Book Review: Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust, by Ken Scott and Bobby Owsinski

Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust is a fascinating rock 'n roll first person account by a guy who not only engineered The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour and The Beatles (The White Album), but as if that isn't enough crowning achievement, went on to produce some of the most highly acclaimed music from rock 'n roll's most exciting era, including David Bowie's The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, and George Harrison's All Things Must Pass.

Ken Scott's contribution to engineering and producing some of the finest music of the 20th Century is staggering. Add these titles to his resume: Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World, Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane and Pinups; Elton John's Madman Across The Water, Honky Chateau, and Don't Shoot Me I'm Only Piano Player; Jeff Beck's Truth; Lou Reed's Transformer; Supertramp's Crime Of The Century; The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers; the list goes on.

It's an inside "hands-on" book which offers casual and candid impressions of John, Paul, George, and Ringo bustling about Abbey Road Studios as if it's just another day at the office. The rock 'n roll dignitaries breezing through the pages of Scott's volume is like a stroll through the history of modern rock music. Any given page may find Elton John ringing up the author asking him to meet him in France to produce his next album. Frank Zappa knocks on the door to offer access to his home-built recording studio while he's away on tour. George Harrison calls just to chat and to persuade Scott to re-master All Things Must Pass.

Ken Scott grew up in a working class London family with a fascination for recording devices and a healthy lust for the girl singers on British TV. After a university stint, he secured an assistant sound engineer position at recording giant EMI, which led to his long association with The Beatles. Beginning with "pushing buttons" as assistant engineer on the soundtrack for A Hard Day's Night, Scott's relationship with The Beatles continues long after their breakup and is climaxed by his stay in George Harrison's castle during the final days of Harrison's life.

His wonderful fan-based story, which first finds him as an impressionable young lad encountering The Beatles in the hallways of EMI studios, where he is tempted to "scream like one of the girls" at the sight of them, is merged with his knowledge of sound technology which is as telling as his personal narrative, if you care to know, for instance, how they got that garage rock hollow sound in The Beatles' "Yer Blues". For true sound buffs, a more specified "tech talk" is included on separate highlighted pages of the book.

His anecdotes on the legion of rock 'n roll royalty offer a brand new history which finds Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney's presence in the Beatles' recording studio welcome and passive. He can't recall a single incident of agitation regarding the Beatles' wives. It is no surprise that John Lennon is depicted as a wonderful guy who could be a bit of an "arsehole".

My enthusiasm for the book is curbed a bit by the second half which isn't nearly as thrilling as the first, as Scott takes his career into the 1980s and '90s. Peculiar anecdotes still abound as Devo is described as "standoffish", Duran Duran are seen as foolishly extravagant with money, and medical emergency personal are summoned to Scott's posh Los Angeles pool party when a guest gets his "thingy" stuck in the Jacuzzi suction cup.

Far too many chapters (three!) are devoted to L.A. new wave band Missing Persons, a band that Scott managed, who scored a hit record with "Words" and quickly faded into obscurity. There is a significant number of testimonial letters from record label executives, musicians, and fellow producers and engineers, pasted throughout the book, attesting to Scott's value as a producer, that is gratuitous and leaves an air of insecurity.

But the importance of this documentation of the creation of such monumental music is not to be underestimated. It helps that Scott was strictly anti-drug while working, and his vital recollections are vivid and studious. His song for song account of The Beatles' White Album is historical.


this review was first published at blogcritics.

Music Review: Jim Coleman, TREES

Jim Coleman's Trees is a bit like those meditative "sounds of nature" CDs, wherein the sound of a babbling brook or the love call of a mating whale is intended to cleanse the mind and soothe the soul. This Coleman release, however soothing, is not quite tranquil, as there is an ominous and foreboding measure to the sound of trees, perfectly captured in this music that is omnipresent, lumbering and eternal. It is neo-classical Brian Eno-esque music for mood mongering.

