(courtesy of Record Collector)
On a sad note, Kirk Walther, the owner of Iowa City's Record Collector passed away on Saturday from a short illness. Record Collector I knew about in 1985 but Kirk might have started sooner (1983?) I don't think he liked it much when I came into the store with a bag from B J Records of the latest Animals reissues and he made that known. But outside of that, we got along pretty well and I did managed to find some decent albums and CDs from 30 years of visiting Record Collector. In the 1980s there were about 10 record stores in downtown Iowa City, Kirk managed to be the last one standing as BJ Records, Sal's Music Emporium, Discount Records, Camelot, Disc Jockey, Musicland, Real Records and a few others went by the wayside. A lot of musicians stopped in to buy music, most notable ones Sonic Youth.
One year ago, we had the second highest river crest in Cedar Rapids which if you look back a year ago on my blog you can read the play by play action. This year we are now in a stage 2 drought level. It's been very dry, the leaves have turned color and now are falling in between cracks of my cars and the morning glories are thirsty. The hottest tempertures of the year was recorded this weekend with temps a record 93 on Saturday. However the fall changing cold front will drop temps back down to seasonal. And looks to be dry.
Plenty of records bought and reviewed this week:
The Doors-The Singles (Elektra/Rhino/DMC 2017)
As classic rock bands begin to fade off into the sunset, the three major labels are pretty much resorting to their last means of trying to come up with product from bands that have been anthologized over the course of our lifetime. We all know there's no shortage of Doors best ofs, box sets and anthologies, the question remains if anybody outside of audiophiles who wanted Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine, the 1972 2 record set that cherry picks tracks and lesser known stuff. I grew up as a kid, that scoured the 4 for a dollar 45 bins for certain bands and the late 60s at Woolworths was perfect to find stuff from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Tommy James and of course The Doors. My early Doors 45s came from the 4 for a dollar bins, People Are Strange, Love Me Two Times, The Unknown Soldier, even Wishful Sinful, to which I played a lot. As for Running Blue, well sometimes we don't make smart choices. For the first time ever, we finally get the complete singles picture of The Doors, including the ones after Jim Morrison departed this earth. Back on AM radio, we were used to the 2:45 version of Light My Fire, the shorter Riders On The Storm and even Love Her Madly but we missed out on Tightrope Ride and Get Up And Dance. Back when we could not afford albums, singles were the way to go and B sides were deep cuts. Who knows what would have happened had Roadhouse Blues would have become the A side rather than the number 50 You Make Me Real, a song you don't hear on classic rock radio but Roadhouse Blues gets ran into the ground. If you take a look at the singles that The Doors did put out, a lot of them were hit and miss, Running Blue for one, Tell All The People another and perhaps critics are right that the Doors' first two albums are classic, the next three uneven and the last one their third best album. Other Voices and Full Doors Circle found that they couldn't replace Jim Morrison at all although they did play around with some interesting songs (The Mosquito, to which the single version is much different than the album cut due to some fancy editing). Some B sides didn't make the albums, Who Scared You found it's way on Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine as well as You Need Meat Don't Go No Further, the only time Ray Manzarek sang lead while Jimbo was still alive. Which leads to the next question, is The Singles worth getting? If you are into collecting 45s from the past and remember the different mixes of The Unknown Soldier and Touch Me and want to hear the mono version of Break On Through (I'm sorry but I always favor when Elektra edited she gets high to simply she gets, it really adds more to the song that way) and Light My Fire then it's worth getting it into your collection, although I am never a fan of bad digipack packaging double cds that seems to be the norm. But as Morrison stated, this is the end of the Doors Compilations, the barrel is now scraped clean, most of the post Morrison singles are disposable and Do It, the b side to Runnin Blue really sucks. If they put their mind to it, The Doors did make classic rock and roll for the AM dial (I didn't hear the long version of Light My Fire till years later). The Singles captures everything as it was committed to forty five; you can live without this but if you are a fan of forty fives and AM radio and don't have the Doors albums, well here you go.
Grade A-
Tompall (MGM 1974)
Him being Tompall Glasser of the the Glasser Brothers fame, Tompall was associated with the outlaw movement of the early 70s by being around Waylon Jennings till they had a falling out. I tend to look at Tompall in the same way I look at David Allen Coe, an outlaw that tended to lean too much on ballads and not enough tough country rock. He gets kudos on this album for Shel Silverstein writing songs and co producing with Kris Kirstofferson. But he gets the raspberry for way too many ballads, especially on side 2. Best song remains, Put Another Log On The Fire but you can find that on the RCA Wanted The Outlaws album so you can basically avoid this album. The kiddie choir get tedious on Musical Chairs.
