Ten Wheel Drive - Brief Replies 1970

Quoting Damon Runyon on both the back cover and inside the gatefold, Brief Replies warns "Do not sweet-talk me sweet-talker, for I am no stranger...." Music that was too literate for the time, the second album from Ten Wheel Drive emerged as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were making their exits in 1970. "Pulse" was intended to be the opening track, and it would have been a great one, but despite being listed that way on the back cover, it is actually the third band on the vinyl's first side, and is evidence that sequencing is so key. "Morning Much Better" opens the album without the sledgehammer blues of this Genya Ravan/Michael Zager funk-rock dirge. It is explosive without the Top 40 appeal of Blood, Sweat & Tears. Going further down the road of complete artistry, "Come Live with Me" pulls away from the big-band sound, leaving the authors -- Genya Ravan on a wailing harp and voice along with co-writerAram Schefrin's guitar. The thing about Ten Wheel Drive is their defiance toward what was considered conventional at the time. Each song on all three of their long-players, those on the 1969 debut Construction, and the polished gems from 1971's effort with Alice in Wonderland cartoons on the cover, Peculiar Friends (are better than no friends at all) break down barriers and stretch the formats of the day. They reached their pinnacle with a cover of the Jerry Ragovoy/George David Weiss masterpiece, "Stay with Me." Janis Joplin's last producer, the late Paul Rothchild -- who created many a Doors album, had Bette Midler sing in the film The Rose what Genya Ravan gave birth to here. But it is Ravan's harp and dynamic and soulful performance which puts the tune over the top. The compact, radio-friendly tour de force is a departure from the lengthier jams like "How Long Before I'm Gone." Though they change moods enough within a tune like this before veering off into the scribblings which made Chicago Transit Authority such a labor, it was still too progressive for rock audiences who were driven by the Top 40 single. That Clive Davis could edit Ragovoy's "Piece of My Heart" on behalf of Big Brother & the Holding Company was one of the reasons Big Brother's album (and single) charted so high. When Ravan left TWD for her solo outings, including one on Columbia with Davis as president, that too failed to generate the excitement a talent like Genya Ravan deserved then, as she does now. "Last of the Line" shows her chameleon-like skills, and those of the band as well. She started as one of the pioneers of the girl group sound in the '60s reinvented herself in this experimental pop/jazz unit, and went on to put out solid rock & roll solo albums in the '80s. Had the songwriting duo of Michael Zager and Aram Schefrin continued working with Ravan, she would have a body of work that would be impressive, and they would no doubt be household names. There is every indication of that here, especially on "Last of the Line," perhaps the most commercial of Zager and Schefrin's tunes. A classy hook about a ramblin' gal..."the last branch of the tree/which will die with me/I'm the last of the line." The instrumental "Interlude: A View of Soft" concludes this special album with Ravan's voice used as an instrument, as accurate as David Liebman's flute and sax. Powerful music that should have been stretched out over 25 or so albums. AMG.

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The Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band Featuring Steve Hoffman - The Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band Featuring Steve Hoffman 1967

The Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band was an American psychedelic rock and flower pop/bubblegum psychedelic band formed in 1966 in West Covina, Los Angeles County, California.

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Greg Sneddon - Mind Stroll 1974

Greg Sneddon’s Mind Stroll is one of the great early‑70s Australian prog‑rock obscurities — a thoughtful, keyboard‑driven album that blends melodic pop‑rock with long‑form progressive ideas. Released on Mushroom in 1974, it sits right in the same creative pocket as early Madder Lake, Ariel and Spectrum. Opening with the nine‑minute title track 'Mind Stroll', a sprawling prog piece built around shifting moods and Sneddon’s keyboard work. Shorter tracks like Winter, Take It Slow And Easy, and A Spell Of Destruction show his pop‑rock sensibility, while Minuet In F and the ambitious Concerto For Two Handed Plectrum / Madman lean fully into the prog side of the era. Great album!

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Sam Apple Pie - East 17 (1972)

This irreverent band was formed in Walthamstow, London, England, where they ran their own blues club, the Bottleneck. A popular live attraction, Sam Apple Pie laced their 12-bar boogie with humour, although this quirkiness was difficult to capture on record. Sam ‘Tomcat’ Sampson (vocals, harmonica), Mike ‘Tinkerbell’ Smith (guitar), Bob ‘Dog’ Rennie (bass), Steve Jolly (guitar), Malcolm Morley (keyboards) and Dave Charles (drums) completed the unit’s debut album, which included the cryptic ‘Uncle Sam’s Blues’. Morley and Charles soon departed to form Help Yourself and by 1972, Sampson was fronting a new line-up of Andy Johnson (guitar), Denny ‘Pancho’ Barnes (guitar), Mark DeMajo (bass) and Lee Baxter Hayes (drums). However, by the time the band’s second album was issued, Barnes was absent altogether and Hayes had been replaced by Martin Bell. Despite such instability, Sam Apple Pie were still active in the late 70s. The line-up featured Sampson, Johnson, Gary Fletcher (bass) and Jimmy Knox (drums). Fletcher subsequently joined the Blues Band. AMG.