Often, the music composes the spaces between trees as the wind gently passes through them. Soft percussive wind chimes via piano and keyboard, tinkle and glisten in a forest glade and a cello anchors the very breath and weight of an aged tree. The human voice morphs with violin and wind instrument to create an eerie sound as if ancient Druids are present to offer homage.

These ten tracks of meditative music is post-industrial noise with a hint of jazz accents. The sonic landscape paints a picture of nature repossessing an apocalyptic catastrophe. A synth keyboard crawls over a desolate landscape as the occasional horn, violin and voice enhance the emergence of the majestic trees. More like one piece of music over 10 tracks, the theme-titled songs - "Rain", "Dawn", "Summer Heat", etc - differentiate only slightly.

This is the first release from Coleman's own Wax and Wane recording label. It rises above the legion of independent, ambient, producer-on-a-laptop CDs that flood the market, by creating a distinct sound that is as intriguing as it is relaxing. In composing music encompassing the life history of trees, Coleman nails what a tree might convey in a musical language. Like the numbered rings designating age in the trunk of a fallen redwood, the music encircles and solidly defines its subject.

Interpretation aside, Trees is simply a pleasing sound experience. Meditative like a mantra, it is also thoughtful in its imagery of an ancient forest boldly advancing into the unknown. Or if you just want to kick back and groove to some cool sounds, it is absolute.


blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-jim-coleman-trees/

HIT SHUFFLE - 10 Random iPod Songs

The Wicked Widget of The West has stolen my widget. I could direct traffic (both of you) to a playlist away from this page to hear some songs from my HIT SHUFFLE list, but I'll let it go for now. Widget be damned.

I get my iPod. I hit shuffle. I listen to the first 10 songs. I cower under the government sky as I plot to employ another illegal download device.

1. The Beatles, While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Eric Clapton plays lead guitar on this George Harrison composition from The Beatles (The White Album), although he is not credited on the album and it was years before The Beatles acknowledged Clapton's contribution. The word in my old neighborhood was, Harrison was not the most accomplished guitarist and he would often bring in session players to smooth out his rough edges. Clapton adds a fluidity of stinging guitar to this Indian music influenced song that is Number 7 on Rolling Stone Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time. It's the kind of familiar radio song that makes you obediently stop, listen, and gaze into the future whenever, wherever it is playing.

2. David Bowie, Eight Line Poem

A funky countrified guitar and Bowie's hard-edged, stop-and-go piano guide this eight line musical verse that is philosophical, poetic and utterly charming. If you held a gun to my head and forced me to decide which Bowie album is best, I think I'd cry out Hunky Dory.

3. The Beatles, When I'm Sixty-Four

Sixty-four doesn't sound so old anymore. Written by Paul McCartney when he was a mere 16 year-old, When I'm Sixty-Four is a passive little ditty about aging into that dark night with your lover who is "sincerely wasting away", as if its a pleasant stroll down a garden path. A trio of classical clarinets add a leisurely Sunday drive buoyancy to this ultra familiar song which surprisingly, was never released as a single. From Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

4. Pink Floyd, Nobody Home

An artless TV soundtrack including a sound bite from, of all things, Gomer Pyle USMC, crawls in the cellar on this haunting, orchestrated and piano driven song from Pink Floyd's classic, The Wall. A  ghostly narrative sings of a life, presumably just ended, that possessed "a bag, a toothbrush and a comb", and "a silver spoon on a chain". One pictures a hobo with a cocaine addiction in an afterlife. Said to be the final song written for Floyd's brilliant psychological odyssey which remains one of the best-selling albums of all time.

5. Pink Floyd, Goodbye Blue Sky

Monotone industrial sound waves, perfectly blended vocal harmonies, and a lightly plucked acoustic guitar combine effortlessly to paint a sedate, frightening and post-apocalyptic image of Germany's air attack on England (The Blitz), but any war torn zone would suffice. The song opens (after a staple Pink Floyd industrial introduction), with the young voice of bass player and Floyd founder Roger Waters son, Harry, observing, "Look mommy, there's an airplane up in the sky". And then, it would seem, everybody dies. The now grown-up adult Harry Waters has been playing keyboard on his father's The Wall Live tour since 2002. On the 2010-2012 Live tour, animated bombers dropped not bombs, but dollar signs, euro signs, religious symbols and corporate logos when this song was played. From The Wall.

