the 5th dimension c/d

"Living Together, Growing Together" = best cover from a Peter Finch/Liv Ullmann musical.

That Grammys stuff is incredible. I guess I vote classic, but with the nagging feeling that there is still something a little watered down and evened out about their sound- I know I'd read rather hear Laura Nyro song her own songs with her trademark rubato and hear "Aquarius" with Idris Muhammad on drums.

If you sing a medley and one of the songs included is in itself a medley like "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In," does that make it an uebermedley?

Where is the mention of the 6th Dimension, Bones Howe?

Perhaps I can interest some of you in this abbreviated thread, shorter even than Tracer Hand's Go-go thread: TS: Sweet Blindness vs. Sweet Cherry Wine

The Association are a much better example of this genre at its best.

If you don't dig the 5th Dimension, you don't dig rock and roll, maaaan.

best interpreters of Jimmy Webb ever, California pop-soul rules, their hits were great radio fare thru the early 70s but yeah all those TV appearances got kinda lame after awhile (same w/Alice Cooper!)

The Association are a much better example of this genre at its best.

Both have elements of sunshine pop -- but these bands are leagues apart, Geir.

"The Girls' Song" is lovely and not usually rated.

Agreed. As is the sitar-laden "Dreams/Pax/Nepenthe"...

The Association are a much better example of this genre at its best.

Both have elements of sunshine pop -- but these bands are leagues apart, Geir.

-- Naive Teen Idol, Friday, October 26, 2007 7:00 PM

I was gonna say, on what planet are these two bands in the same genre?

Magic Garden is GREAT!! Aside from a blaring cover of "Ticket To Ride,"

OTM!! I love this album and it's very nearly ruined by having a SHITTY Beatles cover slap bang in the middle of it!!!

What's the 5th Dimension song with the funky drum break in it?

Sure you're not thinking of Friends of Distinction's "Grazing in the Grass"?

Yeah I love this group
so much that I named myself
for its weirdest song.

Their setting of the Declaration of Independence to music is worth hearing once but ultimately a dud. I have it on 45, b/w "A Change Is Gonna Come/People Got to Be Free" medley.

Joseph McCombs, you are wrong. That song is hilariously great.

I also have that 45!

Just downloaded their last record with the original group, Earthbound -- Jimmy Webb back at the helm, synths and funked up covers of songs like "I've Got a Feelin'." Kinda like it so far.

Get "The Magic Garden" first. "Aquarius" still gives me chills.

Happy 4th from the Dimension:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQP563gKwIU

I had forgotten about Dimension 5ive! When I was a kid my cousin's house had a bar in the basement (unused, since his parents were teetotallers) that we pretended was our nightclub, and the soundtrack was Dimension 5ive and Cafe Regio (the flipside of Isaac Hayes' Shaft 45.) We were the OG cratediggers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozwO_HX8rf8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U60ixsEQUrA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeOvlVykQSk

james redd otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA7yyspHdek

The Association are a much better example of this genre at its best.
― Geir Hongro

Both have elements of sunshine pop -- but these bands are leagues apart, Geir.
― Naive Teen Idol

I was gonna say, on what planet are these two bands in the same genre?
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver

"Wedding Bell Blues" is one of my favourite songs ever, and "One Less Bell to Answer" isn't far behind; also love lots of sunshine pop. I don't think it's a crazy comparison (or an insult) to group the 5th Dimension and the Association together, in sound or in how they were perceived at the time--chart pop music to the core, somewhere apart from rock's ongoing transition towards art and seriousness and all that. (Or to approach it from a different angle, the 5th Dimension are closer in my mind to the Association than they are to Sly & Family Stone or Aretha Franklin or the best late-'60s Motown hits.)

Those Grammy Award videos where they would sing medleys of the nominated songs seem to have gone off of YouTube *sigh*

Hmm. Never even heard of this tune "Flashback" until just now.

I have always adored 'Love's Lines Angles & Rhymes.' The lyrics are completely bonkers. It tickles me to imagine Marilyn McCoo memorizing the lyrics- "Cylinders of hope turning and yearning into pendulums of weary hesitation - what the fuck?" It was a pretty big hit in Scranton in 1971.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMF5eIyMsEc

i love "aquarius/let the sunshine in"

And another thing: Joni Mitchell basically wrote new lyrics to Love's Lines Angles & Rhymes and called it "The Hissing of Summer Lawns." Fight me.

