Jack Bruce - Songs for a Tailor (1969)

With a live version of "Crossroads" going Top 30 for Cream, Songs for a Tailor was released in 1969, showing many more sides of Jack Bruce. George Harrison (again using his L'Angelo Misterioso moniker) appears on the first track, "Never Tell Your Mother She's Out of Tune," though his guitar is not as prominent as the performance on "Badge." The song is bass heavy with Colosseum members Dick Heckstall-Smith and Jon Hiseman providing a different flavor to what Bruce fans had become accustomed to. Hiseman drums on eight of the ten compositions, including "Theme From an Imaginary Western," the second track, and Jack Bruce's greatest hit that never charted. With "just" Chris Spedding on guitar and Jon Hiseman on drums, Bruce paints a masterpiece performing the bass, piano, organ, and vocals. The song is so significant it was covered by Mountain, Colosseum, and a Colosseum spin-off, Greenslade. One has to keep in mind that the influential Blind Faith album was being recorded this same year (and according to the late Jimmy Miller, producer of that disc, Jack Bruce filled in for Rick Grech on some of the Blind Faith material). Bruce's omnipresence on the charts and in the studio gives the diversity on Songs for a Tailor that much more intrigue. "Tickets to Water Falls" and "Weird of Hermiston" feature the Hiseman/Spedding/Bruce trio, and though the wild abandon of Ginger Baker is replaced by Hiseman's jazz undercurrents, these are still basically two- to three-and-a-half-minute songs, not as extended as the material on Bruce's work on his John McLaughlin/Heckstall-Smith/Hiseman disc Things We Like recorded a year before this, but released two years after Songs for a Tailor in 1971. The history is important because this album is one of the most unique fusions of jazz with pop and contains less emphasis on the blues, a genre so essential to Bruce's career. Indeed, "Theme From an Imaginary Western" is total pop. It is to Jack Bruce what "Midnight Rider" is to Greg Allman, a real defining moment. "Rope Ladder to the Moon" has that refreshing sparkle found on "Tickets to Water Falls" and "Weird of Hermiston," but Bruce has only John Marshall on drums and producer Felix Pappalardi adding some vocals while he provides cellos, vocals, guitar, piano, and bass. Side two goes back to the thick progressive sound of the first track on side one, and has a lot in common with another important album from this year, Janis Joplin's I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Jack Bruce and Janis Joplin were two of the most familiar superstar voices on radio performing hard blues-pop. Joplin added horns to augment her expression the same time Jack Bruce was mixing saxes and trumpets to three tracks of this jazz/pop exploration. "He the Richmond" deviates from that, throwing a curve with Bruce on acoustic guitar, Pappalardi on percussion, and Marshall slipping in again on drums. But the short one minute and 44 second "Boston Ball Game, 1967" proves the point about the pop/jazz fusion succinctly and is a nice little burst of creativity. "To Isengard" has Chris Spedding, Felix Pappalardi, and Jack Bruce on acoustic guitars, a dreamy folk tune until Hiseman's drums kick in on some freeform journey, Spedding's guitar sounding more like the group Roxy Music, which he would eventually join as a sideman, over the total jazz of the bass and drums. "The Clearout" has Spedding, Hiseman, and Bruce end the album with progressive pop slightly different from the other recordings here. As with 1971's Harmony Row, Peter Brown composed all the lyrics on Songs for a Tailor with Jack Bruce writing the music. A lyric sheet is enclosed and displays the serious nature of this project. It is picture perfect in construction, performance, and presentation.

AMG Review by Joe Viglione

Art Boys Collection - Stoned Wall (Austrian Prog-Rock in Flower Power style 1972)

Austrian Progressive Beat Band in flower power style from Andorf, Upper Austria, Austria. Active from 1970-75.
The Art Boys Collection started as pure The Boys in Upper Austria in 1969, when Gerhard Egger and Hans Joachim Holz met in a student jam session in 1970. They changed their name and outfit and performed several shows in G.I. Clubs in Austria and Bavaria. Three months later, the band went to Vienna to record their first single at Austrophon-Studio and organ player Walter Holz fixed a record deal with the Swiss/Austrian label Lesborne. The song was on power play in the radio and they got offered to release another record ("Life Is A Dream") by the German label Intersong, which only got released in small quantities due to technical problems in the end of the recording process. After that they returned to Vienna to record Art Boys Collection - Jesus Said / Station Nowhere, which was number one in the charts for six weeks. The Art Boys Collection didn't bill themselves as a progressive rock band, as they were a beat band. After having problems with journalists from the Austrian Radio Broadcasting, the band was banned by them. Their shows often got opened up by Waterloo & Robinson who started their career at that time. Gerhard Egger left the band and got replaced by Hubert Perfahl. Before he quit, Egger finished the recording of their only album "Stoned Wall".
The Art Boys continued and played shows till 1972, also opening stages for Golden Earring and Deep Purple. The band finally disbanded and 1972 and stopped playing live in 1975

