Back to schooldays (Rick Nelson) (LP 2066 - 2073)

Gary Brooker  Echoes In The Night (Vinyl, Mercury Records, 1985) ***  

Rick Nelson  Playing To Win (Vinyl, Capitol Records, 1981) ***  

Donovan  Barabajagal (Vinyl, Epic Records, 1969) *** 

Donovan  Open Road (Vinyl, Epic Records, 1970) *****  

Arlo Guthrie  Running Down The Road (Vinyl, Reprise Records, 1969) *** 

Harpers Bizarre  Feelin' Groovy (Vinyl, Warner Bros. Records, 1967) *** 

Various  Individual (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1979) *** 

XTC  English Settlement (Vinyl, Virgin Records, 1982) ***** 

Genre: Prog/ pop rock/ folk rock/ baroque pop/ jazz fusion/ pop rock to finish.

Places I remember: Brooker - Passionate About Vinyl (Waipawa)/Harper's Bizarre - Southbound Records/ rest are all  Real Groovy (Auckland). Didn't buy anything at the new Flying Nun shop on K Rd but it was great to visit. It's opposite St Kevin's Arcade - lots of memories centre on that place!

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Barabajagal (Donovan)

Gear costume: Senses Working Overtime (XTC)

Active compensatory factors: While on our way to see Tim Finn play in Auckland last weekend, I was able to stop off at a few record shops. These nine albums* have come from that journey up north and, in a nod to schooldays with GK, a trek down Symonds St., K. Road, and Queen St. with Kevy.

Gary Brooker's third solo album has been on my want list for a while. While Gary's voice is in fine form, it's a typical eighties production with these pesky synths all over most of the tracks. Grrrr. 

Eric Clapton and Rory Gallagher appear (on different tracks) but I'm blowed if I can hear them. Rory apparently plays slide guitar. I'll need to put headphones on and really listen for him.

Highlights: Missing Person; Echoes In The Night.

Despite the terrible cover, Rick Nelson had a mini-revival in 1981 with this Jack Nitzsche produced rock album. Sounds like he means it too. Tragically he would die four years later in a plane crash. A phenomenal talent, gone far too soon. 

Highlights: Almost Saturday Night (yes, the John Fogerty song); Do The Best You Can (yes, the Ry Cooder song) - this one in particular suits his laid back vocal style.

Donovan in 1969 was trying to have another commercial breakthrough with Mickie Most again at the producer's desk. The title song - Barabajagal, with the Jeff Beck Group, is pop perfection and a real highlight. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the album is quite uneven, unlike his next album.

Briefly, like Bowie with Tin Machine, Donovan next tried to operate in a band setting - Open Road is the name of the band and the name of this record (my copy has no name on the cover as in the image next door - instead there are tiny, hard to find, names on the photos).

Unlike Tin Machine, I think Open Roads works brilliantly. It's a full band sound, very 1970 in its production - that's a good thing! Donovan sounds great (as normal) and the arrangements are thoughtful, inventive and lovely! 

Highlights: Song For John; Celtic Rock

Staying in the folk rock genre (although it could also be fairly judged as country rock at times) is the next one - Arlo Guthrie's second album (after Alice's Restaurant). Ever since that enthusiastic gush at Woodstock, I have a soft spot for Arlo and I now have more of his albums than I do Woody Guthrie ones!

This one has involvement from various Byrds, Ry Cooder and Van Dyke Parks (co-producing). As well as the instrumental Living In The Country, a Pete Seeger song, it has Coming In To Los Angeles - as clear highlights. 

Harpers Bizarre (no apostrophe) hold a strange hold over my imagination. They seem utterly unique to me - out of time almost.

Just look at that cover for a second. See what I mean. This was 1967. The summer of love. Sgt Pepper. LSD. Satanic Majesties Request. And these guys look and sound like they have stepped off a Disney soundstage, or out of a lecture at a fifties ivy league preppy college to pose for a yearbook photo.

