The Association: Waterbeds In Trinidad!

THE ASSOCIATION: WATERBEDS IN TRINIDAD! (1972)

1) Silent Song Thru The Land; 2) Darling Be Home Soon; 3) Midnight Wind; 4) Come The Fall; 5) Kicking The Gong Around; 6) Rainbows Bent; 7) Snow Queen; 8) Indian Wells Woman; 9) Please Don't Go; 10) Little Road And A Stone To Roll.

I have no idea what the title is supposed to mean, nor its possible connection with the snow-co­vered photo on the front cover. Probably just an absurdist gimmick to give the buying public at least one pretext for owning the record — some people may find it cool to nail something like that to the wall. In any case, the band's first, and only, release for Columbia sufficed to show that the problem was not with the recording label, but with the band itself. The soil was no longer fer­tile, the creativity dissipated, and the band hopelessly lost among generic acts of the day.

The decision to release a stripped down acoustic rendition of John Sebastian's 'Darling Be Home Soon' as a single is quite telling — and pitiful. There is nothing they can do to improve on the original: Sebastian's sugary-folksy vibe works well only when he does it, being such a charming, lovable chap and all, and they don't even begin trying to reinvent the song (and how could it be reinvented anyway?). And yet it is still a songwriting highlight on this album of limp, languid, lethargic soft-rock, next to which America and Bread hit songs take on the status of masterpieces.

In a way, The Association used to have crunch — not the hard-rocking kind of crunch, of course, but they could streamline their harmonies and heavy use of diverse and loud instrumentation to raise the plank of sunshine pop really high. Now, as they try to get more and more in touch with the main­stream pop values of the early 1970s, they have lost that crunch completely. Patches of spiritual inspiration still blink here and there ('Silent Song Thru The Land' and 'Come The Fall' have their moments of glory), but overall, they just lock the lazily strummed acoustic guitars and sleepily delivered vocal harmonies in a mind-numbing murmur, song after song — and, unlike David Crosby, they do not intentionally try to deliver this as trance-inducing sonics, but seem to sort of think that this is the way one is supposed to do good pop music these days. But it isn't!

The album's attempts to provide a little diversity are just as half-hearted: 'Kicking The Gong Aro­und' totally wastes its cool opening bass line (could have been a gritty hard rocker, but becomes a silly jazz-pop number instead), and the ska thing on 'Please Don't Go' is as ridiculous as you'd probably expect a take on ska to sound in the hands of a band like The Association — no surpri­ses there. Splat after splat after splat.

For better or worse, it is fairer simply to forget about the album. Really, The Association were the real Association as long as they were associated (har har) with Warner Bros. Columbia only had them for one record anyway: later in 1972, their bass player Brian Cole overdosed on heroin (yes, nice guys do drugs, too), and this initiated a wave of lineup changes that the band did not survive. Other than a few scattered singles, they had no more original albums. Later on, after a million lineup changes, they re-recorded some old tracks for Vintage (CBS, 1983), and then, one decade later, for The Association '95: A Little Bit More (Track Records, 1995) — both releases were heavily panned by those three people who heard them, and, honestly, I do not think it will make any sense to waste any time on their detailed discussion.

The funniest thing of all is that The Association still exists — in fact, it's not even as if there ever was a period in which it would be officially disbanded. And it is not even an entirely different band from what used to be, with Russ Giguere, Larry Ramos, and Jim Yester still in the band. And I suppose it should be OK by all of us as long as they do not try to record once again: a res­pectable oldies act that (a rare thing among active oldies acts) actually understands that their time has really passed, and that there is absolutely no reason to try and reignite your creativity if you know for sure there is no creative spark left.

The Association: Stop Your Motor

THE ASSOCIATION: STOP YOUR MOTOR (1971)

1) Bring Yourself Home; 2) Funny Kind Of Song; 3) That's Racin'; 4) P. F. Sloan; 5) Silver Morning; 6) It's Gotta Be Real; 7) The First Sound; 8) Along The Way; 9) Travellers Guide; 10) Seven Virgins.

