Jimi Hendrix 30: Electric Lady Studios

Along with trying to complete a fourth studio album, Jimi Hendrix was consumed with designing and opening a recording studio to his specifications, beck, and call. Once Electric Lady Studios opened in the early summer of 1970, he got to recording with Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell in between live gigs. Designed to accompany the documentary of the same name, Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision presents three discs’ worth of alternate takes and mixes from the last four months or so of his life, in somewhat chronological recording order, with some shuffling here and there to prevent redundancy, which happens anyway.

Some of this had been out before in alternate mixes, or overdubbed after his death. On a lot of the earliest tracks here, it’s just Jimi, Billy, and Mitch working through the arrangements, live to tape, so we get to hear the bare bones of the songs before they were layered with vocals and other embellishments. The first albeit instrumental take of “Belly Button Window” is interesting as it includes bass and drums. There’s a brief stab at “Further On Up The Road”, followed by a seamless 26-minute exploration of “Astro Man”, “Beginnings”, “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)”, “Midnight Lightning”, and “Freedom”; the rhythm section stays with him at every turn. A full band take of “Midnight Lightning” eventually goes into “Beginnings”, a galloping “Bolero” opens the familiar take of “Hey Baby”, and we can trace the development of “In From The Storm” from two early takes titled “Tune X/Just Came In”. One wonders what might have become of “Valleys Of Neptune” had he had the chance to develop it further, and he sure seemed fond of “Drifter’s Escape”. “Heaven Has No Sorrow” is just a demo with bass, and somehow there were 17 takes of something called “Messing Around” (only the last is included). A few posthumous mixes end the set; “Drifting” and “Room Full Of Mirrors” are okay, but “Angel” is way too awash in phasing and other obtrusive effects.

Focusing as it does on a distinct period, Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision is still less disjointed than the previous three collections of outtakes. But because of its breadth, this is designed for Hendrix scholars, particularly those still not convinced that either The Cry Of Love or First Rays Of The New Rising Sun present anything approximating his final vision. (A 5.1 mix of the latter album, with previously released takes of “Pali Gap”, “Lover Man”, and “Valleys Of Neptune” as bonus tracks inserted into an alternate sequence, is included along with the documentary on a Blu-ray packaged with the box.) Clearly he was teeming with ideas, and it’s always going to be a shame that he didn’t get to see them through himself.

Jimi Hendrix Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision (2024)—3

Neil Finn 8: Lightsleeper

Liam Finn had been appearing on father Neil’s albums since the start of the 21st century, but Lightsleeper was their first officially billed collaboration. All but two tracks are co-written by the pair, who also layer vocals and instruments all over the place for a lush, sonic smorgasbord.

A techno dreamscape explodes into a lush chorale on “Prelude–Island Of Peace”, which then flows into the dreamy “Meet Me In The Air”. “Where’s My Room” goes a lot of places, from Revolution-era Prince funk to Philly soul strings over seven minutes, with several drums competing throughout with a programmed beat. Liam’s “Anger Plays A Part” is more straightforward but sounding very much like his dad, and Neil’s “Listen” is very much in the introspective mood of his solo albums. Despite its spacey atmosphere, “Any Other Way” exudes hope from a low point.

“Back To Life” is another expression of devotion, even after taking a detour through a Greek café. “Hiding Place” is very lush and dreamy, but little quirks in the background threaten to make any dreams less sweet, particularly after the halfway mark when competing voices add to the confusion. In a smart case of sequencing, “Ghosts” seems to be a reaction to those unsettling dreams. “We Know What It Means” is a celebration of family, remembering the early days of kids on the tour bus, and now extended to another generation, though we could do without the CB radio effects. “Hold Her Close” is very much like a lullaby, to ease nodding heads and send us gently away.

While the sounds may not keep Lightsleeper in the background, it’s very much worth revisiting. It’s very much a Finn family production, as Sharon and Elroy show up, as well as brother Tim’s daughters. But one of the more surprising contributors is Mick Fleetwood, which is timely, as shortly after the album’s release, Neil (along with Mike Campbell, suddenly with free time following the death of Tom Petty) replaced Lindsay Buckingham on a major Fleetwood Mac tour.

Neil & Liam Finn Lightsleeper (2018)—3

Neil Young 72: Archives Vol. III

At least it only took the Neil Young Archives team a little under four years after the release of the second box to put out the third. Perhaps in an attempt to dwarf quality with quantity, Archives Vol. III covered the widest period yet—eleven years—on 17 CDs, with five Blu-ray discs containing eleven films in the deluxe edition. Granted, that means the ten or so albums released in that period are represented here, and usually liberally, with more of an emphasis on the first recorded and/or performed versions of songs among the previously unreleased selections. Also, various “raps” pop up on the discs, these being more or less contemporary snippets of Neil explaining things to put the recordings in context. As the other two boxes didn’t have these, they’re unnecessary. (Also, the customary book of photos and credits doesn’t include a tape log, a maddening exclusion to us curmudgeonly chroniclers, and the page numbers are pretty screwy.)

The first two discs are collectively titled Across The Water (also one of the Blu-ray offerings), and basically expand on the Odeon Budokan disc of the second box, even overlapping chronologically with it and including alternate mixes of two of its tracks. There’s some repetition of songs already available in excellent takes on Songs For Judy, but we are assured that these are different performances. The acoustic tunes aren’t any great improvements over other versions, but when Crazy Horse plugs in, we get unique runs at “Country Home”, “The Losing End”, a sloppy “Homegrown”, and a lengthy “Southern Man”. We also get two versions of “Cortez The Killer”, for no apparent reason other than that they were recorded 20 days and two continents apart.

The other boxes were criticized for including previously released Archives titles, such as Fillmore East and Homegrown, because people don’t like buying things twice. This set sidesteps that thorny issue, sort of, by combining selections from Hitchhiker and Songs For Judy on a disc called—what else?—Hitchhikin’ Judy. His two songs from the Band’s Last Waltz show plus “Will To Love” (the album version, not the unadorned original) and “Lost In Space” on piano—with Ron Wood on acoustic guitar—round out the disc. (While selections do appear throughout the box, the Chrome Dreams album is not duplicated as one of the discs either.)

After the alternate take of “Hold Back The Tears”, Snapshot In Time presents portions of a cassette recorded at Linda Ronstadt’s kitchen table, going through some mostly unreleased songs while she and Nicolette Larson extemporaneously harmonize. Some of these would be recorded for American Stars ‘N Bars and Comes A Time; one of the more interesting moments is when “Peace Of Mind” segues into “Sweet Lara Larue”, an update of “Come Along And Say You Will”. The standard “Hey Babe” precedes—finally—the first official release of “Barefoot Floors”, which was a glaring omission in Vol. II. If we are to take the preceding rap at his word, it’s a recording of them listening to the song in a car.

Windward Passage is a 35-minute condensation of the official Ducks bootleg, plus unique versions of “Sail Away” and “Cryin’ Eyes”. We get some of the other guys’ tunes as well as Neil’s, so the selection is very curious. And brief. Did this really need its own dedicated disc? Well, he warned us.

Accepted Neil lore is that he recorded an album of mostly solo acoustic songs to be called Oceanside Countryside, to which the label execs suggested he add more instrumentation. Rather than be offended, he did exactly that, resulting in what would be eventually released as Comes A Time. Because there is no documentation otherwise in the box, it’s therefore implied that the Oceanside Countryside disc presents that unreleased first draft verbatim, which is curious, as it’s sequenced in strict recorded order, unlike Homegrown and Chrome Dreams. (Neil has since confirmed the official planned running order included eight of the songs on this disc, plus the older “Captain Kennedy” and “The Old Homestead”, and not chronologically.) At any rate, there are some nice stripped-back mixes of Comes A Time songs, plus the familiar “Pocahontas” and “Lost In Space”, unreleased takes of “It Might Have Been” and “Dance Dance Dance”, a rightfully rejected “Comes A Time”, and a mix of “Peace Of Mind” with a lost verse.

The sessions to complete Comes A Time—which also included outtakes of “We’re Having Some Fun Now”, an unreleased version of “Love/Art Blues”, and a cover of the oldie “Please Help Me, I’m Falling”—bookend a one-off benefit performance performed by Neil with Nicolette, the session players, and the Gone With The Wind Orchestra. That show is not in the box, but the rehearsal for it makes up the bulk of the Union Hall disc. It’s a mix of old and new songs, including a pointed medley of “Dance Dance Dance” and “Love Is A Rose”, a strings-laden “Alabama” with a “Sweet Home Alabama” tag, and the mega-rare “Lady Wingshot”.

