Style Council 1: My Ever Changing Moods

Anyone who’d listened to the final recordings of the Jam would have noticed that Paul Weller was turning sharply away from the guitar, as well as their punk roots. Once he broke up that band he decided to pursue those passions further, and inaugurated a collective dubbed the Style Council. From here on his main collaborator would be keyboard whiz Mick Talbot, who’d also spent time in mod revival bands (he’d also played piano on the cover of “Heatwave” that closed Setting Sons). Together they would craft very un-mod music, leaning heavily on soul and jazz, using real drums but other synthesized instruments, adding guest players more often than not. Weller even played bass from time to time. Their image was very “European”, flirting with the New Romantic movement both in music and, in Weller’s case, questionable hair styles. Politics often reigned the message in between the beats—just as in The Jam—but for the most part, it was all about getting lost in making music.

Tracks from their first three UK singles (and 12-inches) were selected for the Introducing The Style Council EP, and make for a slightly schizophrenic listen, particularly if you hadn’t heard each single in real time. Each side begins with a nearly seven-minute mix of the brooding “Long Hot Summer”, neither exactly made for dancing. “Headstart For Happiness” is a snappy strum, stripped down to not much more than a demo for guitar and organ. “Speak Like A Child” was their breezy, horn-laden first single, with vocals from protégé Tracie Young, who Jam fans knew from “Beat Surrender”. “The Paris Match” is a truly hidden gem, a soulful reverie for piano and a nice backing, complete with a coda sung in French, while “Mick’s Up” is an instrumental showcase for the other guy over party noises. A lengthy club mix of “Money-Go-Round” updates “Precious” with an anti-Thatcher rant, while liner notes by the mysterious and shortly ubiquitous “Cappuccino Kid” attempted to provide context, or not.

When the full-length Café Bleu album was released in the UK, it further confounded expectations, with side one nearly full of instrumentals and Weller’s voice only heard on two of seven tracks, and somebody else rapping to start side two. Per tradition, the version released in the US as My Ever Changing Moods—on Geffen, of all labels—sported a rejigged lineup with substitutions that tried to balance things but was still just as odd. (It also lacked the color booklet of photos, lyrics, and notes.)

The catchy eponymous hit single starts the album, instead of the lovely vocal-and-piano alternate from later on side one of the UK LP. “The Whole Point Of No Return” is just Weller singing softly over a picked electric guitar, and “Blue Café” is another slow jazz piece for guitar with strings, which sets up a cocktail jazz version of “Paris Match”, sung here by Tracey Thorn of Everything But The Girl. Its suggestive title aside, “Dropping Bombs On The Whitehouse” is simply a bebop excursion with a horn section. They added “A Solid Bond In Your Heart”, another catchy single, to finish the side; a musical cousin of “Beat Surrender”, it came this close to being that band’s last release.

They also moved up the blue-eyed soul of the romantic “You’re The Best Thing”, which was good, because nobody was ready for the rap experiment in “A Gospel”, much less nearly five minutes of it, nor the funk jam of “Strength Of Your Nature”. But the jaunty violin sawing throughout “Here’s One That Got Away” provides something of a break from the overt soul. Dee C. Lee, most recently in Wham!, takes the other vocal on a full band version of “Headstart For Happiness”, and we’ll be hearing a lot more from her. The piano solo “Mick’s Blessings” closes the proceedings, instead of opening them as it did on the UK LP. (Two of its other instrumentals—“Me Ship Came In!” and “Council Meetin’”—were added to the US cassette, one at the end of each side.)

The handful of Americans who still cared about the Jam—even those who came in via such videos as “Town Called Malice” and “Absolute Beginners”—were mostly confused by this new band. Now there was a video depicting the Council men riding bicycles, and they mostly ignored My Ever Changing Moods, which simply doesn’t succeed where the UK version did, however slightly. (The chummy images in the “Long Hot Summer” clip wouldn’t have passed muster in Reagan’s America either.)

