Trans-Europe Express

I was a sophmore in a Central Texas High School when I got Trans-Europe Express by Kraftwerk. It was beyond anything I had been listening to electronic music wise and I loved it. Such a distinguished gentleman cover too:

It opens with the lovely tones of "Europe Endless", the chant of Europe Endless Endless floats through my head whenever anyone pontificates about across the pond. The keyboard riff of "The Hall of Mirrors" is almost as good as the self aware lyrics :"Even the greatest stars discover/find/dislike/change/themselves (live their lives/fix their face) in the looking glass". My favorite Kraftwerk song of all time concludes side one, "Showroom Dummies", predating the whole we are the robot thang with "We are Showroom Dummies/We look around/And change our pose/We are showroom dummies." I had friend listen to that song at the time and go on a long voyage covering all that mannequins coming to life implies. Of course, I talked about the fabulous Twilight Zone episode where the woman finds out that she is a Showroom Dummy.

Side Two opens with title hit "Trans-Europe Express", my mind would wander across the countries in a train when ever I listened and stared at the album cover. I'm glad vinyl is back but the beauty that was the album cover before it all shrank (well there were cassettes and eight tracks) meant that sometimes there was deep thought about the images printed on that 12" square. All of side two just flows together, "Metal on Metal" is such an enduring theme that I always felt it was a continuation. Then "Franz Schubert" is a pleasant respite exploring the more classical side of electronic composing. And "Endless, Endless" rounds it out, less than a minute long it echoes the feel of the album; traveling across one's memories and reflected desires.

I just saw Kraftwerk perform in 3D tonight and it was an amazing experience. The first rock show ever where 3D glasses were required. The visuals were phenomenal and the jamming of four guys on keyboards was unparallelled. Their version of Trans-Europe Express/Metal on Metal was as transcendent as the rest of the show. For their first encore, they had their robots perform. It was better than the Hall of Presidents but not as the Country Bears. Still seeing Ralf as a robot tickled my soul and made me glad to alive in this time before it all gets______(fill in the blank). I convinced a friend to go who was not that familiar with Kraftwerk and I think it's safe to say he was Boing Boom Tschak Techno Popped away.

A Tab In The Ocean

Ah, Nektar. The first Nektar album I devoured was Remember The Future which was a full length record with just one song about a blind boy seeing through a birds eyes. I played that record over and over, alas more of side one than side two. The second record I heard was the circus themed Down To Earth and I would play "Fidgety Queen" ad nauseum. Both of these records were owned by my brother and I picked up my own copies in cut out bins where Nektar records were usually found back in the day. A Tab In The Ocean was my first purchase of an unheard Nektar record and it contained freaking "King of Twilight" one of the greatest quote unquote Prog rock songs ever. Plus it features art that is stunning:

Side one is the title track, all 17 minutes of "A Tab in the Ocean", and it's a classic starting with waves and organ building to a frantic theme, crescendo, guitar lead, distant voice until: "To the answer, to every question,Is it real, or just deception?" Side two starts with a heavy guitar riff until it the mellow organ holds the verse then rocks out up to the riff again. A very typical Nektar song structure and "Desolation Valley" has it all down to the lyrics...

Take a look around yourself and see what I see
Persecuted eyes, looking down on me
I can't take no more of what I took before
Help me please I'm falling down Desolation Valley now
Take a look around yourself and see what I see
Imagination merged with reality
You won't see no more like you did before
Watch yourself you're falling down

"Waves" follows almost as a quiet after theme with its soaring voice reminiscent of Floyd's Gig in the Sky but two years before Dark Side came out compete with spoken phrases just below ear level. That gives way to wah guitar of "Crying in the Dark", this song always creeps up on me with extended guitar work at the end. Just great to hear wah used differently. Then its the scream of melodic ahh ah ah ahh that opens album closer and hard rocker "King of Twilight" and I'm jumping around the room singing "Forty leaves I pay for freedom.For a chance to be free." It ends abruptly on the word free at its end. Love it! One of my life's regret is not being able to see them at Cheer Up Charlies a few years back when my legs decided to cease functioning. I schemed all I could in hopes of getting there but wheelchairs and open surgery wounds kinda put a kabosh on the whole idea. I tried to get as many people as I could to go including my brother who saw them in 1974 and my girlfriend who represented like she always does.