The double-disc Boarding House presents recordings for what would become side one of Rust Never Sleeps. The alternates aren’t better than what he chose to release then, but it’s a striking acoustic journey, with the first versions of “Shots” and “The Ways Of Love”, and “Out Of My Mind” on piano is particularly striking. There is some sloppy editing; his announcement of “Sugar Mountain” appears about seven songs before he plays it, and he talks about going “way back” in time before a splice into “Comes A Time”, which wouldn’t be out for another five months. Meanwhile, in the middle of the shows he spent an afternoon jamming with Devo, recording the odd version of “Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)”, sung by Booji Boy, used in the Human Highway movie (also included on the Blu-rays), and which opens the second disc. Why not push the Devo track onto the next, still short disc so Boarding House could stay under 80 minutes and fit onto one?

Instead, the 49-minute Sedan Delivery disc begins with a studio take of “Bright Sunny Day” with Crazy Horse, but the rest consists of side two of Rust Never Sleeps assorted with tracks from Live Rust, rather than any alternate performances or song selections. (For one, “Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown” was played every night, and not included here. That said, both the new Boarding House film and a restored Rust Never Sleeps film are included on the Blu-rays.)

Once we get into the ‘80s, the discs focus on contrasts. Coastline offers side two of Hawks & Doves, plus the “Winter Winds” outtake, then a smattering from Re-ac-tor. There’s no “T-Bone”—at 38 minutes, there’s room on the disc—but we do get an early “Sunny Inside” (why didn’t he play this with when he toured with Booker T and the MG’s?) and the otherwise unheard “Get Up”, an odd-metered tune that predicts the next album.

After the Vocoder tracks recorded alone and with Crazy Horse, Trans/Johnny’s Island offers more songs by the band initially dubbed Royal Pineapples but eventually just called The Trans Band, eschewing most of the ones they did for the album for unreleased songs and versions. The influence of Hawaii is more prominent, or maybe that’s just the constant congas and pedal steel. “If You Got Love”, left off Trans at the last minute, is included, and we weren’t missing much, though “Soul Of A Woman” stomps live and “Love Hotel”—played exactly once—finally gets an airing. The early version of “Silver & Gold” is nice, but it wouldn’t be captured correctly for another 15 or so years. In hindsight, these songs would have meshed well with CSN’s of that era. (This era gets a lot of coverage in the Blu-rays: the Berlin and Solo Trans concert films, and a new animated film by Micah Nelson, once of Promise Of The Real and occasionally Crazy Horse, to accompany the Trans Vocoder tracks.)

Evolution tackles the first Old Ways sessions and Everybody’s Rockin’ detour, beginning with live “gitjo” performances of “California Sunset” and “My Boy”. Back on his own, he used the Synclavier and drum machines for early versions of “I Got A Problem”, “Hard Luck Stories”, and “Razor Love”, the latter of which also wouldn’t be recorded right for another 15 years. “Your Love” isn’t bad, mostly because it’s simple and not attempting to sound too modern, and there’s another stab at “If You Got Love” that’s not awful.

Around the time that Geffen sued him for making records that didn’t sound like Neil Young, he hooked up briefly with Crazy Horse to play four sets at their usual haunt, the Catalyst in Santa Cruz. Touch The Night presents most of the last show, which features songs that would emerge without the Horse on Landing On Water (including the 11-minute “title track”), another “Your Love”, the unreleased piledrivers “Rock” and “So Tired”, plus “Barstool Blues” and “Welfare Mothers” to please the crowd. (The sound is muddy as befits a cassette source; the video feed is on one of the Blu-rays as Catalyst.)

But then he was back to playing country music with a vengeance and the International Harvesters, which is the focus of Grey Riders. This era was already well-covered on A Treasure; in addition to seven songs from that set, there are a few alternate versions, like a rockin’, rearranged “Misfits” (now subtitled “Dakota”, and performed with a brief detour called Crazy Harvesters), plus an early “This Old House”, “Time Off For Good Behavior”, and finally “Interstate”, but not the previously bootlegged version. (It should be noted that not a single track is duplicated from the official Old Ways, which says something about Neil’s own estimation of it. Also, the video content on the now-rare Blu-ray version of A Treasure is included on the Blu-rays.)

Road Of Plenty recycles six tracks from Landing On Water, then continues with three rarities from the Rusted Out Garage tour. The “title track” is an early version of what would become “Eldorado”, and the first recorded performances of “We Never Danced” (a studio track on Life) and “When Your Lonely Heart Breaks” are mostly of historic interest. (Oddly, nothing from Life is included anywhere among the CDs, despite there being plenty of room, but the In A Rusted-Out Garage pay-per-view concert film as well as the rarer Muddy Track documentary are among the Blu-ray offerings.)

The final CD in the box is devoted to Summer Songs, an eight-song demo recorded in 1987 and forgotten for decades, then uploaded to the Archives site for streaming on Christmas Day in 2021 in a different order than presented here. Beginning with a superior “American Dream” he runs through songs that would end up on three future albums. “Someday” and “Wrecking Ball” have slightly different lyrics, and “Hangin’ On A Limb” could well be the unadorned track we already know. “For The Love Of Man” wouldn’t make an album for a quarter-century, while “Last Of His Kind” would be played live that year and thereafter saved mostly for Farm Aid appearances. At 38 minutes it’s another short disc, but apparently that was all he had in the tank that day. (We recommend inserting “This Old House” and “Feel Your Love” into the sequence to fill it out.)

Were we in charge of things—and obviously we’re not, despite having repeatedly offering our proofreading and organizing skills—Vol. II would have ended in 1978, but that would have stretched that set to 20 discs (not counting Blu-rays). But then, arguably, what was left wouldn’t have been as strong or exciting. At the very least, the Across The Water discs could have been in there, in place of Odeon Budokan, which would then be saved as the standalone Special Release Series volume it became anyway, and with a better cover. Hitchhiker and Songs For Judy would have sat between the boxes alongside Chrome Dreams, shaving the first three discs out of this one. (There is plenty of room in Vol. II for the last four songs on the Hitchhikin’ Judy disc, which would have brought that box neatly to the end of 1976.) What’s more, plenty is left out, particularly from the International Harvesters era (“Leaving The Top 40 Behind”, “Silver & Gold”, “Beautiful Bluebird”, “Your Love Again”). And still no “Evening Coconut”?

The fact of the matter is that the 14 hours of music in Archives Vol. III runs the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous, as his journey was affected by changes in the industry as well as with technology and his personal life. As it is, it’s a daunting collection of music that at least follows his original stated intention of releasing everything, good and bad. And hearing things in context does fill out the picture in ways that the albums as originally released couldn’t. But we didn’t expect to be blown away to the extent we were with the first two boxes, and we weren’t.

Neil Young Archives Vol. III: 1976-1987 (2024)—3

Ringo Starr 8: Bad Boy

In America, Ringo Starr was on a new record label, but they offered him a tie-in TV special, so maybe that was why barely seven months had passed before another album followed. Vini Poncia was in charge, and each band member was credited under pseudonyms, despite including Dr. John, Jimmy Webb, and Dee Murray from Elton John’s band. Beyond that, Bad Boy did not sport superstar input, nor did it sell. Nor was it very good.

Most of the album was recycled songs other people had already recorded, though “Who Needs A Heart” was one of two tunes written by Ringo and Vini. It’s fairly generic, but if Ringo had an established sound, this is it. The title track is not a cover of the Beatles cover, but another sad-sack lament of even earlier vintage, sunk further by Ringo’s insistence on singing “boy-yoy-yoy-yoy-yoy-yoy” every time. “Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)” is best known for being the A-side of “Fortune Teller”, both written by Allen Toussaint for Benny Spellman. “Heart On My Sleeve” was contributed by popular songwriting team of Gallagher and Lyle, but it’s doesn’t exactly stand out. While the contemporary remake of “Where Did Our Love Go” isn’t exactly disco, it’s still awful.

