Average White Band: Face To Face

AVERAGE WHITE BAND: FACE TO FACE (1999)

1) Soul Mine; 2) Got The Love; 3) A Love Of Your Own; 4) Oh, Maceo; 5) Back To Basics; 6) Work To Do; 7) Every Beat Of My Heart; 8) Pick Up The Pieces.

Any respectable studio comeback deserves a live counterpart. Over the past decade, the AWB has released quite a number of these, actually, and spending a lot of time, words, and web space on them would be overkill, but Face To Face, as the first one in the series, deserves a brief mention. Roger Ball left the band shortly after the recording of Soul Tattoo, and, for the ensuing tours, was replaced by Fred Vigdor — clearly a hard-working guy, since he seems able to fill Roger's shoes to the extent that I honestly do not hear any big difference. The album itself is said to have been recorded at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco — not the legendary Fillmore of old, of course, which was closed down by Bill Graham as early as 1971, but still the Fillmore, lending a bit of extra glitz to the whole thing.

The track listing is somewhat bizarre, though. Clearly, the band did not want to be perceived as simply an oldies act, so the inclusion of four tracks from the new album is understandable. But, altogether, there are only eight (plus a ʽLet's Go Round Againʼ as a bonus on some releases), and this leaves rather a miserable amount of space for the classic hits — and, for that matter, where are the classic hits? Other than ʽPick Up The Piecesʼ, there are none. If you are going to bring back the oldies at all, why resuscitate mushy balladry like ʽA Love Of Your Ownʼ (particularly since mushy balladry is already represented well enough by the new song, ʽEvery Beat Of My Heartʼ)? Where is ʽCut The Cakeʼ? What's wrong with ʽPut It Where You Want Itʼ? ʽPerson To Personʼ, anyone? Huh?..

It is all the more bizarre considering how well the new-look band actually sounds. ʽSoul Mineʼ almost had me believe that I am listening to a studio re-recording with fake crowd noises; I hope to God the suspicion is not true (what point can there be for a band like this to release a fake live album?). Sound quality is impeccable, as is the level of coordination between all the band mem­bers. Most importantly, they are still having fun, going at it as if the past twenty years had not happened, and we were all still huddled in a circa-1974 club venue, knocking off that sweaty-funky mu­sic while it was still relatively fresh.

So it is no surprise that, most of the time, the audience is kept well awake and on its feet, with a particularly huge rise of enthusiasm at the opening trills of the show-closing ʽPick Up The Piecesʼ ("I think you know this", Gorie adds, and they sure do). If only they left out the slow ballads — there should be a law out there, allowing no more than one «slow-burner» per a show like this — and concentrated more on funky grooves, there could even be a chance of beating the impact of 1976's Person To Person. As it is, only ʽSoul Mineʼ, ʽOh Maceoʼ (explained from the stage to be a tribute to James Brown's sax player, Maceo Parker — shame on me for not realizing that earli­er!), ʽGot The Loveʼ, and ʽPiecesʼ help us work up a respectable sweat. Still, it's a fair enough do­cument, and solid proof — at least, for the turn-of-the-century period — that it still made good sense to purchase tickets to an AWB show.

Aphrodite's Child: It's Five O'Clock

APHRODITE'S CHILD: IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK (1969)

1) It's Five O'Clock; 2) Wake Up; 3) Take Your Time; 4) Annabella; 5) Let Me Love, Let Me Live; 6) Funky Mary; 7) Good Times So Fine; 8) Marie Jolie; 9) Such A Funny Night.

With End Of The World turning into a modest commercial success, the band wasted little time to follow it up with a sequel rehashing the same formula. The good news is, the formula was so wild and utterly «permissive» in the first place, It's Five O'Clock somehow manages to come out just as strong as, and maybe even more strong, than its predecessor. And even though the band is noticeably straying even farther away from their East European roots, the resulting sound seems more credible and less prone to ridiculing than whatever preceded it.

The title track, another impressive hit single on the continent, is a loyal successor to ʽRain And Tearsʼ and ʽEnd Of The Worldʼ: for this one, Vangelis attaches Roussos' pop vocals to a baroque organ melody, then throws in a bunch of extra keyboards (including an early Moog synth part, I'd guess) to build up tension — another good example of how it is always possible to turn schmaltz into epic, psycho-hip romanticism when you choose your sounds carefully. It does not work quite as well on the record's two other ballads, ʽAnnabellaʼ and ʽMarie Jolieʼ, on both of which Demis' weeping vocals win over the instrumentation, so that both songs really only work well if you are prepared to weep along with the weeper (not an option for me). But even there, Vangelis' creden­tials as a «soundscaper» are growing impressively, with guitars, Mellotrons, nature sound effects, and other tiny bits combining into evocative pictures.

Elsewhere, the band tries its hand at various forms of folk-rock and country-rock: clearly, Vange­lis and friends did not lose sight of the «roots-rock revolution» of 1968-69, and so ʽWake Upʼ and ʽTake Your Timeʼ take their cues from The Lovin' Spoonful and The Mamas & Papas rather than Italian pop or psychedelia. There is no pretense here, and both tunes, want it or not, are insanely catchy: had they been placed on albums by the abovementioned artists, they would have been praised as good-to-great tunes without raising any controversy. (For experiment's sake, you might want to play them to an unsuspecting friend and ask for a clean-slate opinion).

The R'n'B-pop hybrid of ʽGood Times So Fineʼ (whose bridge section almost sounds like a Mon­kees tune, with Roussos' vocals raised in a Micky Dolenz-kind-of nasal whine) and the friendly, carnivalesque acoustic guitar figures of ʽSuch A Funny Nightʼ are cutesy as well. But the album's most ambitious, risky, and future-predicting cuts are probably ʽLet Me Love, Let Me Liveʼ and ʽFunky Maryʼ: the former embraces noisy psychedelia in its instrumental passages, while the lat­ter is a noisy, jarring psychedelic jam all by itself, with an almost «tribal» set of percussion over­dubs, beneath which Vangelis is running from free-jazz chimes to barroom tack piano and back again. It is wild, weird, unasked for, and fairly challenging for a regular art-pop band aiming at commercial success, even back in 1969.

If there is any real «progression» here, it just means correctly following the times: End Of The World went heavy on psychedelic techniques that were en vogue in 1967 (sitars, drones, etc.), whereas It's Five O'Clock seems less dependent on momentary trends, and takes a small step for­ward in helping Vangelis find his personal vision. But none of that matters as much as simply admitting that there is a bunch of excellent art-pop songs written here, and that they do not at all sound nearly as dated today as the total oblivion, in which this album has sunk, would have you be­lieve. In fact, with retro-oriented art-pop being one of the leading styles of «intellectual music» today, they are probably less dated now than they were two decades ago. So, with a little help from my thumbs up, just go look for it if it isn't in your collection already.

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The Beatles: Rubber Soul

THE BEATLES: RUBBER SOUL (1965)

1) Drive My Car; 2) Norwegian Wood; 3) You Won't See Me; 4) Nowhere Man; 5) Think For Yourself; 6) The Word; 7) Michelle; 8) What Goes On; 9) Girl; 10) I'm Looking Through You; 11) In My Life; 12) Wait; 13) If I Nee­ded Someone; 14) Run For Your Life.

As everybody knows, this is where the switch is flipped, without any possibility of going back. With The Beatles saw the band adopt an unbreakable «no-filler» policy (even the filler must, in one way or other, be treasurable); Rubber Soul sees it transform into a «no-routine» policy. Star­ting here, it is no longer sufficient for everything to be «good» — it has to be «expansive», with a permanent, non-stop coverage of new territory. I wonder just how exactly conscious that decision must have been — and am fairly certain that it was conscious, that an explicit goal was set, and, furthermore, that whatever aided its fulfillment the most was healthy (sometimes unhealthy) com­petition between John, Paul, and, to a lesser degree, George (but even George had decidedly join­ed the game by the end of 1965).

