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16/10/2017 10:54 pm  #251


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 68.
Paul Revere And The Raiders.........Midnight Ride    (1966)





This album started really well then became a bit stop, start, for me.

It didn't really flow very well, it bobbed from a track I really liked to one I really didn't care for, back and forth all through the album.

In saying that, what was good, was really good imho

Unfortunately, it was borderline whether I purchased this one or not, so had a look online and the cheapest (vinyl) I could find was £34:99, which is a bit rich for an album that I probably only like half of, so this one wont be going in.

Tried to get info on this lot , but kept on getting  Paul Revere the American Patriot in the American Revolution.
So, normal rules if I can't find much, hit the obituaries.

Paul Revere
January 7, 1938 - October 4, 2014
Paul Revere, the founder and leader of Paul Revere and the Raiders and an Idaho icon, died October 4, 2014, at his home in Garden Valley following a long battle with cancer with his wife of 34 years, Sydney, and his son, Jamie, at his side. Paul performed with his band almost until the end. While his illness may have limited his mobility, it could never dampen his desire to do what he loved most: Entertain!


Revere was born in Harvard, Nebraska, January 7, 1938, but moved with his family to Idaho as a small child. The son of Lena and August Dick, he grew up in Caldwell, where he made a name for himself at a young age.
He became a barber and realized in the 1950s that the way to bring in customers was to cut hair in the most popular style for teenagers: the ducktail. Bring in customers it did, and by the age of 19 he owned three barber shops and a drive-in restaurant.


Continuing to sharpen his skills as an entrepreneur, he started a rock and roll band to promote his drive-in, little suspecting that the drive-in would be a fleeting experience and the band would become a national phenomenon and a lifelong passion.
Starting at small local venues, first The Downbeats and then Paul Revere and the Raiders went on to become one of the top bands in the Northwest, known for classic rock and roll and acrobatic stage performances. They had their first hit in 1961, with the instrumental "Like Long Hair", with Paul on keyboard.

Their version of "Louie Louie" was a regional hit that inspired a then little-known group called the Kingsmen to record what became the national hit. Never one to be without a cogent comment, Revere recalled that, "I got the ball and went 99 yards and the Kingsmen scored the touchdown." Greater success and national fame soon followed.


The band became popular around the time of rock and roll's British Invasion, and Paul Revere and the Raiders (in their iconic Revolutionary War costumes) became America's response. In the mid-1960s, Paul Revere and the Raiders had a string of hit records, starred in three nationwide television shows; "Where the Action Is", "Happening '68", and "Happening '69", all produced by Paul's good friend Dick Clark - and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and other well-known programs. Carson called them "America's number one band". Notable hits include, "Kicks", "Hungry", "Good Thing" and "Indian Reservation".


Revere took a time out from performing in the 1970s, working as a real estate developer in Boise, but response to a People Magazine "Where are they now?" article encouraged him to start a new Raiders band. He and the group performed for decades at venues around the nation and the world. But his home was always Boise, where spent most of his life and was revered by his local fans.


In addition to playing their hits, the Raiders were known and loved for Revere's trademark sense of humor, which was front and center at every performance. "The Last Madman of Rock and Roll" played a keyboard attached to the front of an Edsel that hid a seemingly endless array of props, masterfully orchestrated his fellow band mates in comedic interplay woven with their incredible musical talents, and kept audiences laughing throughout every show. Although he held up his own "Applause" sign as part of his schtick, no one ever needed to be prompted to applaud: the pure joy and fun that every one of his concerts brought had audiences smiling, clapping, and cheering throughout. He tirelessly greeted fans after his shows, signing autographs and albums, and having his photo taken with them; Vietnam veterans had a special affinity for him and he honored their service at his concerts.


Aside from his music, the great passion of his life was his wife Sydney, whom he married on Valentine's Day, 1980. When a friend recently observed that there was no such thing as a perfect marriage, he replied without hesitation, "Mine is."

 


I don't know a lot, but I know what I like!
 

17/10/2017 10:28 am  #252


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 69.
The Mothers Of Invention.............Freak Out!    (1966)





In one of his last interviews, Frank Zappa said, “sounds are for people to listen to,” while summing up all the different types of instruments and objects he used to make sounds over the years. This is certainly a true motto for the musician who spent three decades creating the most avant garde art rock.

His body of work was incredibly vast with 62 albums of original work released during his lifetime and about 30 more since his death in 1993. The first of these was an ambitious effort done by his band, The Mothers of Invention, in 1966. It was a debut double LP called Freak Out!.Perhaps one of the most ambitious debut efforts ever, Freak Out!‘s two original LPs each contained a different approach. The first two sides consist of short, pop-oriented songs with edgy lyrics and musical flourishes while the final two sides are dedicated to longer art pieces, more in line with later psychedelia.

This was all masterminded by Zappa who possessed incredible musical composition and arrangement talents and was able to replicate the pop music that he actually despised in order to make the highly satirical first half of the album. He then employed many innovative techniques such as shifting time signatures and disparate arrangement for the second part of the album.

I have never heard any Frank Zappa/Mothers Of Invention, I've heard of them, but for some reason I've kinda steered clear of his material.

After listening to this album (60:05 minutes) I might find the reason why, or could well chastise myself for not being a bit braver, and diving in a bit earlier?