Quark,Strangeness and Charm

I was in high school , tenth grade first semester in Texas, when bought Quark, Strangeness And Charm by Hawkwind. It had a sci fi cover and sci fi titles amidst what looked like dead scientists.

I recognized the name Robert Calvert from the Nektar album Down To Earth, he was the ringmaster on their circus themed record. Robert Calvert lead me to meet some one in school who was carrying Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters under his arm. He got me a ticket to see the Sex Pistols in San Antonio on their fateful US tour, but I had to opt not to go since it was on a Sunday night and  my parents would have a fit if I came back after midnight. As it was they didn't play until 2 am and my friend dressed up as a SS officer (even though he is Jewish).

I was immediately taken by the first "Spirit of The Age":

I would've liked you to have been deep frozen too

And waiting still as fresh in your flesh for my return to Earth

But your father refused to sign the forms to freeze you

Let's see you'd be about 60 now

And long dead by the time I return to Earth

My time held dreams were full of you

As you were when I left, still underage

Your android replica is playing up again, it's no joke

When she comes she moans another's name

That's the spirit of the age

I am a clone, I am not alone

Every fiber of my flesh and bone is identical to the others

Everything I say is in the same tone

As my test tube brother's voice there is no choice between us

If you had ever seen us you'd rejoice in your uniqueness

And consider every weakness something special of your own

Being a clone I have no flaws to identify

Even this doggerel that pours from my pen

Has just been written by another twenty telepathic men

Oh, word for word, it says:

"Oh, for the wings of any bird, other than a battery hen"

Ah, the spirit of the age

That's the spirit of the age

Ah, the spirit of the age

That is the spirit of the age

Monkey Island

My brother was a big J.Geils Band fan, he really like their The Morning After and live Full House albums.  He played them a fair amount and would jump into my face and say "First I look at the Purse!". As an fourth grader I found that amusing. When he shared Monkey Island with me, it was to show how they had dropped the "J" from their name and lessened the blues basis of their music. I swallowed this album, staring at the black and white cover and pouring over the lyric sheet. When I found it in a store, I immediately bought my own copy.

"Surrender" starts it all with a full blown blues rock features Cissy Houston belting her lungs out in a duet with Peter Wolf. I also like the line "could it be mind over matter/or maybe you just can't see"."You 're the Only One" stills sounds like late seventies romance rock, it was a hit single. Although there isn't an objectionable song on the album, it is full of pop ditties.Their version of "I Do'" is freaking awesome for what it is a do wop number, but I enjoy the handclaps throughout, honky piano and horn arrangement. This is the first song that Magic Dick starts to rip on his harmonica; probably the J.Geils Band claim to the early east coast scene, They grab onto the Rolling Stones on "Somebody", always liked this film noir tale of a song (I realized I could take all mine/And skip off with theirs, too/I know I must be crazy/I'm bound to wake up dead/Somebody, somebody/Waitin' outside my back door/Somebody, somebody/Tryin' to even up the score). "I'm Falling " is another seventies typical rock ballad, remains catchy but I guess I wanted those cheezy songs without having it be something you would hear on the radio. It was a comfort food, this song ends with extended sax jam by Michael Brecker recalling that whole Asbury style.

Side two opens with epic "Monkey Island" from the long intro (it's a seven minute song) to spooky sounds of the verses to the all hail of the chorus.  Ah, how the imagery of the lyrics stuck with me like a Jim Thompson paperback.

No one could explain it

What went on that night

How every living thing

Just dropped out of sight

We watched them take the bodies

And row them back to shore

Nothing like that ever

Happened here before.

On the east side of the island

Not too far from the shore

There stood the old house

Of fifty years or more

All the doors and windows

Were locked inside and out

The fate of those trapped in there

Would never be found out.

There ain't no life on Monkey Island

No one cares and no one knows

The moon hangs out on Monkey Island

The night has dealt the final blow

The fish jumped from the water

And started walking home

The birds all started screaming

And dove into the foam

The night came out of nowhere

And then a quiet rain

Footsteps in the darkness

Down a half forgotten road.

