40 Year Itch : You Want The Obvious

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Enter the "unpredictable" phase of Rundgren's career, which is going on (40) years now.

-The New Rolling Stone Album Guide

There's a lot more studio wizardry on A Wizard, a True Star than star-making songs. Not wanting to live up to the "male Carole King" label, Rundgren appears to have deliberately left behind almost all of the singer-songwriting ear candy that made Something/Anything? such a pleasure and, instead, seeks to dazzle us- in short lysergic snippets- with his genius.

"Psychedelics brought me to an awareness of myself that I'd no comprehension of previously", Rundgren said. " You don't know you're 'you' until you've had your ego stripped away and you realize you're all that stuff." 

He's monkeying with your stereo this time out and your ears will lap it up. Wide, weird, wired and wonderful

-Warner Brothers ad

When Rundgren delivered the 53 minute single disc album, not everyone at Warner Brothers was thrilled.

"It was like I had lit off a stink bomb in the record office," Rundgren says. "There was just so much commotion and recriminations like 'Why did you do this?' What were you thinking and yaddiyaddiyadda.."

There are some fully realized songs on Wizard, especially the single " I Don't Know What To Feel", album opener "International Feel" , "Zen Archer" and concert closer "Just One Victory". The  medley "I'm So Proud/Ooh Baby Baby/La La La Means I Love You pays tribute to Philadelphia soul before breaking out into "Cool Jerk".

In retrospect, the patchwork of songs on Side One sounds like a demo reel for Todd Rundgren, producer. I'm sure XTC heard all kinds of possibilities for Skylarking in tracks like "Dogfight Giggle".

In late 2009, Rundgren began touring the album after discovering Wizard has a whole new set of young fans including the bad Hot Chip.

40 Year Itch : Top 20 US Singles March 3, 1973

 We still had a common goal, which was to become rich and famous.
-Roger Waters


THE TOP 20 FOR MARCH 3, 1973

1 Killing Me Softly With His Song Roberta Flack
2 Could It Be I'm Falling In Love The Spinners
3 Crocodile Rock Elton John
4 Love Train The O'Jays
5 The Last Song Edward Bear



6 Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) Deodato
7 Do It Again Steely Dan
8 Rocky Mountain High John Denver
9 Dueling Banjos Eric Weissberg
10 Daddy's Home Jermaine Jackson

11 Dancing In The Moonlight King Harvest
12 The Cover Of The Rolling Stone Dr. Hook And The Medicine Show
13 Do You Want To Dance Bette Midler
14 Don't Expect Me To Be Your Friend Lobo



15 Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye) Gladys Knight and The Pips
16 You're So Vain Carly Simon
17 Aubrey Bread
18 Danny's Song Anne Murray



19 Space Oddity David Bowie
20 Break Up To Make Up The Stylistics

40 Year Itch : Dark Side of the Moon - side 2

And now on to side two...

1. Money 

 Roger Waters and Nick Mason built the synchronized tape loop for "Money" using pennies on strings and coins swirling around a mixing bowl. Session musician Dick Parry made the saxophone safe for progressive rock for years thanks to his down and dirty solo.

2. Us And Them

The longest song on the album --at 7 minutes 46 seconds, "Us And Them" was originally composed by Richard Wright for the 1969 Antonioni film Zabriskie Point. The spoken word section includes the behavioral science phrase "short, sharp shock", which also inspired the title of Michelle Shocked's second album. Paul and Linda McCartney, recording Red Rose Speedway at the time, agreed to be interviewed but offered nothing usable.

 3. Any Colour You Like 

 Recorded as a touch of relief to the tightly arranged album, the instrumental "Any Colour You Like" is the last Pink Floyd song to appear without a songwriting credit for Roger Waters while he was still a member.

 

4. Brain Damage 

 A nod to former member Syd Barrett, Roger Waters's "Brain Damage" even recalls how towards the end of the Barrett era, Syd seemed to be playing a different tunes from the rest of the band:

    And if the band you're in starts playing different tunees/
    I'll see you on the dark side of the moon

Syd Barrett in 1975

5. Eclipse

A grand ending to the album, "Eclipse" leaves listeners with a bit of curious wisdom :

Everything under the sun is in tune/
 But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

Roger explains.
" I think it's a very simple statement saying that all the good things life can offer are there for us to grasp, but that the influence of some dark force in our natures prevents us from seizing them."

