Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs 1970

Wisely, The Madcap Laughs doesn't even try to sound like a consistent record. Half the album was recorded by Barrett's former bandmates Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour, and the other half by Harvest Records head Malcolm Jones. Surprisingly, Jones' tracks are song-for-song much stronger than the more-lauded Floyd entries. The opening "Terrapin" seems to go on three times as long as its five-minute length, creating a hypnotic effect through Barrett's simple, repetitive guitar figure and stream-of-consciousness lyrics. The much bouncier "Love You" sounds like a sunny little Carnaby Street pop song along the lines of an early Move single, complete with music hall piano, until the listener tries to parse the lyrics and realizes that they make no sense at all.  The downright Kinksy "Here I Go" is in the same style, although it's both more lyrically direct and musically freaky, speeding up and slowing down seemingly at random. Like many of the "band" tracks, "Here I Go" is a Barrett solo performance with overdubs by Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, and Robert Wyatt of the Soft Machine; the combination doesn't always particularly work, as the Softs' jazzy, improvisational style is hemmed in by having to follow Barrett's predetermined lead, so on several tracks, like "No Good Trying," they content themselves with simply making weird noises in the background. The solo tracks are what made the album's reputation, though, particularly the horrifying "Dark Globe," a first-person portrait of schizophrenia that's seemingly the most self-aware song this normally whimsical songwriter ever created. Honestly, however, the other solo tracks are the album's weakest tracks, with the exception of the plain gorgeous "Golden Hair," a musical setting of a James Joyce poem that's simply spellbinding. The album falls apart with the appalling "Feel." Frankly, the inclusion of false starts and studio chatter, not to mention some simply horrible off-key singing by Barrett, makes this already marginal track feel disgustingly exploitative. But for that misstep, however, The Madcap Laughs is a surprisingly effective record that holds up better than its "ooh, lookit the scary crazy person" reputation suggests. AMG.

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Talking Heads - Fear of Music 1979

By titling their third album Fear of Music and opening it with the African rhythmic experiment "I Zimbra," complete with nonsense lyrics by poet Hugo Ball, Talking Heads make the record seem more of a departure than it is. Though Fear of Music is musically distinct from its predecessors, it's mostly because of the use of minor keys that give the music a more ominous sound. Previously, David Byrne's offbeat observations had been set off by an overtly humorous tone; on Fear of Music, he is still odd, but no longer so funny. At the same time, however, the music has become even more compelling. Worked up from jams (though Byrne received sole songwriter's credit), the music is becoming denser and more driving, notably on the album's standout track, "Life During Wartime," with lyrics that match the music's power. "This ain't no party," declares Byrne, "this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around." The other key song, "Heaven," extends the dismissal Byrne had expressed for the U.S. in "The Big Country" to paradise itself: "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens." It's also the album's most melodic song. Those are the highlights. What keeps Fear of Music from being as impressive an album as Talking Heads' first two is that much of it seems to repeat those earlier efforts, while the few newer elements seem so risky and exciting. It's an uneven, transitional album, though its better songs are as good as any Talking Heads ever did. AMG.

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Fraternity of Man - Get It On! 1969

This US band was formed in Los Angeles, California, USA in 1967 when Elliot Ingber (guitar, ex-Mothers Of Invention) joined forces with three members of struggling aspirants the Factory: Warren Klein (guitar/sitar), Martin Kibbee (bass) and Richie Hayward (b. Richard Hayward, 6 February 1946, Clear Lake, Iowa, USA; drums). Lawrence ‘Stash’ Wagner (lead vocals/guitar) completed the line-up featured on The Fraternity Of Man, a musically disparate selection ranging from melodic flower-power (‘Wispy Paisley Skies’) to rhetorical politics (‘Just Doin’ Our Job’). The album also featured a version of Frank Zappa’s ‘Oh No I Don’t Believe It’, but is best recalled for the ‘dopers’ anthem ‘Don’t Bogart Me’, later immortalized in the movie Easy Rider. The blues-influenced Get It On! lacked the charm of its predecessor, but featured contributions from pianist Bill Payne and former Factory guitarist Lowell George, both of whom resurfaced, with Hayward, in Little Feat. Ingber was also involved with the last-named act during its embryonic stages but left to join Captain Beefheart, where he was rechristened Winged Eel Fingerling. In later years he emerged as a member of the Mothers’ offshoot, Grandmothers. Many years later, Ingber and Wagner briefly reunited under the Fraternity Of Man banner to record the dreadful 1995 EP X. AMG.