Where is the mention of the 6th Dimension, Bones Howe?

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, October 26, 2007 12:38 AM (twelve years ago)

I've been listening to his production oeuvre recently, and am increasingly considering him one of the all-time greats, the sunniest of sunshine-pop producers. Also, another link between the 5th Dimension and the Association

Not to mention it was pretty much the same group of session musicians laying down the instrumental tracks for both of those groups from '67 to '69 at least (not sure about after that). It would be interesting to strip the vocals from 5D and Association records and see how similar the rest sounds.

Lots of secret drug messages, too: "Up, Up and Away," "Along Comes Mary."

5D recorded Jimmy Webb, the Association turned down Jimmy Webb.

They still ended up recording PF Sloan.

tho it’s pretty terrible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETNM6x1xfuU
Check it out. Featuring Bones Howe himself in the control booth. From an episode of It Takes A Thief.

And Florence LaRue's husband at the time, Marc Gordon.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ci7jxg7pwOc/

^ That's brilliant. Who are the people who did that, exactly? Programme 4, it says, who are also behind the "Network 77" series, but I'm unclear on who they are.

Basically it’s one woman named Rachel Licthtman, I think. Do you remember The William Joel Show video I posted a while back?

She also does music videos for the likes of Aimee Mann and her husband and other familiar names. You should dig further into a her Instagram channel. As a lover of a certain strain of vintage tv it should be catnip for you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Lichtman

If you search the ILX archives you will currently get six hits which include a few very funny tweets along with a mention by you of her unfinished Boyce & Hart documentary.

Unreleased, sorry

Oh I know her, I've been following her for years going back to old Twitter days. So she's actually the mastermind behind it all.

xp Was just about to mention the Boyce & Hart doc. My impression was that it was very nearly finished but she needed music clearances which were proving to be a big obstacle.

The amazing thing about the Boyce & Hart thing is that it's composed entirely of period film clips. No talking head crap or dramatizations or anything like that. Boyce & Hart themselves shot home movies constantly in the '60s and much of the doc is simply their stuff.

So you saw it? You went to a private screening with her?

Yes, well not with her, but she screened it at Bell House in Brooklyn, 7 or 8 years ago I guess. Bobby Hart was there and spoke on stage. Peter Tork was also there, signing stuff.

Cool, I'm a big Boyce & Hart fan.

B-b-but how do you feel about The 5th Dimension?

And William Windom?

What exactly am I looking at here? Is that a fake retro introduction to a 5th Dimension-inspired television show that never existed? I'm completely confused.

No you’re not.

B-b-but how do you feel about The 5th Dimension?

"Magic Garden" is a great album apart from that shitty of the shittiest Beatles cover. Jimmy Webb was always pulling that shit, so Thelma Houston's "Sunshower" has a version of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" on it and Glen Campbell's "Reunion" has a Lowell George song on it (which isn't bad per se but it doesn't fit and is obviously the worst song on there).

I feel like I knew the answer to this at one point, but I think the label is more likely the “put a shitty cover smack dab in the middle of the album” culprit than Webb was.

No you’re not.

It's an eccentric kind of humor for sure, but I think the fact that we don't often see the names of the members of the 5D or even know them at all is part of what makes it funny. It wouldn't be quite as funny if the fake TV show starred Led Zeppelin, for example. And it playfully conjures a fantasia of early '70s Los Angeles in which the lines between the pop music field and the field of scripted TV are completely porous. It's like a dream a retro obsessive might have. What I see a lot in Rachel's humor is her taking a semi-forgotten name or thing from our cultural subconscious, and showcasing it, suggesting that it's somehow relevant - so that now we have to acknowledge it consciously.

Otm. For me I was into this one from the get-go and the detail that really drove it home was “William Windom.”

Damn, that "Age of Aquarius" arrangement is probably the best thing I've ever heard lol

xp Exactly, and “Raymond St. Jacques,” I mean this is some deep digging

Assuming this is an imaginary spinoff of the episode of It Takes a Thief they were on.

I could’ve sworn there was a post by Aero somewhere about one of the other male singers besides Billy being the secret weapon of their sound but can’t find it.

Assuming this is an imaginary spinoff of the episode of It Takes a Thief they were on

Wait what

📹
Check it out. Featuring Bones Howe himself in the control booth. From an episode of _It Takes A Thief_.

Reposting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_IOChyulyU