“Hard Times” continues the Ringo-by-numbers template, while “Tonight” came from a recent Small Faces reunion album (which also did not sell) and beats the tagline into the ground. “Monkey See—Monkey Do” was courtesy of schlock jazz man Michael Franks, but we should be relieved Ringo didn’t try tackle “Popsicle Toes”. “Old Time Relovin’” was the other Starkey-Poncia opus, and it has some pleasant changes and touches throughout, but it there’s a clever turn of phrase in the title, we can’t figure it out. Finally, “A Man Like Me” was a mild rewrite of a song from a children’s album written by Donald Pleasance, of all people, wherein Ringo had voiced and sung the main character of Scouse The Mouse. It’s actually kinda sweet, if syrupy.

It could be assumed that the glass of brandy on the cover tells us all we need to know. Bad Boy was about as exciting as its predecessor, and equally ignored. The TV special didn’t help a whit, being a mildly star-studded retelling of The Prince And The Pauper, mostly notable for a cameo by George Harrison. His new perm was about as ill-advised as what he was tasked with narrating.

Ringo Starr Bad Boy (1978)—2

Robyn Hitchcock 35: Vacations In The Past

Some of his album sleeves over the years had boasted the occasional surreal short story, but not until he passed the age of 70 did Robyn Hitchcock endeavor to write a memoir. Composed entirely on his iPhone in the wee hours, 1967: How I Got There And Why I Never Left is an engrossing look back a formative year in his life, shaped by his entry into boarding school and the music that dominated the year.

It was only natural that a companion album would materialize, and one did. Recorded much like his other post-Covid work, 1967: Vacations In The Past was pieced together over the wires with the aid of frequent collaborator Charlie Francis, and featuring contributions from fellow Soft Boy Kimberley Rew and prominent but not overused sitar by Kelley Stoltz. It’s predominantly acoustic with only the occasional bongo for percussion and, with one exception, all covers.

He begins “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” in a lower register, then adding an octave harmony on the second verse, but “Itchycoo Park” is just as jaunty as the original. “Burning Of The Midnight Lamp” is particularly striking without any electricity, but it’s still got wah-wah. The Move’s “I Can Hear The Grass Grow” is nice and trippy, but then there’s Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)”, a moldy oldie if there ever was one. Trite as it may be to Americans, it must have meant something to that impressionable British boy an ocean and a contintent way, but we can’t condemn anyone for their guilty pleasures. Anyway, it’s wholly redeemed by “Waterloo Sunset”, a song that’s nearly impossible to ruin, and he doesn’t.

A Syd Barrett song should be no surprise, and he tackles “See Emily Play” nearly solo but for Kimberley’s slide effects. Tomorrow’s original recording of “My White Bicycle”—besides being the first appearance by Steve Howe—was loaded with backwards instruments, and there are just enough of those effects here to keep the production faithful. “No Face, No Name, No Number” has long been a personal favorite, but while the most obscure track might be the Incredible String Band’s “Way Back In The 1960s”, it’s also the one that sounds the most like him. The title track is the lone original, and sounds like it could have been recorded at any time over the previous 40 years. It’s a wonderful bit of music, complete with references to tentacles and whatnot, that the cover of “A Day In The Life” is anticlimactic. He’d played this live many times over the years, and while this recording doesn’t attempt to replicate the original, it still gets a busy mix, with a backwards loop we can’t discern over the final sustained piano chord that doesn’t dissipate but stops.

As he said on Robyn Sings, 2002’s compilation of Dylan covers, he didn’t write these songs, but they wrote him. His deft playing style and wide-eyed approach resonates throughout, and illuminates the rest of his catalog in the process.

Robyn Hitchcock 1967: Vacations In The Past (2024)—3½

Genesis 24: BBC Broadcasts

Thirteen years after the last Genesis reunion tour, Phil Collins rejoined his old band for another go around the world. Dubbed The Last Domino?, the shows mixed familiar hits with older (and newer) epics. Phil sang seated in a comfy chair while his son played drums—and pretty well, by all accounts. Daryl Stuermer was still around, and two male backup singers were on hand as well. The tour was promoted by a double-disc compilation, also titled The Last Domino?, that more or less replicated the setlist—including full versions of songs that were excerpted onstage—and could have, once again, been a Spotify playlist. But it included some nice photos from the rehearsals and sent more royalties in the direction of the absent Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett.

Once again the band had been put to bed, but Tony Banks still found a way to extend their reputation as a live attraction with the surprise release of the five-CD BBC Broadcasts box, covering the band’s career from 1970 to 1998. The package is mostly chronological, but by doing so some sessions are split between discs, which works for streaming, but can be jarring on CD. Also, while it’s five discs long, it doesn’t contain every radio performance by the band through the years—most likely to cut down on repetition, but also because they knew a whole disc from the Ray Wilson era was a non-starter, even at this low price point.

The first disc is the Gabriel era, beginning with three songs from the band’s first BBC studio appearance in 1970, and the same three that were already on the first Archives box. We jump to 1972 with the established Hackett-Collins lineup, with one flashback to the 1971 “Stagnation” that was also on the first Archives box. There’s a good performance of the rare “Twilight Alehouse” B-side, and an encore of “Watcher Of The Skies” from the Lamb tour.

From disc two on everything is in front of an audience, with improved sound, and the long-term live lineup including Daryl Stuermer and Chester Thompson. Five tracks from the 1978 Knebworth Festival—including the transition from “Dance On A Volcano” via “Drum Duet” to “Los Endos”—are followed by most of a 1980 London theater show, which fills the rest of disc two and most of disc three. Despite the occasional voiceover, highlights include the complete “Duke Suite” and the surprise encore of “The Knife”. (The songs omitted from this show were already part of the Knebworth selections. Also, “Follow You, Follow Me” is the same version that’s on Three Sides Live, while “Ripples”, “The Lady Lies”, “Duke’s Travels”, and “Duke’s End” were on Archives #2.)

Most of the well-traveled (since it was already on VHS and DVD) Wembley Stadium show from 1987 straddles discs three (the last two tracks) and four; the balance of the latter is given over to two songs from 1998 with Ray Wilson (who sounds very much like Paul Carrack on “Not About Us”). The fifth disc is devoted entirely to selections from their appearance at the 1992 Knebworth Festival: five songs from We Can’t Dance, with their “Old Medley” in the middle. We’d’ve ended with anything but an eight-minute “I Can’t Dance”, but the crowd seemed to love it.

Again, the sequencing is odd, and the discs aren’t all to capacity; surely some more music from 1978 or 1987 could have nudged the 1998 music to the end of disc five if it was so necessary to include? Quibbles aside, BBC Broadcasts has a lot of deep cuts for the musos and not just the pop fans, and thus provides an exhaustive look at what made the band, in any incarnation, such a draw through the decades.

Genesis The Last Domino? (2021)—3
Genesis BBC Broadcasts (2023)—3½

David Gilmour 5: Luck And Strange

Seemingly on something of a nine-year plan, David Gilmour emerged post-pandemic with only his fifth solo album. Luck And Strange apparently came together very quickly, for him, and he’s settled into his older voice, which we feared was on its way out last time. In co-producer Charlie Andrew he gained a foil who kept him on track, and didn’t let him fall back on old habits or tropes. That’s a tall order when the lyric, which focus on the familiar themes of aging and mortality, provided as ever by wife Polly Samson. Some familiar sidemen appear in the credits, and his now-adult children contribute to several tracks, but the biggest surprise is the legendary Steve Gadd drumming on half the album. Orchestra and choirs appear, but not excessively.

“Black Cat” is a haunting instrumental, Gilmour playing his signature tone over Roger Eno’s piano. If anything, it’s too short. The title track stemmed from a jam with Richard Wright a year before his death, and his distinctive electric piano adds all the color. If the verses seem a little simple musically, wait for the choruses and bridge, and daughter Romany’s harmonies are lovely. “The Piper’s Call” begins with a plaintive ukulele strum but soon builds, with another soaring chorus, then almost imperceptibly into a funky stomper with a solid solo taking it out. It’s a stark contrast into “A Single Spark”, which almost seems like a throwback to Beth Orton trip-pop, with some wonderful layers. “Vita Brevis” is all too brief for an instrumental, the title of which translates as “life is short”.

