The Screaming Gypsy Bandits "Junior"

The Screaming Gypsy Bandits
In the Eye
LP
(BRBQ Records, Inc., 1973)

The world is full of unexpected connections. For instance, one would not be likely to think a link might exist between avant garde art punks MX-80 Sound, Top 40 popsters Looking Glass, mid-'70s metallers Starz, and contemporary jazzers like John Zorn, Tim Berne, and Satoko Fujii.

I'd like to introduce you to that link. Ladies and gentlemen, The Screaming Gypsy Bandits.

Their output during their lifetime was scant: this album and the compilation LP Bloomington 1, where I first heard them, released on the same label a couple of years later. Their members went on to stardom as the years wore on, however. Guitarist Bruce Anderson went on to fame, of a sort, with MX-80 Sound and its various offshoots. Guitarist Brendan Harkin joined Looking Glass, after their mega-hit Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) but in time to play on their final single, and stayed with them as they morphed into Fallen Angels then Starz. Bassist Mark Dresser (who left before this album was recorded) has played with the above jazz luminaries and scads more.

Three of the songs from this album were added as bonus tracks to the CD reissue of vocalist Caroline Peyton's 1972 album, Mock Up, so I've chosen one of the remaining six for today's post. It was written by Mark Bingham, who penned all the tracks on the album plus all of the songs on Mock Up. Junior is the longest track on the album and allows the members to really stretch out.

The liner notes for the Mock Up CD mention a Screaming Gypsy Bandits album that was never finished, Back to Doghead. In 2009, that album hit the shelves, finally, in compact disc form. Unlike In the Eye, it's a much more out there affair, with obvious inspiration from Captain Beefheart and The Mothers of Invention. I think it's pretty fabulous.

Victory Rose "Fljúgðu"

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Victory Rose
Smekkleysa í hálfa öld
compilation CD
(Smekkleysa, 1994)

What, you may ask, is a Victory Rose? Well, in this case it's a person and a band and not a horticultural entity. Victory Rose, you see, is English for Sigur Rós, and was the band Sigur Rós's original name. So who's the person? That would be Sigur Rós openly gay vocalist/guitarist Jón Þór Birgisson's (aka Jónsi) newborn (at the time) baby sister Sigurrós.

:-)

Fljúgðu was their very first release, wayyy back in 1994, and the only thing released under the name Victory Rose. It was the penultimate track on the compilation CD Smekkleysa í hálfa öld, released by the label Smekkleysa in their homeland of Iceland. Their song is followed by a jazzyish lil' number by international superstar Björk. The other 15 tracks are by folks I know absolutely nothing about other than little has made an impression on me.

Funny story: The first time I saw Sigur Rós, I knew very little about them other than I loved the CD that I'd recently bought of their second album, Ágætis byrjun. So, the lights dimmed and they came out on stage and began to play. It was clear they were all guys (not counting their backing string quartet Amiina), so I figured the female vocalist would make a dramatic entrance when it was time for the vocals to kick in. Uhhhhh . . . nope! I was stunned when Jónsi stepped up to the mic and that gorgeous voice came spilling out!

OK, maybe not that funny of a story. So sue me.

Grateful Dead "The Same Thing"

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The Grateful Dead
Historic Dead
LP
(Sunflower/MGM, 1971)

Man, I used to hate the Grateful Dead. I just despised them, you know? I thought the song Deadhead by The Teen Idles was hilarious:

Riding that train
High on cocaine
The music's really lousy
The fans are a pain

Trouble behind
Trouble ahead
Only good Deadhead
Is one that's dead

I've often wondered how they felt when Grateful Dead co-founder/leader Jerry Garcia died fifteen years or so later.

Sorry . . . tangent complete . . .

A number of years back, for some reason unknown to me despite the fact that the idea came from my own brain unit, I decided to buy a used copy I found of the reissue of their third album, Aoxomoxoa, replete with beaucoup bonus traxoa. I ended up really diggin' the long, drawn out, pyschedelic jams therein, and, naturally, started buying whatever I could snag from that period. My collection now sports twenty Grateful Dead albums (!). I should add, however, that they are almost all live recordings and nearly entirely from 1970 and earlier.