Growing extra facial hair and finally changing from suits and ties into somewhat more loose and leisurely Californi­an outfits was a telling sign — the band was ready and willing to update their sunshine pop values of the 1960s to the bland MOR values of the 1970s; they weren't above com­peting on the same market with Bread, James Taylor, and the Carpenters, contrary to strange opi­nions that «the Association sounded completely out of step in the 1970s» — for Led Zep fans, perhaps, but it's not like the Association targeted their Sixties' music at garage rock lovers either. Listen to 'Along The Way' and have the nerve to state that it is not a perfectly generic early Se­venties ballad — Stop Your Motor belongs in 1971 as sure as America belongs in it.

If there's a problem here, it's in the strange manner in which the album's material is divided into a rougher hewn country-rock part and a tenderly crafted ballad part. The latter is, for the most part, proverbially gorgeous and is about as good as anything the band ever produced. The former is, for the most part, either boring or atrocious garbage, replete with clichés and silly hillbilly accents that make the songs dumb without making them hilarious. One of these, 'That's Racin', probably the most ridiculous song the world has ever known from Terry Kirkman, they even tried to re­lease as a single — thankfully, the public didn't get the joke, and it flopped just as assuredly as the good singles from this record (or else Warner Bros. could have extended their contracts on the condition that they release even more of that hicky stuff).

Jimmy Webb's 'P. F. Sloan', a friendly-catchy pop rocker about the ups and downs of being a cor­porate songwriter (or any songwriter, for that matter), is just about the only upbeat tune on the al­bum that goes someplace good, but even this generally harmless ditty suffers from an obvious flaw — the endlessly repeated chorus ("Don't sing this song — it belongs to P. F. Sloan!") can be deemed way too cutesy, if not corny. (Although I have no idea why this single, too, did not chart: the na-na-na-na's get ingrained in the brain so firmly after one or two listens that the only reason I can think of is forgetting to put it on the radio in the first place).

But on the positive side, 'Bring Yourself Home' is a swooping, fanfare-attractive type of ballad that succeeds marvelously; then there is 'Silver Morning', an almost «progressive» five-minute suite with several movements that is, at worst, a meticulous and complex piece of work, and, at best, a little bit of wandering genius (the fact that Kirkman is credited for writing both this num­ber and the near-cretinous 'That's Racin' almost boggles the mind); and 'It's Gotta Be Real' and 'Along The Way' are just decent, solid ballads.

These highlights show that the band was not on such a desperate downward slide as it might have seemed. If anything, they were simply deteriorating at the same rate as mainstream pop music — or, perhaps, much to their credit, they were trying to resist the deterioration of the mainstream while at the same time trying to remain in the mainstream, an absolutely impossible task. They make the necessary concessions — grow beards, reject much of the instrumental experimentation from the freshly deceased «psychedelic era» (no sitars or kotos in sight), put more emphasize on syrupy strings, but still try to remain on the intelligent side of the street.

Which, perhaps, explains why they were eventually pushed into the gutter — this kind of soft rock was a bit too demanding for those who like their rock butter-soft. As time goes by, though, I hope that more and more people will want to experience the gorgeous harmonies of 'Bring Your-self Home' without any silly genrist prejudices — and as flawed and disconcerted as this record is, it honestly fulfills its historic function as The Association's swan song (had they known it them­selves at the time, they might have refrained from ending the record on the mock-rock disaster of 'Seven Virgins'). Thumbs up, with lotsa reservations.

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Association: The Association Live

THE ASSOCIATION: THE ASSOCIATION LIVE (1970)

1) Dream Girl; 2) One Too Many Mornings; 3) Along Comes Mary; 4) I'll Be Your Man; 5) Goodbye Columbus; 6) Let's Get Together; 7) Wasn't It A Bit Like Now; 8) Never My Love; 9) Goodbye Forever; 10) Just About The Same; 11) Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You; 12) Seven Man Band; 13) The Time It Is Today; 14) Dubuque Blues; 15) Blistered; 16) What Were The Words; 17) Remember; 18) Are You Ready; 19) Cherish; 20) Requiem For The Masses; 21) Windy; 22) Enter The Young.

