1974: Amon Düül II - Hijack
Amon Düül II’s body of work has the same critical focus problems that plague a lot of their German peers. Outside of their “classic” records (Yeti, Tanz Der Lemminge, Wolf City) there is a lack of discussion about the group’s work. It is really a shame too; Amon Düül II continued on as a group long after Wolf City, managing to put out a wealth of great material.
Hijack, Amon Düül II’s seventh official full length album is by no means a great record. It is a charming addition to their oeuvre though – probably the group’s most earnest attempt at putting out a straight “pop” record. They definitely tailored this album for an international audience. Elements of fusion jazz and glam rock are mixed in with the prog and psych rock that Amon Düül II were known for. Vocals are pretty on par for the group, with Lothar Meid and others taking turns singing in strangely endearing and comical broken English phrases.
“I Can’t Wait (1+2)” and “Mirror” are worth the price of admission alone. Leading off the album with a multi-part suite may seem like an odd choice, but by 1974 Amon Düül II were no strangers to this sort of sequencing. “I Can’t Wait” manages to go from string-driven Beatles-esque pop to a bass-driven boogie before “Mirror” introduces horn-filled psychedelic funk in the suite’s final stretch. The band transitions through all of this but never loses sight of their fantastically weird pop sensibilities. The rest of the album can be taken as a continuation of the suite, but it also stands on its own.
Hijack also marked the return of many original Amon Düül collective members. The group weren’t such a glorious “hot mess” by this point (which was definitely a selling point for Yeti, Phallus Dei, and anything by the original Amon Düül), but they were still bizarre and a whole lot of fun.
1971: Calvin Keys - Shawn-Neeq
With every well-done reissue program – Blue Note, the back catalog of Nikki Sudden, and the Swell Maps – there are countless labels and artists whose output has languished or been subject to spotty availability. Gene Russell’s Black Jazz imprint, which issued a series of progressive post-bop and electric jazz LPs between 1971 and 1975, has seen brief reprieve on CD and the occasional bootleg, and the entire catalog was recently offered for sale on Craigslist of all places. Its subsequent fate sparked some online acrimony and is still to be determined. Tompkins Square – mostly an American folk, non-Western, and outsider music imprint – has stepped in to at least ensure that one of the label’s early classics is legally available. Alongside titles by bassist Henry Franklin, pianist Walter Bishop, Jr., and The Awakening, California guitarist Calvin Keys’ debut Shawn-Neeq is one of the strongest Black Jazz LPs. Recorded in 1971 with reedman Owen Marshall, electric pianist Larry Nash, bassist Lawrence Evans, and drummer Bob Braye, the program features five of Keys’ effervescent originals.
It’s no surprise, really, that Keys, who worked with such luminaries as Ahmad Jamal, Bobby Hutcherson, and Dr. Lonnie Smith, would find a home of sorts on Tompkins Square. Steeped in blues and R&B, his phrasing is deceptively simple and wrapped in a deep, muscular tone. “B.E.” opens the proceedings with a freer vibe, Marshall’s bass clarinet providing a throaty burble alongside open rhythms, but it’s only a coda to the cracking open-road groove and dusk-toned lace of the leader’s multiple choruses. There seems to be a healthy dose of studio reverb applied so that electricity and split tones have a warm, albeit distant quality. Keys’ dry, tenor guitar-like cells add a sense of depth and physicality to the title track’s breezy, flute-accented waltz; incisive notes skimming across loose and shuffling percussion. Tracks like this and “Gee-Gee” (which starts off the second side) might, in lesser hands, be cloyingly slick pop-jazz, but with Keys’ go-for-broke improvising and the rhythm section’s rough-and-tumble brinksmanship, the music on Shawn-Neeq remains incredibly arresting.
“B.K.” is the lengthy closer, blending grungy keyboard blats and a raw backbeat with Keys’ smartly robust drive, repetitive a la Grant Green, expansive and bluesy. Keys would record once more for Black Jazz with a larger group, 1974’s Proceed With Caution, and Russell also produced that album’s follow-up, Criss-Cross (Ovation, 1976). Keys mostly played the role of sideman for the next decade, returning to the bandleader fold after 1985’s Full Court Press (Olive Branch). Still busy in the Bay Area, Keys’ music is definitely deserving of a wider contemporary audience.
1988: Galaxie 500 - Today
For reasons I can’t really fathom, Galaxie 500’s first album Today is usually overlooked in discussion of the band. Writers often point to On Fire as the band’s most cohesive album-length statement and to tracks like “Fourth of July” and “Listen, the Snow is Falling” from This is Our Music as their strongest individual outings. And yes, it is true that Today doesn’t have the “one big haze” feel that comes from a listen through On Fire, but the incredibly strong song writing and truly transcendent guitar heroics from Dean Wareham push the album right to the top of Galaxie 500’s output. Song for song, Today stacks up more than favorably against any debut album I can think of.
