JESUS, THAT ROCKED!

Any album that starts with a phased hi-hat & a hyper-speed intro solo’s gotta be good. Mixing fuzzy prog moves with bar band boogie and a solidly proselytizing lyrical message, Ron Salisbury & the aptly-named J.C. Power Outlet channel 110 watts of pure Jesus power. Forgiven [Myrrh MSA-6525, 1974] was actually the Outlet’s second record, but the one that gained them the largest following; it’s also arguably the Contemporary Christian Music movement’s first true hard rock set and has scraped its way onto the Top 50 Jesus Albums of All Time

There‘s not much to learn about the group (though Salisbury has been a lasting force in the CC), but there is some truly great production & killin’ guitar solos. Also, while I would’ve preferred some of the rockier tunes without the horn section, there are a couple’a hot breaks to grab for the sample-heads (as is often the case with a lot of Myrrh LPs; see"My Sign", eg). More to my liking, there’s a strong West Coast vibe on a couple of tunes, in some places reminiscent of the quasi-religious melodies of SF psychsters Tripsichord Music Box (like “Give Him Your Love,” also my favorite track).

Not nearly as underground as other, more out-there CCM platters, Salisbury lays it on heavy with the preachy lyrics – he’s neither subtle nor poetic. But then again, given that the cover basically implies that he’s out to mend up all the damage Adam & Eve did with that whole Original Sin thing, there may not be time to mix words. That being the case, I could also do without most of the ballads, which step firmly over the line from soft-rock to adult contemporary. It’s the burning, uptempo tunes that keep the interest up, and are definitely worth the listen.

With Salisbury’s prominence in CCM, and the consistent quality of the playing & tunes, what's most unforgivable is that Forgiven’s message hasn’t been updated to the digital era.

CRY ME A RIVER

As a founding member of the Moody Blues and Ginger Baker's Airforce, and the driving stringbender behind all of Wings' hits, Denny Laine deserves a better place in history than he's got. Sure, he's a musician's musician, but his role as a songwriter, singer, and lead guitarist live in the sad annals of The Sideman: underappreciated, and kind of unknown.

Japanese Tears [Scratch SCR L 5001, 1983] is a testament to this, a brilliant outtakes record that was Laine's first release after Wings broke up in 1980. Paul McCartney had been arrested for possession of marijuana while flying into Japan (God love 'im) and, becoming introspective, disbanded Wings, cancelled a world tour, and released the much derided McCartney II. Laine, who had a cache of great tunes and pro-sounding demos stretching back as far as 1973, recorded the title song about Paul's bust, perfectly mixing eastern traditional and western pop melodicism, and threw it together with 13 other tracks to create a seamless collection that matches any of Wings' records (except, maybe, Band On The Run).

There are some Wings outs, two of which feature Macca on bass and vocals (one of which he co-wrote), as well as a remake of the Moody Blues' "Go Now," the tune that put Laine (as lead singer) on the musical map in 1965. In Paul & Linda fashion, Denny sings several songs with his wife, Jo Jo, on backing vocals, and the "home recorded" tunes aren't wanting for professional playing or production. Beatles-y melodicism is the name of the game, with Laine a hip (and not-unknowing) guide for bringing mainstream rock values into indie production and creating some real powerpop nuggets in the process (it was released on Scratch, after all).

Japanese Tears has seen sporadic reissue on several different labels, but for whatever reason all of these seem to go out of print, and none of them seem to feel the need to actually call the damn thing what it was originally titled. Maybe it's to skirt royalty issues? Or maybe because the album is a bit of a hodgepodge, with fierce rockers ("Silver), bluesy acoustic takes ("Danger Zone"), synth-driven baroque pop ("Say You Don't Mind"), and lovely ballads ("Lovers Might)... either way, this one is highly recommended!

APOTHECARY HYMNS RETURNS

Well, Spring has been forced back into its groundhog's hovel for sure round these parts, with untold inches of dusty whiteness & the first public school snow day in about 7 years!

Don't let that keep you indoors, though...

Apothecary Hymns is back for their first show of 2009!

Aaron, Alex & Rob will bust out new tunes, dust off old chestnuts, & in general, take no prisoners as they barnstorm through their mind-melting heavy psych vibes. Also, the new AH site is up & running - check it!

Apothecary Hymns on the Web

HOWLING HEX

Blippy and trippy, Gil Melle's soundtrack to the 1971 film of Michael Crichton's career-making The Andromeda Strain has been credited as the first completely electronic movie score. Well, at least that's how Melle himself - no slouch when it came to shameless self-promotion - pitches it. In fact, we now know that that honor goes to the equally B-movie Forbidden Planet, which debuted a full 15 years earlier than Melle's work.

