Big Star

Oh, speaking of Terry Manning's xpost own album, which he was ordered to do after his off-the-cuff Box Tops parody, my fave track is the wild extended preview of "I Can't Stand The Rain"---he was still working on the tracks for Ann Peebles when he got a desperate call from a buddy, so took the Hi Rhythm Gang, and a tape recorder, over to fill in for a no-show for some lucky Senior Prom, soon in musical flames.

The Beatle's Second Album

Prix is too fussy, too worked out in the wrong ways. The arrangements and performances don't breathe. Tiven's production trademark, actually. Similar to what's wrong with Van Duren's first album, which could have been great had it not sounded so canned. Prix is not completely horrible, but the version Chilton did of "She Might Look My Way" is magnificent in its simplicity; the Prix version fucks up the beautiful chromatic riff that begins the song, obscures it. The best version of "Take Me Home and Make Me Like It" is on the Chilton live-at-CBGB album, One Day in NYC; the version here is dinky. I think Tommy Hoehn is OK, sounds kinda like Ian Lloyd of the Stories, or Van Duren, for that matter. Whatever else you might say about the Tiven Chilton stuff, at least Alex sounds soulful, if uncomfortable with the bsnality of "Every Time I Close My Eyes."
I love the Beatles' For Sale. They sound so relaxed, vocally, so distanced from any kind of hysteria. Great singing. Can't bring myself to listen to them any more, but that one I can still enjoy. And "Hide Your Love Away," Lennon sings it so well.

Can't hardly stand to listen to them anymore either, especially a whole album from beginning to end. Sometimes can listen to one song over and over to see what's going on, if not what's going ahn.

The Beatles, I mean. My Big Star burnout recovery rate is higher.

_The Beatle's Second Album_

Sorry, there was more than one Beatle at that point. /The Beatles' Second Album/.

My pick for their best record. Dave Marsh made a more-than-convincing case for this being their best album in a 33 1/3rd-esque book (shares it's title with the record).

Man, I need to get back to that earlier stuff---speaking of xpost Ian Lloyd of Stories, I wasn't that big on him (as a lot of other people were), or whoever sang lead w the Beckies, but otherwise, both bands made good use on record of Michael Brown's melodies etc., after he left Left Banke (haven't heard the late 60s self-titled LP by Montage, also w much MB input). He wasn't trying to rehash Left Banke w those two, and I can imagine Chilton still listening.

Some good stuff on that Beckies record. Used to find it in the dollar bins, got issued on CD last year.

What Prix kind of reminds me of is the record by the Dudes, who are totally obscure today. We're No Angels, from 1975. A Bob Segarini project, similar to his work with the Wackers, except that the Dudes record is more like the Zombies or the Bee Gees, in spots, and also almost disco bubblegum elsewhere. I think it's a very enjoyable album with a uniquely light touch, a transitional record--pointing the way toward the Records, even, but with a crass and unhip undertone that is very refreshing.
http://images.45worlds.com/f/ab/dudes-were-no-angels-2-ab.jpg

Very appealing description (also, Bob Segarini is one of the great rock names, of course)! Don't get how that could be like murky, genteel ol' Prix. Now that you mention it, think Creem was into the Dudes, and maybe the Wackers.

Really impressed with Artful Dodger, great songs and a hint of the hard rock muscle that Cheap Trick would add to power pop to become a stadium band

Here ya go, Dow, the full Dudes album. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2iylep_dudes-1975-we-re-no-angels-full-album_music

why "raspberry"?

We're No Angels [Columbia, 1975]
The Consumer Guide Raspberry for 1975 is awarded posthumously to this Zombies tribute, which died almost immediately upon release, dismissed on name alone by everybody except diehard Wackers fans, an exclusive grouping that does not include your reviewer. Dudey it's not. There's a lovely pre-Pepper feel to it, although the bite of the Raspberries' Starting Over or Big Star's Radio City is missed, and a nice ripoff eclecticism operates as well--not so easy to evoke all the young hooples while borrowing a catch from Rod Argent. Anybody who can tell me where Brian Greenaway stole the little bit that goes "oh Lylee lady" wins a prize. B+

The Byrds element in the chorus of "The Ballad of El Goodo" is so palpable, like I could put my finger on the exact Byrds song that it comes from, but I can't. I'm not sure that song exists.