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Flied Egg - Dr. Siegel's Fried Egg Shooting Machine 1972

This is a  1972 debut album by a cultish Japanese combo. This unbelievable psychedelic/progressive rock band came together the same year after Shigeru Narumo and Hiro Tsunoda shelved their project Strawberry Path (they had a sole album release in 1971 and eventually a 7"). Their sound is pure adrenaline, a stormy, hard blues kinda thing, with heavy Hammond organ riffs and more than a freakbeat influence. Partially informed by contemporary British bands, like Deep Purple or Uriah Heep, they opened to more gentle and sophisticated arrangements in the soulful ballad "I Love You" with an epic string section. The hypothetical single "Plastic Fantasy" could have been an alternative dancefloor classic with that Traffic/Brian Auger feel in the end.

Flied Egg was a rock band from Japan, founded in 1972. In their short lifespan they released two albums: "Dr. Siegel’s Fried Egg Shooting Machine" (Vertigo, 1972) and "Good Bye" (Vertigo, 1972).

The debut featured a mix of accessible psych-pop-prog, hard-riffing heavy rock (with some moves directly lifted from early Uriah Heep), and early progressive tendencies. The last album was mostly live (from their farewell concert, apparently) and leaned more towards their heavy rock side, notably influenced by Grand Funk circa "Live Album" and numerous Black Sabbath-meets-Mountain wannabes, and including a couple of old Strawberry Path songs.

The studio material was in a similar vein to the range of styles on their first album. Drummer Hiro Tsunoda had previously been in The Jacks, Foodbrain and Strawberry Path, and was also in Sadistic Mika Band at some point. Bassist Masayoshi Takanaka had previously been in Brush.

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Dirty John's Hot Dog Stand - Return From the Dead 1970

A strange and crude psychedelic blues-rock album from a short-lived band based in Boston circa 1969-1970. One member (PJ Colt) later released a solo album in 1976 (associated with "Skunk" Baxter of Ultimate Spinach, Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers fame). Several vocalists ranging from a growly split-octave style to white-bread blues style to rock-n-roll howl style. An intriguing record on an unlikely label (Flying Dutchman). Mostly original compositions with a couple of covers (Blue Skies, Next Time You See Me). The originals range from hard-rock Led Zeppelin riff-based arrangements (I Won't Quit), to Johnny Winter style white-bread blues (Hard Drivin' Man). Some are beyond comparison (Waiting For Yesterday, River) and have melodic but unusual chord structures and are steeped in psychedelic washes of wah-wah or slap-back guitars and elaborate horn arrangements. The album is extremely rare, and even more so because a manufacturing error resulted in many copies with only one playable side.

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Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Bluejeans And Moonbeams 1974

About the best one can say about 1974's Bluejeans & Moonbeams is that it's not as bad as his other release of the year, Unconditionally Guaranteed. In fact, there are two tracks, the pretty reverie "Observatory Crest" and the stomping blues-rocker "Party of Special Things to Do," that are actually quite good. The rest of the album, however, is fairly dire. Recorded with anonymous studio musicians who are clearly out of their league and glossed to a soul-less polish by producer Andy DiMartino, Bluejeans & Moonbeams never catches fire even at its best, and its worst tracks -- those would be "Pompadour Swamp" and the utterly wretched proto-disco "Captain's Holiday" -- are the worst things that have ever borne the Captain Beefheart name. Captain Beefheart would eventually return with the revitalized Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) in 1978, but Bluejeans & Moonbeams sounds like a tired and cynical make-work project. AMG.

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Mallard - Mallard 1975

Fans always had trouble assessing the Magic Band's contributions on Captain Beefheart's albums because his presence was so overweening. When they did break away, guitarist Bill Harkleroad (Zoot Horn Rollo), Mark Boston (Rockette Morton), and drummer Art Tripp (Ed Marimba) maintained that they'd played a significant role in shaping the sound; this album bolstered their case somewhat. Not surprisingly, many of the Beefheartian trademarks -- such as the guitar/marimba interplay -- are present. So are the off-kilter rhythms, which are more accessible than anything in Beefheart's realm. Harkleroad is the dominant presence, writing or co-writing the material with Boston and drummer/guitarist John (Drumbo) French (who didn't join the band). Vocalist Sam Galpin proves to be another wild card: a former lounge singer who'd reputedly never heard Beefheart, yet sounds eerily like him -- especially on the piano ballad "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train." The overall feel might well be called "country progressive," with lots of tempo changes, and a twangy attack -- as Harkleroad's slide guitar on "She's Long & She's Lean" shows. The Beefheart connections get more intriguing on the elaborately timed instrumental "Road to Morocco" and "Winged Tuskadero," which sets spoken lyrics over country-rock backing. They're either neatly executed bits of plagiarism, or else the band assimilated Beefheart's methods more than they cared to admit. The biggest surprise is "Peon," from Lick My Decals Off, Baby; its appearance seems curious for a band so bent on asserting its own identity. (The band claimed they'd covered the tune so their former boss could earn some badly needed royalties.) The final impression is one of impeccable musicians' more distinctive production and consistent writing to sway the masses; like Beefheart, they weren't anymore successful at the task. AMG.
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The Gil Evans Orchestra - Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix 1975