Still, given Melle's unfaultable pedigree as both a player, writer and arranger (my favorite of his works are still the dreamy, Third Stream-y sides he cut for Blue Note in the 50s), his music for The Andromeda Strain is a sharp departure aesthetically as well as compositionally. The soundtrack itself is notable for its gimmicky appeal, as well - the original pressing of 10,000 was released in a die-cut hexagonal cover, with 10" hexagonal vinyl, too (my rip is from an original "hex" copy). 1971 was the year of gimmicks galore with vinyl & sleeves, including the Stones' zipped-up Sticky Fingers, Grand Funk's embossed and coin-shaped sleeve for E Pluribus Funk, and Traffic's corner-cutting Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, and there's a great anectdote on the hexagonal vinyl's manufacture by Rick Wise, the man who created this out-of-the-box idea. The original version sold out quickly, and Universal pressed a second version on plain ol' 12" wax with a different cover.

Regardless of the debunked myths of "firsts" that Melle claimed, his soundtrack takes all the elements of primitive electronic music and approaches them in a compositional way, rather than through the more random applications from which most users of Moogs and ARP Odysseys got their sounds at the turn of the decade. For non-organic sounds, Melle makes his cascades of beeps, ticks, swishes, and so on come alive, building in tension and even rhythmic counterpoint. He sets the tone well with each piece, and there's a great flow and logic - and even musicality - to the otherworldly sounds he's able to coax from his homespun collection of cables. Sadly the sountrack itself - which must've taken a long time to create - is super short, clocking in at under 1/3 the length of the actual movie, a brief and disappointing 26 minutes.

What I'd really like to know is not just how the hex vinyl was manufactured, but the exact gear Melle used to create the music. Melle himself built the synths he used, much like Bob Moog and Wendy Carlos, but unfortunately there seems to be no accounting for, or even much on-line interest in, this question (which is surprising); Melle died in 2004, so the chance to ask the man himself is now past. I guess that's all for the best, because that leaves us listeners with a more complete sense of mystery in these over-informed days, and maybe still the same sense of wonder and fear that both The Andromeda Strain and its soundtrack evoked lo those 38 years ago.

PS - Apologies for somewhat noisy vinyl, but this one is especially hard to find, and especially the original pressing... sometimes ya gotta go with what ya got!

YOU NEVER TOLD ME OF YOUR OTHER FACES...

Duncan Browne and Peter Godwin met in the early ‘70s, somewhere between Paris and London. Browne was already a well-known name on the UK folk-pop scene, having released his first album, the baroque and exquisite Give Me Take You in 1968 on Immediate Reocrds. Leaning towards Immediate’s more sunshine sounds (imagine Billy Nichols, but more delicate), the record borrowed from the niceties of Browne’s countrymen like Donovan and early Cat Stevens, and presaged the darker vein into which the idiom would flow a few years later under Nick Drake.

Give Me Take You opened the door for further artistic development, with Browne landing a large part in the German feature film Zeit fur Traume and getting the attention of impresario supremo Mickie Most. This led to a 1973 self-titled album for Most’s RAK label, which set Browne’s poetic compositions against his increasingly impressive classical guitar technique.

During this time, Duncan Browne met Peter Godwin, a German ex-pat with a shared affinity for music without boundaries. After two years of composing and playing together almost non-stop, the duo burst forth with the stunning glam-prog perfection of Metro [Transatlantic 0064.009, 1976, and Sire SR 3041, 1977, in the US]. Rigidly funky, understatedly eloquent, a chiseled sonic sculpture, Metro - the band, and the album - leaves you thoroughly satisfied... but wanting more.

Pitched somewhere between Yes, Roxy Music, Crimson and Bowie, the vocals affect just the right melodic nonchalance, giving way to Browne’s guitar mastery and Godwin’s bubbling, neophytic synths. Briefly changing their name to Public Zone and releasing a 7” with Stuart Copeland on drums (you can get that here), Metro lasted through two more albums, neither of which featured Browne (New Love (1979) and Future Imperfect (1980)). Duncan Browne continued on in his solo career, pushing the envelope onto the club floor even further with The Wild Places (1978) and Streets of Fire. (1979)

Godwin, for his part, kept the groove going but couldn’t match the fire of the band’s debut. Disbanding Metro, he collaborated with both George Kajanis and Midge Ure on a handful of extended 12” singles which were eventually comped as the 1982 album Dance Emotions. The Kajanus-produced Correspondence was Godwin’s second, and final, album.

Browne didn’t do too much to follow up on the promise of his latter-day solo material, working on the soundtrack to the UK television show The Travelling Man and recording sporadically until his unfortunate death from cancer in 1993 (his final album was released posthumously). Although Metro is best known via Bowie’s cover of “Criminal World” on Let’s Dance, Browne and Godwin (who also died young, in the late ‘80s) have yet to get the acclaim they truly deserve for their brilliant and prescient work together on Metro.

A ROCKY MOUNTAIN "HI"

Another great rarity, and one which people seem to be rarin’ to find. So, this one’s for you!