By the fall of 1965, the band was relatively free of heavy touring commitments, and everyone had more time to poke around and take a good look at whatever was a-happenin'. There are tons of acknowledged outside influences on Rubber Soul: from Dylan and the Byrds to Otis Redding, but, as usual, the Beatles never allow these influences to overshadow their own inspiration and craftsmanship. A lesser band would have resulted in a bandwagon-jumping mishmash; Rubber Soul, following the guidelines laid out by the era's most innovative acts, turns the trick right on them and, through sheer magic, somehow becomes the leader.

The most important quality in a leader is that the leader should be impossible to pigeonhole, and Rubber Soul is properly uncategorizable. Try to play all the seven tracks on Side A in your head at the same time (yes, it is possible if you listen to them long enough), and they will be seven dif­ferent worlds, peacefully coinhabiting the same vinyl environment. This is the highest level of di­versity on a Beatles side so far, and, as far as I'm concerned, even the White Album would have a difficult time beating it on these terms. But even the White Album, for all of its unpredictabili­ty, did not make such bold strides in all these different styles as Rubber Soul does. Think about it some more, and you will begin to understand why musicians, critics, and fans alike were flab­bergasted — including Brian Wilson, who was reportedly spurred on to the success of Pet So­unds by listening to the album. Not that anything on Pet Sounds has any similarity to anything on Rubber Soul — it's simply that, for quite a few people, Rubber Soul unavoidably acted as a catalyst. «Go on out there, we dare you to be as creative as we are». (It also ruined many a lesser band's career — with this new type of benchmark established, the old policy of developing a set formula and sticking to it for the rest of one's life was done for. Not everyone survived the transi­tion — Gerry Marsden and Dave Clark will tell you the rest of it).

Out of sheer controversy, my consciously selected favourite on Side A, for quite some time, was Paul's ʽYou Won't See Meʼ — just because so much praise was already heaved on everything else, and this was a nifty «dark sheep» to ride. But, in all honesty, even this relatively «conservative» pop tune still has an entirely different sound, mood, and feel to it than anything done previously. It reflects a real situation in Paul's life (a temporary estrangement from Jane Asher, to be reme­died later before they'd eventually break up for good), and almost everything about it — the ma­ture, if still a bit simplistic, lyrics; the vocal intonations; the darker production overtones — qua­lifies for a «singer-songwriter» style, rather than just another exciting, but formulaic pop hit. In addition, it features what I consider to be one of the Beatles' greatest vocal arrangements (it is al­ready a joy just to listen to them gain in complexity and intensity throughout the song), and pro­bably the most successful ever attempt at creating a special mood with just one single note: for the last verse of the song, trusty roadie Mal Evans is holding down the A note on a Hammond or­gan, creating this barely noticeable low hum that somehow gives the song an extra depth level. (Before the Internet came along, I'd wondered about that hum for years, actually).

But this is really just to reaffirm my faith in how amazingly consistent the whole construction is. Indeed, Rubber Soul finally sees the emergence of Paul McCartney as not only as a great melo­dy writer, but as an artist no longer afraid of taking risks, and, indeed, reveling in risk-taking. ʽYou Won't See Meʼ is, after all, fairly conservative next to ʽDrive My Carʼ and ʽMichelleʼ. The former is Paul's first non-love song, as is obvious not only from the lyrics (that are more about humorous character assassination than about anything else), but also from the melody — gritty, R'n'B-ish, and quite bass-heavy (George claimed to have laid down both the basic bass part and the accom­panying bass-doubling rhythm guitar, but I doubt it: why the heck would Paul not want to play the crucial bass part on one of his own songs?). And the latter? Chet Atkins + stereotypical Parisian atmos­phere (in live performances, Paul likes to augment the sound with an accordeon, which I find way too obvious) + sweetest bass solo ever put to tape. As corny as your average French pop song, but still genius.

Compared to this, John's breakthroughs on Rubber Soul are not as huge, but that's because he'd already covered much of that distance before. ʽNorwegian Woodʼ builds upon the foundation of ʽYou've Got To Hide Your Love Awayʼ, but this time adding a distinct, instantly hard-hitting melody to the bare accompaniment, not to mention the lyrics and their vocal delivery being far more true to the John character — this time around, the bitch actually gets it. (Whoever said the Rolling Stones were more «dangerous» than the Beatles? Mick Jagger only warned the girl about the dangers of playing with fire; John Lennon is not afraid to light the fire in person). Of course, the song is mostly famous for George's sitar part, which was, at that time, added somewhat spon­taneously, on a momentary whim, but ended up predicting his future career.

[Side note: I actually agree with Alan Pollack that the sitar in ʽNorwegian Woodʼ is rather «clun­ky sounding», and that the song could have been just as strong without it, as existing early takes de­monstrate. In fact, both the Yardbirds' ʽHeart Full Of Soulʼ and the Kinks' ʽSee My Friendsʼ, although the songs only imitate the sitar rather than use it — the Yardbirds actually did record a sitar version, but abandoned it because it did not resonate with enough power for a single release — both these songs are far more adept at setting an «Indian» mood. Which does not deny the ac­tual pioneer move, since ʽNorwegian Woodʼ was the first original pop song to use a sitar; nor does it mean that there is anything «wrong» with the move — George's «clunky», minimalistic playing quite matches the basic melody and feeling.]

ʽNowhere Manʼ must have appeared out of nowhere indeed: nobody saw it coming, and the sight of the Beatles performing the song live during their last international tours in 1966 is extremely confusing, because, if there ever was one song in their pre-Revolver catalog not to be addressed to seas of screaming girls, it is this one. Okay, so I stand corrected: this is a real milestone for John, his first pronounced attempt at carrying himself away into a parallel world; and he would forever retain this penchant for parallel worlds, regardless of all the disillusionments and the con­fessionals and the politics and Yoko and whatever else — there is a straight line from ʽNowhere Manʼ not only to ʽLucy In The Sky With Diamondsʼ, but to ʽDream No. 9ʼ as well, and maybe even right down to ʽ(Just Like) Starting Overʼ, in a way. The coolest thing about John's parallel worlds, of course, is that he wastes no time on building them — they just descend upon him all by themselves, while he is doing nothing: "Nowhere man, don't worry, take your time, don't hurry, leave it all till somebody else lends you a hand" — get it? That's the way to go about it. Greatest single moment about the song: the high ringing E at 1:03 that concludes George's guitar solo like a sudden burst of inspiration / revelation. It didn't necessarily need to be there, but that's what makes a Beatles classic a Beatles classic.

Speaking of George, his Side A contribution, ʽThink For Yourselfʼ, is a major leap forward as well — also his first non-love song, more like a simple socio-philosophical rumination on the pe­rils of brainwashing (but, mind you, still not tainted by Indian motives, which would only begin rearing their head on Revolver). No bridge, no solo, three verses of straightahead preaching, a grumbly, fuzzy bassline carrying the main melody — decidedly a claim to something special. But I think that what really makes the song are the effortless tempo transitions from verse to chorus: the verses, frankly speaking, are a little bit boring, and we all know it is the easiest thing in the world for George to write a boring, mid-tempo, preachy song, so each time the tune transforms into an aggressive faster-paced pop-rocker, it's cheer time. The result is probably not a true mas­terpiece on the level of George's later songs, but the whole thing is still quite intriguing — in fact, it is well nigh impossible to even understand the exact genre of the song, which takes a little bit of melodic stuffing from almost everywhere.

Finally, there is no forgetting ʽThe Wordʼ as the first ever «anthemic» song to be recorded by the guys — a direct predecessor to ʽAll You Need Is Loveʼ, stating the same message in cruder terms, but, actually, with more of that crude-rocking energy (and it has the best Ringo fills on the entire album, too). It's not the most inventive track on the album (twelve-bar blues form, mostly?), per se, but it is the first time in the Beatles catalog where they deliver an explicit message to the world, and the bluntness of the melody is appropriate, because that's what most anthems are. And again, it never prevents them from scattering little tricks all over the place — such as George Martin's harmonium solo, giving the whole thing a bit of a religious feel (for lack of a church or­gan, that is), or my favourite bit, when the repetitive "Say the wooooord..." chorus is pushed up to ecstatic falsetto levels on 1:39. That's right: if you're gonna be repetitive about it, at least don't be monotonously repetitive. Give the people a little bit of hysteria.