Romany plays the harp on that, and her voice is front and center on “Between Two Points”, a cover of an obscure (to us) song from 1999 originally written and recorded by the Montgolfier Brothers duo. It’s a haunting performance, and her take is exquisite. At this point the relative heaviness of “Dark And Velvet Nights” sticks out, opening with feedback and a bombastic fanfare. He spends a lot of time wailing on this, supported by another throwback in the ‘70s, almost Philly soul strings. Then it’s back to being pensive on “Sings”; after albums full of imagery and near-poetry, it’s striking to hear him sing of such things as “Portobello Road”. (Near the end we hear a snatch of his original hummed sketch for the tune, with his then-toddler son adding encouragement. It’s very sweet.) As “Scattered” crawls in, a Leslied piano recalls the effect on “Echoes”. A more successful version of the ruminating that slowed down Rattle That Lock, it all builds via some crazy cocktail piano to first an acoustic solo then a more archetypal electric one, but he’s wise enough to calm things down for a subdued coda.

As usual, the album was released in various permutations with extra material. The so-called deluxe CD added the one-off, gypsy-flavored single “Yes, I Have Ghosts” from 2020, sung with Romany and originally released on the audiobook of the novel Polly published that year, and the original 14-minute “barn jam” from 2007 with Richard Wright that was the genesis of the title track. (Vinyl and Blu-ray boxes also added two alternate “orchestral” mixes and sometimes a demo of “A Single Spark”.)

Possibly the best thing about Luck And Strange is that it doesn’t pointedly sound like Pink Floyd, yet it sounds completely like David Gilmour. It may not be, as he’s stated, his best work since The Dark Side Of The Moon—he’s certainly had several high points since then—but it is very strong, and perfectly timed for a fall release.

Though we still don’t know what Ozzy Osbourne is doing on the cover.

David Gilmour Luck And Strange (2024)—3½

Robert Fripp 5: Kneeling At The Shrine

In 1986, Robert Fripp married Toyah Willcox, an actress and singer best known for her outlandish voice and style in both milieus. She already had nine albums under her own name by the time they decided to put a band together. After tapping Crafty Guitarist Trey Gunn on Chapman Stick and drummer Paul Beavis—who must be tired of the jokes by now—for a few short tours, the quartet eventually recorded Kneeling At The Shrine, taking the band name from the first track on the album.

Toyah is the predominant musical force here, as her distinct voice (and we assume lyrics) are firmly in the tradition of edgy New Wave art-pop, somewhere between Siouxsie Sioux and Kate Bush. Still, she should have known that the hook for “If I Were A Man” was already established by Erasure. While there are few echoes of ‘80s Crimson, Fripp fans won’t have to listen too closely for his input, as many of the backings are driven by his picking, with solos here and there as well. (“Strange Girls” has what we could swear are Space Invaders effects under his usual ascending riffs.) “Don’t Take It Away” is a catchy pop song, while the closing “Freedom”—uniquely credited as written by the couple and not the whole band—is still a straightforward, almost conventional-sounding track, even at almost eight minutes.

Nothing more would be heard from Sunday All Over The World, though Toyah and Fripp would go on to be an iconoclastic couple through the decades to follow while pursuing their own individual artistic paths. They are still together today.

Sunday All Over The World Kneeling At The Shrine (1991)—2

Frank Zappa 53: Ahead Of Their Time

Back in 1968, once the Mothers of Invention included trained individuals—or at least people who could read increasingly intricate music—Frank Zappa began introducing more complicated, almost classical pieces in the band’s sets. Some of this he called chamber music that he wrote himself, some were arrangements of Stravinsky and Zappa idol Edgard Varèse. Either to appeal to the less adept members of the band or with the excuse that audiences needed things dumbed down, silly skits involving scripts and in-jokes would accompany these performances.

Two such performances at London’s Festival Hall included contributions from an actual orchestra alongside the Mothers. Excerpts from the “dramatic” portion emerged in the ‘80s, and the visuals were included as part of the perennially incomplete Uncle Meat film (on VHS), but the shows appeared in more or less a complete form as Ahead Of Their Time.

Because the audio can’t adequately demonstrate the dramatic portion, the first half of the disc is an acquired taste. Much of the music would end up incorporated into “Bogus Pomp”, while the content detailing struggle between “serious music” and its opposite would recur in 200 Motels. Luckily, the guys sound into it, so it’s not too tedious.

The political rarity “Agency Man” is followed by the dramatic “Epilogue”, and the remainder of the disc is pretty much non-stop Mothers rock ‘n roll. “King Kong” eventually segues into “Help, I’m A Rock” and “Transylvania Boogie”, “Pound For A Brown” begets “Sleeping In A Jar”, and the “Orange County Lumber Truck” suite is heard nearly complete, and more than the excerpt already used on Weasels Ripped My Flesh. Being abridged to fit on a single disc, it’s a shame that to date the album hasn’t been expanded to provide at least the equivalent of a full set.

Nearly thirty years went by before the era was revisited. The inaugural release of the Road Tapes series presented a concert in a Vancouver hockey arena (a.k.a. “the local electric icebox”) two months before the Festival Hall show. Obviously there’s no play to perform, so they start right in with improvisations; others dot the setlist. Along with material also heard at the London show, this performance includes a piece introduced as “Shortly” and said to be released on an upcoming album; the music is better known now as “Holiday In Berlin”, and said album was reduced to two records from three, and without this piece. Other highlights include the first album appearance of the doo-wop parody “Oh, In The Sky” and their arrangement of “Octandre” by Varèse. Thanks to some apparently exhaustive restoration work by Vaultmeister Joe Travers, the mono sound is excellent.

A little over a decade later, another relic from the era emerged. Whisky A Go Go, 1968 was recorded about a month before the Vancouver gig, and just before Ray Collins quit the band for the fourth and last time. The reason for this lengthy occasion was the intention of getting decent live performances from the nine-piece band on tape for future purposes that didn’t exactly develop.

A ten-minute improvisation leads perversely into “America Drinks And Goes Home”. Self-styled impresario (and accused sexual predator) Kim Fowley is brought up help shriek his way through “My Boyfriend’s Back”, followed by the original response of “[I’m Gonna] Bust His Head” and a lengthy “Tiny Sick Tears Jam”. Another improvisation goes into “Status Back Baby”, followed by some doo-wop, original and otherwise. “King Kong” is indexed as two parts, the second of which stops halfway through so the GTO’s [sic] can yell along with “Getting To Know You” and the Bugs Bunny Show theme. (Other guests on the evening included affiliated acts Alice Cooper and Wild Man Fischer; some of the Turtles were supposedly in the audience in a bit of foreshadowing.)

“The Duke” is played twice so they could get a decent usable take; this would eventually form part of “The Little House I Used To Live In”, but here’s it’s mostly Frank soloing over drums. Then there’s “Khaki Sack”, a more structured R&B jam that would be properly recorded in 1970 and shelved for half a century. “The Whip” and “Whisky Chouflée” run together for twenty minutes of mostly one-chord jamming, and the “world premiere” of “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It” for the first time on stage leads into an extended shuffle on the main theme and further improvisation.

In the end, only one segment from the evening was released at the time (“God Bless America” on Uncle Meat), though at least two other songs were mixed by Frank; one snippet made it to YCDTOSA #5, and more finally emerged on 2021’s Zappa documentary soundtrack. As the first full-length concert made available with Ray singing (save a few Beat The Boots), it’s about time.

Zappa/Mothers Ahead Of Their Time (1993)—3
Frank Zappa Road Tapes, Venue #1 (2012)—3½
Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention Whisky A Go Go, 1968 (2024)—3

Rickie Lee Jones 5: Flying Cowboys

After a long break, during which she got married, and started a family, Rickie Lee Jones returned to public consciousness in early 1989 with a duet with Dr. John on “Makin’ Whoopee”, which went on to win a Grammy. It was a good setup for her next album. Flying Cowboys was notable for being her first album in five years, and also for production work by Steely Dan’s Walter Becker, who’d been off the radar for even longer.

“The Horses” sets the mood right away, and if it’s not a love song to her newborn daughter it works as one anyway, just as “Just My Baby” is a joyful celebration of the first twinges of excitement of new love. “Ghetto Of My Mind” celebrates a similar joie de something, and she’s playing the steel drum amidst all the other island-inspired sounds. “Rodeo Girl” is even more striking when you realize she’s singing and playing everything except the programmed drums. “Satellites” is the catchiest track, and the obvious single, as well as a stark contrast to the talking blues character in “Ghost Train”.

