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- Klaatu "Hope" 1977 (Canada)
This
year for the Hippie Xmas bargain bin vinyl special I dug really deep
for ultra-obscure albums of the classic rock era. The most famous
artist being played on the show this week could be our CAOTW (or else
it's probably Lalo Schifrin), though Klaatu was never more than a cult
curiosity. Three anonymous studio musician/engineers from Toronto
recorded five albums between 1976 and 1981 which show their love for Beatles-style psychedelic pop, Pink Floydian space epics and concept albums, and Moody Bluesoid narration and orchestration. There was a brief "Beatles reunion rumour" attached to the release of their debut album, which made that their best-selling and most well-known album. Hope
was their second record, and is much more ambitious - being a
full-blown "sci fi rock opera" and including sessions with the London
Symphony Orchestra - but it sold a lot less than the first one. Their third album
was a return to the more pop-oriented (Beatles-like) debut album,
and it's my favorite of all their records - though it sold even more
poorly than the second album. You guessed it, albums #4 (tragically
awful 80's lamestream Top 40 attempt) and #5 (back to Beatles sounds
but on a limited budget and not released outside of Canada) continued
the downward slide in record sales.
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- Iron Maiden "Powerslave" 1984 (UK)
Today
is Bruce Dickinson's 60th birthday, so we induct our first Classic
Album by one of the most popular metal bands of all time. Though
personally they are not one of my favorite metal bands, there is no
denying their iconic stature as one of "England's Loudest Bands." I do
think their peak period was 1982-1985, when they made their first three
studio albums and one double live album with Dickinson (there were
also two albums before that with a different singer, which are pretty
good but more typical of the NWOBHM style). Of that classic run of albums in the 1980's, Powerslave
is the most ambitious and progariffic - at times it sounds like they
hit the sweet spot in between Rush and Motorhead. There are several
more legendary hard rock singers with birthdays this month: Robert Plant, Rob Halford, Ian Gillan, Gene Simmons and James Hetfield.
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- Canned Heat "Living The Blues" 1968 (USA)
The
Grateful Dead became an enormous cultural phenomenon in the 1970's to
1990's (even during the grunge rock era they were one of the
top-grossing touring bands in the world), so it is easy to forget that
back in the 1960's they had many peers and in fact were not
particularly popular compared to their competition. Take for example
this week's classic band, Canned Heat: they made the American Top 40
three times between 1968 and 1970, and their albums sold much better
than the Dead back in the 60's - in fact, this week's CAOTW even made
it onto the R&B charts. Living The Blues
is actually a pretty weird album, consisting of a half dozen of the
trad blues numbers they were mostly known for ("Going Up The Country"
was the hit), then a 20-minute psychedelic blues suite
"Parthenogenesis", concluding with a jaw-dropping 41-minute concert
recording "The Refried Boogie" taking up the last two sides of this
double album (at the time and for many years after, the longest rock
song released on a record). Although a version of the band still exists
and tours today, with drummer Adolfo de la Parra being the only
continuous member since way back in 1966(!), the original core trio who
started the band all had tragic ends. Al Wilson, their main songwriter
and the singer with the weird high-pitched voice died of a drug
overdose a few weeks before Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin did the same,
and in 1981 their other gruff-voiced lead singer Bob "The Bear" Hite
also died of a drug overdose at one of their concerts. The
brilliant and underappreciated lead guitarist Henry Vestine died of a
heart attack on tour in 1997, though he had been in and out of the band
numerous times over the decades - the first time he quit the band was
the week before they played at the Woodstock festival!
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- Meat Puppets "Huevos" 1987 (USA)
Meat
Puppets released an album this year (Dusty Notes) featuring all three original
members for the first time since 1995. The band was founded in January
1980, meaning in a few months the group will have been around for 40
years - a rare feat for an American rock band. Huevos might be the most
unsung record in their discography; after laboriously recording the sterile Mirage
album earlier in 1987 (my least favorite of their records by far), they
banged out a second album in a couple days using mostly first takes and
the result is classic Mups. A large part of their appeal has always
been a seat-of-the-pants, "this could fall apart at any moment" vibe
stemming from their unique roots as a hardcore punk band made up
of hippies: if there is any classic rock band they most resemble,
believe it or not it's the Grateful Dead!
Americana and country music bathed in psychedelic visions and yes they
do jam out in concert, complete with their own version of the "Space
--> Drums" staple from Dead concerts . . . only Meat Puppets play
everything a whole lot faster!! Anyway, back to their new 2019 album:
it's their most Americana-type album yet, and man they are really good
at it by now. Here's a music video from the new record.
