Showing posts with label Glorious Trash Hall of Fame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glorious Trash Hall of Fame. Show all posts

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Vice Row


Vice Row, by Fletcher Bennett
April, 1963  Playtime Books

My friends, there are covers and then there are covers, and this obscure early ‘60s “adult” novel has a cover. It fills my head with so many thoughts, all of them depraved. In fact the cover art is so good I’m sure it will be censored by the prudish AI bots that now patrol Blogger. As is typical the art is uncredited, but I’m sure someone out there might have an idea who it’s by. Also, it doesn’t really illustrate a scene in the actual novel, but it certainly captures the vibe of the book – which, as one might expect, really isn’t even very “adult” at all in today’s world. I mean the book would be considered PG-13 at best today…either an indication of how things were just too conservative and sutffy back in the early ‘60s, or an indication of how morally bankrupt we have become in our modern era. (Prudish AI bots notwithstanding.) 

I picked this one up several years ago and I’m not sure why I took so long to read it. What I was not prepared for was how good of a book Vice Row turned out to be. Actually the cover, despite being so great, is detrimental to the actual quality of the novel itself, but I’m sure that’s typical for a lot of the so-called “sleaze” paperbacks of the era. For example The Devil’s Lash, another “racy” paperback that had quality writing throughout, or even the work of Ennis Willie; with the caveat that Fletcher Bennett is more risque here than either of those examples, though even Bennett’s actual sex scenes are either vaguely described or fade to black. No idea who Bennett was, but a few paperbacks were published under his name by Playtime Books; also no idea if it was the same author for all of them or if “Fletcher Bennett” was a house name. 

Whoever Bennett was, he proves himself quite familiar with the mindsets of whores – or “girls,” as one of them requests she be called in Vice Row. I like to imagine that Bennett just carried out a lot of field research. Seriously though, he brings more to the story than the sleaze one might reasonably expect; the “girls” here are all fairly three-dimensional (so to speak!), and Bennett invests the tale with a sentimental touch that never descends into maudlin sappiness. Even the finale, in which the killer’s identity is exposed, packs an unexpected emotional punch. 

I love the coarse cover copy, which calls out that “the new girl becomes the most popular whore on vice row.” This would be Laurie, a ravishing auburn-haired young woman fresh on Vice Row who is so gobsmacking beautiful that most people can’t believe she even is a whore. We get our first indication that Vice Row is slightly more risque than other “adult” novels of the era when Bennett describes Laurie’s ample charms: 

Her face was smooth and sweet as that of a schoolgirl. Her mouth was soft, her nose was narrow and upturned, her cheeks were rosy as spring flowers. Only her eyes betrayed the knowing mind hiding behind that innocent face. Beneath the long black sweep of her lashes, the dark pools of her gaze flashed a signal as old as time, and it was a signal the regulars of the Row knew very well indeed. 

The eyes of passersby didn’t linger on her face, however. There were far more interesting things to look at. 

Such as her breasts. 

They were as round and sweetly-shaped as autumn apples, and rode proudly on her torso with a firmness that did not need the enhancement of a bra. A moment’s close study told the simple truth – the girl wasn’t wearing a bra. At the tips of her round breasts, the tiny protrusions of her nipples made buttons in the material of her dress. The girl’s breasts belonged to her entirely, and they were obviously a pair to be conjured with. 

Among other things. 

The girl’s bottom was just as beautifully-fleshed as her bust. As she walked, twin tense cheeks worked in a rhythmic flexing against the seat of her dress. The curves were smooth and taut, of a size and shape to fit the curl of a man’s fingers neatly. 

Her legs were long. The roundness of her thighs could be glimpsed in the way the cloth of her skirt clung to their contours, and her shapely calves shifted with subtle muscle as she walked. She wore simple sandals on her feet; her ankles were finely-boned, her toes were slender and straight, the toenails were painted red. 

Now that my friends is how you exploit a female character! 