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17/10/2017 12:37 pm  #253


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

The MoI are a sort of musically talented comedy band, to me. Zappa is one of the greatest guitarists of all time, in my view, although not much of that is evident on this album. I wasn't actually aware this debut was a double album either!

Who are the Brain Police? is a classic, a really scary tune at the time of release I'd imagine.

Not my favourite Zappa/Mothers album, but I'd rather listen to this than some disks rated as classics from the States.

 

18/10/2017 10:43 am  #254


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 69.
The Mothers Of Invention.............Freak Out!    (1966)




Well, can't say that I enjoyed that!

Some tracks verged on no' bad, but others really hurt my lugs.

Now maybe it's me but there's a track, "Help I'm a Rock" which I was quite enjoying then all of a sudden there's a bit were it sounds like a woman getting humped, now em no prude but all I can say is I'm glad the hoose was empty, don't know what the other half and the kids would have made of the sounds coming out of the dining room?

All in all, some no' bad tracks, but a lot of very weird shit imho.
I can't really see any particular time, or any shape I've gotten myself into, where I would say "fuck me you know what? I can really go a bit  of The Mothers of Invention right now."

I gave it a go, and listened all the way through but  "Freak Out" wont be getting added, that's not to say I wont give TMoI/Frank Zappa my full attention if they come up again in the book, as Mr Zappa himself said;

"A mind is like a parachute, it doesn't work if it's not open"



Frank Zappa

In 1964, Ray Collins, drummer Jimmy Carl Black, bassist Roy Estrada, saxophonist Dave Coronado, and guitarist Ray Hunt formed The Soul Giants. Hunt was eventually replaced by Frank Zappa, and the group evolved into the Mothers of Invention.

Zappa's first band was named "The Blackouts", who renamed themselves a little later to "The Omens".

His school time friend Don van Vliet became known later on as "Captain Beefheart".

Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.

"Valley Girl" by Frank Zappa and his then 14-year-old daughter, Moon Unit Zappa became his biggest selling single ever, (topping out at No. 32 on the Billboard charts). In her improvised lyrics to the song, Zappa's daughter satirized the vapid speech of teenage girls from the San Fernando Valley, which popularized many "Valspeak" expressions such as "gag me with a spoon," "fer sure, fer sure," "grody" (gross), and "barf out".

Zappa worked for a short period in advertising.

An article in the local press describing Zappa as "the Movie King of Cucamonga" prompted police to suspect that he was making pornographic films. In 1965, Zappa was approached by a vice squad undercover officer, and accepted an offer of $100 to produce a suggestive audiotape. Zappa and a female friend recorded a faked erotic episode and when Zappa was about to hand over the tape, he was arrested. He was charged with "conspiracy to commit pornography" and was sentenced to six months in jail. 


Frank had to  go to prison for 10 days, aged 18. And also was judged not to get close to a woman aged under 21 without an adult.

 The groundbreaking Freak Out! album released in 1966, which, after Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, was the second rock double album ever released.

Every the German town on Bad Doberan hosts the Zappanale where only Frank’s music is performed


Scientists from various fields have honored Zappa by naming new discoveries after him. In 1967, paleontologist Leo P. Plas, Jr. identified an extinct mollusc in Nevada and named it Amaurotoma zapper. Biologist Ferdinando Boero named a Californian jellyfish Phialella zapper. Belgian biologists Bosmans and Bosselaers discovered a Cameroonese spider, which they named Pachygnatha zappa.


Zappa’s son Dweezil was named after his wife’s strangely shaped little toe. Dweezil's registered birth name was Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa. The hospital at which he was born refused to register him under the name Dweezil, so Frank listed the names of several musician friends.

Frank Zappa made a quilt composed entirely of panties that were thrown on stage. He did not wash them first.

 Bowie, clearly had been caught trying to poach Belew from Frank, the ever-debonair Bowie attempted to make the best of things – but Zappa was having none of it."David, trying to be cordial, motioned to me and said, 'Quite a guitar player you have here Frank,'" Belew remembers. "And Frank said, 'F– you, Captain Tom.'" (Belew notes that the angered Zappa had "demoted David from Major Tom to Captain Tom.") Bowie tried again to make small talk, but was met once more with the same reply from Zappa: "F– you, Captain Tom.""By this point," Belew adds, "I was paralyzed. David said, 'So, you really have nothing to say?' Frank said, 'F– you, Captain Tom.'" After that, Bowie, Belew and Bowie's assistant simply got up and left. "Getting in the limo," Belew remembers, "David said in his wonderfully British way, 'I thought that went rather nicely!'" 
 



 

Last edited by arabchanter (18/10/2017 12:09 pm)


I don't know a lot, but I know what I like!
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18/10/2017 10:57 am  #255


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 70.
The Rolling Stones...............Aftermath   (1966)



By the time of this fourth album, the Stones were a self-sufficient creative unit, still frequently quoting their blues and soul roots but now free to be what they want(ed), any old time. So here you get the cockiness of 'Under My Thumb' and frenetic upmarket pop of 'Paint It Black' alongside the almost classical 'Lady Jane'. Then it’s another gear-shift for 'Dontcha Bother Me', with some great slide guitar and Jagger’s bluesy harmonica. The album was their third UK chart-topper, and a few weeks later 'Paint It Black' became their sixth No.1 single at home. Some of their writing, as on 'Think' and 'It’s Not Easy', has yet to reach its full compositional height, but the album fascinatingly captures a legend in development. And as a precursor of the rule-smashing to come, they dared to end it with an 11-minute track that turned into a jam, 'Going Home'.