That Van Dyke Parks is involved is no surprise, he plays piano on his California soft pop composition - Come To The Sunshine (along with Paul Simon's Feelin' Groovy, a true highlight), but I'm sure he was also listening closely to these arrangements by Leon Russell, Randy Newman, Perry Botkin.

The various artists Individual double set is basically a jazz fusion sampler from CBS. I figured $10, it was worth a punt.

It's damn fine! There is this Nu Yerk type salesman huckster type doing the introductions to the rikids and he's unintentionally hilarious.

It features big hitters like John McLaughlin, George Duke, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Richard Tee, Hubert laws and more. Love it!

Highlights: Tony Williams' Hip Skip.

My recollecting of XTC albums continues with a new copy of English Settlement being the latest addition.

This one was lost in my house move and it's taken me a while to realise it. 

I love this album - along with White Music it is my favourite XTC album. They had come a long way in only a few years and this more pastoral pop version of XTC was music to my ears. 

Too many highlights to list - each track is wonderfully fresh and inventive so it gets the five star rating from me.

Where do they all belong? *Only one double up from my trip - the John Lodge solo album (Natural Avenue). It cost $10 from Real Groovy - so not the end of the world. The one I have already has a better cover and is a UK pressing (as opposed to American so I'll keep that one and store the other). 

The Rick Nelson is a tricky one to locate - he could go in the rock'n'roll section but most of the albums I have are in the country rock genre (the Stone Canyon Band) so I've slotted this one in there.

X-ray style (Joe Strummer) (LP 2063 - 2065)

Joe Strummer Assembly (Vinyl, Dark Horse Records, 2020) ****  

Joe Strummer Live At Music Millennium (Vinyl, Dark Horse Records, 2022) ***  

Various Dark Horse Records The Best Of 1974 - 1977 (Vinyl, Dark Horse Records, 2022) ***  

Genre: Dark Horse Records 

Places I remember: Wax and Beans (Bury) for the live Strummer album and the various compilation of seventies Dark Horse acts, JB Hi-Fi for Assembly

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Coma Girl (Assembly)

Gear costume: Forbidden City (Assembly)

Active compensatory factors: I don't usually highlight compilations on this countdown but these two are on Dark Horse Records and I get to make and break my own rules on this blog!

The label was George Harrison's boutique label after he left Apple Records, and his son Dhani has relaunched it in the 2020s with these albums. Seems there are going to be more from now on. Cat Stevens' latest is on Dark Horse.

So, let's start in the seventies via Christmas 2022 when I visited Wax and Beans in Bury. 

The Best of 1974-77 is a taster of some of the albums released while the original Dark Horse Records was functioning. Ravi Shankar, Attitudes, Splinter, Henry McCullough, and Stairsteps all get two tracks each, while Keni Burke and Jiva get one each.

Throwing them all together on one album reveals the clear strengths and weaknesses. Ravi and Splinter hold their own (Costafine Town is a superb song) but the rest are pleasant but underwhelming efforts from class musicians (that doesn't mean they write memorable songs or can sing).

And so to the Strummer albums. I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the Assembly compilation, and how many of the songs I knew already. I like the Clash, don't love them, so I normally wouldn't have bought Joe's solo albums without the Dark Horse incentive. In this case, I'm glad Dhani decided to compile/release them and keep Strummer's name out there and available to collectors.

The live album is brief (side 1 repeats on side 2) and it's okay but nothing special.

Where do they all belong? It's an on-going concern so there are other albums to collect in this imprint.

Watching the wheels (John Lennon) (LP 2055 - 2062)

John Lennon and Yoko Ono  Double Fantasy (Vinyl and CD, Geffen Records (vinyl), Capitol Records (CD), 1980 (vinyl) 2000 (CD) ***  

John Lennon and Yoko Ono  Double Fantasy Stripped Down (CD, Capitol Records (CD), 2010) ***  

John Lennon and Yoko Ono  Milk And Honey (Vinyl and CD, Polygram Records (vinyl), EMI Records (CD), 1983 (vinyl) 2001 (CD) ****  