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Cockney Rebel - Psychomodo 1975

If The Human Menagerie, Cockney Rebel's debut album, was a journey into the bowels of decadent cabaret, The Psychomodo, their second, is like a trip to the circus. Except the clowns were more sickly perverted than clowns normally are, and the fun house was filled with rattlesnakes and spiders. Such twists on innocent childhood imagery have transfixed authors from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, but Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel were the first bands to set that same dread to music, and the only ones to make it work. The Psychomodo was also the band's breakthrough album. The Human Menagerie drew wild reviews and curious sales, but it existed as a cult album even after "Judy Teen" swung out of nowhere to give the band a hit single in the spring of 1974. Then "Mr Soft" rode his bloodied big top themes into town and Rebelmania erupted. The Psychomodo, still possessing one of the most elegantly threatening jackets of any album ever, had no alternative but to clean up. Harley's themes remained essentially the same as last time out -- fey, fractured alienation; studied, splintered melancholia, and shattered shards of imagery that mean more in the mind than they ever could on paper. Both the swirling "Ritz" and the ponderous "Cavaliers" are little more than litanies of one-liners, pregnant with disconnected symbolism ("blow-job blues and boogaloos"... "morgue-like lips and waitress tips"), but they are mesmerizing nevertheless. Reversing the nature of The Human Menagerie, the crucial songs here are not those extended epics. Rather, it is the paranoid vignette of "Sweet Dreams," surely written in the numbing first light of that precipitous fame; the panicked brainstorm of the title track; and the stuttering, chopping, hysterical nightmare of "Beautiful Dream" (absent from the original LP, but restored as a CD bonus track) which stake out the album's parameters. The hopelessly romantic "Bed in the Corner" opens another door entirely -- relatively straightforward, astoundingly melodic, it was (though nobody realized it at the time) the closest thing in sight to the music Harley would be making later in the decade. Here, however, it swerves in another direction entirely, the dawn of a closing triptych -- completed by "Sling It" and "Tumbling Down" -- which encompasses ten of the most heartstoppingly breathless, and emotionally draining minutes in '70s rock. Indeed, though the latter's final refrain was reduced to pitifully parodic singalong the moment it got out on-stage, on record it retains both its potency and its purpose. "Oh dear!" Harley intones, "look what they've done to the blues." The fact is, he did it all himself -- and people have been trying to undo it ever since. AMG.

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Redbone - Message From A Drum 1971

Redbone was a Los Angeles-based band led by Native American Pat and Lolly Vegas, both lead singers who had previously worked under their own names, appearing in the 1965 film It's a Bikini World prior to forming Redbone, an all-Native band, at the encouragement of Jimi Hendrix. Their first success with Redbone came in 1970 with "Maggie" on Epic. "The Witch Queen of New Orleans" did somewhat better the next year, and "Come and Get Your Love" -- a single that peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and went platinum -- gave them their greatest exposure. It would also be the band's last hit, though they continued to record and perform on an intermittent basis. In 2008, Redbone entered the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame. Six years later, "Come and Get Your Love" was introduced to a new generation when it was featured in the superhero film Guardians of the Galaxy. AMG.

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Sweet Marie - Stuck in Paradise 1971