Here's a couple more new 2019 tracks played on the show this week: the latest from Japanese weird girl idol band Dempagumi.inc is uncharacteristically jazzy and cool! (Usually their songs and videos are hyper and wacky!) Also, here's a cute animated video for one of the best cuts on the new posthumous album from Prince (actually a songwriting demo recorded in 1985).
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- The Don Ellis Orchestra "Electric Bath" 1967 (USA)
Don
Ellis was at the forefront of "progressive jazz" and fusion in the late
1960's and early 1970's, but he died in 1978 when he was just 44 years
old and seems to be largely forgotten today. Ellis was a pioneer in
several ways: he wrote lots of songs in bizarre time signatures, played
a "microtonal trumpet", utilized psychedlic electronic effects on his
instrument (years before Miles
did), and put together a unique "big band prog" orchestra which at
various times included three drum kits (one drummer was Ralph Humphrey,
later of a classic Zappa band) and a string quartet. Electric Bath
won the Downbeat magazine reader's poll for album of the year and was
nominated for a Grammy, though his commercial peak was scoring the hit
film The French Connection in the early 1970's.
Meanwhile over in Japan, my latest fascinations are the crazy "denpa" style of the wacky pop idol band Dempagumi.inc and a charming rap duo of . . . office ladies, called Charisma.com. But the big news lately is BABYMETAL has announced that their next album Metal Galaxy is coming in October, and have been on tour in Europe playing some cool new songs.
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- Caravan "Blind Dog At St. Dunstans" 1976 (UK)
This
week's CAOTW is an underappreciated gem of "Canterbury prog" by one of
the cornerstone bands of the Canterbury scene (the other being The Soft Machine).
None of the Canterbury groups broke through in America, and they were
very much "underground popular" in their native Britain as well.
Whereas Soft Machine was definitely "art rock" with all sorts of
avant-garde, jazz and classical influences, Caravan was really the only
"populist" of the Canterbury bands that could have potentially
produced a pop hit. They were more melodic and groovin' than the rest,
in fact by the time of this 1976 album they were pretty much a jamband
- only more whimsical and Very British. Perhaps it was because two key
members of the original band had left by this point to go play in
artsier bands: Richard Sinclair (bass & vocals) left around 1972 to
become a key member of Hatfield & The North, followed by his cousin Dave Sinclair (keyboards) who played with Matching Mole
as well as Hatfield (he then returned to Caravan but left again before
this album, then came back again in 1980! But before that happened
Richard & Dave also played together for a couple years in another
cult-favorite prog band of the day, Camel.)
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- The Beatles "Abbey Road" 1969 (UK)
Sir
James Paul McCartney is 77 years old this week, and he just played a
huge concert at Lambeau Field in Green Bay WI this month. I'll take the
somewhat controversial position that Paul was the coolest and most
talented Beatle, but I may be biased due to the Kosmik link I share
with him since we are both Gemini born on the same date. Although Sir
Paul was arguably the main brain behind the Beatles' most significant album, and was definitely driving the bus for my favorite Beatle album
(soundtrack to the terrible movie Paul was also mostly responsible
for), his best work could be "The Medley" on side 2 of this week's
CAOTW, which includes relatively unsung Beatles gems such a "You Never
Give Me Your Money" and "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window." Abbey Road
was also a super-important album because it achieved a new peak in high
fidelity studio recording for the Fab Four and their producer Sir
George Martin: believe it or not, all of their previous albums were
recorded on 4-track tape! For this album they had a whopping 8 tracks
to work with! This is also their only album with
synthesizers: George bought him one of the first Moogs in 1968. Finally, this was the final album The Beatles recorded - there was just one track on their swansong Let It Be album that was recorded in early 1970 following the Abbey Road sessions (George's "I Me Mine", which Paul doesn't even play on). The rest of LIB had been recorded prior to AR as part of another "failed" movie project spearheaded by - you guessed it, Paul McCartney.
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- The Who "Who's Next" 1971 (UK)
When
I do a "self indulgent birthday special" I like to treat myself and the
listeners to a second bonus classic album. If you asked me
what my 5 favorite albums were when I was in high school, I would have
probably picked Abbey Road, Are You Experienced?, Dark Side Of The Moon, Never Mind The Bollocks and Who's Next.
And if I had to narrow that list to just one bestest albums ever, it
would have been The Who. If you like rock music, it's hard to deny the
greatness of the musicianship in this band: their blueprint
of everybody-plays-lead power trio lineup with powerhouse
lion-maned, bare-chested lead singer was followed by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath
and so many other classic rock bands. Compared to a lot of their peers,
The Who were not especially prolific in the studio, and their forays
into orchestration and synthesizers and concept albums diluted their
signature sound, always best experienced when the band played live. So among all of their studio albums, I think Who's Next
is their most singluar achievement, featuring Pete Townshend's
best song writing (also John Entwistle's most quintessentially dark
"joke" song "My Wife"), and an amazingly well balanced blend of sounds
that cover all bases: rocking out/ballads, heavy electric/ lovely
acoustic, organic/sythesized futuristic. Plus, one of the funniest
album covers in classic rock!