John Lennon and Yoko Ono  Heart Play - Unfinished Dialogue (Vinyl, Polygram Records, 1983) *  

John Lennon   Bedism (CD, Dressed To Kill, 1999 *    

John Lennon  In My Life (Triple CD, Dressed To Kill 1998) *  

John Lennon   Testimony (CD, Live Gold Productions 1990) *

John & Yoko Lennon   The Interview (Double cassette tape, BBC Productions, 1990) *   

Genre: Beatle pop/rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records for the vinyl, JB Hi-Fi for the CDs. Cassette tape from music shop in Cambridge.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Beautiful Boy

Gear costume: Grow Old With Me

Active compensatory factors: Early in December 1980 I was working at Marbecks Records in the Queen's Arcade in downtown Auckland, as I was on my varsity break. 

I'd just got home and the phone rang - I went to my parents' bedroom to answer the call - it was my friend Greg Knowles. He said John Lennon had been shot in New York and was dead. I sagged to the floor in shock.

I was numb for days. I observed Yoko's call for silence on a bus ride into Queen Street.

Of course I'd bought Double Fantasy on release day, nabbed a spare poster from work (it's still on my music room wall) and bought the Playboy with the interview in it from the Queen's Arcade magazine shop.

I watched as the album climbed the charts, I bought all the singles and I listened to the album throughout that Christmas period.

Full disclosure: I don't play these albums these days. Two reasons - it's profoundly painful hearing them and thinking about those events and what could have been (Grow Old With Me tears me up every time), and secondly - he and Yoko made better records that I prefer to remember him by.

That said, after listening to them again for this blog review, they've actually aged reasonably well - especially the Lennon songs. Yoko was going for state of the art 1980 production and that means they are anchored more in time. Lennon didn't appear to care so his songs aren't of a specific time. They are laid back and sparse.

Watching The Wheels captures what he needed to say brilliantly. Only Lennon could get away with that one.

I continued to collect the stuff Yoko released in the aftermath of John's murder, but that was hard too. Same reasons, plus it somehow didn't seem the same - a kind of morbid fascination didn't sit right and a whiff of that is still attached to Milk And Honey (although John was clearly back in prolific mode) and Heart Play.

John on Milk and Honey sounds looser than Double Fantasy, sounds a bit more casually happy. I suppose because he didn't have the luxury of time to finesse them more. Boogie babe!

Yoko's songs do have the time to sound more produced, but that also means they are more of their time again.

Before I get to the interview discs/tapes: Double Fantasy Stripped Down. It's actually a double CD package - the original album and the 'new' version. 

Overall I prefer the original version. The stripped down one feels more like high quality demo recordings. I guess it's what you're used to. I also prefer the Let It Be version that was released, even with the Spector embellishments, because that's what I heard for years.

Heart Play is an album of interviews done in 1980. The other CDs and cassette listed above are all interview albums. I've listened to them once - strictly for collectors 0nly. They are especially painful to listen to post murder.

Where do they all belong? My decision not to include compilations on this collection countdown means I won't include all of the various collections that have come out since 1983 as Yoko determines to keep John's memory alive.

Let me in (Jefferson Airplane) (LP 2044 - 2054)

Jefferson Airplane  Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1966) ****  

Jefferson Airplane    Surrealistic Pillow (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1967) *****  

Jefferson Airplane   After Bathing At Baxter's (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1967) ***  

Jefferson Airplane   Crown Of Creation (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1968) *****  

Jefferson Airplane   Volunteers (Vinyl and CD, RCA Records, 1969) *** 

Jefferson Airplane   Bless It's Pointed Little Head (Vinyl and CD, RCA Records, 1969) *****  

Jefferson Airplane   The Woodstock Experience (CD, RCA, August 17, 1969 released 2009) ****  

Jefferson Airplane   White Rabbit. Live. (CD, Master Tone, recorded sometime in the sixties) *  

Jefferson Airplane   Live At The Fillmore East (CD, RCA, May-June 1968 released 1998) ***  

Jefferson Airplane   At Golden Gate Park May 7 1969 (Vinyl, Charly, 2015) ***  

Jefferson Airplane   Almost Starshipshape (Vinyl, Bootleg) ****  

Genre: San Francisco rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records (for all the studio records); Toad Hall (for the bootleg); JB Hi Fi (Golden Gate); Real Groovy (for the CDs)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Let Me In (Takes Off)

Gear costume: It's No Secret (Takes Off); Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon (After Bathing At Baxter's)

Active compensatory factors: This band is one of my favs of all time; I long ago became a completist for their albums. 