6. The Bealtes, Martha My Dear

From The Beatles (The White Album), it's a lilting, jaunting, regal sounding song from Paul McCartney with Beatlesque brass and violins, that depicts a romantic impasse with just a tinge of subdued threat in its constant reference to "Martha" as "a silly girl". McCartney is the only Beatle heard on this recording.

7. The Association, Everything That Touches You

Pop heaven. A beautifully crafted and romantic 1968 hit single from a band that were just a shade darker than their easy listening peers The Letterman, even The Beach Boys. Echoic vocal chambers, a crystallized flute, and a complex multi-layered arrangement all combine to make this a perfect pop recording. Derided by rock fans for its deliberate Beatles' All You Need Is Love rip-off closing verse, the Beatles' reference is fitting for an American band that fought with the likes of The Fab Four and The Rolling Stones for a position in The Top Ten singles in 1968. I saw The Association live just a few years ago, (they joked that if they weren't at the concert playing, they'd be home watching Jeopardy), and the new, younger by comparison keyboardist (not sure of his identity), led a hard edged version of the song that rocked.

8. The Blues Magoos, We Ain't Got Nothing Yet

A downbeat upbeat garage rock classic from 1967 with a psychedelic Eastern influenced guitar, rip-off riff organ, and infectious drive. Its indebted to grass roots rock and sounds a bit like The Rolling stones, if the Stones were American and penniless. The hail from The Bronx (and sound it), and this is their one big hit. This year, The Blues Magoos have announced plans to release their first new album in 41 years, Psychedelic Resurrection.

9. Stevie Wonder, As

When I received an iPod for Christmas a few years ago I stared at if for several months thinking, "What the hell am I going to do with an iPod?". I had a strict music listening regiment that didn't include a tiny metal device stuck in my ears playing Led Zepplin, and causing me to be oblivious to all else around me.  I have an unreasonable latent paranoia of not being able to hear the cops busting down my door should they ever decide to do so. Stevie Wonder's As from Songs In The Key of Life, was the first track I downloaded. It seemed like a good headphone kind of song. It's a breezy bit of Wonder love-passion with snappy bongo and cymbal laden percussion, a modest electric piano, and a merry-go-round hand clapping vocal chorus, that evolves into a fever pitch, in which Wonder reaches into the far depths of his alarming and aggressive baritone, for peace, love, and the whole shebang. It's a great record.

10. Steely Dan, Bad Sneakers

Over decades of time, this song has quietly risen to the top of my favorite Steely Dan tracks. It sits rather passively among the great, bolder tracks from the Katy Lied album, but it is a subtle powerhouse of jazz influenced syncopation and pop killer melody. At 3:16 minutes, it accomplishes a lot with SD's signature guitar break solo, by session player Hugh McCracken, and beautiful rainy day psych imagery that boasts the lyric, "I'm going insane", as if its a desirable state of being. That's Michael McDonald of The Doobie Brothers on backing vocals.

Swans, We Rose From Your Bed With The Sun In Our Head

Until the audience responds at the end of the 23 minute long opening track "intro/no words no thoughts", you wouldn't assume Swans' new album We Rose From Your Bed With The Sun In Our Head is a live concert recording. The thick solid wall of droning sound is as finely crafted as a perfectly mixed studio album as it navigates ferocious guitar storms, church bell chimes, the occasional soft spoken keyboard, and front man Michael Gira's chanting of cosmic Freudian wails ("Father! I want you to be my father!").