Behind all the gloss, fuss, and bliss of The Association's studio recordings, one almost forgets that, throughout their existence, they toured quite extensively — so much, in fact, that in a very short while they would mutate into a traveling oldies act. In 1970, however, they were still a crea­tive force, and this live album captures the band at a stage when it still had something to offer to the world, not that the world was all that willing to take it.

Recorded at the University of Utah, no less, and featuring the revamped seven-man line up (as re­flected in the sly title upgrading of their non-LP hit 'Six Man Band'), the album has mostly been panned: first, by those who castigated The Association for not matching the perfection of their studio output, and then by those who castigated The Association for overdubbing some parts in the studio so as to satisfy the first group. In reality, of course, it is simply that they came out a bit too late with this double LP — in 1970, this sort of music was even less cool than the Beach Boys, and the harder you could throw the dirt, the more self-confidence it would get you.

Truth is, The Association Live is terrific. It is true that few of the songs live up one hundred per­cent to their studio equivalents. But the band members did know how to play their instruments and not reduce the songs to their basic, raw components, including thoughtful reproduction of all the important flourishes and modulations (something that, for instance, The Monkees never really learned to do well). As for the vocal harmonies, even keeping in mind that some of them may have been doctored in the studio (is that the real reason why the word Live is in quotation marks on the sleeve?), the seven-man band is in complete control — simply check out the intro to 'Just About The Same' for proof.

Another key thing is that, had the live album been released in the year of Monterey, when the world was much more curious about The Association, it could never have boasted this sort of rich­ness. With five studio albums and a bunch of non-LP singles behind their belt, the band can allow itself to forget about the weak and concentrate almost exclusively on the strong — the track selection is impressive as hell. We get to hear a whole six songs off the debut — confirming its Boetcher-masterminded greatness; no songs at all from Renaissance — confirming that the band themselves considered it rushed and dated; four from Insight Out — all hail rejuvenation; only one from Birthday — strange, but, perhaps, understandable, since they might have felt it was a more coherent «art-pop» LP where the songs belonged all together; and four from the self-titled record, which they were, after all, supposed to promote (all good ones, although I personally miss the inclusion of 'Look At Me, Look At You').

Among other things, those who do not want to bother with Best Of packages get to hear the band's first two singles — brave and efficient covers of Dylan's 'One Too Many Mornings' and Anne Bredon's 'Babe I'm Gonna Leave You' (of course, by 1970 the song was practically owned by Led Zeppelin, but this here way is what it used to be before the metallization), as well as the already mentioned 'Seven Man Band' and the title track from the Goodbye Columbus soundtrack (which, technically, could count as an additional Association LP from 1969, but it had like only four new songs on it, and only 'Goodbye Columbus' itself was any good, which is why I did not review it separately). There is also a version of 'Let's Get Together', a song that seems to have al­most been written with a band like The Association in mind — a wonder it never appeared on any of their earlier records.

One thing that is entirely a matter of taste is the band's stage banter: little bits of obviously pre-re­hearsed theatricality that even I may find ranging from the hilarious to the obnoxious, sometimes both at the same time. There is definitely a level of sophistication here that far surpasses the poor Monkees or, God help us, Mike Love — the little rant on attitude comparison between old and new times before 'Wasn't It A Bit Like Now' is probably the smartest bit of all — but on the whole, humorous stage banter is a thing that pop bands rarely do well, unless they secretly get Len­ny Bruce or Woody Allen to script it for them. On the other hand, it's a better way to fill in the pauses between songs than just tuning up (and they had to fill it in, or else they wouldn't have enough space for a double album, and in 1970, a live album had to be double, because how else in 1973 could a live album be triple?).

Summing up, I just cannot imagine how a live album from The Association could be any better than this. Let's see: leave out the banter... polish a few tiny mistakes on the harmonies... tighten up the musicianship... you're ending up with their studio recordings. Obviously, a series of live albums from this band would be useless, but to experience them once, at the very top of their game, with humor, confidence, and professionalism, is perfectly all right by me. Thumbs up.