The second side of the album is a tiny bit of a letdown in comparison, but not even the Beatles could handle fourteen individual breakthroughs in a row. Of course, there are no bad songs, but certain facts speak for themselves. I have never cared all that much for ʽWaitʼ, a sort of slightly updated take on ʽWhen I Get Homeʼ but with way, way too little happening to the song once the first solid verse/chorus pair is over; it was hardly a surprise to discover that it was, in fact, an out­take from the Help! sessions, carried over at the last moment to plug a gap (so, «filler» from an objective perspective). John himself would harbor and occasionally express hatred for ʽRun For Your Lifeʼ — well, he probably was ashamed of the misogynistic lyrics, I just think that, while the song itself is sorta okay as an aggressive pop-rocker, they did miss a spectacular chance to close a spectacular album with a spectacular song (a mistake that would never ever be repeated again — beginning with Revolver, the Beatles always took good care of their codas).

There is also ʽWhat Goes Onʼ, an excellent piece of country-pop that is a sheer improvement over ʽAct Naturallyʼ (and Ringo sings it just as well as he did on the latter), but, again, it feels kinda slight; and so does Paul's ʽI'm Looking Through Youʼ, which is set a little in the vein of ʽTell Me What You Seeʼ, but has a distinctly more aggressive edge, having also been written about his turbulent relations with Jane Asher. Good songs, all of them, yet with hardly any pizzazz next to the first side monsters. George's ʽIf I Needed Someoneʼ also has an excellent melody, but this is the only time on Rubber Soul where the influences show up a bit too much — the whole thing ends up sounding like a respectful homage to Roger McGuinn, belittling the album's pretense at flagmanship. (Not that there's anything wrong with a little self-belittling!)

In the end, Side B is semi-rescued by John — ʽGirlʼ and, particularly, ʽIn My Lifeʼ are the two giants that push it closer to Side A's standards, and, if it were up to me, I would certainly have set ʽIn My Lifeʼ as the album closer; it is exceptionally strange that the idea did not come up origi­nally, unless, of course, it did come up and everyone thought of it as too «obvious», so they deci­ded to humbly end the record on one of the lesser tunes instead. (Another possibility is that they just wanted to cut things off on a rock'n'roll punch — like they used to on all of their previous al­bums, with the exception of A Hard Day's Night. Too bad, since, at this point, the Beatles were no longer a genuine «proverbial» rock'n'roll band).

Still, as it goes, Side B is a «failure» only as far as it fails to comply with the «no-routine!» mot­to: its only flaw is that there are a few songs on it that either aspire to something grander than they really are, or even a few songs that do not aspire to anything at all, and that goes against the cur­rent policy. For the standards of 1964, ʽWaitʼ would have been as good as anything, but it just feels small and defenseless sitting next to the downright orgasmic ʽIn My Lifeʼ. But who cares, really? Things were going great in late 1965, and everybody knew that this was not going to be the last we hear from the Beatles.

Let's just conclude this by stating one further dislike and one further like. I have never cared much for the album sleeve. It was quite telling at the time — not just an «artsy» perspective, but a distinctly psychedelic one — but it sort of makes the Beatles look like four scrawny Indians in the jungle, and that is definitely not the mood on any of Rubber Soul's music. What I have always cared about, conversely, is the marvelous stereo split that George Martin conducted for this al­bum — over the years, it has been a regular delight to listen to all the tracks in one channel and then in the other one. With the mix separation, it's like you are getting a couple Stack-o-Tracks-like bonus records with your original purchase. Considering, among other things, that Rubber Soul marks the beginning of Paul's most creative period as a bass player, it is not just recom­men­dable, but actually obligatory that everyone listen at least once to the bass / drums channel on its own — it gives an entirely different perspective on the album, and an extra reason to admire Paul as a technically limited, but wildly imaginative musician. And, as that last drop / straw / whatever, it takes away the wish to reward it with a rating — giving a «thumbs up» to Rubber Soul or to any subsequent Beatles album is as ridiculous as giving it to a da Vinci painting. It's the Beatles in their prime, for Chrissake. Why waste good red ink?

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Blind Boy Fuller: Complete Recorded Works Vol. 2 (1936-1937)

BLIND BOY FULLER: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS, VOL. 2 (1936-1937)

1) Cat Man Blues (take 2); 2) When Your Gal Packs Up And Leaves; 3) Mama, Let Me Lay It On You; 4) If You Don't Give Me What I Want; 5) Boots And Shoes; 6) Truckin' My Blues Away No. 2 (take 1); 7) Truckin' My Blues Away No. 2 (take 2); 8) Sweet Honey Hole; 9) Untrue Blues; 10) Tom Cat Blues; 11) My Baby Don't Mean Me No Good; 12) Been Your Dog; 13) My Best Gal Gonna Leave Me; 14) Wires All Down; 15) Let Me Squeeze Your Le­mon; 16) Death Alley; 17) Mamie (take 1); 18) Mamie (take 2); 19) New Oh Red!; 20) If You See My Pigmeat; 21) Stingy Mama; 22) Why Don't My Baby Write To Me; 23) Some Day You're Gonna Be Sorry; 24) You Never Can Tell.

Fulton Allen was so thoroughly consistent in his lifetime that it is a fairly hard task finding even one «standout» track among the output he recorded in between April 29, 1936 and July 12, 1937. Well, actually there is ʽMama, Let Me Lay It On Youʼ, which, if I am not mistaken (and it is very easy to make a mistake in this slippery who-made-who business), is either the first or one of the very first recordings of what would later become ʽBaby Let Me Follow You Downʼ and be popu­larized for all the white guys by Dylan and the Animals. In all honesty, it is essentially but a slow­ed down, mildly sentimentalized variant of Blind Boy's ragtime blues — but at least it's a slightly different melody, which is more than can usually be expected.

Other than that, Fuller is recording even more versions of ʽTruckin' My Blues Awayʼ; continuing to revel in double entendres with titles like ʽLet Me Squeeze Your Lemonʼ and, particularly, ʽIf You See My Pigmeatʼ (yes, «pigmeat» is an endearing term reserved by the author for his sweet­heart — what a life, eh?); and, for some reason, concentrates almost exclusively on slow or mid-tempo blues — upbeat dance tunes are limited to just ʽIf You Don't Give Me What I Wantʼ and the new revision of ʽTruckinʼ: hilarious scat singing on both of them, but just two upbeat tunes over one year? Were the times too hard, or was re-recording the exact same melody more than three times in a row a bit unnerving even for the artist himself?

In the end, the most interesting song of the lot is probably ʽNew Oh Red!ʼ: the «old» one was re­corded in the same year by the Harlem Hamfats, but it is even more fun to see Blind Boy Fuller try to take on this jazz-pop number, considering that this playing style had not been his personal cup of tea at all. He rises to the challenge admirably, coming up with one of the most «rocking» numbers in his catalog. Strange enough, he did not go on to re-record it under fifteen different titles — maybe the Hamfats bribed him to stay away from their material. Instead, he just went on to play more 12-bar blues: the last three or four tracks here are melodically indistinguishable from contemporary Robert Johnson material (even if the playing styles are, of course, wildly different). However, his technique is still complex, diverse, fluent, and self-assured enough to make sitting through bits and pie­ces of this stuff easy and pleasant — something I couldn't exactly say about, say, Arthur Crudup (who, however, had the advantage of a creakier, whinier, otherworldlier voice than Blind Boy Fuller's amicably ordinary one).