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Art+Boys+Collection

Durutti Column - The Guitar and Other Machines (1987 Alternative/Experimental)

Following up the band's second live album, A Night in New York, Durutti's composition changed slightly, with both Kellet and Metcalfe off to pursue other ventures, the former ending up in Simply Red. The core Reilly/Mitchell duo settled down in studio to create another striking development in Durutti's story, The Guitar and Other Machines. So named because of Reilly's choice to explore and use newer instruments, specifically a Yamaha Sequencer and a DMX Drum Machine among others, while also trying out new approaches with his guitar playing, first signaled on Circuses and Bread. Opening track "Arpeggiator," one of several cuts originally previewed on A Night in New York, gives a sense as to the result. There's a more straightforwardly soaring lead guitar line; quick, gently perky synth loops; a heavy drum punch; additional strings; and other touches to fill out the busy but strong arrangement. While technology in general was no stranger to the band, these instruments and approaches were, resulting in a generally lusher record than most recorded by Durutti before it, with more rather than fewer instruments being the key motif while still retaining an economy of performance. Both Metcalfe and Kellet appeared on an album highlight, "When the World," recalling the band's mid-'80s highlights while Reilly turns in a surprisingly loud, kick-ass solo, contrasting his acoustic work on the immediately following "U.S.P." Otherwise, a variety of other performers assisted the duo as needed, including producer Stephen Street, who sat in on bass on "English Landscape Tradition," and guest singers Stanton Miranda and Pol (a high point of "When the World" who ironically enough doesn't appear on "Pol in B"). Rob Gray's mouth organ work adds a nicely rootsy feel to "What Is It to Me (Woman)" and "Jongleur Grey," a notable contrast against Durutti's generally futurist approach. Continuing the string of excellent Durutti reissues, its 1996 reappearance included several other studio tracks done around that time, notably the moody and mysterious "LFO Mod," which only appeared on the Valuable Passages compilation in the U.S., and "Dream Topping," featuring a reunion with A Certain Ratio singer Jeremy Kerr. Concluding the reissue are four further tracks from a performance at Peter Gabriel's WOMAD festival, with guest appearances from Chinese opera singer Liu Sola and Swing Out Sister keyboardist Andy Connell, both of whom would feature on the Vini Reilly album.

AMG Review by Ned Raggett

Earth Opera - Earth Opera (1968 Boston Psychedelic Pop)

The stylistic explorations pursued by the Beatles in 1966-1967, and the commercial success the group continued to enjoy, inspired other popular musicians to be similarly ambitious and persuaded record companies to take chances on more daring music. Earth Opera is a good example. The Boston-based group's self-titled debut LP featured a heady mixture of pop, rock, folk, jazz, and classical elements in involved arrangements played on such unusual instruments as mandocello and harpsichord. Less a rock band than a highly eclectic chamber orchestra, Earth Opera played in an arty style that suited singer/songwriter/guitarist Peter Rowan's songs, with their complicated structures and highly poetic lyrics. Rowan sang those lyrics, which dealt here and there with anti-war and more generalized sentiments of social dissatisfaction, in a distanced, somewhat artificial tone of voice, using an accent that sounded vaguely British, even when he was mentioning the Red Sox. But he was rarely so specific, more often concerning himself with "the stage inside my mind" or "the picket fenceposts of your mind," internal landscapes in which wordplay and allusions substituted for specific meaning. It was a psychedelic language matched by the music, which hurried and slowed, making room for sudden solos and unexpected juxtapositions of instruments. The result ultimately may have been too ornate and inaccessible for a pop recording, even in 1968, but Earth Opera was very much of its time.