The title track is a collaboration with not just her husband but her old partner Sal Bernardi, who plays the infectious riff and harmonizes with her when she’s not speaking the words. Her cover of Gerry & The Pacemakers’ “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying” obviously comes from a place of affection, but the processed arrangement doesn’t do it any favors. Similarly, “Love’s Gonna Bring Us Back Alive” sounds like the type of reggae groove that would bring Bonnie Raitt platinum albums soon enough. “Away From The Sky” finally brings the tender pretty one this album has needed, and “Atlas’ Marker” is as inscrutable as any of her lyrics, here colored by then-trendy rainforest percussion.

Flying Cowboys is a microcosm of VH-1 adult contemporary in the late ‘80s. This was a sound she’d always had, using many of the players she’d relied on before, but people looking for grit may be disappointed not to find it. (Footnote: To promote the album overseas, she appeared on a British TV show to perform not only the album’s title song but duet with the Blue Nile on their “Easter Parade”, both with Sal in tow.)

Rickie Lee Jones Flying Cowboys (1989)—3

Tears For Fears 8: Everybody Loves A Happy Ending

Come the 21st century, Tears For Fears had become something of a relic of an earlier time. Curt Smith laid low for a while, eventually releasing two solo albums—one under the nom de plume Mayfield and the other as himself. Roland Orzabal emerged after a quiet spell with Tomcats Screaming Outside, a strange techno concoction wisely not credited to Tears For Fears.

But the boys managed to patch things up as well as record an album together, once again having to wait until label shenanigans were worked out. Everybody Loves A Happy Ending loads up on the psychedelia from where they left off with a lot more sexy soul, truly enjoying the potential of the studio. The Beatles remain a touchstone; we counted at least two samples of the “Day In The Life” orchestral buildup throughout the album. In addition to the dynamic duo, Charlton Pettus is a main collaborator, having already worked with Curt on his solo projects.

The title track emerges like a spaceship appearing over the horizon, then an alarm clock rings and the song becomes an XTC pastiche (a redundant statement to be sure). About halfway through there’s another mood shift to a completely different vibe—a hallmark of the album as a whole. “Closest Thing To Heaven” is even closer to “Sowing The Seeds Of Love”, right up to the backwards drum fill, but gosh, what a hook. A 12-string jangle drives the chamber-pop touches of “Call Me Mellow”—wherein they didn’t realize they took the melody from “There She Goes”—and things finally slow down for the lightweight “Size Of Sorrow”. No points for guessing whence they copped the drum pattern for “Who Killed Tangerine?”, another song where the choruses don’t match the verses. They finally sound almost contemporary, or at least less retro, on “Quiet Ones”, which is pretty straightforward pop and not at all complicated.

We hear a little Brian Wilson in the melodies of the lyrically sparse but still catchy “Who You Are”, which just soars until the processed closing reprise of the title track. It’s a strange transition to the unsettling effects throughout “The Devil”, a brooding number that gets a lift from the guitar before winding to a halt. They save all their tricks for the glorious “Secret World”, with its Paul Buckmaster arrangement (before Ben Folds hired him); the studio applause at the end is justified. “Killing With Kindness” juxtaposes slow and faster sections, a battle of psychedelic grooves that don’t always gel. “Ladybird” recalls some of the textures of the last album before maneuvering through tricky time signatures, and “Last Days On Earth” takes us out with trippy soul; both tracks recall Seal, in a good way.

At 12 tracks and just under an hour, Everybody Loves A Happy Ending is a very dense album, with a lot of style but none of the overbearing substance that marked their earliest work. For one thing, they’re twice as old as they used to be. It’s the sound of people enjoying making records, and for fans of the duo, it was just nice to hear them playing together again.

Tears For Fears Everybody Loves A Happy Ending (2004)—3

Eric Clapton 1: Blues Breakers

John Mayall was responsible for launching the careers of countless blues guitarists and bands, mostly because the people he found kept taking off on him and forming other outfits. He himself wasn’t blessed with the best voice, but made up for it with his organ and harmonica playing, and gave his sidemen room to shine. Blues Breakers was his second album, on which he gave co-billing in the same size type to the lead guitarist who’d bolted from the Yardbirds for being too poppy.

This is a solid electric blues album, wherein Eric Clapton displays his prowess and tone on a Les Paul, and a good argument that the Brits played it better than any other imitators. And they weren’t stuck in the past, either; through this album disciples were turned on to the likes of Otis Rush, Freddie King, Memphis Slim, and Little Walter. Respectively, “All Your Love”, “Hideaway”, “Steppin’ Out”, and “It Ain’t Right” were only a few years old at the time. “Parchman Farm” is based on Mose Allison’s arrangement, and features no guitar we can discern. Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” is mostly a setup for a Hughie Flint drum solo; when the band comes back in, Clapton quotes “Day Tripper”. The kid also takes his first lead vocal on Robert Johnson’s “Ramblin’ On My Mind”.

Of the originals, “Little Girl” is tight and tense, while “Another Man” recycles older lyrics as Mayall’s own (tsk tsk) for a harmonica showcase. “Double Crossing Time” is a Mayall-Clapton cowrite, providing a slower change of pace, just as “Have You Heard” does on the other side. That one’s got a prominent saxophone; “Key To Love” uses a horn section well in the mix too. (That bass player, by the way, is the perennially unsung John McVie.)

When it first came out on CD, the only extra content was the now-famous photo of graffiti with canine commentary. An eventual remaster added a one-off duet single and its B-side, while the eventual Deluxe Edition put the mono and (later) stereo mixes on one disc, with a variety of BBC sessions and previously scattered live tracks, some of which have Jack Bruce on bass. But the original 12-track lineup will be enough to show why some thought Clapton was God.

John Mayall With Eric Clapton Blues Breakers (1966)—4
2001 remastered CD: same as 1966, plus 2 extra tracks
2009 Deluxe Edition: same as 2001, plus 29 extra tracks

Jon Anderson 1: Olias Of Sunhillow

Unlike his colleagues in Yes, Jon Anderson’s first solo album was exactly that. He played and sang everything on Olias Of Sunhillow, a dense collection of songs inspired by a previous Yes album cover—namely, Fragile. The titular hero builds an ark-like hang glider to carry the four tribes of his home planet to another before the first is destroyed. (This isn’t clear from the songs, but explained in the narration within the elaborate packaging.) As he was working completely on his own, with only an engineer for assistance, it took a while, but when complete it turned out to predict the kind of New Age music that would be dominated by synthesizers as well as esoteric instruments, with only his distinct voice (and ecological lyrical concerns) tying it all into Yes proper.

“Ocean Song” rumbles into form with a wash of keyboards and harp-type things, then layers of voices bring in “Meeting (Garden Of Geda)”, a mere prelude to “Sound Out The Galleon”, a proper song. More harps play “Dance Of Ranyart”, supposedly the navigator, and he’s gotten quite proficient at the instrument, but this is another prelude, this time to the bloops and beeps that begin “Olias (To Build The Moorglade)”, another actual song that helps us pronounce the guy’s name right. He follows the Tolkien path of creating his own language in “Qoquaq Ën Transic/Naon/Transic Tö”, a suite of synth beds interrupted by indiscernible chanting over tribal drums. “Flight Of The Moorglade” is suitably trilling and hopeful.

Presumably they got airborne, as “Solid Space” nicely evokes the sensation of flight, or at least watching such a thing. The aural journey continues for the lengthy “Moon Ra/Chords/Song Of Search” suite, wherein the notes tell us fear and discord took hold of the refugees, yet Olias was able to quell everything with his music. (The music itself, however, stays lofty and progressive throughout.) “To The Runner” provides another trilling celebration of something, culminating in music we’re sure we heard on the Narada label at some point or another.

Olias Of Sunhillow is one of those albums that provides an immersive, multi-sensory experience should one choose to delve so deep, but it also works as a nice album to listen to for the sake of enjoyment. This too was mostly ignored in the digital era in this country, but has since been given the deluxe treatment with remastered sound and 5.1 surround content. He’s been threatening a sequel, so who knows if that will ever happen.

Jon Anderson Olias Of Sunhillow (1976)—3

Chris Squire: Fish Out Of Water

Released only weeks after Steve Howe’s solo debut, Chris Squire’s own effort got somewhat lost in the shuffle. Part of the problem was the cover art, which resembled that of the first John Entwistle album. But like Howe’s album, Fish Out Of Water relied on contributions from former cohorts, yet was intended to stand on its own.