Blitzen Trapper: American Goldwing

BLITZEN TRAPPER: AMERICAN GOLDWING (2011)

1) Might Find It Cheap; 2) Fletcher; 3) Love The Way You Walk Away; 4) Your Crying Eyes; 5) My Home Town; 6) Girl In A Coat; 7) American Goldwing; 8) Astronaut; 9) Taking It Easy Too Long; 10) Street Fighting Sun; 11) Stranger In A Strange Land.

The baby might sport pretty facial features and weigh the expected eight or nine pounds, but none of that would matter much if he were stillborn. An uncomfortable metaphor, perhaps, but fully ap­plicable to American Goldwing — the first officially bad album, according to my personal views, that Blitzen Trapper have produced. Bad, as in B-A-D-bad. Not tastelessly bad, not stupidly bad, not annoyingly bad. Just good old bad, that's all.

Once again, just like Furr, the whole venture is an Americana celebration, now flaunted on the front sleeve even more explicitly than it used to be. Once again, the tracks shuffle between acous­tic folk balladry, «roots-pop» à la early Wilco, some sludgy stoner proto-metal, and Seventies-style blues-rock. But more than ever before, the band simply embraces all the clichés and forma­lities of all these styles, instead of at least attempting to reinvent them, or at least marry them to one or two chord sequences that wouldn't be completely, thoroughly safe and predictable.

There is not a single song on here that would linger in my head for even a few minutes after the album is over — simply because there is not a single cell in my brain that would not already be occupied by one or more tenants, once any given song from American Goldwing starts politely knocking on its door. «Go away, ʽGirl In A Coatʼ!», they say, «we'd be happy to let you stay overnight, but the whole floor has already been rented by a Mr. Zimmerman». «Sorry, ʽTaking It Easy Too Longʼ, we just don't see the extra benefits from accommodating you that we have not already received by lending this space to Mr. Willie Nelson». And the list goes on.

The damnedest thing about all of this is, these melodies just sound way too lazy. For ʽMight Find It Cheapʼ, one of the guitarists just reuses a standard old hard rock riff, and the other one plays a slightly more complex, but equally weary ring of acoustic circles around it. The multi-guitar over­dubs on ʽFletcherʼ, including a clever move of combining slide guitar with a wah-wah sound, are totally wasted, since they are not structured as a coherent, independent melody. ʽLove The Way You Walk Awayʼ might as well be recorded by a Hank Williams Jr. or any single other by-the-bo­ok professional country hack to have come around in the past fifty years. ʽStreet Fighting Sunʼ, although its title bears non-incidental similarity to the Stones, actually rips off the old style of Mountain, without any changes for the better.

In the end, it simply drives me crazy. When these guys started out, they clearly had ambitions — there was never a time in which they were not utterly derivative, but they were tearing that house apart and rebuilding it anew. Now, with what limited critical success and recognition they might have acquired after the success of Wild Mountain Nation and Furr, they seem to have sunk into a sea of mildly ear-pleasing, but utterly forgettable and irrelevant genericity. Sure, Earley's voice is still moderately moving, and I can imagine some people still being interested in what he has to say lyrically (I myself could care less), but, in a way, it only makes American Goldwing ever so more irritating for me, because even the sensible, lyrical heart of this guy is no more different now from the sensible, lyrical hearts of a grand army of roots-rockers.

All I can hope for is eventually getting a confirmation that the album might simply have been rushed out too quickly after Destroyer, for whatever reason (lack of fresh cash flow?). Since it has now been almost two years since then, chances are that, perhaps, for their upcoming new pro­ject the Blitzens will finally try out something different, rather than just keep on wallowing in their «heartland» phase. But as of now, a disheartened thumbs down — I fail to see how any­body who doesn't think that all the music in the world should sound like James Taylor could ma­nage to be converted by these stale sounds.

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Archers Of Loaf: The Speed Of Cattle

ARCHERS OF LOAF: THE SPEED OF CATTLE (1996)

1) Wrong; 2) South Carolina; 3) Web In Front; 4) Bathroom; 5) Tatyana; 6) What Did You Expect?; 7) Ethel Merman; 8) Funnelhead; 9) Quinn Beast; 10) Telepathic Traffic; 11) Don't Believe The Good News; 12) Smokin' Pot In The Hot City; 13) Mutes In The Steeple; 14) Revenge; 15) Bacteria; 16) Freezing Point; 17) Powerwalker; 18) Backwash.

I would never say that Archers Of Loaf are the great lost gem of the mid-Nineties, much more de­serving of the attention of every self-respecting Homo sapiens than the publicity-puffed Nirvana. Nevertheless, they certainly deserve to at least be placed in the «lost and found» locker, and their career has been consistent enough to make me want to try out, as a postscriptum of sorts, this ear­ly collection of odds and ends, originally released in between the success of Vee Vee and the re­lative creative stagnation of Airports.

For all the good fans, this is an essential purchase, since there are no overlaps with the band's re­gular studio albums. Instead, Speed Of Cattle collects a bunch of early singles (including single versions of ʽWrongʼ and ʽWeb In Frontʼ, different from LP versions), two tracks from the rare EP Vs. The Greatest Of All Time, and some studio outtakes that cannot be found anywhere else. The question is — does anybody other than the truly devoted fan need it?

Frankly, I don't think so. One thing is certain: Speed Of Cattle will not open your eyes on any aspect of the Archers that you do not already know about. All of the songs are in the band's usual style, but very few of them accentuate the famous «guitar weaving» style. For instance, ʽSouth Carolinaʼ is occasionally considered somewhat of a lost semi-classic, but all I hear is generic, bombastic alt-rock, thoroughly boring for three out of three and a half minutes (a «woman tone» guitar enters the stage towards the end and makes things a little more colorful, but I am just men­tioning this for honesty's sake).

Special cases include ʽBathroomʼ, one of the band's fastest tunes, probably the closest they ever came to «hardcore», but with a nifty psychedelic guitar break; ʽQuinn Beastʼ, where the second guitar somehow falls under a Duane Eddy influence, playing surf-like chords against the usual sea of distortion; and the instrumental ʽSmokin' Pot In The Hot Cityʼ, which begins with a cozy little country-rock riff and then goes on being relatively gentle and melodic throughout.

Everything else sticks together in the same sort of mush as All The Nation's Airports: some­times a bit slower, sometimes a bit faster, sometimes yelly-screamy, sometimes quiet-melancho­lic-like. Listening to this record, in fact, gives away the Archers Of Loaf's fatal mistake — they should never have stuck to this image of «hard rocking» people, because they are too pensive for that. I can tolerate sixty minutes of leaden, by-the-book distorted «rock» chords from the Ramo­nes (even late-period Ramones), because it is their lifeblood. But nobody will convince me that these chords are the lifeblood of Eric Bachmann and Eric Johnson, because they could never rock as hard as Nirvana or Alice In Chains — and when you cannot rock out as hard as your competi­tion, it is better not to rock out at all. Otherwise, you'll just be moving along at the «speed of cat­tle», and why should anyone want that? Thumbs down.

Associates: The Affectionate Punch

ASSOCIATES: THE AFFECTIONATE PUNCH (1980)

1) The Affectionate Punch; 2) Amused As Always; 3) Logan Time; 4) Paper House; 5) Transport To Central; 6) A Matter Of Gender; 7) Even Dogs In The Wild; 8) Would I… Bounce Back?; 9) Deeply Concerned; 10) A.

Although there were many places around the world in which a man could get unhappy in the early 1980s, Scotland would probably count as one of the top contenders. Cold climate, coal mi­ning, and bagpipes will do that to you, I guess; throw in Margaret Thatcher, and there's a good enough recipe for suicide, even if took Billy MacKenzie, the frontman of the Associates, twenty years of an up-and-down musical career to remember how it goes.