AMG Review by William Ruhlmann

Graham Parker - Howlin' Wind (Great debut album 1976)

For most intents and purposes, Graham Parker emerged fully formed on his debut album, Howlin' Wind. Sounding like the bastard offspring of Mick Jagger and Van Morrison, Parker sneers his way through a set of stunningly literate pub rockers. Instead of blindly sticking to the traditions of rock & roll, Parker invigorates them with cynicism and anger, turning his songs into distinctively original works. "Back to Schooldays" may be reconstituted rockabilly, "White Honey" may recall Morrison's white R&B bounce, and "Howlin' Wind" is a cross of Van's more mystical moments and the Band, but the songs themselves are original and terrific. Similarly, producer Nick Lowe gives the album a tough, spare feeling, which makes Parker and the Rumour sound like one of the best bar bands you've ever heard. Howlin' Wind remains a thoroughly invigorating fusion of rock tradition, singer/songwriter skill, and punk spirit, making it one of the classic debuts of all time.

AMG Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Bow Street Runners - Bow Street Runners (US Psychedelia 1970)

Sounding like a blend of Jefferson Airplane and the Doors, Bow Street Runners was a Fayetteville, North Carolina-based psychedelic band who released one eponymous album in limited quantities on B.T. Puppy Records in 1970. While the group was ignored at the time, Bow Street Runners became a collectible item among psychedelic aficionados during the '80s and '90s.

Flushed from Fayetteville, North Carolina-where they thought they could remain comfortably obscure-by our release of their only album, the Runners have recently re-surfaced. Issued in ultra-limited quantity by B.T. Puppy in 1970-and now changing hands for sums more familiar to NASDAQ-this is an other-worldly blend of sweet female blotter acid harmonies, hypnotic Farfisa and high-octane fuzz guitar histrionics.

01. Electric Star
02. Watch
03. American Talking Blues
04. Leaving Grit America
05. Another Face
06. Eating From A Plastic Hand
07. Rock Fish Blues
08. Push It Through
09. Spunky Monkey
10. Steve's Jam

Post by CGR

Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Session (Beautiful Alternative Country-Rock 1987)

Who says you can't make a great record in one day -- or night, as the case may be? The Trinity Session was recorded in one night using one microphone, a DAT recorder, and the wonderful acoustics of the Holy Trinity in Toronto. Interestingly, it's the album that broke the Cowboy Junkies in the United States for their version of "Sweet Jane," which included the lost verse. It's far from the best cut here, though. There are other covers, such as Margo Timmins' a cappella read of the traditional "Mining for Gold," a heroin-slow version of Hank Williams' classic "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," "Dreaming My Dreams With You" (canonized by Waylon Jennings), and a radical take of the Patsy Cline classic "Walkin' After Midnight" that closes the disc. Those few who had heard the band's previous album, Whites Off Earth Now!!, were aware that, along with Low, the Cowboy Junkies were the only band at the time capable of playing slower than Neil Young and Crazy Horse -- and without the ear-threatening volume. The Timmins family -- Margo, guitarist and songwriter Michael, drummer Peter, and backing vocalist and guitarist John -- along with bassist Alan Anton and a few pals playing pedal steel, accordion, and harmonica, paced everything to crawl.

That said, it works in that every song has its own texture, slowly and deliberately unfolding from blues and country and drones. An example is the Michael and Margo song "I Don't Get It," ushered in with a few drawling guitar lines, a spooky harmonica, and brushed drums. Margo Timmins doesn't have a large range and doesn't need it as she scratches each song's surface like an itch until it bleeds its truth. This is also true on "Misguided Angel," another original where the verses become nearly a round alternating between her voice and Michael's snaky spare guitar lines to fill an almost unimaginable space. The Williams tune becomes a dirge in the Cowboys' hands. It's a funeral song, or an elegy for one who has dragged herself so far into the oblivion of isolation that there is no place left to go but home. Michael's guitar moves around the changes as bassist Anton plays them; he colors the space allowing for Margo to fill the melodic space spot-on, yet stretching each syllable out to the breaking point. For most, this was the Cowboy Junkies' debut -- Whites Off Earth Now!! was re-released in the States a few years later -- and it established them firmly in the forefront of the "alternative" scene with radio and MTV. As an album, it's still remarkable at how timeless it sounds, and its beauty is -- in stark contrast to its presentation -- voluminous and rich, perhaps even eternal.

AMG Review by Thom Jurek