Over forty years later, these first releases by the band were gathered and greatly enhanced in a deluxe edition of Café Bleu. The first disc was devoted to an expansion of Introducing, including every single and B-side that predated the album, which is on the second disc. A third disc was devoted to further singles and mixes, a fourth to unreleased tracks ranging from interesting to tedious, and two more to BBC sessions and concerts. Just the first two discs alone, being chronological, better show Weller’s progression from one band to the next. He was, after all, still a kid who wanted to make music with a guy with serious keyboard chops, and found one in Mick Talbot.

The Style Council Introducing The Style Council (1983)—3
The Style Council My Ever Changing Moods (1984)—2½
2026 Café Bleu Special Edition: same as 1984, plus 79 extra tracks

Roger McGuinn 4: Cardiff Rose

It’s safe to say that Roger McGuinn was lost at sea for much of the ‘70s. The Byrds had dribbled to a stop, and his solo career wasn’t exactly a brilliant new chapter. But he definitely lucked out when he got to join Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, given solo spots at every show and hobnobbing with like-minded musicians. Not only did they join him in recording Cardiff Rose, but Mick Ronson produced it, and most of the non-covers were co-writes with Jacques Levy, still riding high on his own Dylan connection but whom McGuinn had found first.

The spirit of the Revue pervades on “Take Me Away”, teeming with the wonder and joy of being part of the traveling troupe. As might be expected, “Jolly Roger” is a sea chantey about pirates, with sound effects to match, well matched to his strummed 12-string. Dripping with contempt for the career he’s chosen, the snotty “Rock And Roll Time” is a surprising collaboration with Bob Neuwirth and Kris Kristofferson, though the repetition of “take me away” makes an odd juxtaposition with the opening track, and we’re not so sure that was intentional. The simple acoustic strum of “Friend”, its sadness underscored by a lonesome violin, provides a striking contrast, and evokes sympathy where the next song fails. “Partners In Crime” is a shout-out to Abbie Hoffman—then on the run from the law—and the rest of the Chicago Seven, starting with something of a calypso doo-wop rhythm that changes for the chorus, then goes back to a ‘50s parody, then back to doo-wop. Apparently Levy didn’t learn his lesson with “Joey”.

Roger never found an obscure Dylan song he didn’t like, and here he gave the world its first exposure to “Up To Me”, the masterpiece left off of Blood On The Tracks due to its similarity to “Shelter From The Storm”. While it always seemed like one of his most personal songs, McGuinn makes it his own. “Round Table” retells the myth of King Arthur without leaning on medieval instrumentation, but the venerable murder ballad “Pretty Polly”, which he’d been trying to record since Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, is played straight folk with prominent banjo. He ends with another preview of a song by another Rolling Thunder alumnus, in this case Joni Mitchell’s “Dreamland”, giving it more fuzz than she ever would.

Not everything on Cardiff Rose has aged well, but at least he seemed more comfortable with his surroundings, though his growing caricature of a voice makes him sound older than he actually was. Perhaps because it was so much better than what had come before, it stayed a favorite among fans for years. (The eventual Sundazed expanded CD offered two bonuses: a defiant-sounding live take of “Dreamland”, and a baffling cover of Bowie’s “Soul Love”.)

Roger McGuinn Cardiff Rose (1976)—3
2004 Sundazed reissue: same as 1976, plus 2 extra tracks

Aerosmith 3: Toys In The Attic

The third time was and is a charm for a lot of bands, and on Toys In The Attic, Aerosmith had definitely figured it out. They had the tunes, they had the chops, and they had a producer who got them, all of which backed up their attitude.

The title track predicts speed metal, and even though there’s only one verse, one pre-chorus, and one chorus, each repeated twice and split up with a one-chord jam that serves as a middle eight, that’s all it needs. “Uncle Salty” is an early piece of social commentary, fifteen years before another song about Janie and a gun, that gets more heartbreaking with every listen. “Adam’s Apple” brings back the strut, giving Tyler’s wordplay plenty to lie on; we can probably credit him for coining the phrase “love at first bite”. But that’s nothing on “Walk This Way”, a motormouth showcase with an unstoppable riff and funky backbeat. In case you didn’t get the humor, “Big Ten Inch Record” shows their jump blues roots as well as their fascination with the Dr. Demento radio show. Even the horn section doesn’t get in the way.