In 1979, the chief idol for this young aspiring creative unit, consisting of MacKenzie, multi-in­st­ru­­mentalist Alan Rankine, and whoever else would drop in at the local studio, was David Bowie; they even released his own ʽBoys Keep Swingingʼ as their debut single. Unsurprisingly, much of The Affectionate Punch actually sounds like Bowie, although, of course, on a much less pro­fes­sional and experienced level. On the other hand, it's got such factors as youth, fresh energy, and novelty on its side — and, perhaps, even a dim feeling that Billy MacKenzie might be more genu­inely «into the spirit of it all» than the lovable old con man Bowie. After all, Billy MacKenzie did end up killing himself, and the old con man is still alive. Crap argument, I know, but still worth some sick consideration.

Anyway, this is what they usually call «post-punk», meaning «music that punks begin to play when they get tired of being punks». Dark, angry, melancholic, aggressive, heavy on the bass, the echo, and the creepy guitar effects, low on solo instrumental passages and pretty melodies. The vocalist sounds like a slightly higher-pitched Bowie most of the time, but occasionally tries on the morbid Old Testamental solemnity of Scott Walker, and always sings with an echo, because he obviously does not like the idea of getting too close to his audience. The multi-instrumentalist clearly has more fun laying on the bass parts, which are loud, driving, catchy, and moody, and less fun adding the guitar, which he regularly plays in Andy Summers mode (i. e. the fewer notes played, the better, because the great reggae gods told us so). And, apparently, Robert Smith of The Cure adds some backing vocals — which I could not ever tell without the liner notes, but I'm thinking that his actual presence in the studio was a bigger kick for MacKenzie and Rankine than any possible contribution he could make. Because, let's face it, just one look at Robert Smith, and your depression quotient goes up five points.

But also, The Affectionate Punch is the band's most «rock»-oriented album, with a general live feel to all the tracks — pretty soon the duo would be moving in a synth-poppier direction. Not that this is particularly important: the Associates rocked on a moderate scale, with a bit of theat­rical restraint and somewhat limited playing technique. They fare much better on the songwriting scale: quite a few of these tracks easily stand competition with Lodger-era Bowie in terms of creative ideas, even if, to me, only one stands out as instantly memorable: ʽEven Dogs In The Wildʼ, a superbly bleak, pessimistic look at humanity, encapsuled in a grumbly bass groove, an anthemic-romantic guitar riff, and a repetitive chorus that somehow trascends its repetitiveness and grows into a mantra of despair: "Even dogs in the wild, even dogs in the wild... could do bet­ter than this". This is the one they snatched from Heaven; not so sure about the others.

Still, as long as the others move along at decent tempos, they manage to be tense, sharp, and pa­ranoid, just as the doctor ordered. The title track bounces on a sea of old-fashionedly distorted guitar chords and piano counterpoints, as MacKenzie and his vocal backers sing about "the affec­tionate punch" that "draws even more blood". Think about the deep meaning long enough to go crazy, and fandom will be your reward. ʽPaper Houseʼ shuffles along to a tricky tempo and a flood of wailing licks that remind of The Edge's style, but without the heroic echo effects. And on ʽWould I... Bounce Backʼ, MacKenzie wonders "if I threw myself from the ninth storey, would I levitate back to three?" against a wall of phased guitar sound that does seem to be bouncing up and down. (Don't try this at home, though).

Some of the slower ones really drag and require a deep admiration for MacKenzie's handsome, but not all that original operatic intonations to turn into personal favorites (ʽLogan Timeʼ; the noise-drenched ʽTransport To Centralʼ). But, since the band has a solid understanding of all their influences, and since MacKenzie rarely, if ever, goes completely over the top, and since the lyrics are appropriately obscure and ambiguous most of the time, The Affectionate Punch has no gla­ringly obvious downsides, other than failing to make it into the year's top 10 most impressive re­leases. And for all those who think that pop music really reached its zenith with Berlin-era Bowie, Joy Division, and Echo & The Bunnymen, The Affectionate Punch is required listening in any case. One could even say that the MacKenzie/Rankine duo paves the way for the much better known pairing of Morrissey and Marr — although the differences are as copious here as the re­semblances. Anyway, a modest thumbs up.

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Average White Band: Soul Tattoo

AVERAGE WHITE BAND: SOUL TATTOO (1997)

1) Soul Mine; 2) Back To Basics; 3) Livin' On Borrowed Time; 4) Every Beat Of My Heart; 5) When We Get Down On It; 6) Oh, Maceo; 7) Do Ya Really; 8) I Wanna Be Loved; 9) No Easy Way To Say Goodbye; 10) Love Is The Bottom Line; 11) Welcome To The Real World; 12) Window To Your Soul.

No band, good or bad, deserves to go out with an album as lame as Aftershock; thus, long-time fans just had to wait for a move of redemption. Fortunately, there comes a time in the life of most (if not all) artists when they get to think about themselves as too old and tired to care about fol­lowing trends — realizing that they'd rather just fuck all that shit and get «back to basics», which, coincidentally, happens to be the name of one of the tracks here.

With Gorrie, McIntyre, and Ball still forming the bulk of the band, and Eliot Lewis on keyboards plus Pete Abbott on drums supplementing the old guard, Soul Tattoo may not be a masterpiece of the R'n'B genre, but, coming eight years past Aftershock, it is pure gold in comparison. It is, in fact, as if the past twenty years never happened. No awful electronics, drum machines, real instru­ment playing, real funky grooves — the band is clearly committed to the safe old formula once again, sending all those dark times when they were betraying their master style into oblivion. No disco, either. Just old-fashioned dance-oriented R'n'B and a few old-fashioned ballads to boot. Gi­ving the finger to all the «new school R'n'B» as well. GOTTA LOVE THAT.

The rewinding is announced already on the first seconds of the album, with the opening syncopa­ted chords to ʽSoul Mineʼ; then, as Abbott kicks in with a solid rocking beat, the bass starts draw­ing complex geometric figures in the air, and the repetitive "working in a soul mine!" chorus starts getting addictive — that is where you actually start to remember that there used to be things that made you like, if not love, this band. The track does not have a melodic line as memorable and infectious as their few greatest-ever hits from the past, but in every other respect it is as hard-driving and authentic as anything they had ever done — and it sets just the right mood for the en­tire album. Even if the only other track that replicates its sweaty, funky success is the near-instru­mental ʽOh, Maceoʼ, a specially constructed showcase for Roger and his ball, er, sax, I mean. I do mean it — it is one of their most sax-drenched numbers, ever, probably with more sweat spilled over it than during the entire recording of Aftershock.

The other groove-based tunes are somewhat smoother and more pensive, but generally move one step beyond «boring», usually by means of a funny catchy chorus (ʽLove Is The Bottom Lineʼ, ʽDo Ya Reallyʼ). Eliot Lewis comes into his own as an okay vocal replacement for Hamish Stuart, but the star of the show is Gorie, whose range has not deteriorated one bit in twenty-five years time and who is now able to make the best of his falsetto, rather than blindly imitating the Bee Gees (even using it for a gorgeously placed vocal hook on the chorus of the album's worst song — ʽEvery Beat Of My Heartʼ, an over-sappy ballad that incidentally sounds like a boy band pro­duct). That said, it's too bad they did not try to populate the album with more tunes like ʽSoul Mineʼ and ʽOh, Maceoʼ — it is highly improbable they were still trying to use that smooth sound of theirs to charm the pants off ladies, so they could at least kick some extra ass for the guys.

On the modest critical scale that was specially invented for the AWB, this is a terrific, completely unexpected comeback, and a noble end to the band's studio career (unless they plan to reward their long term, arthritis-ridden fans with another offering — highly unlikely, considering that there has been no follow-up in fifteen years). Fans of their classic sound will definitely get a kick out of parts of it, to which I must add a pinch of pure respect. To come back together, screw the fashion in grand fashion, and make a defiantly retro album that can, at worst, be «dull», but al­most never «tasteless» — not everyone has it in them, and so the thumbs up judgement is as much based on rational context analysis as it is on pure pleasure. Which I am not denying, either: ʽSoul Mineʼ is great fun, regardless of any damn context.

