The epic (Pat Metheny) (LP 417)

Pat Metheny Group American Garage (Vinyl, ECM, 1979) ****

Genre: Cool Jazz 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records. If by now you are thinking - sheesh - he bought a lot of records from Marbecks Records in the seventies and eighties! Well yes - I did, but you also need to remember that I worked there in my University holiday breaks during that time, and I often took my pay in records. I had a stash that I would build up each week and take home when I got 'paid'!

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Airstream




Gear costume:  American Garage  

Active compensatory factors: Metheny is a hotshot jazz guitarist who was recording for the cool ECM label - anything on ECM has a cool cachet, and I was working in the best music store in New Zealand. 

Nothing sums up those late seventies, early eighties times like this album; that guitar sound is pristine.


Where do they all belong? ECM albums have their own niche in the collection - experimental, great sounding, innovative.

Chicken suckin', mother truckin', Meat City (John Lennon) #216 - 221

John Lennon Mind Games/ Meat City (Apple, 2C008 05494, 1973 - France)

John Lennon Mind Games/ Meat City (Apple, NZP 3463, 1973 - NZ)
John Lennon No. 9 Dream/ What You Got (Apple, 2C004 05776, 1974 - France)
John Lennon *9 Dream/ What You Got (Apple, NZP 3495, 1974 - NZ)
John Lennon Whatever Gets You Thru The Night/ Beef Jerky (Apple, 2C004 05731, 1974 - France) 
John Lennon Whatever Gets You Thru' The Night/ Beef Jerky (Apple, NZP 3486, 1974 - NZ)

By 1973 I was firmly into my John Lennon obsession and haunting Marbeck's Records in the Queen's Arcade (Auckland) for solo Beatles and Apple Records singles. 

I played the Mind Games album and single endlessly in 1973.

The other two A sides are from Walls And Bridges - a rather spotty album that reflects the turmoil of the Lennons' relationship. Whatever...is a formulaic hit song that I'm not that keen on, whereas No. 9 Dream is a well crafted, polished song - not really single material though I wouldn't have thought.



Hidden gems: No Yoko B sides this time out. Instead we have Meat City - a wonderful rock song which is slightly different to the album version (in the backwards bit John says 'buy the album').

Beef Jerky is an instrumental jam dressed up as a song. Not sure what the point was - Lennon's appeal is always in the singing of his lyrics, so take that away and you're left with a ho hum B side.

Grab your mates and head for the beach (The Dressing Gowns) #104

Dressing Gowns Surfing At Piha/ Eatin Bananas In The Bahamas (CBS, BA 461 977, 1981)

Okay, this one is REALLY odd.

I bought this while working at Marbecks because it was a laugh and Roger and I loved it!

He was (still is) a surfer dude, I was (still am) not!

The CBS rep loved this so he pushed it which is how Rog and I heard it. I think we both liked the simplicity and the amateur, almost punkish/low-fi style which was pretty refreshing in 1981.

I have no idea who The Dressing Gowns were (or are now), and this is one time Google has not been able to help. I did find a link to someone selling a copy on Trade me - $2.50 + postage. So not a rare goldmine item either then!

Any edge the song had in 1981 has pretty much gone after over thirty years but it's still a nifty little ditty.

Hidden gem: The B side is a slower attempt at a novelty song and doesn't work.

Soft drivin', slow and mad, like some new language (The Doors)

A.R.T. is coming along well. Painting is all finished and the furniture is arranged; sound systems all connected and Beatle decorations nearly complete.

Pretty cool huh. Just need some carpet and the gear to arrive from the sandpit (cross trainer, TV, DVD player, CDs, books, DVDs) and it will be complete.

Freshest vinyl to get an outing: Guess Who's American Woman (from the Canadian Pop/Rock section).

This is a great album that I picked up from Marbeck's Records when working there in the early 1980s. Roger had begun getting a lot of imports from America (especially RCA stuff) and they were all put underneath the Queen's Arcade Classics store. Yes underneath!! It was a big area but with really low head room so you had to bend over and kind of crawl around the record racks to sort them out and bring fresh stock up to the store. I loved going down there and fossocking around.

The American Woman album is a classic. The first (and last) track is the awesome title song but it also has No Time, Talisman and No Sugar Tonight on the first side!!!

Side two has less well known material but this was obviously a period of great quality for the band and I love the variety of the songs over the second side: the bluesy instrumental 969 (The Oldest Man) that comes complete with a flute solo, the light as air pop of When Friends Fall Out, the Who like 8.15 (was Pete listening?), proto Led Zep stomp of Proper Stranger, the heavy blues wig out that is Humpty's Blues and then the return of the title song.

My favourite song on the set is No Time.