His bass was always a key part of Yes compositions, so one needn’t be concerned that the album would be overly dominated by the instrument. Also, his vocal support was also very much part of the band’s brand, so he sounds that much more familiar. Along with Bill Bruford and Patrick Moraz, his main collaborator on the album was one Andrew Pryce Jackman, a pre-Yes bandmate who’d gone on to a career in arranging and conducting. Being recorded when it was, each side is something of a suite, and flows accordingly.

The pipe organ from London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral drives much of the busy “Hold Out Your Hand” along with the bass. An orchestra comes in at the end for a sharp segue into “You By My Side”, a near power ballad for piano with a gravitas similar to that of Zappa’s “Strictly Genteel” until the flute comes in. His vocal blend is nicely constructed too. Another pastoral passage opens “Silently Falling”, with a wandering flute distracting from the verse until the drums come in. A fairly straight section gets more complicated meter-wise to set up a Moraz organ solo that builds to a frenzy before spiraling to stop. A moment of silence allows the piano and voice to come back in, slowly joined by drums and even a couple of stabs of guitar. At its core, it’s a simple motif, but moving.

A funky electric piano appeals to Bruford’s jazz tendencies for “Lucky Seven”, while Mel Collins (also formerly of King Crimson) gets to add saxophones to the groove, and yes, there’s plenty of bass. After the jam peters out, we have another pastoral passage for “Safe (Canon Song)” to grow on over fifteen minutes. Portions of this a very reminiscent of other Yes epics, in the melodies and syncopated pianos, but the orchestra dominates. It’s another track that spirals into a wall of sound as different instruments navigate the odd time signature. But like the best prog, it all comes together rather than sounding like a mess. After the final chord fades, the subdued bass solo provides a coda that somehow matches the pipe organ when we started.

For all its popularity among fans, Fish Out Of Water was ignored for much of the digital era. Unlike Steve Howe’s albums, it was not included in 1994’s Yes catalog revamp, only appearing a decade later on the Wounded Bird label (a home for similar castoffs), followed shortly by an expansion that included one bonus track plus DVD content. In time for what would have been his 70th birthday, it got a new mix by King Crimson’s Jakko Jakszyk, which was issued alongside a remaster of the original mix, plus bonus tracks in the form of single versions of two songs, and both sides of 1981’s “Run With The Fox” Xmas single with Alan White. (A limited edition added DVDs with the expected 5.1 mix and previously released content, plus vinyl versions of the album and singles.)

Chris Squire Fish Out Of Water (1975)—3
2018 Deluxe Edition: same as 1975, plus 9 extra tracks

Steve Howe 1: Beginnings

With the idea that everyone in Yes was teeming with ideas that strained the limits of vinyl, the band went on a brief hiatus so everyone could do a solo album. First out of the gate was Steve Howe, whose Beginnings got a visual boost with a Roger Dean album cover, and utilized longtime band engineer Eddy Offord along with a few ringers like Alan White to handle the handful of instruments he didn’t play himself. Unfortunately, he also insisted on singing.

After some chatter from (presumably) one of his children, lots of strummed acoustics propel “Doors Of Sleep” into place, with a poem by an English suffragist poet sung where the solo should have stayed without competition. “Australia” is even more intricate, and awfully overwrought for what seem to be impressions of touring that continent. After a near-jazz intro, “The Nature Of The Sea” follows some intriguing dynamics, and best of all, it’s all instrumental, supported by members of Gryphon, who’d opened for Yes on recent tours. But for its trilling intro section and vocal sections designed for Jon Anderson, “Lost Symphony” should have stayed that way, drenched as it is in honking saxophones.

The title track is based on a classical guitar piece, given a very twee, faux-baroque arrangement by Patrick Moraz. It would be very nice to hear unadorned. Speaking of faux, “Will O’ The Wisp” has a brief backwards intro nod to “Roundabout” in its own, and some very challenging meters, so there’s potential, but he hits about every sixth note he tries to sing. “Ram” is fun, a snappy pickin’ piece that’s a cousin of “Clap”, overlaid with slide guitar, banjo, and washboard for even more hokiness. “Pleasure Stole The Night” is mildly medieval, but “Break Away From It All” sounds the most like Yes, with harmonies, choogling bass, and particularly Bill Bruford on drums.

As his guitar arguably had a lot to do with the band’s appeal, that should be enough for most fans to give the album the benefit of the doubt. But they’d also likely think Beginnings would have better benefitted from another singer. Apparently pitch wasn’t the concern of anyone involved.

Steve Howe Beginnings (1975)—2

David Bowie 45: Brilliant Adventure

Despite being already tapped for a different collection, another song title became an apt moniker for a comprehensive Bowie box set, this one covering the wide-ranging, occasionally frustrating ‘90s. Brilliant Adventure could conceivably be subtitled The Virgin Years, as that was the label that released most of this material in the first place.

Black Tie White Noise only slightly improves in this context, while The Buddha Of Suburbia (in its revised artwork) provides a smoother transition to Outside—for which the packaging included more legible lyrics, thankfully—and Earthling. The slight regression of ‘hours…’ is lifted by his 2000 BBC radio performance. (Oddly, 2018’s Glastonbury 2000, which was recorded two days before, is not included in this set, nor were these part of Brilliant Live Adventures. For that matter, the VH1 Storytellers album is left out too.) Originally included as a bonus in Bowie At The Beeb, it is here expanded to two CDs, with the addition of five songs. “All The Young Dudes”, “Starman”, and “‘Heroes’” were nice encores, but “The London Boys” and “I Dig Everything” hint at a project in progress.

The big draw of the box is that project, the first official release of the legendarily shelved Toy album. As sequenced here, it provides another peak before the three discs’ worth of oddities that make up Re:Call 5. These consist predominantly of single edits and remixes, along with the handfuls of B-sides (read: outtakes) from Outside and ‘hours…’, plus “Real Cool World” and other soundtrack contributions. Many of these had been included on various expanded versions of these albums, but several tracks are not collected from those. That said, we do get such oddities as “Don’t Let Me Down & Down” in Indonesian and “Seven Years In Tibet” in Mandarin, plus the exquisite rarity “Planet Of Dreams”, sung with Gail Ann Dorsey. The set closes with a cover of “Pictures Of Lily”, as requested by Pete Townshend for a Who tribute album, that’s just awful.

While the albums covered by Brilliant Adventure aren’t on par with his earlier masterpieces, there are enough bright spots that always made Bowie worth hearing, and therefore watching. He may not have been consistent, but his work ethic was as steady as ever. (The book inside the set includes new liner notes designed to illuminate from key collaborators of the period: Nile Rodgers, Erdil Kizilcay, Brian Eno, Reeves Gabrels, and Mark Plati.)

David Bowie Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) (2021)—3

Gary Louris 1: Vagabonds

We must give Gary Louris more than a little credit. Having chaired several lineups of the Jayhawks, when it came time to finally do a solo album, he made sure to put it under his own name. Yet Vagabonds isn’t that different from the sound we’d come to expect from the guy. The biggest difference is his choice of producer—in this case, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, who doesn’t get in the way at all.

“True Blue” is the ideal starter, with its gentle strum, distant pedal steel, and high chorus vocal, before “Omaha Nights” turns up the fuzz. The softer approach of “To Die A Happy Man” is belied by its breathless delivery, which frankly jars. (Given the list of forty songs shown in the packaging below the inner disc tray, we’d love to know what it edged out.) One might expect “She Only Calls Me On Sundays” to be a hokey country lament, and they’d be right. But “We’ll Get By” sneaks up on you, with infectious hooks throughout, a simple yet killer chorus, and electricity in the solo.

There’s what’s called a “choir” throughout the album, including Jenny Lewis and Susanna Hoffs, and its contribution to “Black Grass” is processed through a Leslie speaker along with the organ in such a way to make the track even more psychedelic while still very much acoustic. That organ leads into the extremely swampy “I Wanna Get High”, more of a litany of disconnected thoughts than a statement of purpose, the album producer notwithstanding. Gary pulls out his harmonica for the title track, which has another catchy chorus daring you to sing along. “D.C. Blues” is a little too derivative, but the picking is nice and it’s all about feel. A lonesome piano begins “Meandering”, a self-deprecating title for such a song of wonder.