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Aphrodite's Child: End Of The World

APHRODITE'S CHILD: END OF THE WORLD (1968)

1) End Of The World; 2) Don't Try To Catch A River; 3) Mister Thomas; 4) Rain & Tears; 5) The Grass Is No Green; 6) Valley Of Sadness; 7) You Always Stand In My Way; 8) The Shepherd And The Moon; 9) Day Of The Fool.

What do you get when you take an experimental composer, specializing in atmospheric electro­nics, and a cheesy East-Europop crooner, and stick the two of them together? Feed this question to an advanced AI system, and it will probably answer: «Something that sounds awesomely crazy and unbearably sentimental at the same time». And, more or less, that is exactly what Aphrodite's Child were about. Except that the chronology is reversed: Vangelis would go on to become one of the most revered electronic wizards of his generation, and Demis Roussos to become the epitome of feta cheese already after the band had broken up.

When the band had just formed, though, it was all different. They were young, ambitious, and, of all things, they were all a bunch of Greek journeymen stranded in Paris in May 1968 — someone should give Martin Scorsese an idea for a script. And, of course, since most of them were musici­ans anyway, having already served time in various Greek bands, what a better time and place to try out a bit of mad genre synthesis than Paris in the spring?

Now here is the curious catch. Apparently, Demis Roussos, at heart, was a balladeer from the very beginning, and he was never all that interested in pushing forward musical boundaries as long as he could score one with the ladies. But the healthy climate of a shifting musical era, and the fortunate advantage of having the ambitious and daring Vangelis Papathanassiou at his side, made sure that his croonery was not backed with generic syrupy strings or whatever the croonery «norm» was in the old pre-disco days, but rather with a refreshingly romantic, and sometimes even downright «gritty», art-rock sound.

Put it all together — the will to experiment and innovate, the sentimentalism, the spirit of the ti­mes, the Mediterranean flavor, the talent, the youth, the energy, and Aphrodite's Child (quite an apt name for the band, as a matter of fact) emerge as a fairly unique curio in an age that had its fair share of unique curios. Most of these songs are befuddling, so much so that I cannot decide if I should laugh or cry. But as long as you do not make a definitive choice, End Of The World re­mains a fascinating puzzle.

The band's original direction was indicated by the debut single, ʽRain And Tearsʼ, musically ba­sed on Pachelbel's Canon — following in the vein of Procol Harum, but in a wimpier manner, since the band did not have a guitarist at that time (their regular player, Anargyros Kolouris, was on military duty in Greece, so Demis Roussos, in addition to playing bass, also has to supply all of the guitarwork). Vangelis' arrangement, with authentic harpsichord and baroque strings, is quite masterful, so it all depends on whether you are able to swallow Roussos' plaintive, operatic intonations without getting sick to the stomach. It's hard, but it may be worth the while.

Personally, I find it easier to succumb to the artsy charms of Aphrodite's Child when they switch from purely romantic mood to a little apocalypse — primarily on the title track, which begins de­ceptively, as just another organ-and-piano-led ballad, but then, with a mighty "HEYYYEAH!" from Demis, enters a Romantic (with a capital R) world of solemn drum-and-keyboard fury. It sounds a bit silly when you stop and think about it, but don't make the mistake of stopping.

Actually, the band's repertoire is quite diverse. They fiddle about with fast-paced R'n'B (ʽDon't Try To Catch A Riverʼ — with its spirited tempos, the song seems like an answer to ʽRiver Deep, Mountain Highʼ; at any rate, the Spector production must have been the chief inspiration); Kinks-flavored character-assassinating Brit-pop (ʽMister Thomasʼ); totally drugged out, dragged out, mantra-style psychedelia (ʽThe Grass Is No Greenʼ); gritty, soulful blues-rock (ʽYou Always Stand In My Wayʼ, probably the angriest, rock'n'rolliest performance Roussos ever gave in his life — and one track on which his ever-present whiny notes actually work to perfection, giving the whole song a frenzied, paranoid atmosphere); avantgarde sonic landscapes (ʽDay Of The Foolʼ, sung from the point of view of a madman and eventually «degenerating» into bits and pie­ces of his fragmented conscience); and, of course, something that they brought over with them from faraway lands — ʽThe Shepherd Of The Moonʼ is the only song here to properly incor­po­rate the Near Eastern vibe, both in the sung harmonies and the accompanying melody.

These tunes may sound comical, and, if you are well acquainted with the context, somewhat of a naïve, crude attempt to «fit in» with every bit of popular/trendy Western music they could lay their hands on. But the truth is, they all work to some extent. Perhaps the band rarely succeeds in making it seem like they were born and reared to perform this kind of stuff, but they certainly un­derstand all the small details that make this stuff great — the vocal hooks and the arrangement de­tails are formally impeccable, so that on a purely technical level, ʽThe Grass Is No Greenʼ has no problem holding its own against the flood of «authentic» drone-flavored psychedelia of the times, and that Tina Turner might not have refused a duet with Demis on ʽCatch A Riverʼ, had she even been aware of this band's existence.

In short, it is best to view End Of The World as a heartfelt tribute, coming from a bunch of en­thusiastic, adoring, and not untalented fans, to the whole wide world of «popular musical art», than as an individual «meaningful statement». But I'd rather take a chameleonic tribute like that, masterminded by a guy like Vangelis, over an «individualistic» statement by somebody with no musical gift at all — so, clearly, a thumbs up here.

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Beatles: Help!

BEATLES: HELP! (1965)

1) Help!; 2) The Night Before; 3) You've Got To Hide Your Love Away; 4) I Need You; 5) Another Girl; 6) You're Going To Lose That Girl; 7) Ticket To Ride; 8) Act Naturally; 9) It's Only Love; 10) You Like Me Too Much; 11) Tell Me What You See; 12) I've Just Seen A Face; 13) Yesterday; 14) Dizzy Miss Lizzie.

Sometimes I can't help!... but think that it is this album, rather than Beatles For Sale, where the Beatles went for a bit of a sag. In fact, the band spent most of the first half of 1965 sort of procra­stinating, giving others plenty of time to catch up — the Stones were coming into their rights as masterful songwriters and creators of a new rock'n'roll sound; the Beach Boys finally learned how to make real musical albums rather than filler; the Byrds were pressing from behind the lines; Bob Dylan had gone electric, etc. etc. With a whole exciting new world waking up, Help!, as fine a Beatles album as it is per se, sounded like it needed a little... help?

You could sense a bit of trouble brewing even by simply watching the movie. Where Lester's first experience with the boys bordered on the «biographical» and, in places, read like a smart jab on the crisis of the older generation next to the young ones, Help! was, clearly, just a comical excuse for some Beatle-acted gags and lots of Beatle-mimed songs. It was still miles ahead of the ave­rage contemporary Elvis movie, but only because the gags were funnier and the songs were pret­ty much incomparable. Oddly, when you look at it in retrospect, Hard Day's Night, to me, seems to shrink a little bit in stature, where Help! seems to grow — not because Help! is actually «deeper» than it looks, rather because Hard Day's Night is somewhat shallower. But, clearly, it is always the former that will be the critical darling, never the latter.

Of course, on an individual song level, Help! contains at least as many tactical breakthroughs as Beatles For Sale, if not more. The presence alone of the title track, ʽTicket To Rideʼ, and That Song Most Frequently Covered By Crap Artists, places it well beyond the reaches of dirty jealous criticism. But it is probably no coincidence that it also contains the first song in the Beatles cata­log whose author himself went on record to state his acute despisal for it: ʽIt's Only Loveʼ, writ­ten mostly by John, was later lambasted to bits by his own persona. Why ʽIt's Only Loveʼ? Why not ʽAsk Me Whyʼ or ʽWhen I Get Homeʼ — songs that were comparably inane from a lyrical stand­point, and much less elaborate from a musical one? (Want it or not, the main guitar line that dri­ves ʽIt's Only Loveʼ is terrific, and its liaison with the final falsetto flourish is even more so). I think it's all because of the context — writing a song like that in 1963 would be more fitting in with the still slowly changing times than in 1965, when creative juices were flowing on all sides and lines like "it's only love and that is all, why should I feel the way I do" just didn't cut it any more. (And yes, the lyrics are atrocious, even if one could argue that "I get high when I see you go by, butterfly" may be interpreted in a psychedelic manner).