It’s always good to start side two with a hook, and “Sweet Emotion” does just that with its extended intro that turns into a full-fledged riff and two-word chorus. The lyrics are as packed as anything on the album but a little obscure, while “No More No More” delivers more of it, already showing weariness at Life On The Road. It’s got an excellent build before the final chorus, and goes out on another glorious solo, and we’re not sure whose. If there’s a clunker on the album, that would be “Round And Round”, five minutes of sludge credited to Tyler and Whitford only redeemed but the one melodic deviation from the bludgeoning. All is forgiven for “You See Me Crying”, an orchestrated power ballad that comes just this close to being sappy but isn’t.

With two bona fide classics and enough deep cuts to justify the purchase, Toys In The Attic still delivers everything an Aerosmith fan could want. Even if you know the hits, they’re even better in context.

Aerosmith Toys In The Attic (1975)—4

Jayhawks 10: Mockingbird Time

Apparently Mark Olson and Gary Louris found recording and touring together again to be so easy that they reconvened what some would call the classic lineup of the Jayhawks for a new album. Maybe Olson needed the money, and Louris’ sole credit for the production raises an eyebrow, but if the credits are to be believed, Mockingbird Time was a pure collaboration.

Right away on “Hide Your Colors” it seems they’re trying to recapture the genre blending that made Tomorrow The Green Grass so good. The harmonies go unexpected places, and the strings are present but not overpowering. Once Olson’s voice cuts through the mix on “Closer To Your Side”, it feels like home. “Tiny Arrows” is one of several tracks here that has a gothic undercurrent, but this one is nicely smoothed over by the mildly Byrdsy “She Walks In So Many Ways”, which is really a rewrite of Manfred Mann’s “Pretty Flamingo”. “High Water Blues” has some more striking imagery, but surprisingly goes into an extended dueling acoustic solo that would sound a lot better on stage than in the middle of an album focusing on songwriting. The title track meanders through several melancholy sections, but again, runs too long to keep interest.

“Stand Out In The Rain” is more like the old sound, with the same riff as “Wichita” from Hollywood Town Hall, but it goes to another place for the solo. In the same vein, “Cinnamon Love” is another one that mixes riffing with major-seventh chords and unique imagery, and a tendency to repeat a phrase for some kind of emphasis. “Guilder Annie”, whoever she is, has a mild jangle in a waltz tempo for a nice change of sound. It’s followed by another ode to a woman of mystery, in this case “Black Eyed Susan”, which was one of the fabled “mystery demos” from two decades before. “Pouring Rain At Dawn” is a welcome piece of picking after all the mythology that’s come before, and “Hey Mr. Man” takes us out on a rocker.

Throughout Mockingbird Time we hear their inimitable harmonies, Karen Grotberg’s wonderful piano (and voice), and that terrific rhythm section. They didn’t exactly pick up where they left off, and the reunion wouldn’t last, but it’s still a worthy chapter in the saga. Better to have it than not.

The Jayhawks Mockingbird Time (2011)—3

Jane’s Addiction 4: Kettle Whistle

Despite fragmenting in 1991, Jane’s Addiction never really went away. Perry Farrell and Stephen Perkins formed Porno For Pyros, while Dave Navarro and Eric Avery emerged in Deconstruction, which didn’t sell as well, plus Eric didn’t want to tour. Navarro ended up in Red Hot Chili Peppers for a well-publicized couple of years, which is one reason why that band’s Flea came on board to play bass when Jane’s reunited for the cleverly dubbed Relapse tour. The occasion was promoted by something of a rarities collection: Kettle Whistle served up a CD full of demos, outtakes, live versions, and some new music, somewhat haphazardly sequenced.

The opening title track was apparently a tune that had been around for years, but not properly recorded until now. It’s more on the spacey side than most of their catalog, sounding more like Peter Gabriel than Led Zeppelin. But it’s also more musical than the noisy “So What!”, which has an obnoxious vocal over a fairly standard funk pattern, and they let Flea play trumpet again. “My Cat’s Name Is Maceo” is a fairly literal lyric over a simple riff, and somehow they got Maceo Parker himself to toot along for part of it, either in 1987 or 1997, we’re not sure which. The moody strum of “Slow Divers” is described as an outtake from their self-titled live album, with some posthumous additions, and would have been a very odd if not unwelcome departure had it appeared back then. “City” is nothing more than a Perry-and-Navarro tune recorded for the soundtrack of their Soul Kiss video.