I don't know a lot, but I know what I like!
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18/10/2017 4:37 pm  #256


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

Just like the earlier Mothers album this wouldn't be a favourite Stones disk for me.

Some great tracks on it, though, and I'd rather listen to this than the vast majority of the 1001 listed so far.

Fancy stuff from Brian Jones on Aftermath, though, makes this album a bit different, apart from that big long blues jam.

 

18/10/2017 11:18 pm  #257


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 70.
The Rolling Stones...............Aftermath   (1966)



This one for me was great from start to finish, gotta come clean and say I really do like The Stones so may be a tad biased.

Even the tracks that the reviews tend to slag off, when you place them in The Stones timeline they dont look to shabby, "Going Home" was no big turn off for me, I really enjoyed it.

So summing up, some really cracking tracks, some not so cracking, as the cracking tracks but still decent, and historically the first Stone's album featuring all their own music, makes this a cert to be added at some point to my collection.

Aftermath was a move in a different direction for The Rolling Stones, the kind of movement that other bands were also embracing. The Beatles' Rubber Soul had signalled something of a change and Revolver, released in August 1966 was an even more significant shift. In America The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds had been recorded and it came out shortly after the UK version of Aftermath and just before the album’s release in the US.Aftermath entered the Billboard chart on 9 July at No.117, the highest new entry of the week, and 4 places ahead of The Beatles, Yesterday and Today. Six weeks later Aftermath had climbed to No.2 on the charts, one place behind The Beatles.



The Rolling Stones’ 7th US album release on London Records was different to the UK album released by Decca in the UK back in April of 1966. But like it’s UK counterpart of the same name the Aftermath (US) was a milestone for the band in that Mick and Keith wrote ever song. It was also the culmination of the adrenalin rush that had been their first three years as a professional band: Mick and Keith’s song writing with attitude, an attitude that has carried them through their entire career.The US version differs from the UK LP in one major way, it only has 11 tracks whereas its transatlantic counterpart had 14. It was reduced in length at the insistence of the band’s American label to conform to the normal standards of the day – eleven tracks was enough for any fan in the view of London Records.It also has one very significant track difference as it opens with ‘Paint It Black’ that had topped the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1966 for two weeks, and it was this that provided the perfect springboard to launch the LP into the best seller list.The cohesion and overall sound and feel of the album was made so much better by the inclusion of the band’s third American No.1 in less than a year. ‘Paint It Black’ was recorded at the same March 1966 session in Hollywood as much of the rest of the album. Bill Wyman plays the bass pedals of a Hammond B3 organ by pummelling them with his fists and Brian plays sitar, both of which add to the unique sound of this standout track. As Keith said at the time, “What made Paint It Black was Bill Wyman on the organ, because it didn’t sound anything like the finished record until Bill said ‘You go like this.’”It is one of those albums that pushed pop in the direction of rock, and no more so than the closing track of side 2, ‘Goin’ Home’, which at over 11 minutes was signalling what was to come. As the band’s manager Andrew Loog Oldham said, “Goin’ Home' was praised by fans, critics and peers alike as a standout event on the recording. In 1965 only Dylan and the Stones had defied the three-minute law—and kicked open the doors to the future.” It was also a blues inspired track, so for the Stones and rock this was a back to the future moment.


According to Keith, “No one sat down to make an 11-minute track. I mean 'Goin' Home', the song was written just the first 2 and a half minutes. We just happened to keep the tape rolling, me on guitar, Brian on harp, Bill, Charlie and Mick. If there's a piano, it's Stu.

”Other standout cuts are ‘Lady Jane’ one of the band’s greatest ballads and b-side of their follow-up to 'Paint It Black', 'Mother's Little Helper' (on the UK version of Aftermath, but not in the US), the clever, ‘Under My Thumb’ that has remained one of the band’s most popular songs from the era, despite never being released as a single in either the US or UK. There’s also the original version of ‘Out of Time’ with Brian playing Marimbas, that was shortly after covered by Chris Farlowe and taken to No,1 on the UK singles chart

.As Loog Oldham told a British music paper in April 1966, “Mick and Keith write about things that are happening. Everyday things. Their songs reflect the world about them. I think it's better than anything they've done before.” And it was impossible to disagree.


I don't know a lot, but I know what I like!
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19/10/2017 10:34 am  #258


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 71.
Simon and Garfunkel.........Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme     (1966)






After the release of “Sounds Of Silence,” Simon & Garfunkel spent more time developing their next album. The result was “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme,” a music masterpiece. On “Scarborough Fair/Canticle,” the duo used vocal overdubs and instrumentation to weave together a traditional song and anti-war protest to stunning effect. The album also includes classics like “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy),” “Cloudy,” “Homeward Bound,” and “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her.”


I don't know a lot, but I know what I like!
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19/10/2017 8:54 pm  #259


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

Never liked S&G, I'm thinking I should just comment from now on if I enjoy(ed) the album.

If you have nothing good to say, say nothing!

 

19/10/2017 10:28 pm  #260


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

PatReilly wrote:

Never liked S&G, I'm thinking I should just comment from now on if I enjoy(ed) the album.