This song has the classic rock sections and at the time I had first got this record it was all mine. It was not where most my friends were musically but I was weird since at the time I was listening to Sparks and Amon Duul II. I mean this album is the transition between the blues rock bar band J Geils and the "Centerfold" popsters and those who knew good tell. Their version of Louis Armstrong's "I'm Not Rough" is dixie done by a good studio band. "So Good" follows with more memphis horn pop rock. I like on this record how they put the rhythm guitar in one speaker for a lot of the breaks. I enjoy good use of stereo. Acoustic track "Wreckage" ends the album, It's so note perfect with its chorus of "Only few return/So only few will learn/About the wreckage along the way". This record helped me through early high school and is still a go to when I need a pop fix...it's my soda of choice.

In The City

The first 'punk' record I got was In The City by The Jam and I thought it sounded like early Who which I really liked at the time (still do)

In the city there's a thousand things, I want to say to you

But whenever I approach you, you make me look a fool

I wanna say, I wanna tell you

About the young ideas

But you turn them into fears

Nice Guys

One of the first 'Jazz by Choice' albums I got was Nice Guys by Art Ensemble of Chicago. I believed I choose it for its cover in the early eighties because I desired something I hadn't heard of that looked good. I was intrigued by the song titles and the studio picture on the back cover.

"Ja" opens with a flurry trumpet, clarinet & saxophone before settling in a slow single note groove with the bass moving  the rhythm around with whistle and random percussion. Two minutes in it turns into reggae song complete with vocals singing about "getting back to Jamaica". This goes on for about two more minutes then sax takes over and it  devolves back into its groove for the remaining four minutes. The title track "Nice Guys" is 1:40 of catchy meandering music beginning and ending with the phrase "I'm so nice". Always makes me smile when that voice comes on,I guess that's kind of the point, a little nodding humour.Whistles with percussion and faraway reeds opens "Folkus", totally sounding like being in woods if all creatures play jazz instruments with the saxes, trumpet imitating those pesky cicada bugs. I remember camping once in a forest in Arkansas where the cicadas were so loud they drowned everything else and made it very difficult to fall asleep. Like that night, the music drifts into an almost lullaby state with wind chimes and various ringing instruments with occasional growls bringing forth images of mammals until tribal drums take over. 

I liked side one it had good lowdown feel to it, but I always played side two more. It opened with bouncy but slurry "597-59". It had that squawking sax that I was getting into with the recordings of Coltrane and Coleman, it rocked out with long phrases taking a lot of breath. It ends with a bass lead with sparse accompaniment, more lead than the Mingus groove that was evident in side one. "CYP" is mostly reeds and sets a nice atmosphere across the room. I think I always liked how the bass ending of the first song lead into the floating world of wind instruments. It really sets up the bopping riff of "Dreaming of the Master", the eleven minute odyssey that ends the record. The dum-da-dah phrase goes on  eventually drifting out of focus 'like a dream'.. I remember putting this song on a couple of mix tapes and cutting it half with radio dial noise placing this particularly tight live version of "Stormy Weather" by Billie Holiday then radio dial noise back to "Dreaming of the Master". I have a fondness for cutting songs together on cassette tape unfortunately it's not nearly as fun on mix cds where analog finesse gives way to digital cut and paste. I once married two David Gilmour solo album songs where both choruses had "There's no way" phrase in it . I would go back and forth between the two songs at that phrase. One of the songs was a hit "There's no way out of here, when you come in you're in for good" and it frustrated my friends because I interrupted the sing along.

This is one of the records that helped me understand the brilliance of Eric Dolphy, someone I was unaware of until my roommates in the 38th street house turned me onto. For sure it was the first non conventional quintet (if you call Miles, Mingus, Ornette, etc. conventional) and the first ECM label record. There was a time for awhile that if I ran across something on the ECM label I would buy it. I did same with any Factory Benelux or Les Disques du Crépuscule releases. Label obsession is an interesting thing, I find people do it for a lot of reggae labels like Trojan or the fabulous European Recommended Records. It will be fun to re explore this concept as I dig further into the shelves.