During the fade out, with the heartbeats still audible, you can hear an orchestral version of  The Beatles' "Ticket To Ride" faintly playing--due to a mastering error.

40 Year Itch : Dark Side of the Moon - side 1

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Why has Dark Side of the Moon --released in the US on March 1st, 1973--sold in such spectacular numbers--more than 35 million copies in all? Let me tack a crack at the answer:
    Coming on the heels of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Apollo Missions, the album title--and its cover by Storm and Po at Hipgnosis-- promises a perfectly timed journey for the ears and the mind. The engineering of the album made it the definitive test record for new stereo systems. Pink Floyd had encapsulated everything great about progressive rock in songs that averaged just over 4 minutes in length.
Ultimately, the credit belongs to the ten songs. To the lyrics that captured something so universal that high school students and college professors, American loners and African party goers could relate.



1. Speak To Me

I've always thought that by starting Dark Side of the Moon with complete silence, Pink Floyd was testing its album buyers's abilities to gently place the needle on the record. Considering how many of them must have been blissfully stoned out of their minds, it's little wonder most used copies crackle like a bowl of Rice Krispies. Nick Mason says "Speak To Me" is an overture,  "a taster of things to come", constructed from cross fading all the other pieces on the album. Peter Watts, a road manager and the father of actress Naomi Watts, can be heard laughing .

2. Breathe

David Gilmour achieves that lush guitar sound with the help of a uni-vibe and lap steel guitar. Though it sounds pretty cool in its acoustic form as well.



3. On The Run

An instrumental that deals with the fear and pressure of travel, "On The Run" makes use of the most recent advances in synthesizers and dips into the EMI sound effects library. Floyd's road manager Roger "The Hat" Manifold is heard saying "Live for today, then gone tomorrow, That's Me".



4. Time

The only song credited to all four members of Pink Floyd, "Time" begins with the sounds of clocks recorded by engineer Alan Parsons for a quad demonstration. Nick Mason does a long passage playing roto-toms before Roger Waters sings about something anyone over 30 can relate to: Time moving at a pace so quickly, people feel like they're always falling behind.



5. The Great Gig In The Sky

22 year old session singer Clare Torrey injects the entire album with passion in her performance. Nick Mason says "She was embarrassed by having let herself go so much during one of the takes and came into the control booth to apologise, only to find that everyone was delighted". Torrey was paid 30 pounds for her performance and sued Richard Wright for songwriting credits. The suit was settled in Torrey's favor for an undisclosed amount.

Clare Torrey

Side Two tomorrow....

40 Year Itch: Those We Missed From Feb '73

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Pleasant progressive rock from the UK that never quite made it over the hump ( ha?) to become big stars in the USA. Future sax player Mel Collins would perform that intense solo in the Rolling Stones hit "Miss You" and Brian Eno would contribute to their 1977 album Rain Dances. But Camel was still seeking its sound when they recorded their self-titled debut, highlighted by "Never Let Go" and the instrumental "Six Ate" ( a play on the tune's time signature).

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Not a single original member of Fairport Convention remained when the band recorded Rosie. Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny made guest appearances on the title cut but the album is dominated by the songs of  Dave Swarbrick ( who played on  Unhalfbricking and joined the band for Liege and Lief) and, oddly, the voice of Australian newcomer Trevor Lucas. The hilarious band on the road tune , "Hungarian Rhapsody", is another highlight.

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Cool album cover but these dull expanded jams can best be summed up , as Robert Christgau noted, by the title of the final cut: "(Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired." The album has its fans. But to these ears, Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory is one of 1973's big disappointments along with Bob Dylan's Dylan, Fleetwood Mac's Penguin, The Byrds reunion album and David Bowie's Pin Ups.

40 Year Itch: Alcohol And Razorblades

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"Billion Dollar Babies is a total representation of ourselves as the by-product of the affluent society from which we've come."
- Alice Cooper

Billion Dollar Babies is the greatest of Alice Cooper's albums. It's packed with hits : "Elected" (US#26); "Hello Hooray" (#35) and including yet another Alice Cooper anthem "No More Mr Nice Guy" (US #25) and includes some of the band's most ambitious exercises ("Unfinished Sweet", "Generation Landslide") as well as a few over the top "shock" numbers, most notably "I Love The Dead".