I forgot to mention, but “Vice Row” is really named Water Street, an area well-known for prostitution in some never-stated city. Bennett keeps the entire 224-page novel focused on this area, and populates it with a small but memorable cast. Surprisingly, “new whore” Laurie will not turn out to be one of the main characters; rather, she is a source of much discussion among the Vice Row regulars, and Laurie herself only appears in a handful of scenes – none of them, I should specify, being a sex scene! Rather, the majority of the heavy sexual lifting will be carried out by a blonde pro named Bunny, one who – we are copiously informed – has big boobs and a big butt and, unlike most pros, really enjoys having sex. 

The novel features a memorable intro of Laurie arriving on Vice Row, looking like some goddess among the riff-raff; she’s carrying luggage with her, which everyone finds hard to understand – surely she isn’t a new girl on the Row? Immediately she is accosted by a youth who drums up the courage to ask Laurie for her going rate, but Laurie shuts him down cold, even threatening to slam him in the jewels with her suitcase. Surprisingly, this affronted youth will become one of the novel’s many characters, simmering with rage that Laurie spurned him and trying to find her so he can get revenge – while taking out his anger on other hapless hookers. 

Another main character is soon introduced: Pop, elderly proprietor of the Double Eagle, a bar on Vice Row that is frequented by the girls, though Pop himself has no involvement in the business. This greatly puzzles sleazy Sergeant Polowski, a corrupt cop who allows Vice Row to operate because he’s paid off by Pop and the brothel owners and whatnot. However the main madam on the Row is Nell, a heavyset lady who “offices” out of a diner – which she owns, as well as the building it’s in. Bennett shows some foresight here with Nell being a successful businesswoman, owning quite a chunk of Vice Row and keeping her affairs in order. 

But then, throughout Vice Row Fletcher Bennett shows an understanding of character well beyond what one might expect of a vintage sleaze paperback. Pop in particular is prone to philosophical ruminations, and there’s a nice running theme about his “dream” to one day retire from Vice Row and live on a farm out in the country. There’s also a nicely-developed rapport between new girl Laurie and Pop, who immediately takes a paternal interest in her, sensing that there is something special about this girl – however, I was a little surprised that Laurie soon after essentially faded into the narrative woodwork, only appearing in passing. 

Much more focus is placed on Bunny, Bennett again expanding on his theme with the sentimental storyline of a prostitute falling in love with her john – a story Bennett handles so successfully that it’s actually a moving storyline. This would be Louie, an unhappily-married dude who, when we meet him, has just engaged Bunny for an hour’s work. This is how the two meet, and also where we get an indication of the type of sex scene Bennett will write in Vice Row

She rubbed against his belly, positioned herself, then thrust her body upward in an expert lunge. 

Their flesh blended. 

His mouth continued to kiss her breast as she began the tingling rhythm, moving her hips in time with the ticking of timeless mechanisms. Instinctively, he took up her beat, measuring his own plunge downward so that it corresponded with her lunge updward, slapping bellies with her, then pulling apart so that their deep sweet connection was almost lost. 

Almost, but not quite. 

Bunny felt the thrill coiling inside her. This, she decided, was going to be a real man. This one was going to be a blast. 

“The ticking of timeless mechanisms” – almost sounds like the title of a Pink Floyd song. So as you can see, the topical details are mostly relegated to the bodies of the women, but the actual “dirty stuff” is more intimated, or happens off-page. The above is actually the most explicit sex scene in the novel. So I guess even sleaze books could only go so far in the early ‘60s. I find this stuff so interesting; ten years later Harold Robbins would have best-sellers that featured not only super-explicit sex but even had characters pissing on each other

I also found it interesting how the meanings of words have changed over the decades. For example, that “hunk” was once used to describe an attractive woman! “You’re some hunk of woman,” etc. But then “hunk” is also used to describe a good-looking man in the book, so I guess once upon a time “hunk” was a unisex description. Even stranger is that the same, apparently, could be said about the phrase “well hung!” Judging from Vice Row, “hung” was once also used to describe a woman’s ample charms – “The way you’re hung” and etc, referring to a lady. And no it’s not a transvestite being discussed! 