The vocal sounds like McGuinn. And the song it reminds me the most of is ... "5D (Fifth Dimension)"

But I was thinking about the verse, not necessarily the chorus.

Just listened to "The Ballad of El Goodo" and for a split second I thought I could hear a backing vocal by Rasa Davies.

Don't know if "El Goodo" is structured like a Byrds tune, myself, but I hear the general resemblance. I love "5D," but isn't it in 3/4 time? Dunno. Perhaps it was the stateliness of "Way Out West," for example, that reminded critics of the Byrds. "She Don't Care About Time," maybe? Parsons' "100 Years"? Critics also compared them to the Who, and maybe they meant Who Sell Out? "Our Love Was, Is"?
Alex used to do "5D"--I remember him covering it in a show I saw around 1991. And come to think of it, maybe he sang in those days just a bit like David Crosby? "Everybody's Been Burned"? "Psychodrama City"?

could totally see a cover of "Everybody's Been Burned" fitting right in on 3rd/Sister Lovers

Yeah, "5D!" Except when I play it, it's like, well, not really! It's in a different key and a different meter (xp) and has a different chord progression and a different melodic countour...

There's something in the harmony in the "El Goodo" chorus, I think.

Yeah, "5D" is in 3/4. I wasn't thinking the two songs sounded exactly the same, just that the way the lyrics and vocals flow seems somewhat similar.

I wish I could write something on Big Star's harmonic language, it's distinctive within rock. I get what James means about something similar to "5D," sure. Fwiw, Radio City is unique in that its first cut lays out the strategy for the rest of the songs-chromaticism, major six chords, augmented and diminished chords. The first part of "Daisy Glaze" echoes "Oh My Soul"'s chord progression. "Life Is White" also echoes "O My Soul" in the brilliant little piano part in the middle.

I think the general similarity between those two songs is that the melody on the verse is relatively static, it doesn't move around that much, it is kind of the audio equivalent of a cartoon character marching through a loop of the same desert background, so that the contrast when the melody rises and the harmonies kick in on the chorus is extra exciting. I mean maybe there is a little more melody than a Rex Harrison Sprechgesang but not too much more.

Be very interested to read this Big Star harmonic language piece you wish you could write. I never tried to figure out any of their songs but "September Gurls," which is probably the easiest one. I mean I knew somebody who couldn't figure out the intro but maybe they didn't really try.

xpost: re xgau on Dudes: maybe because he liked the Raspberries? Or a big cheerful lip-fart to other peoples' reactions?
I don't get the "lovely pre-Pepper's feel", def not the Zombies or their Rod Argent, though maybe his early 70s band (Argent)? Anyway this is unmistakably early 70s, and vocals fairly enough share though maybe not add to the charming cheese of a catchy polyester bellbottom band whose guitars know how to dance, also rock, at least on "Rock N Roll Debutante". "My Mind's On You" is a suave prom ballad, vocals edging closer to Steven Tyler than James DeYoung---*just* close enough, every time, but keeping the suspense in there. Closing title track is like good Mott & Bowie, although this may have seemed superfluous in '75, when the originals were so much with us.
So help-themselves eclectic that they even brush by power-pop ballads too, just occasionally (no sorry or starry eyes that I noticed, but the humor and calm self-confidence and sometimes somewhat formal, greeting-card serenades fit).

vocals fairly *soon* share, that is

The guitars dance a lot more than they "rock", in the usual early 70s sense, though later on Nile Rodgers reminded us that such a distinction could be bullshit.

el goodo reminded me of the byrds from the first time i heard it

regarding the beatles influence, it makes more sense if one factors the later beatles stuff into the equation too. moments of the first two big star records kind of build off that harder rockin crunchier sound. to me, anyway.

I totally get that, James. Open your heart to the whole universe/ain't no one going to turn me 'round. The bridge to "El Goodo," isn't that brilliant? "If we can"--guitar lick--"just hold on." That's some great writing.

Yeah, Christgau saying the Dudes album was a Zombies "tribute" is a bit much. But "Deeper and Deeper" I think does come close to Colin Blunstone and the Zombies, in the sense that it's a modified, callow, soul ballad. Prolly the best song on the record.