The early '70s were intriguing times to be plying your trade amid the fauna and flora of Hawaii if you happened to be a rock band. It might've had something to do with the exotic climes and locales of the islands melding perfectly with the chemically enhanced strangeness and surreal vibes of the era (or maybe there was just something in the water?), but Hawaii played home to fiercely unique bands like Mu and expatriate psychedelic trailblazers like John Cippolina, as well as serving as an important pit-stop for Jimi Hendrix and other heavy, heady artists. Sweet Marie was yet another Hollywood combo who emigrated to the isle, and they quickly became one of the hottest bands on Oahu after having a nationally successful first album, buying a nightclub there, and packing it nightly. The trio continued their popularity and success with a second album, Sweet Marie, reissued here on Gear Fab in its original form. And it's not a bad album at all; in fact, it's a pretty strong, occasionally exciting effort. Sweet Marie's music was close in many ways to the bottom-heavy, groove-laden blues and rock amalgam of Buddy Miles Express (even Band of Gypsys on the version of Phil Ochs' "Changes") but with a cooler, more languid pace and darkly mystical undertones that closely recall their contemporary, Spirit, particularly in the harmonies. The album features some really superb melodic moments, as with "It Ain't Easy" and "I Want Your Woman," while "Do Do (Find Me a Way)" is fine, soul-tinged hard rock, and "Stella's Candy Store" amusingly innuendo-laden and jazzy. But Sweet Marie didn't have that distinctive spark that allowed their music to stand out or that ultimately separated them from their era. It certainly suffers in comparison to the extravagant, alien hybrid arrived at by Merrell Fankhauser and Jeff Cotton. And some of the ideas -- "Hortense the Hippie" (a rewrite of "Octopus' Garden"), in particular, and "Drum Solo" -- have aged less than gracefully. Nevertheless, it's a fine recording and one that would be well worth grabbing for fans of off-the-beaten-path '70s hard rock. AMG.

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Airto Fogo - Airto Fogo 1976

Featuring superb drummer Sylvain Krief, Airto Fogo’s sole album from 1976 is one of the best instrumental jazz-funk / rare-groove albums ever recorded in France. Heavy drums, Rhodes, analog keyboards, deep bass, hot horns, Blaxploitation & Latin touches.

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Ted Nugent and The Amboy Dukes - Tooth, Fang & Claw 1974

As Ted Nugent's dominant persona took over the sound as well as the band name, Tooth, Fang & Claw brought his Amboy Dukes concept a step closer to the stadiums than its predecessor, Call of the Wild. The band members don't get photos on the back this time, it's just Nugent being a madman up against some Fender and Marshall amps. The songwriting credits on the originals are all his now as well. "Lady Luck" plays as if the "American Woman" riff by the Guess Who got inverted, placed upside down in the middle of the song, and then found itself coated in Ted Nugent's flashy and glitzy guitar work. The instrumental "Hibernation kinda touches upon the "Journey to the Center of the Mind" riff just for a moment and veers off into points unknown. Where on previous albums, Marriage on the Rocks/Rock Bottom and even Call of the Wild, there was musical experimentation, the axe is front and center on this platter and all the experimentation is now with notes and how fast they can be played -- and in what order. Riff. Thud. Crunch. But beyond Nugent's further emerging hard rock sound, a conscious shift away from the blues of the Polydor albums, and psychedelia of the material on Mainstream records, these Discreet/Warner Brothers releases document the forging of a sound and identity that would establish the controversial guitar hero as a true rock icon. Though Billy Squier would have more and bigger hits in the '80s, this foundation, coupled with Nugent's press antics, paved the way for lasting stardom. The version of "Maybelline" is so mutated you won't know it's a Chuck Berry song unless you listen hard; the melody gets put through the meat grinder. But the musicianship is refined. How could it not be with players like drummer Vic Mastrianni? The instrumental "Free Flight" is totally brilliant. That song isn't hard rock or heavy metal; it is just fine musicianship displaying an elegance few hard rock acts can muster. When he does want to crank it up, as with "The Great White Buffalo," he's set the table, and the listener is primed and ready. Where his contemporaries from the '60s, the Blues Magoos, drifted from the psychedelic to jazz and blues before fizzling out, Nugent fused his blues base with hard rock and found a stadium audience ready to devour it. Tooth, Fang & Claw shows those claws just starting to extend. AMG.

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Barbara Mason - Yes, I'm Ready 1965

Barbara Mason was very much a teenager when "Yes, I'm Ready" climbed the charts, and this endearing debut LP was released. "Ready" is a captivating ballad that has been remade by many. Her first hit single, "Girls Have Feelings Too," shows the sweet innocence of youth. "Sad, Sad Girl," another self-written Mason ballad, drips with hurt as she explains how blue her world has become since she lost her fellow. Mason wrote most of her singles and has said they're based on real-life experiences; she often could be seen visibly crying on stage while delivering one of her songs. Other than the B-sides, the rest of the album consists of remakes like "Something You Got," "Moon River," and "Misty." Mason wasn't at her best redoing the material of others; the efforts seem lackluster compared to her recordings of original compositions. AMG.