If you have nothing good to say, say nothing!

I really value your comments Pat, I was hoping some more posters might post comments as I've said before there's no right answer, only your opinion and that should will never be up for debate, be boring if we all liked the same things.

I'm thinking it might be a bit lonely, if you don't post when you don't like an album, but that's your call Pat, to be fair you normally give a reason as to why you don't like a particular album, and that to me what this is all about.

Averaging about 58-60 views per album, so can't just be me and Pat looking in, so if anybody wants to make a comment, please feel free (no judgement)


 


I don't know a lot, but I know what I like!
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19/10/2017 10:52 pm  #261


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 71.
Simon and Garfunkel.........Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme     (1966)






This was played quite often in my house, my brother, not the Beatles fan was well into Simon and Garfunkel.

I'm pretty sure he started liking them in the 70s because of the "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" album, and bought the other albums working back, this must have been the case as I can't remember hearing any of their tunes in the 60s.

Listening to the album again, I recall it as easy listening then and just the same today, great vocal harmonizing and very well produced, some really good tracks, but just no' got that something that would make me want to buy it (anyway been on the phone to my brother and he says I can have the LP if I want, as he's got it on CD,) so might put it in ,but only because it's gratis.


  • Simon and Garfunkel met in grade school when they both appeared in a production of Alice in Wonderland. Paul was the White Rabbit and Art was the Cheshire Cat
  •  
  •  
  • When they were in the sixth grade together in Forest Hills, Queens, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel discovered they could harmonize. What they may not have realized at the time was just how far their angelic voices would carry them. Throughout the latter half of the 1960s and early 1970s the duo's literary lyrics, sculpted melodies, and, above all, exquisite harmonies combined for a folk-pop sound that propelled them to the top of the charts and left a mark on thousands of future singer-songwriters.

 

  •  The first songs Simon and Garfunkel sang together were doo-wop hits, but soon they were singing their own songs. One of those was "Hey, Schoolgirl," which the duo recorded in 1957. An agent of Big Records present at the session signed them on the spot. Calling themselves Tom and Jerry ("Tom Graph" and "Jerry Landis"), they had a Top Fifty hit with "Hey, Schoolgirl" and appeared on American Bandstand. (In a 1984 Playboy interview Simon asserted that the record company agent used payola to get the record played.) Garfunkel estimates the record sold 150,000 copies. When a few follow-ups flopped, Tom and Jerry split up.
  •  
  • When they met again in 1962, Garfunkel was studying architecture after trying to record as Arty Garr, and Simon was studying English literature but devoting most of his time to writing and selling his songs. In 1964 Simon, who had just dropped out of law school and quit his job as a song peddler for a music publishing company, took one of his originals to Columbia Records producer Tom Wilson. Wilson bought the song and signed the Everly Brothers –influenced duo.
  •  
  •  In 1966 they placed four singles and three albums in the Top Thirty (the revived Wednesday Morning, Sounds of Silence, and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme). "Homeward Bound" (Number Five), "I Am a Rock" (Number Three), and "Sounds of Silence" (Number One) reached the Top Five. Simon was not a prolific writer — most of the material on the first three Simon and Garfunkel albums had been composed between 1962 and 1965 — and once Parsley, Sage was completed, the duo's output slowed considerably. They released only two singles in 1967: "At the Zoo" (Number 16) and "Fakin' It" (Number 23). Simon was developing the more colloquial, less literary style he would bring to his later solo work; the first sign of it was the elliptical "Mrs. Robinson," composed for the soundtrack of The Graduate. The film and the soundtrack album were followed within two months by Bookends; "Mrs. Robinson" hit Number One in June 1968, Bookends soon afterward.
  •  

  •  Simon and Garfunkel produced Bookends with engineer Roy Halee, who had worked on every Simon and Garfunkel session. (With Parsley, Sage, Halee had taken a major role in the arranging; it was Columbia's first album recorded on eight tracks.) "The Boxer" (Number Seven), Simon and Garfunkel's only release in 1969, was Columbia's first song recorded on 16 tracks.

  • In the late 50’s and early 60’s, after abandoning Tom and Jerry, Simon briefly reached the charts in the group Tico and the Triumphs with the song “Motorcycle”, and again with “The Long Teen Ranger” under the name Jerry Landis.



 


I don't know a lot, but I know what I like!
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20/10/2017 8:34 am  #262


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

OK, I'll explain my ambivalence towards S&G best I can.

I'd always seen their music as for reflective, thoughtful folk, which I wasn't when they were about: the world was black and white, no shades of grey. However, in later years I've changed (a bit), but still never caught on to their music. Liked the Lemonheads doing Mrs Robinson (and Suggs doing Cecelia!!!), so maybe Paul Simon was a good songwriter but I didn't like the duo's delivery....... a bit like the Dylan stuff, but obviously not as good songs.

 

 

20/10/2017 10:23 am  #263


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

PatReilly wrote:

OK, I'll explain my ambivalence towards S&G best I can.

I'd always seen their music as for reflective, thoughtful folk, which I wasn't when they were about: the world was black and white, no shades of grey. However, in later years I've changed (a bit), but still never caught on to their music. Liked the Lemonheads doing Mrs Robinson (and Suggs doing Cecelia!!!), so maybe Paul Simon was a good songwriter but I didn't like the duo's delivery....... a bit like the Dylan stuff, but obviously not as good songs.