There’s also a thriller element at play with the gradual reveal that a killer’s on the Row, one who specifically targets hookers. Bennett periodically cuts over to the perspective of the killer, never divulging his identity; we only know he wears a “disguise” when in public and also that he uses a straight razor – and has killed 30-some hookers in his career, slashing their throats and then mutilating them. Bennett well handles the mystery of the killer’s identity, but I must confess it soon became apparent who the killer really was; the revelation is another indication of how things have changed since 1963. What might have been shocking then is “I figured that out a hundred pages ago” today. But I won’t divulge it here so as not to spoil the surprise for those who decide to read Vice Row

That said, Bennett really handles the story with skill, jumping often from character to character to keep the story moving. Even Sgt. Polowski comes off as a realized character, and not the cliched corrupt cop one might expect. Though he does prove himself an unlikable character, taking “payment” from hookers at his whim, leading to a bit where slim pro Fay must keep her gorge down while taking care of the “thoroughly unpleasant” Polowski. Fay is mistreated throughout the narrative, and again not to go into spoilers but Fletcher Bennett sufficiently develops his prostitute characters so that it resonates with the reader when some of them are killed – and one becomes especially concerned that others in particular might also be killed. 

There’s almost a vibe of Herbert Kastle in the murder sequences; not in the style of the prose but in how the killer realizes he can basically get away with anything, given that he’s killing off the scum of society. And Bennett again shows the plight of these hookers when one of them is murdered, and we’re told that “by the end of the week” most people on Vice Row can’t even recall what she looked like. But as mentioned the reader does care for them, especially Bunny, who as it develops is essentially the main female character in the novel; Bennett skillfully dovetails her growing love with Louie alongside the imminent threat that the killer will slash Bunny’s throat. Speaking of which Bennett doesn’t much dwell on the gore, though we’re told the bodies are so disfigured that characters puke when they see them – most notably Polowski, who discovers the first corpse. 

But there’s also quite a bit of genuine humor in Vice Row. To be sure, there’s nothing satirical nor spoofy about the book – everything is on the level. But some of the character interactions are humorous, especially a conversation between Bunny and a hooker named Jan, who suspects every other hooker of being a “dyke.” But when Bunny questions Jan on why she suspects this – namely how those “dykes” will refer to other girls’s bodies so adoringly – Bunny exposes how Jan talks the very same way about the other girls. Hence, one might reasonably suspect that Jan herself is a “dyke.” There’s also some darker comedy – and another indication of changing sentiments – when Louie decides between Bunny and his cold fish of a wife. Louie’s wife refuses to have sex with him, so an angered Louie goes home, “belts” his wife a few times to snap her out of it, then forces her to go down on him – and when he realizes she’s just faking her excitement, he tells her “Goodbye, bitch!” and heads back to Bunny! 

There really isn’t much wasted space in the book, and Bennett really keeps the story moving. He also successfully weaves together the connecting dynamics of the various characters, from Bunny and Louie to the punk kid who likes to beat up Vice Row hookers. Also the unmasking of the killer is very well handled, and despite being a bit harried – one gets the impression Bennett was quickly approaching his contracted word count and thus wrapped it up – it still packs an emotional wallop. What could have been a bonkers, sleazy reveal is instead cast in a more somber glow, given that it’s elderly Pop who ruminates on it all – in fact I got the impression Fletcher Bennett himself might have been older, as there’s more of an introspective and reflective vibe to things than the primal rush one would expect from a younger, hornier author.  Then again, I did find it curious that the majority of the sex scenes were relayed through the perspective of Bunny, which almost led me to suspect that “Fletcher Bennett” might have been the pseudonym of a female author.