There are three exceptions to the above, two of which are sonic cut-up experiments: 1991's Infrared Roses, which features live recordings from the late 80s/early 90s mucked about with by soundman Bob Bralove, and 1996's massive Grayfolded, an amazing double-CD featuring recordings of Dark Star, spanning November 14, 1967 through September 13, 1993, that have been chopped, folded, contracted, expanded, etc. by John Oswald into two epic Plunderphonic versions of said piece: Transitive Axis (59:59) and Mirror Ashes (46:46). The third exception is Dick's Picks, Volume Two: Columbus, Ohio 10/31/71.

Today's song, however, comes from a legally released, but long unavailable, album from 1971 that featured live recordings made at the Avalon Ballroom in 1966. The Same Thing is a Willie Dixon song, and, to the best of my knowledge, this is one of only three versions of it by the Dead that have been released. In addition to this particular recording, there's one from 1967 in the So Many Roads boxset, plus a much later recording on Dick's Picks Volume 27: Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA, December 16, 1992.

There's another album of Avalon Ballroom recordings, also on the Sunflower label, called Vintage Dead. Anyone have a spare copy?

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Attila "Holy Moses"

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Attila
Attila
LP
(Epic Records, 1970)

Sing me a song, you're the piano man . . .

When I worked as a parking lot attendent, lo these many moons ago, there was a bar at the end of the lot that featured live, acoustic music on their back porch. In addition to future members of the Dave Matthews Band (oh, joy), there was a guy who used to do solo sets with his guitar. Invariably, he'd play Piano Man every time. Pedant that I can be, this drove me up the wall! DUDE! You are not the piano man! You are playing a . . . GUITAR!

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

Anyhow, long before Piano Man was a hit, before his live album kept getting listed in print as Konuept, before he didn't start the fire, before I understood long division, Billy Joel was half of the hard rockin' Long Island duo Attila. They released this lone album before splitting. Billy went on to eventual mega crapitudinous stardom. Jon, well, I have no idea, other than he apparently did not kill Billy for having an affair with his wife.

For the record, I love this album. Ignore what the linked AllMusic.com article says about Attila being embarrassingly discordant.

One of my favorite things about albums of this period is the over-the-top liner notes they often sport. The ones for this record are so great, I've decided to share them in their entirety. You are welcome.

In the fifth century, a scourge rolled across Eastern Europe, destroying all that stood in its path. A screaming, invincible wave of destruction, it left in its wake half the civilized world in shock and bleeding submission. It was a sword and a flame. It was a name that became synonymous with an unstemmable tide of conquest.

ATTILA!

The name meant more. To Attila's followers, it meant glory, conquest and riches; an empire that extended to the gates of the holy city of Rome.

ATTILA:

Is the most remarkable group on the scene since the Huns sacked Europe. There are only two men in the group, an unlikely number for a conquering horde. But in numbers, the smallness ends. Their sound is their size, so are their ideas.

The music you will hear on this album has no studio gimmicks, no multiple-track recordings. No extra musicians were called in for the recording session. The sounds you will hear are the same as you would hear live. (And how many of us have paid to hear groups live, only to find that their real sound was on records, with extra musicians added?)

How it is done will be covered later. Who does it is more important.

BILLY JOEL: (vocals, keyboard player, arranger-composer, Taurus) Is a native New Yorker. He is twenty-one, single, and only sweats two things: perfecting his sound and South East Asia. He began with piano, at age four. He began playing professionally at fourteen. He worked for almost four years in a now-defunct rock group (Forget the name, man.) with:

JON SMALL: (composer-arranger, drums, Capricorn) Jon is also a native New Yorker and boyhood friend of Billy. He is twenty-three, married, and talks best through his work. He has been a drummer forever.

Although they were successful and accepted with their previous, larger group, Jon and Billy were dissatisfied with the sound. They had a dream of a two-man group, with a new and different attack. They wanted the sound to be full-sized, heavy, and have no middle-of-the-road compromises. No one believed in it at first but them.

For ten months, they rehearsed at night in the basement of a wallpaper store owned by Jon's family. Sometimes they would rehearse upstairs, near the window, in the closed, almost darkened store.