In 1987 at the Carver Center in San Antonio I saw Art Ensemble of Chicago perform the history of music "Ancient to the Future" and it was a mindblowing performance with costumes and rudimentary instruments resembling caveman rhythms progressing all the way up to modified futuristic horns. Further cementing my fondness for them as I eagerly consumed their records about Africa and urban dwelling. It's  leading me down that You Tube hole as I try to remember the name of a particular song I liked as I click on video after another saying no that's not it, click, no, next one, hmmm...

Other Voices

Well you asked how much I love you
Why do ships with sails love the wind?
And will I be thinking of you
Will I ever pass this way again
I'll be returning some day
Until then, please don't ask me my direction
Let my tracks be buried in the sea
'Cause to wander is my infection
'Till the four winds bring you back to me

Don't count your memories
Think of me as just a dream
Just like this melody, I sing






SO....The first Doors album I ever bought and probably heard full length was Other Voices which was released three months after Jim Morrison's death and does not feature him or his lyrics. Ray and Robbie do the vocals and the arrangements are of a lighter fare than L.A. Woman. Needless to say when my older brother heard and saw this record he was taken aback said it was the Civil War without Ulysses S. Grant. I was young and had only just started to build my record collection so I played this album a lot. The album opens with "In The Eye Of The Sun" which has Ray singing as close to Jim's style as he can get and features organ rhythm and typical Krieger guitar lead in an opposite stereo mix. Listening now it does sound like The Doors of the past but Ray can't help singing within the beat not like the poet could have sang it. Robbie sings "Variety is the Spice of Life" and its pretty much a barn burner with a boogie woogie feel, very typical of the early seventies with its Dr. John sensibilities. The seven minute plus "Ships w/ Sails" is a great Doors song that I know the lyrics so well I decided to preface them to this blog. I can hear the echo of the poet in the strained voice, a bit of longing for the baritone from the tenor. God, I played this record a lot in Junior High, I am so surprised how well this Elektra vinyl has aged...still clean and deep, wow. Side one ends with "Tightrope Ride" (Watch out, don't fall! Careful, don't slip!), another blues influenced pounding organ song featuring nice clean guitar riffs yet not as well developed as one would hope. I played Ships so much and then this song would come on and I would hesitate to flip the record. But I had to, I had to hear "I'm Horny, I'm Stoned", I was a teenager after all.

Supposedly side two opener "Down on the Farm" was written for the previous album and it does seem to fit although it sounds very Moody Blues like on the verse (Don’t need none today/Master’s gone away/His mind has gone astray) then like The Band on the chorus (Gonna run a rainbow ragged/Ask the mountain men, they’ve had it/City life’s a real bad habit). The piano pulses in and the guitar attacks and the ubiquitous "I'm Horny, I'm Stoned" starts and I am dancing around the room. I can't help it, here's the lyrics:

Well I'm tired, I'm nervous, I'm bored, I'm stoned
Don't you know life ain't so easy when you're on your own
I'm lonely, I'm ugly, I'm horny, I'm cold
Don't you know life ain't so easy when you're on your own
Leaving home
Well I got ripped off, wiped out, I got burned
Don't you know life ain't so easy when you're on your own
I feel my mind is shaking out of place
I look like a truck ran over my face
The doctor says I'm not a hopeless case
I really want to join the human race
Well I got ripped off, wiped out, I got burned
Don't you know life ain't so easy when you're on your own
Well I'm tired, I'm nervous, I'm bored, I'm stoned
Don't you know life ain't so easy when you're on your own
Leaving home, on your own
On your own

A harpsichord opens "Wandering Musician" which could of been song from the big pink yet once again the vocal struggles to have conviction. But this song has some nice interplay between percussion and guitar along with piano. Percussion is forefront in "Hang Onto To Your Life", then electric piano, then that guitar punctuation - what a good band this was. This song ends the album strongly being the most jammy of all the tracks, really like it when Ray gets all wizardly on the keys. When I finally heard other Door albums (of course I had heard the radio songs still I was more familiar with Jose Feliciano's Light My Fire since he was on TV performing it what seemed like a weekly basis), Other Voices faded from my repertoire although I would still play Horny and Ships for friends and curious onlookers. Yes my Doors education was flawed starting at the wrong point in time, Still like many of the records I will discuss this holds a certain charm in my heart, the faint memory of a seventh grader listening to records in the basement while playing pool or cleaning up after the damn cat (oh I love and miss you Skippy).