Inside Sounds

What has evolved from Rock, besides even better Rock, are magazines about the new music that are keeping up to the fast pace of their subject matter. CRAWDADDY magazine is fantastic. Best pop record reviews and news that I’ve ever read. Love it.

I can’t believe that there are that many people who love good R & R; after all these years of thinking of myself as a minority freak. Their criticism is sometimes Master Thesis heavy, but is worth it. I have to read hard sometimes, to understand HOW MUCH they really get ‘into’ music. They also have tipped me off to some good albums, and I’ve so far pretty much agreed with all their criticisms.

On another level completely is HIT PARADER. A former ‘teeny bop’ rag, it has grown up to doing intelligent interviews with people like Bloomfield, Byrds, Jeff Beck, Wilson Pickett; album lyrics, and giving record reviews. It’s still oriented to people in their teens, but I kinda like knowing what Ringo ate for breakfast last nite anyway.

Saw SPIKEDRIVERS in ROCK AND ROLL mag and then at the LIVING END. I’ve heard most of their songs a hundred times, but they still sound fresh. They’re smoother and come on more professional now, and I think deserve to “make it.” But what does “making it” mean any more? Certainly a hit record really doesn’t (e.g. Monkees). Maybe part of the fuzzy definition is an album; they (if it were produced right) could really make a great one too. They suffer from over-exposure around Detroit, or people are just taking them for granted. I think they cut to shreds a lot of other stuff I’ve heard around here lately.

Jackie Washington at the LIVING END was very strange. Sometimes he successfully combined his open-throated folk oriented voice with his new Rock sound. Other times he sounded like Johnny Mathis singing in the wrong studio. I liked his lead guitarist who made the best out of every break. Washington still does some solo pre-Beatle folk tunes nicely. I dug the whole change.

Where have all the folksingers gone? Squishy-rock? Ian and Sylvia’s new album SO MUCH FOR DREAMING comes up with the same transitional problems. They sound like folksingers with a disoriented sound behind them. Sometimes they make it, but it’s in spite of all the electronic stuff they now use. They sound like a jazzed up folk team, not a “whole” something coming right at you.

The BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD have that “whole” something and just fill you up with good sounds.

CRAWDADDY said they were great, but the first time I heard the album I was indifferent. Mixed Media lent me the record and I went home, relaxed and listened. It’s really one long groove. They’re so together; a little like the early Beatles; a lot like so many things you’ve “almost” heard. The same, but different. They make you feel good like the JEFFERSON AIRPLANE.

Another great LP is THE DOORS from California naturally). “You know the days divide the nights, Night divides the day. Try to run, try to hide, Break on through to the other side.” What other side’s left? Absolutely makes it! They get an amphetamine rush thing going sometimes, yet they can be so mellow, even do a gassy Weill-Brecht thing. I can’t explain their sound yet. It’s different... go hear it.

Donovan’s MELLOW YELLOW LP is the same usual Donovan sound of SUNSHINE SUPERMAN. It’s a beautiful record. The new artists in the pop music game are the producer and arranger. D’s Mickey Most and John Cameron I think deserve a lot of the credit given to supposedly “the new poet laureate of Rock.”

I have so far talked so much in superlatives that I had better qualify my music tastes with what are not great new LPs. The Electric Prunes’ (“Dream Last Nite”) album was full of every possible gimmick (feedback, echo, fuzz bass). I did like them though. They try to come on like the Stones sometimes, and even give Donovan a try. I felt it was honest trying however, and I think a lot of the cuts did “make it” (?). This is going to sound condescending but is a very hip ‘teeny bopper’ album.

New LOVE album has an 18 minute band that I got bored in the middle of, off and on again. They just weren’t getting anywhere a lot of the time. The West Coast Experimental Band has groovy pictures on the cover and a few good tracks inside. I liked their quiet pretty songs. The loud, untogether Fug’s Mother’s changes didn’t impress me a whole lot. Mostly though, they just don’t have any personality.

The burn of the year has got to be a group called the Leather Bound Minds from L.A. They are the worst thing yet that I’ve heard trying to cash in on the psychedelic money boom.

A lot of the music, magazines and stuff I mention in the column I found at Mixed Media. If you haven’t been there go take a look. They have hard to get books, posters, records, etc. It’s the only place I know where I can listen to an album, talk music with people, look at underground papers, play with the “head” toys, and pay cheap prices. It deserves your attention.