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- Herbie Hancock "Crossings" 1972 (USA)
Herbie
Hancock was one of the most popular and important figures in 20th
century jazz music, and has done alright in the 21st century too (7
Grammy Awards since the year 2000, including "album of the year"
in 2007 for a record of all Joni Mitchell tunes). His career took off in the 1960's when he played piano for Miles Davis' "second great qunitet", and he continued to be at the forefront of jazz when he moved over to electric keyboards as Miles went in a fusion direction
at the turn of the 1970's. Though Herbie had been making albums on his
own as a bandleader throughout his time with Miles, he departed the
master's group around 1971 to concentrate on his own group called the
Mwandishi band, whom I would argue was the second greatest fusion band
after Miles. Mwandisihi recorded three albums 1971-1973, of which this
was the second. The final entry in the trilogy is my favorite Herbie album, but his popularity only continued to increase with his next album, Head Hunters,
one of the best selling jazz albums of all time. By the 1980's he had
taken the electronic thing all the way into electrofunk hiphop
territory, when he won his first Grammy Award for "Rockit" in 1983.
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- Led Zeppelin "Led Zeppelin" 1969 (UK)
For
this week's pledge drive special, we are featuring scratchy vintage
vinyl
albums from 1969 for the 50th anniversary of that epochal year in
music. Of the many legendary albums released that year, this
was among the most important, for it marked the debut of arguably the
most important and popular classic rock band of all time. The Beatles
and Rolling Stones were the two most popular groups of the groovy
1960's, and Cream and The Who blazed the trail for ultraloud
guitar-bass-drum power trio instrumental lineups, but Zep took things
to the next level as the burning blimp of time crashed into the 1970's.
Four iconic virtuouso musicians who were among the best of all time at
their respective instruments (I would definitely include Robert Plant's
voice as an instrument). Cutting-edge yet organic and "funky"
recording and production techniques from main brain Jimmy Page. Still
massively
popular 50 years later as every young generation of kids interested in
rock music gravitate to their obvious greatness - is there any band
that is "more classic rock" than the mighty Led Zep?
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- Bob Dylan "Blonde On Blonde" 1966 (USA)
Bob's
most famous and acclaimed album is our CAOTW for his 78th(!) birthday special.
(This week is also the 93rd anniversary of Miles Davis' birth.) Blonde on Blonde is only about my 5th or 6th favorite Dylan album
at best, and I generally try not to CAOTW-ize the most obvious and
famous albums such as this. But this is the 7th time I've added
one of Bob's albums to this hall of classics so I guess I gotta do it
(I might have to do his notorious Self Portrait
for the next one!) Anyway, if you know anything about Dylan you already
know about this album. If not, this is Bob's second fully electric rock
/ post-folk album with notably surreal (psychedelic?) lyrics and
well-written unforgettable catchy tunes that rival what The Beatles
were up to at the time. Then Bob crashed his motorcycle, "got back to
the land" to recover, and in 1967 started doing simpler (but perhaps
even more brialliant and timeless) Americana rock with the backing "Band" he had first hired for Blonde.
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- Os Mutantes "Tudo Foi Feito Pelo Sol" 1974 (Brazil)
The
most legendary psychedelic Brazilian band of the sixties
had a brief
"proggy synthesizer" period in the mid-1970's. At this point the only
original member of the group remaining was lead guitarist Sergio Dias,
who was also the last member participating in their 2000's era reunion.
The mid-70's prog version of the band also released an EP in 1976 (Cavalieros Negros)
which is appended to the CD reissue of the album. Though arguably not
as groundbreaking as their 1960's albums which were the ultimate blend
of Tropicalia and psychedelia, this classic album stands up when
compared to a lot of the Anglo-American synth-driven prog rock of the
era.
Meanwhile, over in Japan: Kyary Pamyu Pamyu has a brand new song
and video on the theme of isolation and social media (featuring her in
drag as a sad bearded hipster and also as a "Sim"). We also featured a
hot Perfume track on the show this week - they have been one of
the most popular groups in Japan for more than a decade,
and just brought their high-tech electro pop tour to North
American ending with a stop at Coachella - here's "Edge" live in the USA in 2019.
And I've also got a cool new Japanese band to introduce you to
(featuring another classic "weird girl" named Margaret Hiroi) - expect
to hear the punky psych/prog band 88Kasyo Junrei ("88-point Pilgrimage") on the show in the future!
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