Culled from 2010-'11 performances in Melbourne, Australia, Berlin, Germany and New York City, the album is a prelude to the forthcoming The Seer, an album that is being partially financed from sales of a special edition of We Rose From Your Bed. The handmade limited edition of 1,000 units sold out in under 24 hours.

It seems a musical listener will either dig Swans music or eagerly dig themselves out from under the weight of their metal machine "god is dead" pretensions. I first discovered them in the early days of the internet when I would troll record company web pages looking for free music to download. Swans gripped me with their progressive noise rock and bizarre elusive persona.

They are certainly an influence behind Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, and a host of unheralded noise rock bands. Founder and front man Michael Gira, who is the proprietor of Young God Records (Akron/Family started their gig there), has a commanding voice and aggressive presence that suggests what Jim Morrison might have become if he had abandoned his college boy psych philosophy and embraced the concept that all conflict and oppression stems from the battle between religion and science. On stage, Gira is a dominating and spooky sight, ranting cheery sentiments like, "Kill the child!" and "God is dead!", as his band pounds out drenches of noise at such an ear splitting decibel, the sound has been known to induce vomiting in the audience.

But they are more than just a thrash metal band with a good gimmick ("They were so good - I puked!"). They create an echoic chamber of sound that can suddenly become hypnotic and soothing, like the warm adrenalin rush after escaping a dangerous fate. It's very much like the image of their namesake, which looks godly and majestic while floating on a lake, but on closer inspection, is a mean mother that will certainly peck your eyes out and beat you with its wings.

For the initiated, We Rose From Your Bed With The Sun In Our Head captures a vital and exciting Swans. For newbies, it should make for an exhilarating listen. The album is a rush of energy tempered by hollow and hopeless beats that seem on the verge of self destruction. Droning guitar storms blast into trance-like passages. Dual drummers pound out punishing and complex beats that can suddenly be reduced to an odd and improv-like drumbeat that sounds like the last kernels popping in a bag of microwave popcorn.

Some of the songs are from previous Swans projects and some are apparently from the yet unreleased The Seer. The 72 minute album is best listened to as an entire suite of music for an exhausting, yet rewarding, sonic adventure. In the press notes Gira suggests listening to the album at a loud volume, not for an aggressive intent, but to be genuinely immersed into the soul of Swans, who apparently want to be louder than God.

this review was first published by me here

The Cult's New Album is a Politically Charged Hard Rocker

It wasn't so long ago that The Cult were dismissed as dead in the water. Created in Britain in 1983 on the heels of the post-punk movement, the band split up in 1995, bailing out of a South American tour and citing unspecified reasons for the breakup. Read: alcohol abuse and hateful riffs between members. After reforming in 1999, in 2002 they announced themselves again "on ice" indefinitely and by 2008 the band was an unsigned outfit. It seemed The Cult were destined for a minor entry in a hard rock bands of the '90s google search.

So it is a bit of a surprise that their new album, their ninth, Choice of Weapon is a class act brimming with confident musicianship, luscious but never too heavy metal, and crisp "She Sells Sanctuary" guitar riffs. Original members, front man Ian Astbury, whose distinctive wailing voice has settled pleasantly into a rich deeper register, and guitarist Billy Duffy, an ace at memorable guitar riffs, have created an album rich in Metallica atmosphere that boasts a topical integrity addressing the current state of our information overloaded society confronting political oppression.

In the Gothic draped, Bowie-sounding "Life > Death", and indeed throughout the album, the defensive choice of weapon used to ward against the godzillas of the corporate world (all money threatens rock 'n roll don't you know?) is a personal belief system that can alter the political landscape. In lyricist Astbury's view, that belief system is a devoted fascination with indigenous culture and animal mysticism, as seen on the cover of the CD which pictures an ancient shaman masked as a Middle Eastern rebel. Astbury sings to the powers that be as if wailing vengeful sentiment to the wind - "You can't destroy them / the beauty and the youth / you'll never beat them / you'll never hide the truth".

