Outer Music Diary

Traffic - Video Rarities 1967-73 (DVD)

Rather badly authored comp disc (each clip pauses briefly on the last frame before the next and it loops) of a number of mini Traffic gems, gently arcing from a very early couple of videos to longer live clips. For the most part I was wishing there was some different material, no matter what the period, but there is lots of magic in what’s here nonetheless. I’ve never seen the band live before and they have that feeling of synchronicity in that people like Capaldi and Winwood could come together like this and make such a wide reaching canon. My mind is failing me but there’s a really nice guitar solo in one piece, but I didn’t notice when the video looped back again, so I lost a bit of interest in the later material.

Yo La Tengo - Rock Babylon, Monchengladblach, Germany 1/4/94 (DVD)

I read about contemporary Yo La Tengo, but it appears this 1994 live show will be my first exposure, to a band who stick pretty closely to the old Velvet Underground aesthetic which is definitely not my thing so much. The band appears to be a trio and the rhythm section, if you will, skips instruments a bit, but for the most part they’re either going for a very anarchic sort of expression or were literally having trouble putting it together this show. At about 100 minutes long, I did sit through the long haul as I was doing some other work, but split it in two with Traffic in the middle as I didn’t really want to subject a friend to this. The music rides mostly on some very dissonant guitar chording and other than the aforementioned influence riding in the driver’s seat, the band definitely shares similar punkish roots while still being a pop band at heart. I won’t hold it over checking out more recent material but I won’t need to hang onto this.

Black Sabbath - Tucson Comm Center Conventional Hall 3/16/72

Been pretty busy lately, enough that I’m not really concentrating on what I am listening to, but even during a move at work today this 1972 Sabbath show practically demanded my attention. Sabs take a lot of hits when it comes to music credentials despite having strong talent across all four positions and despite a bit of blurry age in the quality department, this could be their resumé. Strong and punchy, this presents the band, I believe, before Vol. 4 knocking gems like “Fairies Wear Boots” way out of the park. The energy level is so intense that the Tuscon audience must have been bowled over. No wonder they were the primary inspiration for “desert rock.”

The Greatest Show On Earth - The Going’s Easy. 1970.
The Greatest Show On Earth – Horizons. 1970. These are the kind of albums that I *should* love, but in the end I really don’t. GSOE is at their best in horn rock mode, with some tight arrangements and tough bluesy vocals. Also notable is the extended soloing from guitar, organ and flute. But when they drift into more straight ahead rock numbers, there’s not much to get excited about. I would say GSOE are more UK blues rock than brass rock, and overall pretty average. “Horizons” is marred by a drum solo, and is thus the less preferable of the two.

Splash – Ut Pa Vischen. 1972. A typical horn rock album very much modeled after Chicago or Blood, Sweat and Tears. Except it’s sung in Swedish (which is kinda neat). Like most horn rock albums, there are some great instrumental charts offset by some lame songs. Not bad, and does sport a great cover.

Grateful Dead - The Complete Fillmore West Recordings

I find it a shame that one of the great live stints in rock history has been relegated to an immediately out of print box set, a 3 CD compilation and what was included on the Live/Dead album. Only Coltrane’s stint at Village Vanguard in 61, Miles Davis at the Fillmore East in March 1970, Cream at the Grande Ballroom in 67 and a few others surpasss these recordings and I think it’s fair to include the jazz comparisons here as they played a pretty large influence on the Dead and what they did.

The Dead played four nights during this stint, recording for their upcoming live album, and all four nights were extraordinary, perhaps the only sore spot would be the awful “Hey Jude” encore on 3/1, but that show, possibly the best of the week, could survive it and it’s easy just to turn it off before it gets there. Other than that, this is superlative psychedelic rock, some of the most intense jamming and freaking out I’ve ever witnessed. Thunderous, explosive, transcendent, hyperbole … you get the picture.

I’ve probably mentioned before but a mark of a great Dead show for me is a certain kind of amnesia that sets in around the second set, in the long jams. If I miss a good 20-30 minutes of time because I’ve been drawn in so deeply, I come out of it feeling elated, like I’ve had some sort of epiphany. When the Dead are really clicking on all cylinders, and they may have never been more on than these nights, they establish a group mind or gestalt that seems to play itself. Just listening and paying attention to the jamming, how the different musicians interact with each other, spinning the whole band in unusual directions is sheer pleasure, the distinction between musicians and music disappearing.