Pretty much everyone comes to Danny Holien’s self-titled album [Tumbleweed TWS 102, 1972] through the lead track, “Colorado.” Originally hailing from Cannon Falls, Minnesota, Holien had fronted the under-recorded (and therefore legendary) garage band the Shades. Moving west to Denver, he got caught up with a bunch of drug-gobbling rockers and second generation hippies, recording this gem in the process. Holien lived in the Rockies, near Evergreen, CO. His album reflects the pensive and acoustic fingerstyle guitar one might expect, but it isn’t lacking in the frenetic workouts that a Nuggets-era band like the Shades employed. “Colorado” was the biggest hit that the short-lived Tumbleweed Records would score, but it’s just one among many strong, country inflected jangles herein. He was in good company both proximally and sonically: Stephen Stills was right around the mountain in Nederland, CO, where he was busy recruiting the crew that would become Manassas. In fact, a quick search for “Colorado” on ye olde Google shows many people misremembering it as a Manassas tune.

Holien’s hit (his album was Tumbleweed's best success) was actually a protest against the possibility of the ’72 Olympic Winter Games being held in the state. It’s propelled by the same thump that marks contemporaneous CSNY-related tunes like “Ohio” and “Chicago” (also, coincidentally, named for U.S. locales), but the rest of the record is replete with jazzy interludes, lilting flute jams and harmony-laden acoustic/electric orchestrations. As part of the burgeoning preservationist movement, Danny Holien decried development and promoted the state’s natural beauty that would be all but lost if the Olympics came to Denver. And also, I mean, everyone knows how much skiers love weed, so it’s understandable that those back-to-the-land types were afraid the olympians would come & smoke what them musicians was working so hard to grow.

Other highlights are the twangy, tangy “Hick,” the eastern vibes of “Satsanga” and the garagey rave-up “Lino The Wino”. Danny Holien was produced by the great Bill Szymczyk, who’d previously worked with the James Gang and helped B.B. King with his crossover success “The Thrill Is Gone.” Szymczyk would follow Joe Walsh’s upward trajectory, engineering and producing massive hit albums for the Eagles and the Who, among others.

Colorado-based Tumbleweed Records’s brief existence actually owes a lot to Szymczyk, who, along with ABC-Dunhill A&R head Larry Ray and musician/producer Robb Kunkel (whose excellent Abyss is also a cult fave) wangled something like $1.5 million from gas masters Gulf+Western, of all companies, which was eager to exploit the continuing upswing in sales in the hippie music market. Tumbleweed’s most prescient release was the debut of Michael Stanley, which featured Walsh, Todd Rundgren and Rick Derringer. Considering that most of the label’s releases were in editions of 500, all with gatefold covers and lavish, full-sized, textured-paper booklets, and didn’t get much past the region, it’s unsurprising that Gulf+Western pulled the plug after only about 11 releases (but probably gleefully, what with the massive tax write-off that Tumbleweed provided for its parent company).

At 16 pages long, Holien’s liner notes feature hand-printed scores of all the melodies on the album. I’m not sure who’s benefit this was for, but it’s a lovely touch, one of those you’d-never-get-this-with-a-CD moments. Reticent and reluctant to tour, Holien returned to southern Minnesota shortly after recording this record, continuing to play around in the intervening decades with his band Cookies, but dropping out of the biz for all intents and purposes. I haven’t heard Cookies, but considering the strength of playing and writing on Danny Holien, I’m sure what he’s doing today is just as worth checking out.

WHISTLE STOP

Ashman Reynolds has been called a British supergroup of sorts, and I’d tend to agree, if you’d consider a group to be “super” even when it’s composed of musicians no one’s ever really heard of. Although members came from – and would move on to – Blue Mink, Picadilly Line, Fleetwood Mac, Heavy Metal Kids, Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Savoy Brown, Murray Head, Nazareth and Long John Baldry’s band, the band’s namesakes were Aliki Ashman and Harry Reynolds. Ashman had put in serious time in the late-60’s singing with both the Graham Bond Organisation and Ginger Baker’s Airforce, and Reynolds was a formidable session bassist and guitarist.

Their sole album, 1972’s barnstorming Stop Off, is as well-rounded an apotheosis of the British infatuation with American country rock as will be heard, holding its own with contemporaneous albums by the Faces and Stones. Ashman Reynolds also expertly hits West Coast rural psych moves, in part because of their three-guitar frontline (with Reynolds joined by Rod Edwards and Mickey Keene).

With washes of gospel organ, blue-eyed soul wailing and ripping guitar leads, Ashman Reynolds rock the down-home family-n’-friends feel of early Delaney & Bonnie, replete with sparkling group interplay and strong songs. Why they didn’t stay together is a mystery; so is how they came together in the first place. As mentioned above, everyone found continued work in the rock biz, most likely moving on to higher-profile and better-paying gigs. So Stop Off is exactly that - one of those rare alightments at the right place and time that produced a singular and unrepeatable tour de force.