With a small combo and simple production, Vagabonds has a consistent, comfortable sound. We wish it had more crunch overall, but there’s definitely a flow from track to track. It even works on the stripped-down Acoustic Vagabonds EP, which presents solo versions of side one and the title track. We hardly expected to enjoy anything with Chris Robinson’s name on it as much.

Gary Louris Vagabonds (2008)—3

Tim O’Reagan 1: Tim O’Reagan

Since joining the band after their fourth album, Tim O’Reagan showed his value to the Jayhawks, not only as a solid drummer but a harmonist and songwriter with his own strength. His songs were standouts when they appeared, so he wisely took advantage of the band’s hiatus to finally do an album of his own. While he gets help from other Jayhawks, Jim Boquist of Son Volt, and even his own parents on his eponymous debut, he’s credited with playing several instruments. Even nicer, it was distributed by Lost Highway, the band’s most recent label.

Tim O’Reagan has a pleasant homespun feel, starting with the old-timey “These Things”. “Black & Blue” and “River Bends” have enough country twang, but “Highway Flowers” sounds most like the band, with the harmonies and Gary Louris’s unmistakable lead guitar tone. His voice can’t help but sound lovelorn and weary, particularly on “Everybody’s Only”, while “That’s The Game” sounds like a remake of a British Invasion nugget using cardboard boxes, and that’s meant in a good way. “Ivy” breaks away from the mold with a falsetto vocal and almost arty approach, and “Girl/World” is back to a back woods stomp. “Ocaso Rosa” (which means “pink sunset”; we looked it up) is a Mexican-flavored instrumental, at odds with the garage vibe of “Just Like You”, and “Plaything” has some experimental touches that don’t detract from the song. All in all, a nice surprise of a detour.

Tim O’Reagan Tim O’Reagan (2006)—3

Toad The Wet Sprocket 9: Starting Now

By 2021, it was hard to believe that Toad The Wet Sprocket had been around for over thirty years, even if you were good at math. Under no pressure to anyone, they slowly pieced together another album in person and by e-mail, and Starting Now was primed for exposure post-pandemic.

“Game Day” is a pleasantly tuneful strum, and while the lyrics in the chorus aren’t very convincing, the key change is clever. “Transient Whales” is typically obscure, but it hits all the right buttons to celebrate their legacy and stand with their best. “The Best Of Me” is the song that got all the attention, as it features prominent harmonies from Michael McDonald—yes, of the Doobie Brothers. But for the less-than-orthodox structure, this could be a new country song. Todd Nichols uses the same lead guitar tone throughout the album, almost as if it wouldn’t be them if it sounded different. We mention this here, because the title track is the most Toad-by-numbers song on the album, nicely contrasted with the more complex “In The Lantern Light”.

The second half gets poetic, or at least bookish, as “Hold On” quotes from the poem on the Statue of Liberty over a Counting Crows riff, while “Truth” calls out Frederick Douglass over a choogling country beat. There’s not much to “Slowing Down”, except that it’s a collaboration with Nashville songwriter Mando Saenz. There’s a jarring switch to the very processed “Dual Citizen”, with its robotic percussion and dated synths. That only makes the closing “Fever”, a maudlin plaint about ecology and injustice, punctuated by weepy vioilins, all the more epic at five minutes.

Not everything on Starting Now is memorable, but it sounds like a Toad album. Considering it was their first without longtime drummer Randy Guss, that’s important.

Toad The Wet Sprocket Starting Now (2021)—3

Roger Daltrey 9: Rocks In The Head

One would think any struggling songwriter would be happy to have someone like Roger Daltrey record his or her compositions. But given the man’s spotty solo discography, would that be enough to bring in the big checks? That likely wasn’t too much of a concern for one Gerard McMahon, who’d tried the solo himself route throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, but got most of his work creating songs for movie soundtracks. Interestingly, one of those was The Lost Boys, which we should know also included a tune sung by Roger.

Five years later, McMahon was the producer and main songwriter on Rocks In The Head, which would turn out to be Roger’s last original solo album of the century. On this album the synths of the ‘80s were gratefully left behind in favor of crunch and mildly socially conscious lyrics, but that doesn’t keep it from sounding like the generic FM rock perpetuated by the likes of Bad Company without Paul Rodgers.

“Who’s Gonna Walk On Water” and “Before My Time Is Up” set the template; he’s in good voice for the most part, but the songs themselves are just plain ordinary. Track three is normally where people try to mix it up, but except for the interminable two-note riff, “Times Changed” is more posturing. Instead, “You Can’t Call It Love” tries to be a little softer and less edgy with more acoustics, and still sounds like Bryan Adams. “Mirror Mirror” has some nice textures and hooks, but is ultimately sunk by way too many clichés.

Flamenco-style guitars and a mild island feel “Perfect World”, an awkward call for racial unity. Nobody noticed that “Love Is” starts out like “Jessie’s Girl” but has none of the drama, and while “Blues Man’s Road” starts with a tantalizing snippet of dobro, it’s dropped for a backbeat and badly placed yowl. Still, you’d have to be a real curmudgeon not to smile at “Everything A Heart Could Ever Want (Willow)”, written for one of his daughters. “Days Of Light” was the single, but should be in a lower key for his voice and what’s with all the chorus vocals? Finally, “Unforgettable Opera” has potential, but a crowd cheering to punctuate a pre-chorus is never a good idea.

Having been spoiled by decent lyricists over the years, his voice simply isn’t enough to carry all the material he’s given. While Rocks In The Head isn’t as pointedly bad as some of his other solo albums, it’s still pretty bland. He deserved much better material. Too bad Pete wasn’t writing it for him.

Roger Daltrey Rocks In The Head (1992)—2½

Brian Eno 28: Film Music

That Brian Eno’s music has been used on cinematic and television soundtracks isn’t much of a surprise, especially after almost half a century of public creativity. The full title of the Film Music 1976-2020 compilation suggests that it picks up where 1976’s Music For Films left off, and while it doesn’t tell the whole story, it does provide a wide-ranging smattering of his work over that period.

Just because he can, “Final Sunset” is repeated from Music For Films; like “Dover Beach”, it was used in a Derek Jarman film. Unlike those earlier compilations, three vocal selections are included: “Under” from the animated flop Cool World; “You Don’t Miss Your Water”, his only “song” from the ‘80s; and “Beach Sequence” from the Passengers project, one of the few pieces on that album used in an actual film, and including exactly one line sung by Bono.

A few pieces are appropriately “spacey” if not intended that way, like “Blood Red”, “Decline And Fall”, “Late Evening In Jersey”, and “Undersea Steps”. Meanwhile, “Prophecy Theme” from 1984’s Dune soundtrack (otherwise populated with music by Toto) fits right in with “An Ending (Ascent)” and “Deep Blue Day”, as first heard on Apollo, and the latter more widely in Trainspotting. Two pieces for the British crime drama series Top Boy are intriguing and suspenseful. (A full album of score music, some very reminiscent of Peter Gabriel’s Birdy soundtrack, was later released on CD in Japan, vinyl other places, and streaming everywhere.) While not from that project, “Reasonable Question” and “Design As Reduction” are of more recent vintage yet fit right in.

More than conveniently collecting stray tracks, Film Music works as an album, one to get lost in without necessarily picturing the visuals. Otherwise we mightn’t have heard such pleasant surprises as “Ship In A Bottle”.

Brian Eno Film Music 1976-2020 (2020)—3
Brian Eno Top Boy (2023)—3

Van Morrison 48: Three Chords And The Truth

The seemingly relentless progression of Van Morrison albums could be tough to follow, especially when they weren’t always worth hearing. And when he names an album after a phrase many people associate with Bono—even though he didn’t coin it—we deserve to be wary. But Three Chords And The Truth did offer more than three chords, and presented mostly original compositions as well as a similar typographical approach to his most recent collection that wasn’t all covers.

His weather-related titles usually mean a profound meditation, and “March Winds In February” is a lovely start. Of course “Fame Will Eat Your Soul” retreads other familiar territory, this time abetted by Bill Medley, who shows his age. While not the smartest display of sequencing, “Dark Night Of The Soul” is more like it, a good song as well as performance. “In Search Of Grace” seems tossed off, and “Nobody In Charge” is more complaining, but at least he plays a fine sax solo on that one. He continues to brood on “You Don’t Understand” for six annoyed minutes, and we get it already, making the more succinct “Read Between The Lines” easier to digest.