This first part takes in their sixties' output. A bumper edition, in other words.

First album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, and the sound is right there!  

The album builds strongly on a folky base, there's the male and female interplay that Paul loved, the sinewy guitar lines from Jorma and there's Jack (he carries it, according to Marty).

The unique sound of the magic combination between Jorma, Jack, Marty and Paul (with Skip Spense on drums briefly and Signe Anderson providing the female foil in the harmonies) defines Jefferson Airplane.

It's a great start - most of the songs are brilliant and fully realized. Takes off is right!!

Second album, Surrealistic Pillow, sees the entrance of the force of nature that is Grace Slick, and new drummer Spencer Dryden.

The Jefferson Airplane folk rock sound from Takes Off is still there but with a different level of confidence, and there's a rockier edge now (3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds). Grace takes over the Signe role and is a presence but this is still Marty's band. Although less than half of the songs are his this time out.

Grace's sublime Somebody To Love finishes off the album, and although there was a bit of a wait, she's signaling her presence. Big time!

Side note: My copy is a UK one which repeats a couple of tracks from Takes Off and ignores White Rabbit and Plastic Fantastic Lover! Weird.

Third album, After Bathing At Baxter's, and we're not in Kansas anymore. Given it's their second album of 1967, it's quite some evolution.

Starting with some wild feedback, the album takes us all on a trip in the newly psychedelic Airplane. 

Even though it's clearly influenced by LSD, the songs are still there and it's much more democratic now - everybody gets in on the act. Overall though, it's dominated by Paul Kantner rather than Marty (who only contributes one song). Paul's Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon is pure class! Big shout out to Jack Cassidy on this album and those last two songs.

As for Grace on this album? Rejoyce gives a glimpse of her maniacal sensibilities. It's plain scary! And utterly brilliant!

In 1968 the band produced Crown of Creation and it feels like a quantum leap in terms of sound design and songs. Lather kicks off the album and is just extraordinary in so many ways. Grace in top form!

From there on it's one great song after another with highlights thick and fast: Grace's version of Crosby's Triad (wohsers!!); Jorma's Star Track is an early pointer to Hot Tuna; Crown Of Creation; Greasy Heart; and finally, the majestic album closer - The House at Pooneil Corners.

Volunteers, from late 1969, is the last studio album to feature Marty and Spencer, as the band went into a hiatus for two years.  It has its moments (We Can Be Together, Wooden Ships, Eskimo Blue Day) but it's more uneven than Crown Of Creation. Garcia's pedal steel, for instance, on countryish The Farm doesn't quite work for me. Nor does the honky tonk-ish A Song For All Seasons.

As an album it's quite a muddle of styles - at times too bombastic, at others the country influence sits alongside science fiction or calls to man the barricades. I guess it's of its time but it does point to a certain fracturing of intent.

Live albums from the sixties: 

JA were a great live band. Not only did they sound great but they looked like a sixties psychedelic rock band should look.

There was only one live album released at the time - 1969's Bless Its Pointed Little Head, but there have been a number of excellent live albums released since then. Here's a run down:

Bless Its Pointed Little Head has a great intro from King Kong - the bit about the airplanes, beauty and the beast, gets a roar. 

The sound is tough, no nonsense (like the cover featuring just Jack). 

Highlight - 3/5's Of A Mile In 10 Seconds. Jack's bass and Spencer's drive kick off the 1968 live version of JA superbly. Not only that, Grace soars, Marty has that wide open voice, the harmonies are spectacular and we're off!