Anyway, what it all boils down to is that Help! is really a curious melange of startling discoveries, obsolete attitudes, lightheadedness that borders on annoyance, and hidden depth that borders on catharsis. The album is structured in the exact same way as Hard Day's Night (one side has the movie soundtrack and the other one doesn't), but this time, there is no feeling that the movie songs are somehow «lighter» and the non-movie ones are «darker». If anything, it would rather be the other way round — simply compare the initial Side A mood set by ʽHelp!ʼ and the initial Side B mood set by ʽAct Naturallyʼ (Ringo to the rescue!).

The movie soundtrack may produce a rougher, rockier, and a pinch more somber impression be­cause the movie was rougher — an action-packed comical thriller, with the Beatles chased around the world by a cartoonish cult aiming to chop off Ringo's finger (which, of course, symbolizes the Beatles' creative genius, and the cult is a personification of EMI/Capitol record bosses... okay, pushing too far ahead here). But it also genuinely reflects the growth of John's aggravation: of the three songs on Side A that are definitively his (ʽYou're Going To Lose That Girlʼ seems like a fifty-fifty job), one is playfully melancholic (ʽTicket To Rideʼ) and two are downright tragic, with John playing the sad little broken-down chap on ʽYou've Got To Hide Your Love Awayʼ and a snarling hunted beast on the title track.

ʽHelp!ʼ (the song) is, in fact, so perfectly arrow-shaped, it always gave me the impression of being played on one single breath throughout — the verses flash by like a speed rocket, with just a few brief moments in between chorus and verse to give the senses a quick rest. Played slow (the way Deep Purple would attempt it a few years later), it would be an emotional folk ballad; played at this sort of breakneck speed (well, «breakneck» for the times), it was proto-punkier, in a way, than quite a few garage classics of the time, if only because it was born out of a genuine feeling of desperation and crisis, rather than out of a generic penchant for «teenage rebellion». But never forget about the professionalism — as in, «with what else can we decorate this tune so that it will stick out more?» — there are some head-spinning harmony arrangements on the verses that in­tensify the arrow-like feeling of the song, with a non-stop vocal bombardment throughout.

ʽYou've Got To Hide Your Love Awayʼ has always been attributed to the Dylan influence — slow acoustic shuffle, «draggy», tired vocals that almost seem to imitate Bob himself, a clumsy, not-yet-quite-successful attempt to make the words matter — but the vocal melody is rather too poppy for Bob, and so is the pastoral flute solo at the end, although it adds a great touch. And ʽTicket To Rideʼ is sometimes hailed as one of the first «proto-metal» tunes, but I wouldn't go that far — just acknowledge that the level of «roughness» is severely increased from the likes of ʽYou Can't Do Thatʼ, mostly by devising a very complex, innovative drum-bashing part for Ringo and bringing the bass a bit higher in the mix than usual.

Next to these songs, Paul's competing material is tremendously slight — not that ʽThe Night Be­foreʼ and ʽAnother Girlʼ aren't great, energy-filled, instantly memorable pop-rock, but they do not advance us much further: ʽAnother Girlʼ, in particular, sounds like an attempt to capitalize on the formula of ʽCan't Buy Me Loveʼ, but the Beatles never fared all that well when they tried to write a song that sounded exactly like, or seriously in the vein of, a previous song, and there's a reason why ʽCan't Buy Me Loveʼ is on all the best-of packages and ʽAnother Girlʼ isn't. (Again, hardly a coincidence that the song illustrates the «cheapest» bit in the movie — the band engaged in gene­ric teenage fun with girls in the Bahamas). For some reason, I have always valued George's ʽI Need Youʼ over its neighbour on the record — his second attempt at songwriting that made the grade in the other ones' eyes has a certain minimalistic sternness and solemnity to it that makes it cross over from the slight and flimsy into the strange realm of the chivalrous. (Well, it was chi­val­rous, of course — a proper serenade to Patti Boyd, whom George would marry in less than a year's time. Good idea that there is no guitar solo; who knows what would have happened, had Eric Clapton turned up at the studio on that day?).

Most of the «high-quality filler», however, is concentrated on the second side — this is the batch of songs that looks like it has been relatively quickly thrown together to fulfill the obligations. For one thing, the two covers that bookmark it are either painfully slight (ʽAct Naturallyʼ, tongue-in-cheekily given to Ringo as an inside joke on his celebrated acting abilities; its cutesy country-pop mode would later be reworked in a much more interesting and original manner for ʽWhat Goes Onʼ) or questionably minimalistic (Larry Williams' ʽDizzy Miss Lizzieʼ is saved by John's trademark rock'n'roll roar, but the song is built on one single melodic phrase, and even if George's guitar tone is fatter, shriller, and hard-rockier than Larry's original incarnation, it is a bit too repetitive for a band that always thrived on build-ups, dynamics, and unpredictable twists).

For another thing, there are only two genuinely great creations on all of Side B, and both happen to be Paul's. ʽI've Just Seen A Faceʼ may actually be the greatest of the two (yes, we are all entit­led to a bit of controversy) — Paul's first venture into the realms of bluegrass, but infused with the usual pop spirit; had anyone up to that point, in the UK at least, even tried playing the acous­tic guitar in rapid-fire banjo mode? Spiritually, a trifle, perhaps ("falling yes I'm falling, and she keeps calling me back again" is as serious as the song gets), but musically, this is a rather unique entry in the Beatles catalog, which would never again see such an enthusiastic triple acoustic gui­tar-fest. As for ʽYesterdayʼ... well, who needs to hear another opinion on ʽYesterdayʼ? Surely the sixteen hundred popular artists who have covered it since cannot be wrong, even if fifteen hun­d­red of them probably suck as artists.

All that remains is to voice the speculative conclusion: If there ever was a moment in Beatles his­tory where they could have been thrown off the «train of relevance», it was in the first half of 1965. Plenty of early 1960s bands never survived the transition into the psychedelic and the art-rock era, and, theoretically, even the Beatles could have forever remained stuck in «teen-pop» mode — as Help!, with its somewhat unsettling conservatism, is enough to show. Again, this disappointment is quite relative and, in a way, fantom-like, because back in 1965, any new Beat­les product was greeted with tremendous hoopla, regardless of whether it did or did not push boundaries; and today, with all the boundaries pushed to death a long time ago and «innovation» no longer being a defining trait of one's creativity, we can simply enjoy Help! as another col­lec­ti­on of fabulous pop songs, no better and no worse than the ones that surround it.

But then, it is also fun to look at it as a tricky, deceitful bit of «calm before the storm»: the more innocent and unassuming an air these Help! tunes put upon themselves, the more of a shock one must have gotten by the end of the year, with Rubber Soul announcing that the Beatles were finally agreeing not only to participate in the ongoing musical revolution, but even to take upon themselves the role of one of the leaders. And, finally, no theoretical criticisms could ever con­ceal the fact that, innovative or not, formally Help! is just as filler-free and enjoyable all the way through (yes, even ʽDizzy Miss Lizzieʼ) as any other Beatles album — you didn't think I would dare deprive it of its upcoming thumbs up, did you?