In "For The Animals", global economic conquest threatens to quell any movement that rises against the system, as a flash of brilliant guitar plays rebel to Astbury's devil advocate - "Dark cities you crawling in / dark prisons your living in / you losing millions of cells / spit your mantra go to hell".

"Lucifer" is a powerful hard rocker that is perfectly ripe for modern rock radio, and "Wilderness Now", is dreamy and poignant with a touch of "Dream On" Aerosmith velvety smoothness. It boasts a memorable lyric - "Death walks right beside me / the light shines bright behind me" that files itself permanently into your memory under "lingering refrain".

Given the politically heady themes so pertinent to the current "take-over" movement, the album refuses to abandon its hard rock likability for the sake of indulgence. It crawls with idealistic philosophy on the verge of intolerance, yet foremost it remains an engaging listen with a driving beat and blistering guitar work.

The four CD bonus tracks are songs from previous Cult projects and are a fitting bookend to the collection of music. The CD packaging is impressive, in not environmentally sound, with a glossy book-like hard cover bounding a 24-page booklet of lyrics, artwork and credits.

Choice of Weapon is scheduled for release on May 22.

this review was first published at blogcritics

BRIC-A-BRAC-A-BROKEN-RECORD!!

I was at the flea market rummaging through a box of old records when I could feel the merchant coming up behind me and I knew exactly what he was going to say -

"I'll sell you the whole box for five dollars".

This is the reason I have hundreds of old records stored in boxes. Yep, I said. There was about 150 mostly sleeveless 45rpm records, and the first one I looked at, a mint condition first pressing of Lou Christie's "How Many Teardrops" (Roulette R-4504), a 49 year old record, suggested there were more nuggets in the box.

I've since gone through the boxes and although an interesting lot, I shan't be retiring tomorrow.

Picture me on American Pickers -

"I bought the records for five dollars. I think I can get $10,000 for them."             $5.00
                                                                                                                            +$10,000
                                                                                                                             + $9,995
                                                                                                                                 
So with Record Store Day behind me, and now a few boxes of orphaned records to add to my collection, I attended the twice annual Record Show at the local VFW post.

... and managed to get out of there with merely 4 picture sleeve 45rpm. This pic was taken when the doors just opened up at 10 AM. A few minutes later the place was swarming and crawling with record fans.

I was drifting through a thrift store and came across an Iron Man action figure, and casually pressed a button on its chest and nearly jumped out of my socks when the thing lit up and a voice announced, "I AM IRON MAN!".

He also says, "REPULSOR BLAST!", and "AUXILLARY POWER ON!". And the sound of a super-gun blasting as his hand lights up. He's a 2007 Hasbro-Marvel toy that cost me a whopping 99 cents.

Not as much luck with The Thing action figure that I also bought for 99 cents. New batteries didn't do a THING for him. It's a circa 2005 Marvel toy tie-in with the "Fantastic Four" film of that year.
Although he doesn't talk and is supposed to, he has great detail and looks cool and, well, I love him.

As you can see in this pic, he just knocked out Iron Man.

POSTSCRIPT 5/4: The Thing DOES TALK! Apparently my new batteries weren't so new. He says, "Back off, Buttercup!", "I'm just the Thing!", "Watch it, Punk!", "Thank you, I'm one of the good guys!", and groans, burps, and then says... "Excuse me!".

ONE IN 20,000 MOVIES!

I was paging through Leonard Maltin's 2012 Movie Guide when I had a wild idea. What if I put the number of pages in the book - 1,643 - into a computer and had the computer pick a random page and then pick a random entry from that page. I would then seek that movie out, watch it, and offer my observations. Fun? You bet!

Tarzan's Hidden Jungle - 1955
An RKO Release
Directed by Harold Shuster
Cast: Gordon Scott, Vera Miles, Peter Van Eyck, Jack Elam.