N.b. The CD version has three extra tracks.

The Woodstock Experience will forever be imprinted on my brain! 

There's Grace in bare feet and her white dress with fringes, her chirpy  'Good morning people', Jack looking like he'd just alighted from a Viking longship, Jorma/Marty/ Paul in shirt sleeves and Spencer with his natty cowboy hat on drums. Yeah - the regular guys and Nicky Hopkins. What a band!

Highlights - The Other Side Of This Life (first song, it's morning and they tear into it like people possessed!! The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil (Jack and Spencer on fire stoked by Grace!) - it peaks and peaks and then Paul throws in some stuff from Starship. Unbelievably great!

White Rabbit. Live. This one's provenance is unclear as the package doesn't reveal much and online sources only say that it's from sometime in the sixties.

It looks budget with that terrible cover and title, and while the music is sometimes great (and mostly recorded well - doesn't sound like a radio broadcast), it isn't a cohesive concert - applause fades until the next song starts. It even includes a song called Ride that is clearly NOT Jefferson Airplane, and even though the band did do a version of Get Together on Takes Off, the version here sounds more like The Youngbloods. All very strange and shonky.

Highlight: She Has Funny Cars

Live at the Fillmore East contains a compilation of the best performances from four shows May 3 and 4 (early and late show). It's still a bit hit and miss (hit - Fat Angel and It's No Secret; miss - The Other Side Of This Life)

Highlight: Fat Angel

At Golden Gate Park May 7 1969 is a looser Airplane playing in a polo field. It's basically a bootleg, but a superior quality one. The band sound blissed out - Somebody To Love is  slowed down and woozy.

Highlight: Good Shepherd - Grace asks Jorma at the end if he wrote it or if it's a traditional arrangement. He confirms Trad. The sincerity of his playing inspires the band on this one. A beautiful moment - would have been a great moment in the park.

Finally, Almost Starshipshape and this one is a bootleg. It includes Have You Seen The Saucers? and Mexico on the track listing but nothing from Bark - and, according to Discogs comes from a concert at Winterland, 1970, so it's well named as it straddles the sixties JA and the emerging new version of JA.

The sound is pretty good for a bootleg. Clear and on the whole better than Golden Gate Park. Marty is still a presence but he'd split the scene fairly soon (April '71 in fact).

Highlights: One of my favourite Airplane songs - Have You Seen The Saucers?; Somebody To Love (a very spirited, together, performance).

Where do they all belong? A lot more JA to come. Next up: The seventies albums.

Supplementing the records there are a couple of other things worth mentioning: Richard Butterworth's effort in the On Track... series looks at every album, every song by Jefferson Airplane. It's an invaluable source of information. I got this from Foyles in Charing Cross.

A visual delight that I have in the DVD collection is Fly Jefferson Airplane - a collection of complete performances from various sources. It's wonderful seeing the band in all their colourful glory!

Can't let go (Lucinda Williams) (LP 2043)

Lucinda Williams  Car Wheels On A Gravel Road   (CD, Mercury Records, 1998) ****  

Genre: Country

Places I remember: Gift from Shona Walding's collection

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Right In Time

Gear costume: Jackson

Active compensatory factors: Lucinda Williams is a real one off - even in the over crowded female country genre. I think her authenticity has a lot to do with that. When she sings/writes you believe her, unlike a lot of Nashville colour-by-numbers country singer songwriters.

That first song sets down the marker and she doesn't let up the down home intensity throughout the album.

Where do they all belong? A highlight of the country section - my only Lucinda Williams album though. I wouldn't own it if not for Terese handing me a few boxes of CDs that her sister owned. This one's a gem. Thanks TW.

Stop messin' around (Gary Moore) (LP 2042)

Gary Moore   Still Got The Blues  (CD, Virgin Records, 1990) ***

Genre: Blues rock

Places I remember: From Shona Walding's collection

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Midnight Blues

Gear costume: That Kind Of Woman (George Harrison guests on slide and rhythm guitar and backing vocals) 

Active compensatory factors: Gary Moore is more widely known for his links to hard rock (Thin Lizzy, Skid Row) but he came out with this more bluesy album in 1990 and was immediately successful.