Songs (or often segments) like The Eleven, The Other One, Dark Star and the like really portray “primal Dead” at their best. It’s hard to imagine by this point that only a few months earlier the band was considering jettisoning Weir and Pigpen and noodling endlessly as Mickey and the Hartbeats, because they’re so vigorous here. Most of the pieces on all four nights are arranged as suites and while the occasional shorter songs would be worked in, it seemed the exploration was foremost in mind. Criticism of the Dead noodling endlessly might be appropriate for 100s of shows in their later years, but here it couldn’t be less true.

I had all four of these gigs before the box set came out and have to say that if they sounded good before, they sound even better here, but given the price on this box now (goes for at least $300 on e-bay these days), I wouldn’t be surprised if people stick to the 3CD comp (which does include most of the best long suite moments) or the pre-release shows. But it’s a shame, as this is some of the best psychedelic rock in existence.

Kind of picking up where I left off with the 1971 Krautrock parade…

Pan y Regaliz – s/t. 1971. If someone blindfolded me and asked where this band was from, I’d say “Oh, that’s easy. Germany around 1971 or so.” At least I would’ve gotten the date right. There’s almost nothing here to point to its Spanish heritage, not even towards other bands operating in those days under the Franco regime. Nope, this is squarely in the Krautrock school of music, with flute as the lead melodic instrument, some droning-almost spoken vocals, and at least one freaky jam. A mixture of Ruphus Zuphall, first album Mythos, Haze and even some early Amon Duul II can be heard here. I had an LP reissue of this sometime in the early 90s, and it made little impact. I’m appreciating much more now. While I’m not here to tell you this is essential, I will say it’s worth hearing and maybe picking up, especially if you’re a big fan of the 1971 German sound.

Second Life – s/t. 1971. I remember when I first scored this LP sometime in the early 90s. I was pretty excited when I saw the cover: Four long tracks including one that took the whole side; German; 1971; creepy looking long hairs. No way this could go wrong! And, really, the first 10 minutes or so of the side longer jams pretty hard. And then it comes….. the album killer of the day – the dreaded drum solo, which seems to never end. I can deal with an inventive percussion piece, but some bozo pounding aimlessly on his 5 piece isn’t likely to inspire anyone but a caffeinated monkey. In a way, it’s a shame that drum piece has to discolor this work. The four 5+ minute tracks on Side 2 deliver an almost perfect set of basic hard rock tunes. The kind of sounds and riffs that every current stoner rock band would give their Marshalls for. I sold the LP within the year and this is my first revisit since. There are plenty of better albums from the 1971 German pool, but Second Life is worth at least one second chance.

Sudden Death – Suddenly. 1971. Another one of those Rockadelic discoveries that was put on LP in the mid 1990s. Who they are is anybody’s guess. The story goes that Sudden Death were from Long Island and even Jimmy Page was involved. Sure, and Big Foot did the mixing… on the grassy knoll. Probably the real story is an unlabeled masters tape was discovered that had great music on it. The rest was made up (explaining the lack of anyone surfacing to claim they were the authors…) Not the first time, and won’t be the last time that happens. Anyway, for fans of underground and under-produced hard guitar rock with a Plant like vocalist, this one is better than most. Rockadelic’s cover is awesomely creepy and whoever does put it on CD should leave that intact.

Voivod - Tuttlingen, Germany 11/7/87 aud (DVD)

Voivod are the type of group that makes me think “the emperor has no clothes.” Starting as a thrash group in the 80s, they became the favorites of a lot of underground metal heads for what are apparently unusual and progressive ideas in their music, usually based around their late 80s material like “Nothingface.” This video of the group hails from the (slightly) earlier thrashier period and like a lot of metal bands Voivod don’t translate all that well to the live setting. Most of the time I was trying to ascertain if there was any sort of competence or chemistry in the work, for the most part it sounded like four musicians doing their own thing. The nasally guitar tones are way too weak to cut through the rhythm section or the caterwauling vocals and it leaves the whole thing sounding like an aural catastrophe, anarchic in a way that’s a lot more like punk than metal.

Caravan, Hatfield & The North, National Health - “Canterbury Collection” (DVD)

Very short collection of what appears to be the extant video sources of these three “Canterbury” groups, basically the German and British television performances. The Caravan clips, assumedly from Beat Club, are a bit beat up to derive much enjoyment from (”Golf Girl” is a kind of doofy ditty, better in its flow on the album than as a snapshot of the group). The Paris Theatre Hatfield clips I’ve seen before and they’re worth every second, in fact I’m not sure Hatfield were around long enough to have a bad period. They demonstrate pretty soundly that they were one of the great groups of the era, navigating complexity as if it was intuitive. And I believe it’s the Whistle Stop clip for the National Health from the second album, which is the band in their prime. The main emotion from watching this group of videos is a yearning for more, as these are not only highlights of the Canterbury stable but of progressive rock as an entirety.