We bent the heads of a few passing cops, says Billy, so we decided that the basement would be better. No scenes, no hassles. There was no heat in the basement. Stacked all around were rolls of wallpaper. A smell of dust and paper hung in the air. There were only walls and crates to play to. They practiced on through the nights.

As they worked, a new feeling crept into their music. There was resentment and hostility at a world that locks new music away in the basement. Hostility toward all the people who say no to new sounds before they hear them.

During this phase, Revenge Is Sweet was written. In a way, says Jon, Revenge is what the album is all about.

To make it clear, Jon and Billy are not mad at the world. They find the world too beautiful a place, and life too good a thing to waste it hating. There is joy in their music, too. Listen to Wonder Woman and Rollin' Home.

There's joy of life too, in Brain Invasion, a kind of stereo look at the insides of minds and things.

What they are mad at is complacency, and all those without imagination. They are mad at all those who have eyes and won't see; ears, but won't hear. They see ATTILA as marching over these people, crushing, bruising, making them look and listen. (You can hear this on Side One: March of the Huns.)

Here is the result: their first album.

Wake up people!

ATTILA is at the gates. . . .

TECHNICAL

Billy Joel plays a Hammond organ, model #B-3. He rewired it to bypass the Leslie tone cabinet, and it feeds directly into the amplifiers. He calls the result pure raunch. Further effects are obtained with foot-controlled wah-wah, and volume. He uses a keyboard bass of his own design, plus unconventional couplings of standard organ stops.

Jon Small plays a normal set of drums, pretty much the same way any two other drummers would.

—Tom Paisley

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NOTA BENE: The title of that live album is Концерт, which is Russian for Concert. Clever, huh? Yeah, I agree; not really. By the way, depending on what fonts you have loaded, you might see the last letter of the Cyrillic title appearing as what looks like an m; that's just a typographic variation; it's still pronounced like a Latin alphabet t.

NOTA TWOE: Did you notice that bit from Billy in the liner notes, we decided that the basement would be better. No scenes, no hassles? The band Billy and Jon had been in previously was The Hassles. I've got their second album, Hour of the Wolf, and it's some pretty spankin' late 6T's hard rock.

飛不動 「かげ」

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飛不動
『飛不動』
CD
(self-released?, 1992)

Leo Records is a pretty cool jazz label. If I find something on Leo in a bargain bin, chances are highly likely that I will snap it up post-haste. Coincidentally, or maybe not, my two favorite jazz pianists outside of Cecil Taylor (they're much too big to fit inside) are Sakis Papadimitriou, whom I've featured before, and Satoko Fujii. Both I first heard as a result of finding CDs on Leo's sublabel Leo Lab in bargain bins.

The Satoko Fujii Orchestra CD South Wind turned up in the local store I've mentioned before where Japanese CDs used to appear on a regular basis. OK, sure, Leo Records is a UK label, but Ms. Fujii is Japanese. So there! There are actually four Satoko Fujii Orchestras. South Wind is by what later became known as the Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York. She also has orchestras based in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Kobe (ordered here by number of releases).

Ms. Fujii, along with her trumpeter husband Natsuki Tamura, have collectively released a huge number of excellent CDs starting with 1996's Something about Water, a collaboration between Satoko and legendary pianist Paul Bley. As of today, there are 27 CDs on their own label, Libra Records, plus scads of other CDs on scads of other labels; every time I manage to catch up with them, they'll release another four or so at once.

This is all a bit beside the point, however. Four years before Something about Water was released, there was an album by a group named 飛不動. The compositions are all by Natsuki, and he and Satoko are joined by 金井敬一 on bass and 見世秀麿 on drums. I managed to score a copy from Downtown Music Gallery in Manhattan a few years ago. They still have it listed, and I think it's pretty great. Today's jukebox selection is the first track.

NOTA BENE: 飛不動 is a flying deity in Japanese legend. I just found that out now, while writing this.

