean Moon' is here and the single 'After the Show', and also 'Shouting in a Bucket Blues' which is on Bananamour, a record I also don't have. But those are three songs I can live without. Side two starts with two songs from Sweet Deceiver, a record that even the liner notes to this best-of collection disses ('the lowest trough of his career ... showing just bare hints of his usual musical force'). Really! If I'm going to be kind, 'City Waltz' has quite a few of those hints, and is probably (along with 'Strange Song') the highest trough of side 2. 'Blue' and 'Star' are guitarsolo-heavy ballads that are dragged down by their own weight and forced whimsicality. 'Blaming it all on Love' and 'Money, Money, Money' are so limp that I'd almost prefer the rum-soaked fake calypso sound. But I'm being harsh - the 8 songs on side two are probably the best bangs from those years, so I should just be thankful for what's not on here.

Daevid Allen - Bananamoon (Charly)

Source: Ross, a couple of bucks, in 2002.

There's a much better version of this album cover but sadly it's not the one I have. This is a nice-sounding pressing on Charly with gatefold cover and amusing-confusing liner notes. Side one is the 'song' side and a few of the tunes approach classic status, like 'All I Want is Out of Here', though true greatness is usually subverted by a humorous singing accent or other unchecked frivolity. Still, this record is much beloved for good reasons, though the majority of that reputation probably comes from the 'Stoned Innocent Frankenstein / and His Adventures in the Land of Flip' combo that makes up most of the second half. It's a good jam, with lots of layers (but not too many, so it doesn't sound like waxed paper) and some actual songwriting underneath to keep changing direction and prevent the adventure from being stalled. Their take on 'Memories' (with Wyatt on wah-wah guitar) is probably the definitive version that doesn't feature Whitney Houston, and I like how the locked groove at the end of side 1 is given a running time of 12:32 (I followed these instructions, with a stopwatch). There's a surprisingly funky vibe to the bass playing here. I keep imagining the rampant surrealism must have been really annoying to to whomever was in charge of actually engineering this album (Phil Dunne). I imagine Pyle and Daevid Allen giggling like children while one of them tries to play the guitar with a fish or a bowl of fruit, and the frustrated Dunne clearing his throat awkwardly. But I'm sure it was all a good bit of stoned Canterbury Jarry-lovin' reality-bending bluesy good times.