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Blind Boy Fuller: Complete Recorded Works Vol. 1 (1935-1936)

BLIND BOY FULLER: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS, VOL. 1 (1935-1936)

1) Baby, I Don't Have To Worry; 2) I'm A Rattlesnakin' Daddy; 3) I'm Climbin' On Top Of The Hill; 4) Ain't It A Cryin' Shame; 5) Looking For My Woman; 6) Rag Mama Rag (take 1); 7) Rag Mama Rag (take 2); 8) Baby, You Gotta Change Your Mind; 9) Evil Hearted Woman; 10) My Brownskin Sugar Plum; 11) Somebody's Been Playing With That Thing; 12) Log Cabin Blues (take 1); 13) Log Cabin Blues (take 2); 14) Homesick And Lonesome Blues; 15) Walkin' My Troubles Away (take 1); 16) Walkin' My Troubles Away (take 2); 17) Black And Tan; 18) Keep Away From My Woman (take 1); 19) Keep Away From My Woman (take 2); 20) Babe, You Got To Do Better; 21) Big Bed Blues; 22) Truckin' My Blues Away; 23) She's Funny That Way; 24) Cat Man Blues (take 1).

Unless you are an obsessed-dedicated pre-War blues aficionado, you really do not need any Blind Boy Fuller in your collection. The man did not have a unique singing ability, did not innovate any particular guitar playing techniques, did not write up any classic tunes (although a small handful of titles still have a strong historic connection to his name), and, overall, would wind up on most people's personal accounts as one blind boy too many.

Still, there must have been a reason why Fulton Allen, a.k.a. Blind Boy Fuller, was one of the hot­test things on the black music market back in his day — «his day» lasting for all of five years, from Blind Boy's first recordings for ARC in 1935 and up to his death of drink-related causes in 1941. Truth is, while there is nothing particularly outstanding or mind-blowing on these records, they sound very, very nice. Building on the already several decades old «Piedmont» tradition, Fuller had himself a clean, professional, entertaining sound which he must have masterminded himself: all of these recordings are as clean and «sharp» as possible for the recording standards of the mid-Thirties. From the modern listener's point of view, switching to this music from Blind Blake or Blind Lemon Jefferson, both of them several times as inventive and unpredictable in their playing as Fuller, will be refreshing if only for the fact that his sound was captured several times as successfully on disc as that of his predecessors.

Although most of the melodies from these early sessions will be instantly recognizable to all lo­vers of bluesy/raggy varieties of Americana, only the title of ʽRag Mama Ragʼ is probably ack­nowledged as a «classic title», since this bit of fast-tempo ragtime blues has been covered many times since (and even become a point of departure for The Band's own ʽRag Mama Ragʼ in 1969, even if musically, their song had nothing whatsoever to do with the original title). Everything about the tune is subtly infectious, particularly Fuller's accomplished, if never spectacular, scat singing, and the only thing that dampens the excitement is that he went on to re-record the exact same thing under several extra titles (in fact, it is repeated immediately after the original couple of takes, at a slightly slower tempo, as ʽBaby You Gotta Change Your Mindʼ).

Another highlight is ʽLog Cabin Bluesʼ, which the average listener usually knows as Robert Johnson's ʽThey're Red Hotʼ (ʽHot Tamalesʼ), recorded a couple years later (but it does not really matter — it's not as if it was Fuller who wrote this melody). It gives us a good chance to enjoy Fuller's playing technique, which was quite accomplished: no eye-popping tricks, but not a single mistake, either, and perfect self-control while singing scat, holding down the rhythm, and playing fast ragtime chords at the same time.

He was also a fairly pleasant slow blues player as well: where a Blind Blake could, for instance, easily «laze» his way through a 12-bar blues, playing minimalistic trivial accompaniment just for the sake of asserting his weight («I'm the greatest anyway, do I really need to prove it one more time?»), Fuller fills even the most generic songs like ʽBaby, I Don't Have To Worryʼ with simple, but effective little flourishes that cleverly mask the tunes' paucity of basic ideas.

But in general slow, pensive blues is not this guy's main line of work: most of his music is suppo­sed to be danced to (ʽTruckin' My Blues Awayʼ, ʽShe's Funny That Wayʼ, etc.), and sounds fairly happy on the surface at least. It is this combination of upbeat friendliness, lightness, professio­nalism, and good recording quality that, in the end, mattered on the market back in its day. And those few people who, these days, keep a well-oiled time machine to pre-war America in their backyard, will probably get to know and like these tunes much more than the rest of us, who, at best, only have a passing historic interest in those days when you didn't have anywhere to plug yourself in while playing the blues. Me, I don't care much for time machines if they take me away from my PC interface, but thumbs up anyway.

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Blitzen Trapper: Destroyer Of The Void

BLITZEN TRAPPER: DESTROYER OF THE VOID (2010)

1) Destroyer Of The Void; 2) Laughing Lover; 3) Below The Hurricane; 4) The Man Who Would Speak True; 5) Love And Hate; 6) Heaven And Earth; 7) Dragon's Song; 8) The Tree; 9) Evening Star; 10) Lover Leave Me Drowning; 11) The Tailor; 12) Sadie.

With this album title, it almost looks as if Blitzen Trapper are really becoming interested in justi­fying the occasionally flashing tag of «New Ween For The 2000s» — reading like a parody on a self-important prog rock record. And indeed, look at the running times: the title track clocks in at 6:17, and the third one at 5:26 — of all their previous creations, only ʽConcrete Heavenʼ ran that long, but even that one was anything but a multi-part suite. Lord help us, Eric Earley has truly gone «progressive» on our asses. How does it feel?

Unfortunately, it doesn't feel at all. The attempt to branch out in terms of complexity simply ends up going nowhere. There is no purpose whatsoever to the title track other than telling us that the band can and will change keys midway through the song and then one more time, three quarters into the song. There is no interesting original theme to catch the proper attention; nothing ever goes beyond «sonically nice» as they drag out the old-fashioned synthesizers, the «epic» (but tech­nically simple) guitar solos, the choral backing vocals, the back-and-forth loud-to-quiet alter­nations. I've heard it all before and I don't want this. It's BOOOOORING!

Perhaps Earley realized it himself, because, no matter how ambitious the first third of the album tries to make itself, he just cannot help but eventually get carried away on the rootsy tide. ʽLaugh­ing Loverʼ still combines folksy upbeat pop with arena-rock riffs, psychedelic keyboard and vo­cal overdubs, and rhythmless harmony-based choruses, and ʽBelow The Hurricaneʼ is still long enough to envelop a two-part acoustic suite and an atmospheric «look at us making alien noises with our electronic toys» coda. But after that, Earley's «progressive drive» seems to either be­come exhausted, or satisfied, and the band turns back on its trusty Oregon Wilderness Machine.

For some reason, though, the Machine seems to be virtually infested with a colony of Dylan bac­teria this time around. Where Bob's influence on the band used to be obvious, but indirect, it now becomes an obsession — as if playing around with progressive complexities had somehow lower­ed Earley's defensive shields that used to protect him from resorting to direct plagiarism. ʽThe Man Who Would Speak Trueʼ plays on like a straightahead outtake from Selfportrait (yes!!), and ʽThe Treeʼ, in itself a lovely duet between Earley and fellow Oregonian Alela Diane, «bor­rows» quite a few chords and vocal moves, not to mention the overall atmosphere, directly from ʽMr. Tambourine Manʼ. Why? Damn me if I know.

Both of these things — the band's inability to become interesting when going in for extra com­plexity, and the inexplainable switch from Dylan influence to Dylan worship — are very disap­pointing, and the best tracks on this album, stuck in the middle (the heavy rock anthem ʽLove And Hateʼ, with a cool-bellowing distorted guitar opposed to an optimistic singalong chorus, and the dreamy/aching piano-and-strings ballad ʽHeaven And Earthʼ), are not jaw-dropping enough, either, to heal the wounds.

It is good to know that Destroyer Of The Void does not at least repeat, note-for-note, the formu­la of Furr, and that Earley is still busy searching, and that the arrangements are still in great taste, and that the band still has its honest Oregon heart. But alas — the album continues to suggest that Blitzen Trapper may be past their peak, and that Earley will never again manage to sustain the same level of original chemistry and overall quality that he did on his first three albums, and that, therefore, despite the best of our hopes, Blitzen Trapper share the usual genetic disease of most of the bands of the de­cade: thoroughly great for a one-night stand, thoroughly lacking what it takes to build up a long-term relationship. Too bad.

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