Translations:

• 飛不動 = Tobifudo
• かげ = Kage = Shadow
• 金井敬一 = Keiichi Kanai
• 見世秀麿 = Hidemaro Mise

Be·Bop Deluxe "Teenage Archangel"

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Be·Bop Deluxe
Teenage Archangel
7" single
(Smile Records, 1973)

Be-Bop Deluxe jumped out at me through the FM radio waves back in 1978. I'd heard of them, having seen their records in stores, but had never actually heard them. Their new album at the time was Drastic Plastic, and its hard, new wave sound turned out to be delectable ear candy to 14-year-old me (still is, too), even though I mostly listened to metal at the time (and thought punk rock sucked because Johnny Ramone didn't play any guitar solos when the Ramones were on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert).

The singles Panic in the World and Electrical Language got regular airplay where I lived, and I loved them so much I had to buy the album. It wasn't too long before I snapped up the rest of what was out there on LP, and was a happy, happy camper, despite the earlier albums being quite different: more prog rock than new wave and gobs and gobs and gobs of fantastic guitar.

At some point, I learned that Be·Bop Deluxe had released a single on their own label back in 1973, before signing with Harvest Records, home of Kevin Ayers, Syd Barrett, and other assorted weirdo geniuses. Luckily, in mid-1978 my family moved from northern Louisiana to the Washington, D.C. area, which had much better record stores. I tracked down a copy of the single at Yesterday & Today Records,which was the store in town if you were looking for obscurish punk, new wave, oddball, and/or heavy metal records. There were lots of other good stores, mind you, but Y&T was the epicenter, so to speak. The owner, Skip Groff, was incredibly supportive of the local underground scene. He produced sessions for local bands, had his own label, Limp Records (as opposed to the UK's Stiff Records, you see), and employed many of the local punk rockers of note at the store.

This single wasn't released with a picture sleeve, to the best of my knowledge, so that's my protective plastic sleeve holding it in the pic. I supposed I could've scanned it sans-sleeve, but I didn't want to risk damaging the record. I know the sound is a bit muddy, but that's the way it's sounded since the day I bought it. The song on the b-side, Jets at Dawn, was re-recorded for their first album, Axe Victim, but Teenage Archangel never made it beyond this little slab o' black wax.

---

NOTA BENE: Your eyes are not deceiving you; the band name above is written both as Be·Bop Deluxe and Be-Bop Deluxe; it changed from release-to-release. It was also written Be+Bop Deluxe, BE BOP deluxe, Be Bop Deluxe, and Funky Phaser and His Unearthly Merchandise (seriously! but just for the song Shine on the b-side of the Kiss of Light single).

Double-O "You've Lost"

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OO
 OO
7" EP
(R&B Records/Dischord Records, 1983)

Sometimes, OK often, bands fall through the cracks of history. OO   is one of them. They featured former members of bands that appeared on the seminal harDCore (i.e., hardcore from Washington, D.C.) compilation album Flex Your Head†, and all four members went on to later bands of varying success‡. Aside from this one lil' 7" record, though, their recorded legacy is somewhat . . . scant.

photo: Sharon Cheslow

Sure, the band name on the cover is Double-O, but OO   is the way they wrote it. That's OO   as in two interlocking circles, as in unity. Yeah, they were emo-ish before the advent of emo. Back when emo was a music thing, that is, rather than a skinny jeans & guyliner thing. They explain it in more detail in this interview from the zine If This Goes On.

Musically, OO   were one of the earlier bands in the harDCore scene to incorporate such a marked heavy metal influence to their sound. They were also the first, to the best of my knowledge, to have a ballad in their repertoire: Funeral for a Friend. It's quite maudlin and far-and-away my least favorite track on this record. Still, I guess it has some historical significance, if nothing else. Sorta like smallpox. The other four songs on this platter are all ragers, though, and I picked my favorite for today's jukebox track.

NOTA BENE: As was traditional in D.C. at the time, the record was not released 'til after the band broke up.

VANTARSI: I was at the show from whence the above live pic comes. Prior to that, I'd never even heard of them.

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†Vocalist Eric L. had been in Red C and the rhythm section (Rich Moore & Bert Queiroz) had been in The Untouchables, as opposed to The Untouchables. Bert had also been in Youth Brigade, not to be confused with Youth Brigade.