The alternate versions of familiar tunes aren’t very illuminating, and only prove that they’d yet to figure out how to harness the power the final masters would deliver. Yet the live versions are excellent, and we’re still amazed how they could make something as basic as “Jane Says” stay interesting for six minutes. Four (out-of-sequence) songs from the Hollywood Palladium show how tight they were, though we could do without Perry’s “monologue” before “Three Days”.

Even if Kettle Whistle wasn’t stellar, the kids who had the other three albums were happy to have something else to put into the rotation, and they weren’t buying Porno For Pyros. For them alone, it did the trick.

Jane’s Addiction Kettle Whistle (1997)—3

Jimi Hendrix 15: Stages

Each of Jimi Hendrix’s live appearances was unique, providing different and evolving interpretations of his songs, giving both the casual collector and diehard chronicler a lot to explore. In fact, there are so many officially available CDs of individual concerts that we hesitate to dive in here, but dive we must.

A year after the Lifelines box tested the waters (and fans’ patience), Stages presented four concerts, one each from 1967 through 1970, on four CDs. All but the last featured the original Experience; Billy Cox had replaced Noel Redding on the rhythm section next to Mitch Mitchell in the final year. But even with “Purple Haze” and “Fire” showing up at all four shows, they’re not the same at all.

The first show is also the shortest, coming from a Swedish radio broadcast in front of a polite audience. After a warmup of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, they plow through the familiar songs and singles from the first album, as well as the new single “Burning Of The Midnight Lamp”. (For some reason the songs appear out of order, even though everything played is included.) “I Don’t Live Today” had only just started being played live, and they have fun with it. Jimi sounds tired, but that could be due to a larger concert played the night before. Because Stages went out of print along with Lifelines after only a few years, this show was mostly lost officially, and had to wait three decades until 2025’s Bold As Love set brought it back in context.

Less than five months later, the band was in Paris, and Jimi was tired of playing just the hits. Just like he did at Monterey, he opens with a slightly extended “Killin’ Floor”, but follows it with nine minutes of exploration through “Catfish Blues”, leaving room for a Mitch drum solo. He does treat the crowd to “Foxey Lady”, with Noel happily adding the breathy “foxey” accents, and he gets to play guitar on “Red House”. After nine minutes of “Driving South”, it’s back to the more familiar “Wind Cries Mary”, “Fire”, a reverent if off-pitch “Little Wing”, and a six-minute “Purple Haze”. Throughout, he sounds playful, and his fretwork soars. (This show was reissued on the estate’s “official bootleg” label, bolstered by three songs from another show two months and a continent away, on Live in Paris & Ottawa 1968 in 2008.)

An already-plundered San Diego show made up the third disc. “Red House” had already appeared on Hendrix In The West—four more songs were included on the 2011 upgrade—and “I Don’t Live Today” had also been farmed out to The Jimi Hendrix Concerts and other compilations over the years. As it was only a month after the Los Angeles show that had appeared in Lifelines and was eventually released on its own, that’s the only discernable reason why this hasn’t had a separate rerelease. (Yet.) That’s too bad, because it’s an excellent show that deserves to be heard in full, and in order. Highlights include an 11-minute “Spanish Castle Magic” with a detour into “Sunshine Of Your Love”, the aforementioned “Red House” and “I Don’t Live Today”, and ten minutes of “Voodoo Child”. Even the opening “Intro Riffs” over a rowdy crowd have charm.

A lot of changes happened in the year between Noel quitting and the band’s appearance at the Atlanta Pop Festival the following Fourth of July, which is excerpted out of order on the fourth disc. Some of this had already appeared on 1986’s Johnny B. Goode “mini-LP” shuffled with performances from the oft-plundered Berkeley concert, both sources of which were also used to fill out the inaccurately titled Band Of Gypsys 2 a few months later. The 2015 release of Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival presented the entire concert (save the final aborted song) as performed, necessitating two CDs, and that’s the way to hear it.