   Hear Now are 5 Fun Facts about the MUSICK on Billion Dollar Babies

1. The opening track, "Hello Hooray" was written by Canadian folksinger Rolf Kempf and recorded, I shit you not, by Judy Collins on her 1968 album Who Knows Where The Time Goes.



2. Alice Cooper recorded much of the album in Cooper's Greenwich, Connecticut mansion, known as the Galecie Estate. A Saint Bernard named Gretchen had free run of the house which was filled with assorted amplifiers, guns and the Warner Brothers gallows.

 In search of the perfect sounds, some songs were recorded in the greenhouse. Others in small rooms.The mansion burned down six months after the band had left.




3. When the band moved to London for more recording, they ran into a series of other rockers. One "superstar jam" involved Keith Moon, Marc Bolan, Harry Nilsson and Donovan. Only Donovan was sober enough to actually contribute something to the album: the second vocals on the title cut.



4. The McCartney-esque ballad "Mary Ann" was originally written as a Vietnam protest song with the lyrics "Uncle Sam, I'm really sad about you; indeed I am; I just can't be around you..." The new lyrics are supposed to be about UK moral crusader Mary Whitehouse.

5. "I Love The Dead" is the song Melody Maker's Michael Watts claimed Alice Cooper was performing in Philadelphia when he was accidentally beheaded by his guillotine:

The singer, dressed in black, had just stabbed a plastic doll and was being led to tha guillotine by mock-executioner, the Amazing Randi, as part of the act dubbed "commercialised surrealism" by critic Pauline Kael. 
   Cooper was mouthing the refrain "I love the dead before they're cold" as his head was settled on the block. The audience was totally hushed. 

 Then scenes of excitement unparalleled in Philly, "home of the Twist," broke out as the heavy knife blade fell unexpectedly quickly and Cooper's head jumped two feet into the air and then landed in the basket.

 "Oh my God, no!" shouted Randi, and flung his hands to his face in horror. Most of the audience thinking it all part of the show burst into a loud cheer, but in the front rows to the right of the stage, young kids shrieked as they wiped blood - "rhesus negative" a hospital spokesman later stated - from their faces and clothes.



Of course it was a hoax. Or was it?

40 Year Itch : Refried Confusion

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In New Orleans, Dr. John's 1972 collection of Big Easy classics, Gumbo, is the Night-Tripping album near and dear to the heart. But Dr John's best album of the 70's is his funky 1973 follow-up, In The Right Place, which rightly provided the Doctor with his biggest hit nationwide.

For Right Place, Dr John met up in Miami with his Crescent City compadre Allen Toussaint and Toussaint's house band, The Meters. The Meters were led by their keyboard player Art Neville with whom Dr John had played in New Orleans recording sessions dating back to the 1950's.




Dr John says some famous friends contributed lyrical ides to his hit, "Right Place, Wrong Time" (US #9). Bob Dylan offered up the first line : "I'm on the right trip, but in the wrong car". Bette Midler gave him "My head's in a bad place; I don't know what it's there for". Doug Sahm came up with " I was in the right set, but it must have been the wrong sign". And an old saying in the Ninth Ward provided the mystical line "I'm just in need of a little brain salad surgery". His promoter mentioned that line to Emerson Lake and Palmer who must have liked it. They named their next album Brain Salad Surgery.

In his autobiography Under A Howling Moon, Dr John writes of the album:

  The album had more of a straight-ahead dance feel than ones I had done in the past, although it was still anchored solid in R and B. Atlantic pushed hard to promote it, and it yielded two hits -"Right Place, Wrong Time"  and "Such A Night" (#42).





"Such A Night", which I wrote, is a ballad, a sweet, easy groove that Allen developed into something that sounds almost like an old music hall soft shoe tune. Allen had always been one of the keys to great New Orleans R and B as a writer, player, producer and singer. I had written the songs eight year before, but Allen convinced me that we needed it for the album and I'm glad he did; it became a hit, with that fonky Allen Toussaint touch to the production.

The next recording involving Dr John was Triumvirate, a trio he formed with Mike Bloomfield and John Hammond Jr. In 1974, Dr John teamed up with Toussaint and The Meters again for Destively Bonnaoo.