Intel and dreams (Nada Surf) (LP 3408 - 3411)

John Lennon  Telecasts (Vinyl, Bootleg, no date) *** 

Nada Surf  Moon Mirror (Vinyl, New West Records, 2024) ****  

Mike Nesmith  Mike Nesmith Presents The Wichita Train Whistle Sings (Vinyl, Dot Records, 1968) * 

Mike Nesmith and his Second National Band  Tantamount To Treason Volume One (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1972) ****

Genre: Pop/ rock 

Places I remember: Amoeba Music, Music store in San Luis Obispo, Wax Trax Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: In Front Of Me Now (Nada Surf)

Gear costume: Wax Minute (Mike Nesmith) 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: The last installment of my American haul (the P to Z albums will come up in the countdown in due course).

I owned a copy of the Lennon bootleg Telecasts but lost it in a house move. It's a compilation of material from John's TV appearances. Given its bootleg status, the sound quality is variable, but mostly very good. 

The Mike Douglas Show material with Chuck Berry is not well performed but the rest is interesting (even if the Dick Cavett Show stuff is sped up a bit). Regardless of all that, it's good to have a copy back in the Lennon collection.

I listened to Nada Surf's Moon Mirror (their latest album) when I re-listened to their albums for my entry on them a while back (here if you want to catch up). I was immediately impressed and put it on my list. 

I was thrilled to find a cheap new copy in a store in San Luis Obispo (I forget its name - most of the stores I went into there had a huge number of CDs and only a few bins of secondhand albums - which is weirdly where I found this brand new copy).

It's an excellent example of their melodic power pop approach.

I managed to find both of the Nez albums going cheap in Wax Trax Records in Denver. Cheap is $US14.00 for the two. Unbelievable!

Wichita Train Whistle Sings is his first solo album, made while he was still a Monkee. It has interesting, instrumental versions of Monkee's songs, but is still strictly for completists/ obsessives.

Tantamount To Treason Volume 1 (there was never a volume 2) was his fifth solo album. It sets out a different sound - more psychedelic crooner than country hick (of the previous 3 before this one), and points toward his future releases. As a transitional record, it has feet in both the past and future.

Where do they all belong? Back to the regular countdown for the next post - a couple of Yoko Ono posts upcoming.