“Does Love Conquer All?” isn’t the only question he asks in that song, but they’re good questions. “Early Days” celebrates the music of his youth lyrically and instrumentally, but he still finds time to whine about today’s music. “If We Wait For Mountains” is another collaboration with occasional lyricist Don Black, and he’s usually a good influence. The good feeling pervades into “Up On Broadway”, an almost gentle wish. While it doesn’t say much, the title track sparkles, and even “Bags Under My Eyes” provides a more wry take on weariness complete with a yodel at the end. And he actually has the decency to credit “Days Gone By”—a lengthy rewrite of “Auld Lang Syne”—as a traditional composition.

When Three Chords And The Truth is good, it’s very good. But he wasn’t likely to start editing himself now.

Van Morrison Three Chords And The Truth (2019)—3

Elton John 25: Leather Jackets

In the interest of full disclosure, we never knowingly heard a note of this album before writing this review. We remember seeing it in stores, but it wasn’t all over the radio like everything else he did before or since, and which we heard in real time. In our defense, Elton himself doesn’t remember much about it either.

Leather Jackets follows the template of his previous album, arriving almost exactly a year later. He and Bernie Taupin wrote most of the songs, Gus Dudgeon produced, and most of the two dozen musicians returned, with only Davey Johnston representing the classic Elton John Band. Yet that recipe created his most generic sounding album since Victim Of Love.

It’s a lot like Ice On Fire, which is good if you liked it, but there isn’t anything approaching something you’d want to hear again. The title track is dopey enough without the cringey back cover, which was probably an attempt to be funny. At least “Hoop Of Fire” changes the mood quickly, and could be a lot better with a more straight arrangement, but it still sounds like he’s singing about a “football fire”, whatever that is. “Don’t Trust That Woman” was written with Cher, of all people, and we’d love to know who decided the first line should be “she’s a real ballbuster”. As much as it sounds like a soundtrack refugee, “Go It Alone” is even more processed. Even though “Gypsy Heart” is slow and not slathered like everything else, it’s still something of a retread of the far superior “Blue Eyes”.

“Slow Rivers” is notable for being a duet with Cliff Richard, and not much else. “Heartache All Over The World” was the single—again, not that we recall hearing it anywhere, ever—and attempts to update the rhythm of “Philadelphia Freedom” with too many bad synthesizers. According to the credits, “Angeline” features John Deacon and Roger Taylor of Queen—not that you’d notice, given the “whoa-whoa” hook and car effects—suggesting it was left over from the last album. “Memory Of Love” tries to be a sensitive ballad, but for the fake harmonica all over the place. The acrobatic chord changes throughout “Paris” actually make the song interesting, but “I Fall Apart” sounds too much like it to stand out.

Throughout Leather Jackets he sounds like he’s trying to sound soulful and dramatic but coming off more hammy. The raspiness in his voice is more noticeable without his other mid-‘80s hits to provide context, and ultimately, it’s all a waste. Unlike most of his catalog, it has never been expanded.

Elton John Leather Jackets (1986)—2

Jellyfish 2: Spilt Milk

The Bellybutton album and videos certainly created a buzz for Jellyfish boys Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning. They got a chance to write some songs for the first Ringo Starr album in ten years, and were even courted briefly by Brian Wilson’s team. Certainly their label wanted the band to keep going, except that they weren’t really a band anymore. Chris Manning never wanted to be a bass player anyway, and Jason Falkner realized the other two weren’t going to let him do anything but play guitar at their direction, so he bolted.

Undaunted, the dynamic duo hunkered down in the studio in their Scooby Doo-inspired wardrobe with the guys who produced the debut, tapping Lyle Workman and the soon-to-be ubiquitous Jon Brion for the lead guitars and T-Bone Wolk to handle the better bass parts. The result was Spilt Milk, which doubled down on their quirky touches and daddy issues in the lyrics by piling on religious commentary and ceaseless references to cake frosting and other sugars, delivering a tour de force in album production. Some have suggested there is a rock opera in there, which may or may not be true; perhaps the song titles written in Alpha-Bits cereal in, yes, spilt milk on the back cover were intended to deflate any pomposity.

Whatever the real intention, we do seem to be dealing with a series of dreams. “Hush” perversely starts us off with a lullaby, the layered vocals an overt homage to Queen. The orchestral touches are misleading, as “Joining A Fan Club” jolts everyone awake with straightahead rock, the snide lyrics alluding to both pop stars and televangelists. Roger gets to open “Sebrina, Paste And Plato” (the latter word likely used to avoid paying the Play-Doh manufacturer any royalties), one of the most elaborate songs ever to depict grade school at its most garish, kinda like “Getting Better” filtered through the Muppets. The silliness abates with the sublime “New Mistake”, another master production that pulls out all the stops, complete with key change for the bridge and Harrisonian guitar solo, all the while relating a playlet about a surprise pregnancy that spans generations. “The Glutton Of Sympathy” most resembles the songs on Bellybutton, loaded as it is with haunting melodic phrases, and so does “The Ghost At Number One”. The heaviest track the Beach Boys never recorded, complete with a nod to “Cabin Essence” over the fade, it had a truly dark video to match, and predicted even more dead rock stars. While it was written back before the first album, “Bye, Bye, Bye” melds Oktoberfest with “Those Were The Days” by way of Supertramp. The best parts of the song are still the vocal motif used as the intro and after the instrumental break.

It’s back to loud angry rock (and more Queen references) with “All Is Forgiven”, its dense sound burying some very delicate musical lines, escalating into a wash of echo that abruptly cuts off with the next mood switch into “Russian Hill”. Based around a dreamy approach derived from Nick Drake, it occupies a similar palate-cleansing mood-changer slot as “Bedspring Kiss” on the last album, but it’s a much better song and arrangement, the pedal steel guitar the perfect touch. Then it’s off to Nilsson territory with “He’s My Best Friend”, a not-too-subtle ode to onanism with an even more overt steal in the title. It’s a joke that wears thin, but the majestic kiss-off “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late” redeems it. (This is a good place to remind the listener that what sounds like a big band—anywhere on the album—was actually pieced together instrument by instrument and expertly mixed.) Another Harrisonian solo bookends the tune, to the point that we don’t always realize “Brighter Day” has started. The “Cabin Essence” banjo returns, in between carousel sounds and circus effects used to illustrate more of the horror than fun of life in the big top. Andy goosesteps toward the increasingly plodding denouement, and another Hollywood flourish brings us right back to where we came in on track one.

For the Split Milk tour, they drafted bass player Tim Smith to wear a hideous green corduroy suit with odd lapels and matching Prince Valiant haircut, while young Eric Dover was brought in to shred on guitar and leer at the girls in the front row. The stage was decked out with tinsel streamers like a high school dance and a working Lite-Brite displaying the band’s logo. Roger would occasionally come out from behind his rig to bash a guitar, particularly on their cover of Badfinger’s “No Matter What”. (Sadly, this was not included among the demos and live recordings added to the album’s eventual expansion.)

But it wasn’t enough to keep the band together, and rather attempt to make an even better record, Jellyfish dried up on the sand. Andy Sturmer was clearly happier making music than promoting it, and went on to a successful career working with Japanese musicians and scoring animated television, giving absolutely zero interviews in the time since. Roger Manning tried continuing as Imperial Drag with Eric Dover (who’d just finished a stint with Slash’s Snakepit) and eventually ended up in Beck’s touring band. While there he crossed paths with Jason Falkner, who was in the brief supergroup The Grays with Jon Brion before embarking on a prolific solo career of his own in between sessions (including one Paul McCartney album). Most recently, Manning, Dover, and Smith put out a series of three four-song EPs as The Lickerish Quartet, all released during Covid, and eventually compiled onto a CD in Japan, after which the project ended.

In the absence of a highly unlikely band reunion, Jellyfish endures as one of those bands who knew how to fill up both sides of a Maxell 90 with melodies that will stick in your brain. Some bands can barely fill one. (Those seeking even more from the band’s brief arc will want to look out for 2002’s mega-rare Fan Club box set, which includes much of the Omnivore bonuses and then some, the Radio Jellyfish compilation and Live At Bogart’s set, and the double-disc Stack-a-Tracks, which took the lead yet again from the Beach Boys by presenting predominantly instrumental mixes of both studio albums.)

Jellyfish Spilt Milk (1993)—3½
2015 Omnivore reissue: same as 1993, plus 25 extra tracks