Okay just listened to a few Grifters songs since they were mentioned up thread and on the one that just came on, "Last Man Alive," it totally sounds like the guy is doing a Jonathan RIchman imitation. Now he sounds completely different. Oh wait, this is a different artist now called Grifter, the same way there is Artful Dodger and The Artful Dodger.

And that Grifters track came from the excellent Oxford American Southern Music CD. That's how I got to Memphis.

"One thing I know for sure now..." check this out, James: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8yMgaKD8n0

Sure, will do thanks.

Critics also compared them to the Who, and maybe they meant /Who Sell Out/? "Our Love Was, Is"?

I'm thinking more "I Can't Reach You."

Speaking of "El Goodo" for instance, says here that Big Star were influenced by and even er sourced "specific riffs" from the acoustic guitar tracks of Gimmer Nicholson, whose The Christopher Idylls was finally resurrected on vinyl this year by Light In The Attic---excerpts, along w ones by Cargoe and The Hot Dogs, whose Say What You Mean I'm listening to right now:
https://vinylwitness.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/thank-you-friends-the-memphis-pop-scene-part-one/

Okay, just finished first YouTube listen to Say What You Mean, by the Hot Dogs: Terry Manning producing and playing lead guitar, I Am The Cosmos drummer Richard Rosebrough among the drummers here, Cargoe's harmonies sometimes assisting Bill Rennie's lead singing & bass, Greg Reding's keys, guitar and vocals, in a tunefully strong, texture-flexing and sufficiently rocking (to rowdy!) endeavor: early Wet Willie (or early solo Andy Fairweather-Low, maybe pre-Fillmore-boogied-out Humble Pie) come to mind, but--considering even some light Latiny touches to the roll, in the second track---overall it might be most like Stephen Stills' s/t solo debut---"Love The One You're With" etc---without, you know, Stephen Stills. Yay. Although he might as well be on a couple of lugubrious,back-to-back Side 2 ballads--but they perk up again after that, even getting to a rowdy closer.
LP posted here--if you can't see it, check YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmkN_tqN8m0

Another blog called it "folk-country-silk-rock": the "silk" could be the para-power-pop appeal, yeah.

hey that's pretty good, never heard of it before thx for the heads up!

The Gimmer Nicholson album was first reissued in 1994 on Terry Manning's Lucky 7 label. You can def hear how Bell copped his licks on the first Big Star album on "Watch the Sunrise." I picked up a copy of Marlin Greene's 1972 Elektra album Tiptoe Past the Dragon last year, and was struck by a track called "Masquerade Ball," whose acoustic guitar licks were a dead ringer for "Watch the Sunrise"'s.
The guitarist is Gimmer Nicholson, who appears on the record along with the Muscle Shoals Sound band, and the record seems to have been mixed or mastered in Memphis by Terry Manning. It's a cool record that has affinities to the work being done at Ardent, and it's a Christian-themed album. Wonder if Chris Bell heard it. (Marlin was a big Muscle Shoals sideman, played guitar on "When a Man Loves a Woman.")
Marlin's LP here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHjpeyaN0pQ
"Masquerade Ball" is the second track.

ha yeah, that is definitely very close to watch the sunrise.
the gimmer nicholson record is totally great, hadn't heard it before the reissue this year. kind of unbelievable it was recorded in the late 60s.

idk the big similarity to my ears is just that they're using the same guitar tuning (open D), which was all over the place in the 70s, and the same rhythm/tempo.

not really a rip per se

yeah, not a straight rip off, but i can see it sparking something for Bell (if he actually heard it).

Terry Manning on Gimmer Nicholson here.
Gimmer's record would've been the first Ardent album, apparently.