Overall I very much enjoyed Vice Row, and it’s inspired me to read some more of those vintage “adult” crime paperbacks I picked up several years ago.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Helter Skelter


Helter Skelter, by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry
October, 1975  Bantam Books

I’m not sure how I’ve gone this long without reading Helter Skelter; supposedly it’s the best-selling True Crime book of all time, and it certainly had a landmark effect upon the reading public when it was first published in hardcover in 1974. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen the famous TV movie adaptation, but then I was only two years old when it came out in 1976, so I was a little outside the target audience. That said, I do recall seeing the beginning of it on TV sometime in the late ‘90s, landing on the channel right when the guy sees the corpses in the opening scene and then rushes off to puke; my buddy Ken quipped that a stagehand probably handed the actor a milkshake off-camera as he rushed by, so he could spit it out and feign puking. 

Well anyway let’s get back on track. I read The Family a few months ago – right during Christmas in fact! – and it really whetted my appetite for more Manson Family fun. Seriously though, there is some humor in prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s and co-writer Curt Gentry’s Helter Skelter, but it’s always very subtle, and nothing on the narratorial eye-rolling level of Ed Sanders (“ooo-eee-ooo” and such). But I was very happy to discover that there’s hardly any overlap between the two books; Sanders covers a wealth of material not here, and vice versa. And in fact I’d say reading The Family first, as I did, might even work better, as Sanders starts from the beginning of Manson’s criminal life and goes up to the Tate-Labianca murder trial (which isn’t even covered), while Bugliosi starts with the murders and then flashes back, before spending the majority of the text on the trial. 

This is because Bugliosi was the prosecutor on the case, and thus was in a better position than anyone to write the final word on Charles Manson and his fucked-up followers. And clearly he invested himself in the project; there is, as others have commented, an air of arrogance about Bugliosi’s narrative, with Bugliosi constantly right and others constantly wrong, but to tell the truth I didn’t mind it one bit. Indeed, it gives Helter Skelter a bit of a pulp vibe, with Vincent Bugliosi the crusader for justice and Manson his satanic archenemy, with the bumbling cops constantly getting in Bugliosi’s way. 

Bugliosi’s “arrogance” mostly arises over the incessant mistakes made by the LAPD. Perhaps in the mid 1970s it might have seemed surprising or hard to believe that “experts” could constantly make mistakes, but personally I found it one of many instances in which Bugliosi was ahead of his time. For, if we have learned nothing else in these past four years, it’s that “the experts” seldom know what the fuck they are talking about. It’s especially prescient in the parts concerning two different coroners working on the murders; one of them is so dense he keeps refuting his own findings when he’s up on the stand, only for Bugliosi to have to bring out the doctor’s own notes to show him what he’d originally stated. As for the detectives working the case, they’re either forgetful, stupid, or just plain have no idea what to do – possibly all of the above. 

The impression conveyed is that Bugliosi himself was the only person who “got” the case, who kept everything moving, who kept all the notes and kept track of everything. Who understood that “Helter Skelter” was Charles Manson’s philosopy of a race war armageddon, and the Tate-LaBianca (and other) murders were his way of kickstarting this armageddon. And who succeeded in convincing a jury of Manson’s guilt. But again, all this gives Helter Skelter a pulp vibe, which I really enjoyed; Bugliosi the criminologist who butts heads with the authorities in his determined pursuit of justice. If there is a hero in the Manson story, it would be Bugliosi – or Linda Kasabian, the Family member who turned against Manson on the witness stand. But then, Kasabian is herself the source of endless conspiracy conjecture, in particular that it was she who concoted the Tate murders, given that she was running a drug ring on the side with Charles “Tex” Watson (ie the guy who did most of the murdering at Tate and LaBianca). 