Grade C
More Hard To Find 45s Volume 18 and 19 (Eric 2017)
The real K Tel CD label after the demise of the original K Tel, the folks at Eric Record continue to find great forgotten singles....and total crap. It's great that they found Timmy Thomas' Why Can't We Live Together, Malo's Suvaceito and The Neighborhood's Big Yellow Taxi (really a nice cover of Joni Mitchell's song but the rest of that album was terrible), and some people might care for the 3:27 edit of Roundabout by Yes and you might get a chuckle from the Sugar Bears You Are The One but there's a lot of hold your nose songs too, (Rainbow Connection, The Hustle) but had Eric added another song they could call it 22 Explosive Hits
Volume 19 more of the same, I enjoy Hocus Pocus from Focus, Venus from the Shocking Blue and Fox On The Run and Boys Are Back In Town but once again the crap is there (Daisy A Day, Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast, I Never Been To Me, Sometimes When We Touch) to the point that unless you really miss the days of K Tel or Rhino's Have A Nice Day (To which most of these songs are probably on) you can bypass this collection. A better remastering job than Time Life but in reality I prefer a a cracked and scratchy 45 of Sometimes When We Touch over anything else.
Grades
Volume 18 B
Volume 19 C+
The Dream Syndicate-How Did I Find Myself Here (Anti 2017)
The surprise of the year might have been the first new album from this band from 1988 Ghost Stories but How Did I Find Myself returns more to the sound of Days Of Wine And Roses although Karl Precoda might be missed (Paul Cutler retired, Karl Precoda went into screenplay writing) but at least Kendra Smith returned to do the last song titled, of course, Kendra's Dream. Chris Canavas, co produced this with Steve Wynn and the wall of noise is like 1980s alt rock, it's noisy but it's melodic on most of the songs, the title track weaves itself though 7 and half minutes. In some ways The Dream Syndicate could be forerunners of shoe gazer music like Ride, but unlike Ride, the album doesn't overstay the welcome either. I still contend that Medicine Show or Ghost Stories are a better listen but then again this band never made a bad album either. Still alternative rock but it still rocks.
Grade B+
Frank Zappa-Chunga's Revenge (Bizarre/Rykodisc 1971)
He's so hit and miss in his recording career that for every good song he does, he ruins the others with cheap third grade smut poetry. The original Mothers Of Inventions could deliver Zappa's sarcastic songs like Freak Out and Only In It For The Money but once defections came into play and Ray Collins' leaving, the band fell apart, jazz leanings going for a more heavy rock sounding. Getting Flo and Eddie to replace Collins didn't pay off either and it somewhat ruined what they had when they were The Turtles. The title track would be a Zappa ploy to have his guitar soloing on extended songs and he would do that from here on out, it could also be boring. Sometimes the sarcasm works as on failed single Tell Me You Love Me and Road Ladies. Most of the time it didn't (Rudy Wants To Buy Yez A Drink). Chunga's Revenge never takes off for me, but compare it to Just Another Band From LA and it's actually better. But not by much.
Grade C+
Album from my youth: Various Artists-Different Strokes (Columbia 1971)
A whopping 19 songs that sold for 1.99! Columbia's answer to K Tel's albums but on this version they picked the up and coming artists for that year of 1971. I bought it simply of Redbone's Maggie, their goofy single from the summer of 1971 but much to my chagrin, they put a 1:45 sampler edit of that song. As well as 2 minutes of Big Brother And The Holding Company's Mr Natural to which Janis Joplin's vocal at the end you can't hear. Or a 2:00 edit of failed single from It's A Beautiful Day Soapstone Mountain. Even Soft Machine's Out Bloody Rageous comes at a 4 minute edit and Miles Davis' avant garde cut tends to suck the life out of this collection. My brother couldn't relate to that 'piece'. And there are pieces of poo here (Ballin Jack's Found A Child) but what this record did was gather my interest to seek out other bands here (Laura Nyro's Blackpatch, Spirit-Morning Will Come which includes the ending of Life is Just Beginning, Poco's Man Like Me). My glee club band did do a version of Fields Of Joy from NY Rock And Roll Esamble and I was more used to Johnny Winter's Rock And Roll Hootchie Koo. By now, I ended up buying Maggie by Redbone on a chopped up 45 edit and decided the album cut was better. For the unknowns, Bill Puka's Nothing At All is a buried treasure, Fraser and Debolt's All This Paradise should remained buried and lesser known hits from Tom Rush and The Hollies and a wild cover of Don't Fight It (feel it) is done by Elvin Bishop Group featuring the late Linn County singer Steven Miller (no relation to the Space Cowboy). Before the internet and FM radio, samplers were the best way to discover new music, unless you took chances of DJ 45 copies of bands that didn't make it on radio (the good ole days) and Different Strokes was the product of the times The special low price should remain under 2 dollars even in thrift stores, and it's worth the time nor effort to seek out and buy unless you are nostalgic for sampler albums and can't find Bill Puka's album, or Fraser and DeBolt. Columbia would continue to issue sampler albums (the 3 LP The Music People was a much better buy and at least most of the songs were not chopped down to nothing. That album featured the debut of REO Speedwagon, Sweathog and Blue Oyster Cult just to name a few bands) and in 1980 put together two volumes of Exposed which was more into new wave acts and worth seeking out. Different Strokes in reality was CBS's first true album of introducing new acts. It's flawed on the bad edits and short songs but for a price of a new 45, it was a good buy to discover the new acts. You know damn well Sony would never partake such a loss leader like this in this era.
Grade B
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