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Agincourt - Fly Away 1970

Though Agincourt's album is sometimes described as folk-rock, it's really more accurately pegged as a combination of folk-rock (of the contemporary rather than traditional British variety), a bit of psychedelia, and a bit of swooning pop. Certainly it's got more drive and catchy pop melodies than most of the plentiful oodles of obscure barely pressed British folk-rock releases of the early '70s, though there are similarities in the gentleness of the approach and the wistful, slightly sad melodies. As these kind of U.K. folk-rockish rarities go, it's certainly one of the better ones -- not on the level of the most famous British folk-rockers, mind you, but among the upper tier of things you should check out if you're accumulating unknown albums in that realm. Lee Menelaus has a sweet, high voice that's lighter and more innocent-sounding (to good effect) than many woman singers of the style, and the original tunes have a way of shining with pleasing sunniness while steering clear of the saccharine. Not everything here is that good -- some of the occasional harder-rocking tunes are more ordinary than the fetching folkier ones ("Mirabella" sounds almost like a garage Moody Blues), and the fairly homespun recording quality (particularly on the drums), while not a serious distraction, keeps some of this from coming across as well as it could have. AMG.

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Ramsey Lewis - The In Crowd 1965

Ramsey Lewis staked his claim to fame with The In Crowd, an instrumental version of Dobie Gray's Top 40 hit. He also was one of the first soul-jazz icons of the mid-'60s, based on the strength of the sales of this recording, done over three days during a club date at the Bohemian Caverns in Washington, D.C. What is not readily acknowledged over the years is that bassist Eldee Young is really the star of the show. He's the one who gets the crowd revved up with his vocalizing in tandem with the notes he is playing. It's on his Ray Charles-like take on "Tennessee Waltz" and a similar treatment of Gale Garnett's minor pop hit "You Been Talkin' 'Bout Me Baby" that gets the patrons off. Of course, the quintessential hip-shakin' introductory title track gets the groove in motion, but it's Young who lights the fuse. His stellar work with drummer Redd Holt bolsters the style of Lewis, and takes it further for the upbeat bossa "Felicidade." Of course, Lewis is the bluesy centerpiece on "Since I Fell for You," another cover of a pop hit that at the time Lenny Welch did so well. The variant is the dramatic "Theme from Spartacus," which has an up-and-down dynamic more suited for a concert hall than a smoky nightclub. This is the moment where Lewis shined the brightest, the "in crowd" at the club was verbally into it, and the time for this music was right. AMG.

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Tea - Tea 1974

Tea is a heavy progressive rock band formed in 1971 in Switzerland. The founding members were drummer Roli Eggli, guitarist Armand Volker, and bassist and vocalist Turo Pashayan. The band's name is derived from these three member's first initials. In 1972, the band augmented their lineup with lead singer Mark Storace. The band heavily toured Switzerland and France, earning a name for themselves before they even released any material. This led to them landing a spot on television, unheard of for many bands in their day, in 1973. In 1974, the band finally began to release music, beginning with a few singles that led up to, although they were not included in, the band's debut self-titled album in 1974. After the album's release, they toured with international superstar Queen as the band's "special guests."

1975 saw the band's second album, "The Ship," The album protracted a similar positive buzz as the first album, with many positive reviews published about the album. The band again toured across Europe. In 1976 the band released their third album, "Tax Exile." Yet another European tour commenced, which even included singer Storace's native Malta. Although the band had enjoyed great success up to that point, the band played their last concert in 1977.

In 2007, however, Eggli, Volker, and Storace began thinking about a reunion. The band began rehearsing as a trio, as Kienholz declined to be included in the band and Pashayan was discovered to be in a German prison due to fraud charges. 30 years after the band's dissolvement, the band released their fourth album "Reloaded," which was a retrospective album that included lesser-known works and non-album tracks. The band began to play shows again in December of 2009 again, with Chris Egger on keyboards and Dan Allenspach on bass.