This CD reissue (which adds additional material to the original LP program) is much more successful than one might have expected. Jimi Hendrix was scheduled to record with Gil Evans' Orchestra but died before the session could take place. A few years later, Evans explored ten of Hendrix's compositions with his unique 19-piece unit, an orchestra that included two French horns, the tuba of Howard Johnson, three guitars, two basses, two percussionists and such soloists as altoist David SMG.nborn, trumpeter Marvin "Hannibal" Peterson, Billy Harper on tenor, and guitarists Ryo Kawasaki and John Abercrombie. Evans' arrangements uplift many of Hendrix's more blues-oriented compositions and create a memorable set that is rock-oriented but retains the improvisation and personality of jazz. [This album was re-released in 2002 on the Bluebird label with four bonus tracks from the same sessions] AMG.

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Joe Beck - Nature Boy 1969

Studio and session guitarist Joe Beck was well known for hits when backing vocalist Esther Phillips on Kudu in the '70s, although his session credentials over the years also included the likes of Miles Davis, James Brown, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, and Gil Evans. During the '80s he made a series of competent fusion and pop-jazz recordings for DMP and had a big hit recording with Dave Sanborn on CTI in 1975. His career continued into the '90s and beyond with albums like 1991's Relaxin', 1997's Alto, and his 2000 collaboration with Jimmy Bruno, Polarity. Beck was active throughout most of the new millennium’s first decade with recordings on a variety of labels, including a number of CDs on Whaling City Sound, such as 2002's Just Friends, 2007's Tri07, 2008's Coincidence (a duo recording with John Abercrombie), and 2009's Golden Earrings. The latter album, featuring Beck and singer Laura Theodore performing music made famous by singer Peggy Lee, proved to be Beck’s final recording -- the guitarist was diagnosed with lung cancer soon after work on Golden Earrings had been completed and died from complications of the disease in July 2008 at age 62. AMG.

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The Dimensions - From All Dimensions 1966

Not an original bone in their body on this 1966 album of 12 covers, but The Dimensions did a good job as aspiring Rolling Stones. Killer versions of "Carol" and "Do You Love Me" highlight this timepiece, with the kind of crudely amplified raw guitars and frenetic drums that could not be reproduced by the most exacting current scientific methods. AMG.

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Bob Welch - Bob Welch with Head West 1970

Head West is a self-titled album released in 1970 by the American band Head West, who were based in Paris, France. The band are best known today for their vocalist/guitarist Bob Welch, who went on to join Fleetwood Mac in 1971. Since 1973, by which time Welch had become more well-known, the album was repackaged as more of a solo album, credited to Bob Welch with Head West. Singles were also released but with little success.

After Head West had split up, organist Bobby Hunt toured with Fleetwood Mac and as a back up keyboard player for Christine McVie in 1974. After Welch had left Fleetwood Mac, he and Hunt recorded demos for Warner Bros. which were then developed into the Paris power trio project.

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Guns and Butter - Guns and Butter 1972

Jeff Lyons (vocals), Peter Cohen (bass),Paul Cohen (guitar) and Peter Tucker (drums) have been fooling around since their early teens. In 1970 Richard Ploss (sax, flute) joined the band, nad the band took the name Guns And Butter. In the summer of the same year, Lenny Federer, classically trained violinist started jamming wit them and soon joined the band, which found a new musical direction.

The music of this bizarre Boston-based combo is a mixture of classical music, radio friendly rock, jazz-rock, blues and many other things: they released one album (in 1972) before falling into obscurity. The music of Guns and Butter is well worth checking, especially if a listener is into early eclectic artists, like East of Eden.

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Sandy Coast - From The Workshop 1968

Sandy Coast was a Dutch beat group from Voorburg that was especially popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their best known hits were "True Love That's A Wonder" from 1971 and "The Eyes Of Jenny" from 1981. The lead singer of the group was Hans Vermeulen.

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Siren - Siren 1969

Before beginning his career as a solo artist, Kevin Coyne was the centerpiece of Siren. The group recorded two albums in the late '60s and early '70s for Dandelion, the British underground-oriented indie run by DJ John Peel. The paths that Coyne would follow on his many solo albums are much in evidence in Siren's work, which spotlight his pained, scraggly, and soulful vocals, as well as his funny, sometimes bitter lyrics. Guitarist Dave Clague (who was once in the Bonzo Dog Band) and pianist Nick Cudworth helped Coyne pen much of Siren's material, and provided much of the low-key bluesy, folksy arrangements. Siren's slim discography was doubled and then some in the mid-'90s, when DJC came up with three albums of mostly unreleased material. AMG.

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