 

You're a good man, Pat  
 


I don't know a lot, but I know what I like!
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20/10/2017 10:41 am  #264


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 72.
The 13th Floor Elevators.................The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators    (1966)





The Elevators had already played shows in San Francisco, before the psychedelic movement there came to prominence,

Thereafter, they had to be threatened with contract suspension to get them to Austin to record what would be the first acid rock album.

It sold surprisingly well due partly to the success of an already released single, the classic garage sneer "You're Gonna Miss Me," which made it to No.55 in the Billboard charts.


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20/10/2017 11:36 am  #265


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

Jings, surprised to see The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators in this elite group.

To me, it's a great album, the cover should tell you it's a bit of a hippy trip, very influential to the British Freakbeat scene which arrived shortly afterwards.

It's also unusual in that it utilises the 'electric jug': that sound will begin to annoy anyone who already is turned off by the music. It's just a big bottle with a microphone, played like a didgeridoo. 

 

20/10/2017 9:27 pm  #266


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

PatReilly wrote:

Jings, surprised to see The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators in this elite group.

To me, it's a great album, the cover should tell you it's a bit of a hippy trip, very influential to the British Freakbeat scene which arrived shortly afterwards.

It's also unusual in that it utilises the 'electric jug': that sound will begin to annoy anyone who already is turned off by the music. It's just a big bottle with a microphone, played like a didgeridoo. 

 
Great critique Pat! 😂🤣😂😄

 

20/10/2017 11:44 pm  #267


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

PatReilly wrote:

Jings, surprised to see The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators in this elite group.

To me, it's a great album, the cover should tell you it's a bit of a hippy trip, very influential to the British Freakbeat scene which arrived shortly afterwards.

It's also unusual in that it utilises the 'electric jug': that sound will begin to annoy anyone who already is turned off by the music. It's just a big bottle with a microphone, played like a didgeridoo. 

"Everyday's a schoolday" Pat, had never heard of an electric jug but after looking it up and hearing it, it does stand out on the album.

I think the albums in the book are not just classic albums, but also what the writers deem to be important, ie they think that this one was the first acid rock album, that's my reading of it anyway.

This clip shows the boy playing the electric jug.




 


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21/10/2017 12:10 am  #268


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 72.
The 13th Floor Elevators.................The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators    (1966)




I really didn't know what to expect with this one, I was half expecting a bit more of The Mothers of Invention type o' thing, but gotta say I was pleasantly surprised.

It kicks off well with "You're gonna miss me" and "Roller coaster" (the latter being my favourite) then carries on through another 9 tracks that are all pretty good imho.

Although I enjoyed it, I don't think it would get played often enough to warrant shelling out and buying it.
So it won't be going in my collection

.
Dick Clark seemed befuddled by the grungy band standing before him. The year was 1966, and the freaky quintet from Austin, Texas, had just appeared on "American Bandstand" performing their Top 40 hit, "You're Gonna Miss Me," a stinging slice of lysergically fueled garage rock.Clark tried one of his surefire conversational gambits. "Who's the head of this band?" he asked. The long-haired guitarist with the piercing eyes and the unnaturally high voice smiled broadly. Said Roky Erickson: "We're all heads, Dick!"

More than any other group, including the vaunted San Francisco bands that followed during the fabled Summer of Love, the 13th Floor Elevators proudly espoused the virtues of breaking on through to the other side via psychedelic drug use. "Recently it has become possible for man to chemically alter his mental state," read the liner notes of their debut album. With their music, they intended to provide the soundtrack for this journey.

Born Roger Kynard Erickson (his first two names were truncated into "Roky," pronounced "rocky"), the youngest member of the group was kicked out of Austin's Travis High School in his junior year for growing his hair like the Rolling Stones. He'd already written "You're Gonna Miss Me," a minor hit for garage rockers the Spades, when he was approached in 1965 to join a sort of Texas supergroup.Guitarist Stacy Sutherland, bassist Benny Thurman, and drummer John Ike Walton had progressed from playing bluegrass to raunchy garage rock with Port Arthur's Lingsmen; their friend and neighbor, Janis Joplin, briefly sang backing vocals for the Elevators before setting out on her own. The musicians were introduced to Erickson by University of Texas undergrad Tommy Hall, who played the "electric jug" in another band called the Conqueroo.The new band's very name declared a desire to be different: The 13th floor doesn't exist in many high-rises. The group was also fond of pointing out that "m" is the 13th letter of the alphabet, as well as the first letter in "marijuana.

"Several years older than his bandmates, Hall was a self-styled Beat poet who quoted the writings of Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley. "When rock 'n' roll was happening and the music was coming on, it would [tick] you off that people would write really dumb lyrics," he said. "You had Leary and the psychedelic concept, the beginning of that, and people didn't follow it. They'd just come out with the same old type of songs, so you'd think, 'Hey, you guys, talk about this. This is what we want to hear about!' "While Hall gave the band a philosophical backdrop, Erickson provided its musical focus.

