Other People's Memories II

Sagittarius - Present Tense

Another gem I've just discovered. More relationships to The Byrds and The Beach Boys. I know I'm not really gettin to the best ex-Byrds records but I came across this last week and can't believe it hasn't been in my life till now. Gary Usher is the man behind this project. He is probably best known as a producer for The Byrds and for writing a couple of Beach Boys classics including 409 and In My Room. He'd also written tracks for Dick Dale, Frankie Avalon and Peanut Butter Conspiracy. Anyway Gary and Curt Boettcher got together in the studio and created this psych-pop masterpiece. They dragged in other friends Terry Melcher, Bruce Johnston and Glen Campbell to help make this magic. It's like psych with all the rock removed which is actually quite refreshing. I guess the closest thing I can compare this to is The Free Design but its way more psychedelic, freaky and haunting than them. This aint no rock record and it's all the better for it. I cannot stop playing this LP and can't quite figure out why. It's been called soft rock, sunshine pop but I think the best and most fitting term is Baroque Pop. There are a couple of other Usher studio projects, Super Stocks and The Hondells which  are more on the surf rock tip. Curt Boettcher was a just a name to me previous to hearing this, maybe someone Bob Stanley once wrote about or admired. He produced The Association and had his own groups The Ballroom and The Millenium. He even had something to do with Dennis Wilson's classic Pacific Ocean Blue I think. Boettcher died relatively young and has become a cult figure ever since. The Millennium's LP Begin is considered a cult classic, I'll mos def have to track that one down along with the 2nd Sagittarius LP.

Gary Usher

Baroque-pop genius?
Curt Boettcher

Terry Melcher - Terry Melcher LP

How did I end up here? Well a while ago a friend of mine told me he was gettin into The Byrds. I'd been tellin him for a while he should check out Gene Clark. So then I thought I'd do a post about the best Post-Byrds records. Then as I was thinking up some crap to write I remembered this song I'd heard about 7 years ago on the radio by sometime Beach Boy songwriter and Byrds producer Terry Melcher. It really struck me as quite edgy and unhinged and has stayed with me ever since. I've never been able to find a physical copy of the above LP but I finally tracked down an MP3 of said artifact. Anyway I can't figure out which of the tunes it was because there is quite an intense unhinged quality to a lot of the trax. There is something in his voice that is so real and slighly terrified. This is a man who was friends with Charlie Manson and was supposedly the real target for one of the Manson murders. I'm sure he did his fair share of coke and was quite paranoid. His mum was Doris Day talk about yin and yang! That was LA though wasn't it?!. The sweetest most innocent harmonies coming from some of the most mental people in town ie. The Beach Boys. Anyway did I miss the Mojo where they said this was a forgotten classic or am I one of only a few who think this is pure gold from LA in 1974. Doris even does backing vocals on Terry's version of These Days which makes it brilliantly haunting. When he says he's 'OK and so is LA' in a jaunty tone you don't really believe him particularly when it's a sentiment expressed to his shrink on Dr Horowitz. Particularly affecting is the booze hound lament The Bars Have Made A Prison Out of Me. His sense of desperation for something to believe in is palpable in songs like Beverly Hills, Halls Of Justice and The Old Hand Jive. His spirit though is broken but he keeps on going, just, and thankfully so because this is a fucking great record! Features such luminaries as Sneaky Pete, Hal Blaine and Chris Hillman. Terry's old buddy and sometime Beach Boy Bruce Johnston co-produces.

Other Peoples Memories

On The Hi-Fi Part 27

Crucify Your Love - Dylan Ettinger
Now this guy has moved on quite a bit. He made one of the landmark statements of Hynagogia, New Age Outlaws from 2010. Some even consider that record to be where H-Pop ended. So where do you go from there? Particularly if people are saying that's the end of the genre but you created one of its masterpieces. Perhaps that call was a little early but all the same, what do you do next? Should you stick with it till the revival comes around? How long would that leave you in the wilderness though? Stasis V progression. This new ep is somewhere in between. It's like the Cabs have hijacked the hynagogia party. There are vocals in in a deep dubbed fug/fog amongst the H-pop sounds. Is that progression or regression? It puts this work in a zone not that far from eMMplekz but more on an easier listening tip, if that makes any sense at all. It's pretty good/Odd!?

OFF/On - Forma (2012)
Finally getting around to hearing this release from very late last year due to SLX having it as their record of the year for 2012. I didn't hate that first LP but it just didn't surpass its influences Cluster, Harmonia et al. This is top notch electronics retaining some of that Kraut vibe but now including 80s drum soundz, soundtracky motifs and even delving into 90s electronica. Who knows in a couple of albums time they may be soundtracking the new future and not the retro-future.

The Garnet Toucan - Monopoly Child Searchers (2012)
Another release from late last year. This time it's the other Skater you know the one who is not James Ferraro. Talk bout becoming the Andrew Ridgley or the other guy from Style Council of Skaters. I have over 30 releases by Mr Ferraro and not one solo outing from Spencer Clark until this landed on my lap. There was the excellent Inner Tube release last year which was a collaboration with Mark McGuire of Emeralds. You could slap a Ferraro label on this and I would be none the wiser. It really could be an old tape from 2009. That's a good thing here. Plastic fourth into fifth world neon soundz makes this a quality LP that I can't stop playing.

Random Access Memories - Daft Punk
Do I really need to add to the discourse of this cd? For what it's worth I fell asleep the first 2 times I listened to this. On the 3rd listen I started to enjoy the tracks towards the end of RAM. I really think this is a bad case of track placement error.