Cargoe's '73 s/t studio LP (there's also a previously unreleased contemporaneous live set on YouTube) is what I'd rec to someone seeking straight-up power pop fan, before (but not instead of) the Hot Dogs' Say What You Mean. But could also imagine it appealing to fans of Crosby-Stills-Nash debut, though I much prefer these robustly unassuming harmonies to CSN twee---and, like on Say..., we get Stills' lilt etc. without the actual Stills--also, no Manassas etc. congas here, the ripple is just part of the basic combo interplay. I do occasionally miss the relatively open-ended studio resources Manning brings to the Hot Dogs, but Cargoe has their own clever change-ups of tempo, solo alt. w harmony etc.---and, instead of getting to the lugubrious like Hot Dogs' Side 2 detour, Cargoe's just, "I been lookin' at somethin' lately, 'til it starts to bore me/just---feelin mighty pore-ly..." and ripple on, cos whattayagonnado, and that turns out to be the intro to a poppier version of prog suite moves. The closer alternates caffeinated restless with ascending speculations: "Wow---what'll happen next?"
...b-but---why the FUCK did I not hear this record on the radio in the 70s?
Duh: Ardent seems to have been as much of a creative oasis-to-commecial Death Valley as Lee Hazlewood Industries...
Oh well, here it is on the 'Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXNdfOfgS6U

Time for a new screenname, much as I liked the prior one

The Scruffs' "Wanna' Meet The Scruffs?": Ardent clients, Joe Hardy and John Fry himself listed as engineers, and the sound is immediately you-are-there rough-edged clarity, stronger than I expect from power pop, though it is generically that, with the only surprise being the way Stephen Burns seems to be copping to the arrested development subtext so easily inferred: he's the staring, hyperfocused romantic (he and they are on the verge of American garage-street-convenience-store-across-the-street-from-high-school, workin' and not workin' *punk*), and while tongue-in-cheek about it---"Tragedy" could be the theme song of a power pop Broadway equivalent of Grease; "Revenge" (with something like steel guitar, little bit!) goes, "Revenge is such a dirty word, but sheee is such a durty gurl", still, "Tommy Gun" takes it all over thee top: "Tommy Gun/Television show you one/Mama buy you bigger one/Tommy Gun/You get me off when I'm done." Then there's the screams bookending "I'm A Failure": "I'm only 23, and this is the end for me."

It's also very catchy, cute, 12 songs in 35 minutes and change. It's (emphatic enough to have prob done good on the late 70s Southern punk-frat circuit, yet unmistakably) power pop.
And it's also on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jSN-9IyIws

Need to catch up on all these Ardent rarities y'all are posting. Right now need to go to sleep but wondering if anyone else ever saw Dan Penn performance. I saw him twice and feel like I saw the talent but also saw that he didn't seem to really have the personality or a personality that goes with being a lead singer (cf. Twenty Feet From Stardom) More later but right now I need some shut-eye.

Okay still here for a few. Just downloaded the Skip James bio recommended by Edd upthread which looks really good. Love that there is an "Appendix:Idioms" section. Wondering if he has played through the transcription and verified its accuracy.

And wazzup what the AC version of "Sugar, Sugar" that sounds like Daddy Dewdrop backed by The Masked Marauders or, more likely, Mud Boy and The Neutrons?

Yeah, the Skip bio is one of a kind. Calt is hard on the blues audience. Far as I can remember, the transcriptions are accurate; can't recall if Calt did them or someone else did, but he was a stickler.

Saw Dan Penn couple times, hung out with him at his house once doing an interview. Very cagey guy with a lot going in internally. I agree that some of that doesn't come out in his performances, though he's a good singer. Last time I saw him he just played acoustic guitar and sang, and it was a bit underdeveloped in the sense that he's not a skillful enough guitarist to really flesh out the songs harmonically. "Nobody's Fool" was a good example of that. He put out a couple of records that are essentially demos, and they're kind of flat, as is his Do Right Man from the '90s which kinda didn't quite make it either. He's better as a producer--Bobby Purify's Better to Have It is nice, but even there, I kinda think he could be sort of baroque to no purpose, as on some of those Box Tops records, which tread the line between right and too much. For contrast, seek out Spooner Oldham's Pot Luck, which uses a small bscking band--spare and perhaps more satisfying as a record than Penn's stuff, though he doesn't sing any better.
"Sugar Sugar" points the way toward the Tiven stuff and Sherbert for sure. Such contempt. So when is someone going to reissue Moldy Goldies, now that Bob Johnston is gone? That's the only Nashville record I know that does anything like Chilton and Dickinson's parodistic stuff.