Blessed with a talented family--his mother was an amateur opera singer, and his younger brother Sumner is a world-class symphonic tuba player--Roky emulated the soulful screaming of Little Richard and James Brown. But during the Elevators' more tender moments, such as the beautiful ballad "Splash 1 (Now I'm Home)," the plaintive emotion of his voice brought to mind another great Texas singer, Buddy Holly.The Elevators built a reputation on powerful live shows and an independent single featuring a new version of "You're Gonna Miss Me." This diatribe against an errant lover contrasted sharply with the prevailing sentiments of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and Erickson's vocal veers between grief-filled pleading and psychotic threatening. "You're gonna wake up one morning as the sun greets the dawn/You're gonna look around and you'll find that I'm gone/You didn't realize/You're gonna miss me, baby!" he sings.This explosion is delivered over a propulsive back beat and Sutherland's churning, Duane Eddy-gone-bad guitar, which tears through a classic E-D-A-G chord progression. And through it all runs the high-pitched burbling of Hall's electric jug.The jug had been a staple of the folk and bluegrass combos of the early '60s, but Hall amplified his by holding a microphone close to the opening. He claimed to draw musical inspiration from the free jazz of John Coltrane, but more than anything else, his random noises foreshadow the chaotic synthesizers of later art-rock bands such as Roxy Music and Pere Ubu.

The Elevators were signed to Houston's International Artists label by Lelan Rogers, the brother of rocker-turned-country crooner Kenny Rogers. The group came to despise Lelan for his dubious accounting practices, and his involvement as producer of their first album seems to have been marginal. "I didn't produce them, I baby-sat them," he said.Despite the fact it was recorded quickly on three tracks in what sounds like a cave, "The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators" is an impressive accomplishment.

As Erickson said, "The music makes you see things if you want to," and the sounds and song structures viscerally evoke the lyrical topics at hand.The wild "Roller Coaster" careens like an out-of-control amusement-park ride. The chorus of "Reverberation (Doubt)" echoes as if bouncing off the walls of a dark cavern; "Splash 1" creates waves of sound like the ripples on a still pond, and "Fire Engine" is propelled by the guitar and jug combining to evoke urgent, wailing sirens."Let me take you to the empty place on my fire engine," Erickson sings, but he later offered another reading of the line referencing a potent psychedelic smoked by South American natives. "Let me take you to DMT place,'" he said. "It was like a fire engine without the calamity of a fire."With lyrics by Hall, "Roller Coaster" is even more explicit in its heralding of the psychedelic experience: "After you trip life opens up/You start doing what you want to do/No one can ever hurt you/But you know more than you thought you knew."

Not surprisingly, the band attracted the attention of law enforcement, and Hall's philosophizing aside, that hurt the group plenty. "It was sort of like being in Jesse James' gang," said bassist Danny Galindo, who joined the group in 1967. "We had the cops after us wherever we went."Shortly after recording a second brilliant offering, "Easter Everywhere," Erickson was arrested for marijuana possession. In court, his lawyers called a psychiatrist who said the singer had taken 300 LSD trips that had "messed up" his mind, but the strategy backfired: He was acquitted by reason of insanity but confined to a state mental hospital, drugged with thorazine, and subjected to shock therapy.Friends and family say Roky was never the same when he emerged.

Though he produced several strong solo recordings through the mid-'80s, he became increasingly incoherent and unstable, and eventually dropped out of the music scene. Together with Syd Barrett, he is one of rock's most famous recluses, and the words "acid casualty" often follow his name. (According to a recent article in Texas Monthly, his brother Sumner is now trying to nurse him back to some semblance of mental and physical health.)Though "The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators" never connected with a mass audience, it certainly inspired the band's peers. The Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead were reportedly wowed by the Elevators when they traveled north to perform at the famous Fillmore Ballroom; the Rolling Stones rewrote "Monkey Island" as "Monkey Man," and Pink Floyd lifted the main theme for "More" from "Roller Coaster."

Later, during the punk explosion, Lenny Kaye included "You're Gonna Miss" as the central track on his garage-rock compilation "Nuggets," and Television covered "Fire Engine."And at the dawn of alternative rock, Warner Bros. released a two-disc tribute to Erickson entitled "Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye." With contributions from the likes of R.E.M., the Butthole Surfers, Poi Dog Pondering, and the Jesus and Mary Chain, its stellar roster is ample tribute to the enduring power of an unforgettable voice and one of the greatest albums of the psychedelic era.

The band followed up their landmark debut with Easter Everywhere, which was released in late 1967. By this point, the band were swimming in even murkier waters with such songs as the lead track, "Slip Inside This House," standing alone with no peers at hand. It would all prove too much of a beast to harness and with internal issues among band members, things fell apart rapidly. Following a faux live album in 1968, a third and final studio album would see release in 1969. Bull of the Woods was a seriously disjointed effort that lacked the spirit and shine of the first two. This was the end of the line for these pioneers.

I didn't realise that Primal Scream's "Slip Inside This House" from the "Screamadelica" album was a cover of The 13th Floor Elevators 1967 song?
 


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21/10/2017 10:25 am  #269


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 73.
John Mayall's Blues Breakers...........John Mayall's Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton   (1966)




Around the time John Mayall's Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton was released, graffiti appeared around London which stated simply "Clapton is God,"

Anyone who doubts Clapton's credentials as a bluesman should listen to this scorching 1966 recording, which ignited the British scene like a tinderbox,

The Thames Estuary may have been a thousand miles from the Delta, but this album brought it a whole lot nearer,

21 years old at the time, but never to old for the Beano!