The Elektrik Karousel - The Focus Group
The title says it all really. This is like an acid trip through an horrific fairground (aren't they all a little bit spooky?). The emphasis being on the trip. You get into the zone with this LP and you are on a sonic ghost ride. Dear Wire reviewer I don't need to be English to enjoy this and I don't need to be humming its tunes once the Voyage is over. If I wanted to hum some tunes all day long I'd listen to Abba. This is about listening in the moment and that's what The Focus Group are all about. Another GhostBox gem!

RocKwiz

So the advertisement for the new season of RocKwiz is all about staying in. This reminded me of that aforementioned article by Paul Morley on The Stones at Glastonbury. RocKwiz is a fantastic show. There are 2 teams in a panel of 3.  In each panel is a famous/semi-famous/working musician and two rock nerds picked from their audience due to their knowledge of rock trivia. At the opening of the show each of the musicians play one of their usually well known trax. A quiz then ensues with rock questions, some easy & some quite hard. At the closing of the show the two artists always do some kind of duet. The duet is usually terrific or total shite. This is all hosted by the charismatic and sometimes goofy Julia Zemiro with Brian Nankervis as the side-kick/adjudicator. The emphasis is definitely on rock, meaning trivia from the 60s, 70s, 80s and only sometimes from more recent times.

Julia Zemiro and at the back the fantastic RocKwiz Orchestra.

This most recent ad tells us to stay in on Saturday Nite to avoid the hipster zombie apocalypse. This is like the opposite idea of Rock n Roll. That being going out, drinking, taking drugs, being hip, prowling for promiscuous sex, lookin for kicks, pushin the boundaries etc. Now rock is in its old aged home where you stay in and avoid those young people and their silly hair. Sit back with a cup of tea and a biscuit and watch the telly. RocKwiz will give you a little trip down memory lane which will be nice. You might even like one of those nice new young artists. Then it's off to beddy byes nice and early.

Don't get me wrong I love the show. Some of my all time favourite artists have taken part - Ed Kuepper, Steve Kilbey (The Church), Mick Harvey, Hugo Race, Gareth Liddiard (The Drones), Steve Lucas (X), Chris Bailey (The Saints), Kim Salmon (The Scientists), Adrian Belew, Ron Peno (Died Pretty), Jim Keays (The Masters Apprentices), Russell Morris etc. They've even had some international rock royalty like Betty Harris, Suzi Quatro, Wanda Jackson, Judy Collins, Mary Wilson and the list goes on. There was even a memorable episode featuring the charming Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet who turned out to be a right card and was in fine voice!?

The funny thing is it's filmed in one of Melbourne's most famous and long standing rock venues The Esplanade Hotel. According to the ad this is the type of place you are supposed to be avoiding as there may be funny haired, weirdly dressed, drunk and pilled up young folk. The ad I guess is tongue in cheek but that's a moot point as you can't really be among such unwashed folk on Saturday nite otherwise you'll miss the show.

Once at an Australian Rules Football match I ran into an old musician friend. He was in the company of someone who may or may not have been in the Australian underground supergroup The Beasts Of Bourbon. After already having had a few lemonades I asked their posse to join me in kicking on at the pub across the road from the MCG only to be told 'Thanks but nah. We're going home to watch RocKwiz.'

Rock & Roll!

RIP RAY MANZAREK

You know what I loved about Ray apart from his skills on the organ, piano, bass and even marimba was that he stayed enthusiastic about the Doors right through his life. He really believed in them and knew they were great. He never dismissed them as juvenalia like many artists would. He knew they were the best musical days of his life and they would never be repeated. He was still inspired in the sleeve notes of those last reissues from like 2007.

Dead Blogs

Norm Chambers AKA Panabrite once ran one of my favourite blogs Lunar Atrium. This was a great place to find the weird and wonderful. I got to listen to many library and obscure electronic records that will never see a re-release. I don't know what happened but he started blogging less frequently and then bang all his files and critical comments were gone. Now it's like a ghost town blog with just it's header and zero content. Thanks Norm for the heads up on a lot of records I would never have known if it wasn't for your old/dead blog. Where else was I gonna hear Claudio Rocchi's classic Suoni Di Frontiera along with many others?

Another excellent blog on the more funky tip of library records, Funky Frolic, has called it quits too. This could possibly be the source of where I first heard Alan Hawkshaw's legendary Oddball! Another one bites the dust.

I could go on about many others who are disappearing by the minute. Then there's others who have slowed to a crawl like Pontone & Exp Etc. and the great Mutant Sounds. Many file sharing blogs are still online but in spectral form with most links no longer alive. Is the well drying up? Or are the authorities taking control? A golden era of obscure record sharing seems to be coming to an end and that's a shame.

eggheads

Barry enjoys Adolescent Sex

CJ used to be my favourite egghead. Man of many great shirts. He admitted though the other day that he doesn't listen to or buy music thus becoming the villain egghead. Some of the other dudes know their stuff though. Pat got a question about Black Flag the other night and Barry answered correctly a question on Japan and even named an LP Adolescent Sex as one his particular favourites. There was even a question about who was the lead singer/songwriter/guitarist behind The Mighty Wah! & Wah! Heat. The answer of Pete Wylie however was not forthcoming. Once a question was asked "What Beatles LP is actually called The Beatles?" The challengers were given 3 choices of which they replied Sgt. Pepper & not you know, the right answer. There's obviously a music freak in the question research department. It definitely keeps me watching to see what weird music question is next and leaves me slightly disappointed when the music category does not appear in an episode.

Pat gets the Hardcore questions.

This parallels Gilmore Girls which I used to watch. The writers must have been big music fans and in the end I think I was just watching to see what kind of music esoterica they could smuggle into such a mainstream show. Slint once got a mention and I thought wow how are they gonna top that? One of the main 2 characters was named Lorelei. This would always put me in mind of the great Cocteau Twins track from the classic Treasure LP.  Surely she was named after that.

One More Time