Rather than ease into the set, they bash through “Fire” right away, Mitch playing especially busily and Billy keeping up as best he can through questionable meters. They keep the pace going with “Lover Man”, which sports a quote from “Flight Of The Bumblebee” in the solo. Overall the show is kinda wobbly, possibly because of the scorching summer weather, but he’s enough of a professional to work with it; “Red House” slows things down enough to get everybody back in sync, as does a lengthy “Hear My Train A Comin’” a couple songs later. Being the 4th of July, he hints at “Star-Spangled Banner” before “Purple Haze”, then delivers a full rendition during the encore. He does play some of the hits, but the most interesting thing about this show in context is the new material, which had yet to be released in studio form: “Room Full Of Mirrors”, “Freedom”, and “Straight Ahead”. It might not have been his best show, but 1970 was fairly well documented with live recordings, and others will be assessed in context.

Jimi Hendrix Stages (1991)—3
Current availability: none
Jimi Hendrix Experience Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival (2015)—3

Yes 12: Drama

While Yes and their fans should have been accustomed to personnel changes by now, in a rather shocking development, not only did Rick Wakeman leave the band, but Jon Anderson did too. Wakeman had bolted before, of course, but this was the first time Yes wouldn’t have their iconic lead singer. (Don’t worry about Jon; he put out two albums on his own, and three in collaboration with synth wizard Vangelis, all over the next three years, none of which will be explored in this forum.)

Even more baffling, especially in hindsight, is that the remaining trio—of which Chris Squire was the last founding member—joined forces with the two main members of the Buggles, who’d made quite the splash with “Video Killed The Radio Star” even before MTV happened. Since Trevor Horn could sing and Geoff Downes played keyboards, they slotted into the vacancies. The aptly titled Drama was the result.

The music glides in like the creature on the interstellar landscape on the cover, then a proto-King Crimson crunch riff plows us into “Machine Messiah”, with a few modern synth swoops. While Horn’s voice with Squire’s always underrated harmonic counterpoint sports enough of the established Yes brand, and there’s a bit of acoustic guitar, the pastoral fairy tales of old are nowhere to be found. After ten minutes of that, “White Car” is an odd little interlude that showcases the two Buggles and naught else. Then Chris hits his bass and Steve Howe slashes power chords for the arena-friendly “Does It Really Happen?” There’s a lot of Hammond organ that reflects Fragile while veering into Kansas territory. Again, Squire’s vocals remind you what band this is.

As with the first side, another attempted epic kicks off the second. “Into The Lens” was developed from a Buggles idea, and it shows, from the new wave touches to Horn’s solo vocal, and frankly, the robotic chorus (“I am a camera/Camera camera”) invites ridicule. (Once the Buggles reverted to just being Buggles instead of Yes men, the song would be re-reworked into the first single from their next album, retitled, naturally, “I Am A Camera”.) “Run To The Light” has Horn sounding somewhere between Jon Anderson and Sting vocally, and while Alan White handles the stop and start rhythms fairly well, it’s a little plodding. The Kansas swirls return for “Tempus Fugit”, and except for the overuse of the Vocoder, the tune rocks. Everyone is engaged, Chris is back in the vocal mix, and they can even get away with ending each verse with the word “yes”.

Despite everything going against it, Drama really isn’t a bad album, particularly because it sounds like Yes as they’d evolved after a decade. Roger Dean even contributed the artwork, though we couldn’t possibly explain what’s with the “hands up” poses in the gatefold. But this lineup couldn’t last, and the group soon splintered yet again. With the aural equivalent of hindsight, the album is a throughline to the next project involving Howe and Downes. (The eventual expanded CD included two single edits, two unfinished tracks without vocals, two “tracking versions”, and four refugees from the first sessions with Jon and Rick still on board, all of which pale compared to what ended up on the album.)

Yes Drama (1980)—3
2004 remastered CD: same as 1980, plus 10 extra tracks