I prefer the blues of Midnight Blues and Still Got The Blues to the more rock guitar on other tracks (I must be getting old) but this album sums up all of his guitar gifts well. He was pretty versatile.

I included That Kind Of Woman as a highlight but I'm struggling to actually hear George on it.

Where do they all belong? Slots right into the blues rock guitar pantheon. 

We'll cross the river together (Brad Mehldau) (LP 2040 - 2041)

Brad Mehldau  Places (CD, Warner Brothers Records, 2000) **** 

Brad Mehldau  Highway Rider (CD, Nonesuch Records, 2010) ***  

Genre: Jazz piano 

Places I remember: Virgin Mega (Dubai)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Los Angeles (Places)

Gear costume: Capriccio (Highway Rider)

Active compensatory factors: Two different looks at Brad's abilities via these two albums, actually, three - as Places includes some solo piano as well as trio work.

I prefer the trio material with Larry Grenadier on bass, and Jorge Rossy - drums. Places has a nice thematic conceit - Brad was writing on the road while touring and names songs after the place they were largely written.

Highway Driver is a more expansive double set, the trio (Jeff Ballard takes over on drums) is augmented by guests - Joshua Redman (tenor sax) and Matt Chamberlain on drums. 

That would be fine, except an orchestra is also employed at times throughout. I am less crazy about that addition personally but it does provide a different sound and look.

Where do they all belong? I haven't felt the need to add to the Mehldau collection. His latest (Your Mother Should Know) is an album of Beatle covers that he plays solo. Interesting, but it didn't float my boat or drive my car!

Recurring dream (Space Case) (LP 2037 - 2039)

Space Case  Executive Decision (CD, Alma Jazz, 1981) *****

Space Case  Space Case Two (CD, Alma Jazz, 1983) ****  

Space Case  Space Case Three (CD, Alma Jazz, 1985) ****   

Genre: Jazz fusion

Places I remember: sale bin  at JB Hi-Fi (Palmerston North)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: For The Love Of You (Executive Decision)

Gear costume: Knight (Executive Decision) - sounds like it could easily soundtrack an American eighties cop movie. That's a good thing btw.

Active compensatory factors: Widely regarded as New Zealand's best jazz rock fusion band, the band is made up of some heavy weights of NZ music:

Space Case: Murray McNabb (keyboards); Brian Smith (various saxes); Bruce Lynch (bass); and tying everything together magnificently - Frank Gibson Jnr (drums).

The vast majority of material on these three albums came from within the band - with each person composing at various points.

The music is wonderful throughout. Tight when required, but space is given to each instrument in the mix as well.

Executive Decision (a.k.a. Space Case One) is the pick of the bunch: it's made up of McNabb and Smith compositions, so Smith's wonderfully expressive tenor and soprano sax and McNabb's understated keyboards are prominent. Brilliant arrangements too.

Two and Three are also superb, but I have deducted a star for each as the drum solo tracks don't do much for me on repeat listening.

Where do they all belong? In the jazz fusion section where they stand out!

Wheel of fortune (Badger) (LP 2036)

Badger  One Live Badger (CD, Cherry Red Records, 1974, reissue 2016) ****  

Genre: Prog rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Wheel Of Fortune

Gear costume: On The Way Home

Active compensatory factors: A lot of links to Yes with this one: Fresh from a stint in Yes, Tony Kaye features in Badger on keyboards, Jon Anderson produces, Brian Lane manages both bands, and Roger Dean supplies the amazing cover.

Plus this is a live recording, done while supporting Yes. 

The music is great and right up my alley with terrific noodling as they stretch out via some blues rock/prog rock lines.

Kaye stars, but the whole band is on awesome form. Apart from the inter song applause I would swear that this was a studio album. The songs are well crafted and expertly played.

Where do they all belong? A bit of a one off. The Badger line up changed after this debut and moved away from prog rock, so this album is even more of a stand out.