Art Ensemble of Chicago - In Concert (DVD, 11/1/81)

This early 80s period may have been no man’s land for most jazz artists that hadn’t turned to fusion, but it may have been one of AEC’s prime periods and this shortish hour long DVD is a rather perfect introduction to the band, what they do and how they do it. Clearly very percussion oriented around this time (if not always, reall), with a couple of the members switching to drums in certain parts, it still seems that this is mostly Bowie and Jarman’s gig, with both of them taking long and inspired solos. This is definitely a band that listens to each other, every note from every instrument a potential to drive the ensemble in a new direction. Maybe the only issue is it seems a bit too short, with an album like Urban Bushman, at least I felt like they were really sinking their teeth in. Of course I’ll take the hour over nothing. Forget jazz, this is really one of music’s most creative and inspired units.

Uzva - Progday XII, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, NC 8/2/06 (DVD)
Uzva - Uoma

Took me forever to get Uoma, I missed the first batch at Wayside and waited months for more to come in, in fact it was watching the Progday DVD that reminded me I needed to get it. Both of these two items really evince a different band in many ways, just by nature of the first two albums and their presentation I was thinking something more like Pohjola or Piirpauke in style, music a bit more formal, but when the band starts playing on this rather beautifully recorded audience sourced DVD, I was thinking Zappa all the way -the large band that seems conducted by the lead guitarist, especially in how the composed moments give way to improvisations, the vibes player (not marimba but close), the tentative agreement between jazz and rock, etc. While Uzva play music not quite as complex or involved as the mid 70s Zappa they remind me of nor is there a sense of humor as prominent (it’s there in the band’s playfulness if not overt), there’s an ease and sense of space in their live show that I don’t recognize on Uoma, even if a great chunk of that album is played here. I don’t want to give the impression I prefer the live Uzva over the studio, in fact the studio treatment tends to reign in the band’s few excesses (a measure or two shorter for instance), but experiencing both does make me tend to appreciate the whole unit more. As for Uoma, being quite a bit longer than their last album probably didn’t help a great deal in terms of comparisons, but I think I’d need a few more listens to commit to that opinion as there’s a lot to like here.

Light of Darkness – s/t. 1971. Light of Darkness are Scottish exiles in Germany. It’s rare when you can listen to an album and pinpoint EXACTLY what the influence is. I mean, Light of Darkness is a whole album concept based on only one song. And that song would be ‘The Wizard’ off of Black Sabbath’s first album. Each and every song on Light of Darkness has heavy power chord riffs and harmonica complete with a witchy Ozzy like voice. It’s kind of funny actually. And what the hell, I like that song, so it’s easy to listen to. Not easy to recommend however.

Dies Irae – First. 1971. Apparently the theme of this post is the use of harmonica in 1971 German hard rock albums. Dies Irae starts off poorly with a “mouth harp” disaster, before launching into some pretty creative heavy rock. In fact, I bumped this one up two points, as I completely missed its value when I had the LP some 15 years ago. And what I missed, and I wonder if anyone else has caught, a very strong semblance to one of Krautrock’s most revered albums: Scorpions “Lonesome Crow”. It’s not near as solid as the Brain label debut album, and does have a couple of more clunkers to sit through, but there’s enough here to warrant a couple of listens. And makes me wonder if the Schenker boys hadn’t lent an ear prior to waltzing into the studio.

Blackwater Park – Dirt Box. 1971. One of the more highly valued German hard rock albums, this one never had much impact for me. But I will say it’s better than I remembered, and there are at least two cuts that are pretty aggressive, and dare I say, almost creative. It’s a good 9er, and probably more for hard rock hounds. This one received an early reissue treatment, as one of the pioneering quality labels (Second Battle) tackled it.

Hairy Chapter – Can’t Get Through. 1971. Ha-ha, this just in, and might as well throw it in here too. Another revisit from an album I once owned in the 1980s (and it was too expensive to justify keeping). Same ballgame as the ones above, complete with some harmonica use. Though I will give Hairy Chapter credit for a great production and some extended guitar jamming. For this group of albums, “Can’t Get Through” and Dies Irae are the best ones to try first. BTW – I also revisited their debut “Eyes”, and it’s definitely a step below these albums – more straight ahead blues rock.