I base my enjoyment of Tarzan movies - they used to run every Sunday afternoon on local TV when I was a kid - on how entertaining Cheta the chimpanzee is. This chimp in Tarzan's Hidden Jungle has a pedigree. He was  known as Zippy, a frequent guest on 1950s television with a recurring stint on The Howdy Doody Show and his own comic book.

                                            Tarzan , Chetah (Zippy), and Jane, uh - Vera.

As far as acting monkeys go, he's only OK. He's a pathetic ham in front of the camera. He constantly glances at the director/camera while performing a stunt as if saying, "Like this? Is this OK? When do I get my banana?".

Gordon Scott (1926 - 2007) plays Tarzan, his first movie role and the first of five consecutive films starring him as Tarzan, two of which became the largest grossing Tarzan movies at that time. If we are to believe the Hollywood publicity machine of the 1950s, he was discovered while working as a lifeguard at The Sahara Hotel and Casino in Vegas in 1953. Probably as he watched Lana Turner swim by. He is an adequate Tarzan, not quite Johnny Weismuller and a bit vacant in the acting department.  After his time as Tarzan he moved to Italy where he starred in several sandal and sand epic Herculean advenure films.

This glossy black and white film is significant in casting Vera Miles in her first major role. She played Janet Leigh's sister in Hitchcock's Psycho, but I remeber her best in a great turn as the bitchy wife who wraps her car around a tree in 1961's Back Street. She was a frequent presence in movies and network TV until her retirement in 1995. She brings Tarzan's Hidden Jungle up to a status it doesn't really deserve and her time in front of the camera as the jungle oppressed heroine helps the film breeze by. She currently resides in California and refuses to act again or grant interviews.

Gordon Scott and Vera Miles married during the production of this film. The marriage lasted five long Hollywood years.

In Tarzan's Hidden Jungle, unscrupulous animal poachers, posing as documentary filmmakers, led by renowned veteran actor Jack Elam (1920 - 2003), con their way into the animal kingdom of the Sukulu African tribe by befriending a mercenery jungle doctor played by Peter Van Eyck (1911 - 1969) and his assistant, Miles. Their objective is to shoot up as many jungle critters as they can.

It's a competent small scale Tarzan movie filmed on a Hollywood jungle set that looks like the future home of Gilligan's Island.  It's got the obligatory killer crocodiles, coiling cobras, rampaging elephants, man-eating lions, and - most kids' favorite part of a Tarzan movie - deadly quicksand! It even has the dark skinned native African tribesman, played by a Hollywood actor, who screams real good when he's being eaten alive.

                              Gordon Scott as Tarzan, right and Lion, left, square off for ferocious fight
                                                          in Tarzan's Hidden Jungle


Tarzan sails through the jungle on his trademark vines, swims like an Olympian, wrestles ferocious lions, rounds up the animal kingdom with his traditional call, and nurses a baby elephant back to health. All in a jungle afternoon.

It's no surprise when Chetah steals Vera Miles clothes as she's taking a naked dip in the lagoon. What's a Tarzan movie without a naked dip in the lagoon? Tarzan, the dumb mug, only laughs. She is later chased through the jungle by every imaginable creature on the continent. She rips her safari suit in the process and offers a bit of leg for the duration of the film.

                 Vera Miles rests after an exhausting day in the jungle in "Tarzan's Hidden Jungle".

It's a short 73 minute film. I personally could have withstood a few more rounds in the lion pit or another dip in the quicksand.

The best thing about it is Vera Miles. The next best thing about it is the fur, feather and tooth camolflague jungle masks worn by the natives which look like the genuine articles.

Gordon Scott (Tarzan), center, with friends in Italy in 1960s. You just know they called him "Gordy".


Favorite Quote: The leader of the global poaching operation drives into camp on his jeep to place an order with his subordinates. He says: "I want two thousand barrels of animal fat, a hundred lion skins, two hundred antelope heads and three tons of ivory delivered to Narobi in ten days.".

2nd Favorite Quote: From Vera Miles as she recognizes a friend of Tarzan: "Isn't that Tarzan's baby elephant?".