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Ike & Tina Turner - Outta Season 1969

One of eight albums that were issued in this landmark year; this one is among the lesser-known or noticed. It contained routine soul and R&B numbers sung with little variety or emotion by Turner, and produced and arranged with almost no variety or flair. It was more a collection of singles than an actual album but was rushed out among the raft of Ike and Tina products that glutted the market. It has since been deleted, and deservedly so. AMG.

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Stevie Wonder - Music of My Mind 1972

With a new contract from Motown in his hand, Stevie Wonder released Music of My Mind, his first truly unified record and, with the exception of a single part on two songs, the work of a one-man band. Everything he had learned about musicianship, engineering, and production during his long apprenticeship in the Snakepit at Motown Studios came together here (from the liner notes: "The sounds themselves come from inside his mind. The man is his own instrument. The instrument is an orchestra.") Music of My Mind was also the first to bear the fruits of his increased focus on Moog and Arp synthesizers, though the songs never sound synthetic, due in great part to Stevie's reliance on a parade of real instruments -- organic drum work, harmonica, organs and pianos -- as well as his mastery of traditional song structure and his immense musical personality. The intro of the vibrant, tender "I Love Every Little Thing About You" is a perfect example, humanized with a series of lightly breathed syllables for background rhythm. And when the synthesizers appear, it's always in the perfect context: the standout "Superwoman" really benefits from its high-frequency harmonics, and "Seems So Long" wouldn't sound quite as affectionate without the warm electronics gurgling in the background. This still wasn't a perfect record, though; "Sweet Little Girl" was an awkward song, with Stevie assuming another of his embarrassing musical personalities to fawn over a girl. AMG.
 

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Carole King - Writer 1970

Writer is the most underrated of all of Carole King's original albums, in that it was completely ignored when it came out in 1971 and didn't really start to sell until Tapestry whetted everyone's appetite for her work. It's an album of its time, in both King's life and career, and the music of its era -- singer/songwriters were still something new, and in 1970, it was assumed that anyone in rock had to tend toward the extrovert and flashy to attract attention. Thus, Writer has a somewhat louder sound than the relatively lean, introspective strains of Tapestry that followed. "Spaceship Races," which opens the record, features Danny Kootch Kortchmar playing full-out electric guitar, chopping and crunching away with his amp turned way up, and King belting out a number behind his bluesy licks that makes her sound like Grace Slick and the song come off like a pounding (and good) Jefferson Airplane number of the same era, with a great vocal hook at the end of the verses. "No Easy Way Down," with its soulful instrumental and backing arrangement, calls to mind not only her own "Natural Woman" as done by Aretha Franklin, but also (in terms of New York white women belting out soul) Laura Nyro at her best, and it's also a great tune with a killer performance by King, whose wailing voice is extraordinarily powerful here. "Child of Mine" is the closest that the album gets to the voice that she found on Tapestry, while "Goin' Back" gives a more personal and elegant take to a song that is otherwise thoroughly identified with the Byrds; and "To Love" has King diving into country music, which she pulls off with exceptional grace, the song's title referring to a beguilingly innocent and free-spirited chorus that, once heard, stays with you. Even the least interesting of the songs here, "What Have You Got to Lose," is unusual in the context of King's overall work, with its heavy acoustic rhythm guitar, soaring backing vocals, and King's bold near-falsetto on the choruses. And that's just Side One of the original LP -- Side Two opens a little more slackly with the beautiful, reflective, but slightly too languid "Eventually," and the delightful "Raspberry Jam," which offers a soaring guitar showcase for Kortchmar (whose playing intersects the sounds of Roger McGuinn and David Crosby off of the Byrds' "Eight Miles High"), and a head-spinning, swirling organ from Ralph Schuckett weaving below and around King's piano, plus one of King's most playful vocals on record. The album ends on a special high note, King's singer/songwriter-styled reinterpretation of "Up on the Roof," which anticipates the sound she would perfect for Tapestry, emphasizing words and their feeling and meaning as much as music, and expressing herself principally through her voice and piano, moving the band out of the way. Ironically enough, if Writer had been released by almost any other artist, it would command a near-top rating and probably be a fondly remembered period cult item today; instead, for all of its merits, it must stand in the shadow of King's more accomplished and distinctive work that followed -- but even slightly "off-brand," under-developed Carole King music from 1970 is still worth hearing today. AMG.

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