The Galaxie 500 sound is one of the more polarizing in indie rock. Along with other slowcore – a name that particularly tickles me – bands like Low, Galaxie 500 pioneered a technique of dropping the tempo to a crawl while still packing in the dynamic shifts any self respecting rock band ought to have. But their music isn’t just about slowing down the tempo, it’s more about using the same tempo for every song and finding new ways to make it exciting for listeners. Galaxie 500’s secret weapon is their bassist, Naomi Yang, who might lose out to Peter Hook in a “melody off,” but just barely. Yang’s bass lines range from simple riffs that propel the songs forward to higher register melody lines that successfully battle Dean Wareham’s guitar for the listeners attention.
But that’s not to say that Wareham’s presence in the band is anything to scoff at. Between his ethereal, high-pitched voice that float above the mix in every song and his absolutely majestic guitar tone and note choices, he proves himself one of the most capable indie frontmen of all time. Throughout the album he is able to switch from simple chord strumming to blistering guitar leads at the drop of the hat, all without losing his place in the slow swing provided by the rest of the band. The layers and layers of melodies on the album are simply amazing, allowing it to stand as one of the lushest works of art three people could possibly create.
1980s: Maximum Joy
Listening to Janine Rainforth shout “Don’t say maybe, tell me Yeah!” is like listening to a punk fitness instructor teaching a class that involves cannon-balling around a Warehouse in Bristol sometime circa 1982. It is pure fuel; music as motivational instruction. I discovered Maximum Joy about the same time as I was dipping into the world of Gl*xo Babies, The Pop Group, and the Bristol scene of Avon Calling. Maximum Joy stood out as a supremely populist gesture – a striking aural poster campaign that appealed with a vivid sound to those who believed you could dance to fringe music.
The Pop Group were Nick Cave’s ideal antidote to Thatcher’s 1980s London. Disappointed with the marshmallow Pop that thickly coated the surface of London cultural life, he was awakened by their scabrously skeptical, yet theatrical performances of songs like “We Are All Prostitutes.” The Gl*xo Babies were provocative too, but less successful. While they were experimental, they lived with the New Wave curse that punk’s purity had engendered; they avoided most sounds and fixations of the Bristol Scene without deciding on a clear direction out of it. Maximum Joy, on the other hand, were prepared to admit any genre that struck them, like the funk and disco of Chic, which the former Gl*xo members had admired but hadn’t attempted to emulate. The Jazz sympathizers of Gl*xo Babies – including their saxophonist – formed Maximum Joy with one member of The Pop Group and Janine Rainforth. Ex Gl*xo Babies member Rob Chapman made the eloquent observation that “Jazz is a life long apprenticeship, not a stylistic indulgence” on leaving the band with his own aspirations to incorporate Syd Barrett-like psych folk.
Because of/despite this, Maximum Joy feels like joyful celebrations among the ruins. Chapman may have been right about Jazz, but Maximum Joy succeeded in making something else: early hands-in-the-air dub/club music. Dub and sampled tracks like “Silent Street” are everlastingly long, and they feel less like virtuoso sessions for instruments than for bodies. The remnant carried over from punk is not even the edginess, it’s the motivational sloganeering: “Stay Positive, stay Plus!” “Stretch (Discomix Rap)” crosses over into leg-warmer territory but returns with its Jazz-sax solos and raps still fresh in the ear. You’d think that by now these hybrid marriages of genres wouldn’t surprise your average internet crate digger, but Maximum Joy still seem to defy the odds of where they came from – a little bit like the Flashdance welder of Bristol punk.
1965: John Fahey - The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death
“I pretty much set John up and let him play. He was all by himself for most of it. I wasn’t even around for many of the takes. I set him up and let him play. He sat there with a dog at his feet.” – Barry Hansen (a.k.a. Dr. Demento)
That quote seems to sum up the flawlessness of John Fahey’s fourth album, The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death. Anything beyond the setup of just a microphone and a guitar during these 15 tracks would seem entirely superfluous. The directness of the recording evokes a psalm-like power while also sounding (and being for that matter) effortlessly tossed off, something casually played while sitting on the porch. No matter how incredibly complex the finger picked guitar playing gets – and it does – the record never sounds like anything less than one of the warmest sets ever put to tape.
Of all the albums I truly love, Blind Joe Death always finds a place near the very top, in spite of its modest components. Though the album is completely instrumental, Fahey manages to evoke an overwhelming amount of character and personality through his guitar. From the quaint yet complex opener “Beautiful Linda Getchell” to the devotional “Saint Patrick’s Hymn” the entire album finds Fahey’s voice shining loudly through his playing. On paper an album that is literally just 15 tracks of guitar instrumentals could become bland or boring at some point, yet on tracks like “Brenda’s Blues” and “Oringa-Moraga” I still find new crevices of texture and rhythm. The album has an unprecedented staying power.