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21/10/2017 6:38 pm  #270


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

arabchanter wrote:

DAY 73.
John Mayall's Blues Breakers...........John Mayall's Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton   (1966)




Around the time John Mayall's Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton was released, graffiti appeared around London which stated simply "Clapton is God,"

Anyone who doubts Clapton's credentials as a bluesman should listen to this scorching 1966 recording, which ignited the British scene like a tinderbox,

The Thames Estuary may have been a thousand miles from the Delta, but this album brought it a whole lot nearer,

21 years old at the time, but never to old for the Beano!

It's an album I should like, but it's just ordinary for me. And looking back on it now, although I was a Cream fan, generally I don't like Eric Clapton. Cannae put my finger on it, so another listen is tainted by my irrational dislike for this guitar 'god'.

It's strange, as I am a big guitar fan (Hendrix, Zappa, Gibbons, Fripp, Spedding and so on are heroes of mine) but for some reason Clapton has never appealed.
 

 

22/10/2017 10:19 am  #271


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 73.
John Mayall's Blues Breakers...........John Mayall's Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton   (1966)







Another night bedded early, no' in any fit state to post, thanks United on the plus side I had a choice o' rooms to crash out in, as the other half and the bairns are at the outlaws, and don't come back 'til Wednesday. 


Anyway this album wasn't really up my street, If extended guitar solos are your thing Clapton duly obliges, there is no doubting the man can make a guitar sing, but on this album the majority of tracks has his guitar hogging the singing.


There were a few tracks that I genuinely liked, "What I say" was one, but why the endless drum solo?
can't see what that brought to the track?


So as you have probably gathered, this wont be going into my collection.
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers were a pioneering English blues band, led by singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist John Mayall, OBE. Mayall used the band name between 1963 and '67 then dropped it for some fifteen years, but in 1982 a 'Return of the Bluesbreakers' was announced and the name began to be re-used. The name became generic without a clear distinction which recordings could be credited just to the leader or to leader and his band. The Bluesbreakers have included luminaries such as:
 * Eric Clapton (April–August 1965, November 1965–July 1966) and Jack Bruce, who both left to form Cream,

 * Peter Green, who had replaced Clapton, played until August 1967, when he departed with Mick Fleetwood and then also enticed Bluesbreaker John McVie, a few weeks later to form Fleetwood Mac

 * Mick Taylor (August 1967–July 1969) who later joined The Rolling Stones, and reunion tours in 1982–83 and 2004,

 * Harvey Mandel, Walter Trout, Larry Taylor (later in Canned Heat),

 * Don "sugarcane" Harris, Randy Resnick, Aynsley Dunbar, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Andy Fraser, Chris Merther, Henry Lowther, Johny Almond and Jon Mark (later of Mark-Almond).

 The Bluesbreakers were formed in January 1963 and became an ever-evolving lineup of more than 100 different combinations of musicians performing under that name. Eric Clapton joined in 1965 just a few months after the release of their first album. Clapton brought the blues influences to the forefront of the group, as he had left The Yardbirds in order to play the blues.

 The group lost their record contract with Decca that year, which also saw the release of a single called "I'm Your Witchdoctor" (produced by Jimmy Page), followed by a return to Decca in 1966. The album Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton (also known as The Beano Album because Clapton is shown on the cover photo reading a copy of the comic) was released later that year; it reached the Top Ten in the UK.

 Clapton and Jack Bruce left the group that year to form Cream. Clapton was replaced by Peter Green for A Hard Road, after which he left to form Fleetwood Mac. Finally, in 1969, the third Bluesbreaker-guitarist departed when Mick Taylor joined the Rolling Stones.

 By the time the 1960s were over, the Bluesbreakers had finally achieved some success in the United States.

 With some interruptions, the Bluesbreakers have continued to tour and release albums (over 50 to date), though they never achieved the critical or popular acclaim of their earlier material. In 2003, Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Chris Barber reunited with the band for John Mayall's 70th Birthday Concert in Liverpool — the concert was later released on CD and DVD. In 2004, their line up included Buddy Whittington, Joe Yuele, Hank Van Sickle and Tom Canning, and the band toured the UK with Mick Taylor as a guest musician.

 In November 2008 Mayall announced on his website he was disbanding the Bluesbreakers to cut back on his heavy workload and give himself freedom to work with other musicians.


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22/10/2017 1:34 pm  #272


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY74.
The Yardbirds...........The Yardbirds  (AKA  Roger The Engineer)   (1966)



  The Yardbirds finally unleashed their first studio album in August 1966, by which time the band featured the incendiary guitar soloing  (oh oh) of Jeff Beck (who replaced Eric Clapton.)

The album was much delayed by heavy touring of Europe and the U.S. and was eventually written and recorded in just one week at the Advision Sudios in London.

The Yardbirds (aka Roger The Engineer) mixes up supercharged blues, prototype psychedelia, feedback, and Gregorian monk chants to great effect.

It sounds a blast!


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23/10/2017 9:02 am  #273


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY74.
The Yardbirds...........The Yardbirds  (AKA  Roger The Engineer)   (1966)



Similar to to yesterdays album in that, a bit too guitar solo/feedback and nonsense chanting for my liking.

Now if that's your bag, The Yardbirds definately deliver, but not my thing personally.