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The Association: The Association

THE ASSOCIATION: THE ASSOCIATION (1969)

1) Look At Me, Look At You; 2) Yes, I Will; 3) Love Affair; 4) The Nest; 5) What Were The Words; 6) Are You Ready; 7) Dubuque Blues; 8) Under Branches; 9) I Am Up For Europe; 10) Broccoli; 11) Goodbye Forever; 12) Boy On The Mountain.

As much as Birthday can be over... appreciated by the connaisseur, not quite up to the mini-art rock masterpiece status it is assigned, so is the band's fifth, oddly eponymous, album somewhat overlooked in the annals. With the return of one-time lead talent Jules Alexander back to the fold, the band makes a fresh, concentrated attempt at refreshing and updating its pop sound, incorpora­ting new influences and at the same time tempering any inadequate ambitions it could have nurtu­red on earlier records.

Eleven out of twelve songs are self-penned here (the twelfth is provided by producer John Boy­lan), with almost all of the band members turning in contributions, although Alexander gets the lion's share (five credits / co-credits), with Kirkman closing in second with three. Biggest news is that the band must have been in close touch with the evolution of the Byrds' sound: lots of banjos and pedal steel guitars are brought in to inject an element of «country-rock» (or, rather, «country-pop») — although the melodic structures generally still follow the old sunshine pop formula, and this offers The Association a nice chance at a synthesis all their own.

Travel no further than 'Look At Me, Look At You'. The opening oink-oinking of the banjo at first tricks you into visions of cowboys chasing turkeys, but pretty soon it is transformed into a sensi­tive, wonderously arranged nostalgic ode — how come Bernstein never got around to praising the intricate harmonies on this song? vocal-wise, it smashes 'Along Comes Mary' to tiny bits; the low / high exchange of "look at me — I'll look at you" alone is worth gold. Up it goes into The Asso­ciation's very own Top 5, little doubt about that.

Actually, «nostalgia» — lyrics and sentiments-wise, not in the melody department — is the ticket for quite a few numbers on here, and it's one of those few sentiments that the band has really got a terrific knack for. Jim Yester's chivalrous folk ballad 'What Were The Words' and Alexander's baroque-pop ode 'Dubuque Blues' are quite different melodically, and rely on different atmos­phere-setting instruments (steel guitar for the first, piano for the second), but both weave the same tender mood, feeding it with memorable vocal lines and tasteful arrangements.

Twice and twice only does the band try to go for something bigger: first, on the grand-sounding 'The Nest', envisioned as an anthem based on thickly overdubbed vocal harmonies, and then on the album closer 'Boy On The Mountain', envisioned as a four-minute mini-suite (buildups, cre­scendos, choral harmonies, weirdly processed guitar solos, pathos, the works). Predictably, just like on Birthday, it doesn't quite work like it's supposed to, because way more meat would be ne­eded on the instrumentation to make it work. The harmonies, however, are still tops on both tunes — way better designed, I'd say, than their predecessors on Birthday.

In between, as usual, they throw on some lighter material — Russ Giguere's cute joke song 'Broc­coli' (inspired by the Beach Boys' 'Vegetables', perhaps?), Larry Ramos' quirky dance number 'Are You Ready?', Boylan's upbeat pop throwaway 'Yes I Will' (nothing to do with the much bet­ter known Hollies song), etc., all nice tunes that do not linger long but always leave a good after­taste. In fact, The Association flashes even less sap than 'Birthday': compared with 'Rose Petals, Incense And A Kitten', Alexander's 'Love Affair', this album's sugariest number, comes across as a tender-hearted, sincere hippie ballad with psychedelic overtones rather than a formulaic orgas­matron for depressed housewives.

Alas, the album only continued The Association's downward commercial slide — ironically so, since this soft, inoffensive style is still done with way, way more taste than a whole legion of Se­venties' soft-rock albums that would very soon start cesspooling the charts. Apparently, in 1969, when «soft rock» could still be done well, the world was not yet ready for it. What it really nee­ded, so it looks like, was the real high standard of The Bay City Rollers. Well, we all have to pay our dues sooner or later, and hopefully, my thumbs up can contribute, in their own tiniest of ways, to The Association being assigned the better fate of the two at the Last Judgement. (Unless God is gay, of course.)

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