‡Eric went on to E.N.B. (aka Eric's New Band) who eventually settled on the name Dove and got really mersh. Rich & Bert started Minor Threat Jr., aka Second Wind. Guitarist Jason went on to play with grating artpunkers 9353.

Alchemical Rowdies "Tour de Convulse"

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Alchemical Rowdies
Trans-Idio
LP
(Trans Museq, 1981)

Free improvisation! Yea! None's been featured for a while, so here's a nice selection from a fine platter from the Alchemical Rowdies. I'm guessing the album is entitled Trans-Idio 'cause it's a collaboration of Alabama's Davey Williams and LaDonna Smith, who've run the Trans Museq label since the mid-'70s, and ¾ of Virginia's Idio Savant, whom I featured here early last year (all of them are here but Marty McCavitt, who I suppose was too busy mutilating cattle).

This probably sounds like random noise to a lot of people; it sure did to me, at first. In fact, I sold my first copy of this 'cause I couldn't stand it. I'd bought it 'cause the same ¾ of Idio Savant that play on it were later in the fabulous Orthotonics, also featured here in the past. It sounded nothing like the Orthos, though, and my brain was still too small and unprepared. Full disclosure: I'd never even heard of Idio Savant at that point. It was several more years before I was able to really wrap my head around free improv.

Explaining why I like stuff like this isn't easy. I noticed when I was around nineteen or twenty that I was starting to really like music that was full of chaos, but chaos that had some sort of anchor, like a good beat amidst the noise, or that gelled in some other way. Good free improvisation is a dialog between musicians, the gel comes from the conversation: the players are listening and responding to each other. On the other hand, people in their own little worlds, playing away, and not paying attention to each other, tend to be considerably less interesting.

Line-up:

• J. Pippin Barnett - percussion
• Danny Finney - saxophones
• LaDonna Smith - violin, viola, voice
• Paul Watson - trumpets, alto horn
• Davey Williams - electric guitar

Ian Lloyd "One More Chance (Sha La La)"

Ian Lloyd
Ian Lloyd
LP
(Polydor, 1976)

Roughly a fortnight after I became a teenager, I attended my first rock concert. Yes, that's the actual ticket stub from said show! Not long after that show, I started buying records with my own money. My parents had given me a copy of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that they found at a yard sale when I was twelve, but that was the only record I had that wasn't a children's record.

Even during this early phase of record buying, I was already doing the buy-it-'cause-it-looks-interesting-and-it's-cheap thing. I found this Ian Lloyd album at a huge rummage sale held at the same place I'd seen Kiss earlier. I bought it and Slayed? by Slade, who looked a bit thuggish (this was a positive; I wanted loud, tough music); I think they were 25¢ each (the albums, not the members of Slade). I hated the Slade album (love it now, though), but the LLoyd one I listened to a lot. It certainly didn't rock as hard as Kiss (especially not on this track!), but the songs were catchy, and I liked it.

Some time in college, I sold off a ton of records when I was getting heavily into hardcore punk, and this was one of the casualties. A few months ago, I started getting a hankering to hear it again. This urge was partially inspired by my obsession for all things Starz (featured here this past October), as Starz guitarist Richie Ranno had played briefly in Lloyd's pre-solo group Stories before becoming a Star(z), but not on their huge 1973 hit Brother Louie (please, see below). My interest was also piqued 'cause I couldn't even remember what it sounded like!

Looking around town proved fruitless, so I turned to the 'net. It didn't take very long for a sealed copy to appear on eBay for a reasonable price, and off a-bidding I went. When it arrived, the songs sounded only vaguely familiar, but I still liked many of them, lo these many decades later. I debated between a few, and this song kept popping into my head, so here 'tis.

Geez, I even saved the newspaper ad for the above concert! But hey, it was my first (not counting my daddy taking me to see the Jackson 5 when I was eight), and Kiss were the hottest band in the land! A pack rat at an early age . . .

NOTA BENE: Today's entry gets the before they were famous tag, in addition to after, as it was writ by Mick Jones, who played guitar here and not long after shot to megastardom with The Clash Foreigner, whom I never particularly liked (but they were at least more palatable than Boston).