The man is heard only once on Blind Joe Death; on the fabulous “Poor Boy,” in what may now be the most famous moment on the album: the piece begins only to be interrupted by that damned barking dog; Fahey stops playing on the perfect note to draw out tension and shushes the dog. The song begins again uninterrupted. It is moments like this, these gentle tarnishes that when put next to tracks of such awe inspiring technical brilliance (the jaw-dropping “On the Sunny Side of the Ocean”) help generate the mystery and love for Fahey’s early records. There is a directness on this album that was never quite reached again. It was a time before other instruments were added or the various avant-garde recordings, back when all John Fahey needed was a guitar, a tape recorder, and a quiet room.
1995: U.S. Maple - Long Hair in Three Stages
There’s a scene in the film adaptation of High Fidelity where a nervous man tries to buy a copy of Captain Beefheart’s Safe as Milk from Jack Black’s parody of a record store clerk. That man was U.S. Maple vocalist Al Johnson, and the scene cracks me up – not for its dialogue, mind you, but for how these supposed record store “snobs” completely denied Al fucking Johnson. I know, I know – it’s a film, they’re all playing characters, but come on! There’s even a U.S. Maple poster tacked up by the counter!
Long Hair in Three Stages was my introduction to Chicago’s U.S. Maple. The first time I heard it, I didn’t know what to make of it. Actually, that’s an understatement – I was confused, apprehensive, and a bit shocked. The intertwined guitar lines of “high” guitarist Mark Shippy and “low” guitarist Todd Rittman sounded like hiccuping contortions, as if scraps of rock n’ roll progressions were twisted, melted down, and remade into something else entirely. And even that’s too organized of an explanation, as whenever U.S. Maple would lock into a rhythmic groove, transition, or even a sustained melody, they would either take it somewhere else or abandon the idea completely. Precious few moments in the band’s discography sound relatively tidy (e.g., “Open a Rose” on Acre Thrills, “Go to Bruises” on Talker), and that’s with a heavy emphasis on being relative. Arguably more so than any other rock band from the 90s, U.S. Maple’s idiosyncratic and fractured music is difficult to provide accurate comparison points for. Some suggest Captain Beefheart, but U.S. Maple weren’t prone to the off-kilter zaniness of the Captain – they were too focused, even in the passages where everything falls apart.
Several years after hearing the band, I still don’t always know what to make of their music. Unlike so many records that may draw attention to one or two elements at a time (like say, vocals and guitar lines), U.S. Maple consistently draws (and, I’d argue, requires) one’s full attention to the whole piece. Take Johnson’s vocal approach, for example – although he’s reciting lyrics of some sort, his delivery is abstracted and gestural. Without a lyric sheet handy, the only thing I’ve ever been able to make out on Long Hair’s “Letter to ZZ Top” is “give my bones to Billy Gibbons,” and that’s mostly because I once saw the lyric mentioned in another review of the album. In doing so, Johnson’s vocals meld into U.S. Maple’s primordial melt; if one were to deconstruct their sound, each element would make absolutely no sense, yet together, a bizarrely rich (and thankfully bereft of the wackiness that plagues most “weird” bands) whole emerges. Long Hair just captures the band at their loudest – a few years later, with the Michael Gira-produced Talker, U.S. Maple demonstrated their unique creative vision could survive quietly just as well.
A friend of mine that taught guitar lessons for several years finds U.S. Maple largely unbearable – “if I wanted to hear off-tune guitar warm-ups, I’d go back to selling instruments,” he once told me – but this dismissal assumes that U.S. Maple’s music is somehow undeveloped, accidental, inept, or some combination thereof. I won’t deny that much of the Chicago band’s oeuvre can sound cacophonous or unstructured, but just saying that would undermine how constructed their songs really were. Watch any video of their live performance and it’s quite obvious just how much concentration went into their songs. On Long Hair particularly, that focus was especially raucous. The amount of noise-rock coming out of Chicago in the mid-90s was hardly lacking, but such a disjointed, unpredictable album really stands out.
Inexplicably, I pull out U.S. Maple’s records every five or six months and continue to be confronted with some of the richest, uncompromisingly unique rock music that somehow always feels slightly out of descriptive reach. Perhaps now I understand why so many people called U.S. Maple “deconstructionist rock” – even if the band contested the term, I could seemingly justify it descriptively in a vague sense; i.e., by trying to understand U.S. Maple by relating them to other bands, they most certainly were on their own. Now if only that U.S. Maple documentary would surface – the “in progress” trailer was posted six years ago!