As I didn't particulary like any of the tracks, this wont be getting added to my collection.


A bit about them,

Formed in the summer of 1963 in the South West London suburbs by Keith Relf and Paul Samwell-Smith, who had together played in the Metropolitan Blues Quartet, they were joined by Anthony ‘Top’ Topham, Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty and called themselves Blue-Sounds, with their first gig at Eel Pie Island.In September they switched to The Yardbirds, a mix of tribute to Charlie ‘Yardbird’ Parker the jazz saxophonist and the image of ‘hobos around the rail yards waiting to hitch a train ride’.

They built an R&B reputation on the club circuit, using material from Chicago Blues artists such as Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson and Howlin’ Wolf. It was when Topham left in October 1963 that Eric Clapton joined as lead guitarist and impressario Giorgio Gomelsky became their manager and signed them to EMI, that they really started to take off.Crossing into the commercial pop-rock market during the 1960s, yet keeping a repertoire of traditional raw American blues, they were a great influence on other British bands of that era and beyond.


During the brief period when Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page overlapped in their Yardbirds’ membership, they played Stroll On in the classic 1966 film Blow Up, with an equipment-smashing sequence that was a take off of The Who’s modus operandi at that time.

By 1966 the outfit created Shapes of Things and You’re a Better Man Than I, which reached number three in the UK charts. Shapes is sometimes regarded as one of the first truly psychedelic guitar-solo songs (Jeff Beck on his Fender Esquire; Jimmy Page on the 1968 live version) and was written by Samwell-Smith, Relf and McCarty.Over Under Sideways Down (1966) was a thinly disguised Bill Haley and The Comets’ Rock Around the Clock (with Beck on lead and bass), and the B side was Jeff’s Boogie, which owed more than a little to Chuck Berry’s Guitar Boogie.

In October that year they released Happenings Ten Years Time Ago, their first single featuring Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. John Paul Jones played session bass on the recording.There were other releases, but none did brilliantly well. Ha Ha Said the Clown by Manfred Mann did better chartwise, and it’s interesting that The Yardbirds chose to cover the same tune as the Manfreds, as there are many similarities of pop/rock/blues/R&B crossover in both bands.


1967’s Ten Little Indians, the Harry Nilsson classic about The Ten Commandments reached only 96 on the Billboard 100, but is most interesting as being the track on which Jimmy Page claimed to have ‘invented the reverse echo audio effect’.


1965’s For Your Love was the first for the US market, timed for their first tour there. It featured three songs from Jeff Beck’s first recording session with them, My Girl Sloppy (which later becameHang On Sloopy), I Ain’t Done Wrong and I’m Not Talking.Having A Rave Up (1965) was the US follow up, and featured four by Clapton (who had left eight months previously). Rolling Stone magazine called the LP, "the bridge between beat groups and psychedelia.

"Yardbirds (1966) became known as Roger The Engineer (in France it was Over Under Sideways Down) from the LP cover cartoon by Chris Dreja, and was called a precursor to heavy metal through Jeff Beck’s guitar distortion experimentations and was their only offering with all original material.


"With his induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame as a solo artist on 6 March 2000, he became the first musician to have been inducted three times. He was first honored as a member of The Yardbirds in 1992, then with Cream in 1993, and finally as a solo artist in 2000.


  • Relf was 32 years old when he was electrocuted in 1976. His electric guitar was not properly grounded, and he died while playing it in his home studio.


  • They opened for The Beatles in 1964.


  • They popularized the "Rave-up," which is an unstructured jam session where the musicians don't solo, but play in tandem, often for up to 30 minutes, before climaxing and returning to the song.


  • In 1963 they became the house band at the Crawdaddy Club in London, replacing The Rolling Stones.


  • They recorded "You're a Better Man than I" with 'Sun'-founder Sam Phillips in Memphis.

 

  • Jimmy Page worked on eponymous albums for the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, the Pretty Things and Them.

 

  • Page was asked to join after Clapton left - but instead recommended Beck. It was only after Samwell-Smith left that he eventually joined.

 

  • The Yardbirds met Lou Reed on a number of occasions whilst in New York.

 

  • David Bowie covered Yardbirds-original "Shapes of Things", plus "I Wish You Would" with a Yardbirds-style arrangement, on his Pinups album.

 

  • Jimmy Page wasn't the only member of Led Zeppelin to appear on Yardbirds recordings - John Paul Jones played on "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago", among others.


 


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23/10/2017 10:13 am  #274


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

Re the Yardbirds, I should probably think they're great given my tastes, and the personnel, but they're mostly just another bluesy band to me. However, I have always enjoyed rehearing their singles, of which Over, under, sideways, down is on this album. Also Happenings Ten Years Time Ago is a favourite, which is on the YouTube recording I listened to this morning, but because so often reissues mess around with track listings, I'm unsure if it was on the original.

 

23/10/2017 11:19 am  #275


Re: 1001 albums you must hear before you die

DAY 75.
Nina Simone.............Wild Is The Wind    (1966)






Although culled from studio and live recordings from 1964 to '65, Wild Is The Wind is nonetheless the best example of how Simone's eclecticism  could gel into a cohesive musical statement.

The album shows a staggering range, the 11 hitherto unreleased tracks taking the listener on a zigzagging, yet always convincing, ride through styles and emotions.


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