Even here it’s as if Bugliosi predicts the future detractors of the Helter Skelter narrative; he takes us through Linda Kasabian’s testimony, telling us at the end that she’s been on the stand for eighteen days, not once stumbling over her story, not once outted as a liar in cross examination. Bugliosi also admits she’s not the perfect little girl next door, and that she had her own issues with the law pre-Manson. But he also makes clear she is not a murderer, and that she’s the bravest of the lot because she turns on Manson. Bugliosi even takes apart the “Linda planned it” conspiracy theory in the final pages of Helter Skelter, and also skewers the “copycat murder” theory – most notably wondering how, if it was what really happened, why it wasn’t even brought up until the penalty phase of the trial, after Manson and his ilk were found guilty! And as Bugliosi also notes, the “copycat” idea was first floated in a Rolling Stone article by David Felton and David Dalton. Bugliosi makes a clear case that the “copycat killer” narrative had its origin in this very article, which took up practically the entirety of the June 25, 1970 issue of Rolling Stone. Titled “Year Of The Fork, Night Of The Hunter,” the article was collected in two 1972 paperbacks: The Age Of Paranoia, credited to The Editors Of Rolling Stone and published by Pocket Books, and in the memorably-titled (and scarce) Mindfuckers (review forthcoming), edited by David Felton and published by Rolling Stone’s Straight Arrow imprint. 

To get back to my original point, though, there really isn’t much overlap between Sanders’s and Bugliosi’s books. Sanders almost pedantically covers the daily activities of the Family, throwing us into it with a multitude of characters with countless aliases, to the point that the reader is both confused and annoyed. He also focuses a lot on the roots of Manson’s philosopy, from Scientology to Stranger In A Strange Land to the Process. Hell, even a Satanic cult that drinks dog blood factors into the mix. Bugliosi doesn’t concern himself as much with explaining why Manson came to be, and in fact the Process stuff isn’t even broached until the final pages. To Bugliosi it’s all much more simple to explain: Manson was a depraved sadist who used prison psychology and psychedelic drugs to control easily-influenced youth, with the additional note that these youth themselves were already predisposed to violence and crime. 

When I read The Family I enjoyed it, though I got a bit fatigued toward the end. I had a suspicion that I’d enjoy Bugliosi’s book more. And that certainly turned out to be the case; no disrespect to Ed Sanders’s book, which is a fine read, but Helter Skelter is in a different league. It is masterfully told, Bugliosi and Gentry taking you through the long, twisting story with the pace never lagging. It is also structured differently than Sanders’s book; instead of starting at the beginning, Helter Skelter features a memorable opening set on the morning after the murders, with the discovery of the bodies and the ensuing panic and confusion. The reader is hooked from the first sentence: “It was so quiet, one of the killers would later say, you could almost hear the sound of ice rattling in cocktail shakers in the homes way down the canyon.” The first quarter of the book retains this tone, reading almost like a crime novel. 

Then Bugliosi himself enters the narrative, apologizing to us for his sudden intrusion. This is because Bugliosi becomes part of the story, chosen seemingly at random to be the DA to prosecute the killers. At this point the second brunt of the narrative occurs, detailing how the murders occurred, how the Manson Family was finally tabbed as the perpetrators. And then the main portion of the text concerns the eight-month trial that ensued, Helter Skelter at this point becoming a legal thriller with a bird’s eye view of one of the biggest trials in “the annals of crime.” 

At 676 pages of small, dense print, Helter Skelter is not a quick read by any means. The cumulative effect is that the reader feels as if he has been as immersed in Manson’s world as Vincent Bugliosi was. And unlike Sanders’s The Family, which ran to only a little over 400 pages, at no point does the narrative become overwhelming. Bugliosi, who made a career of breaking information down for a jury to understand (and act upon), masterfully demonstrates his technique in the narrative. The only thing Sanders was better at was in the capturing of time and place, but then Sanders was part of the counterculture, whereas Bugliosi was not. Despite which, there is no indication of judgment or condemnation in Helter Skelter, other than of the murders, of course. The concept that Vincent Bugliosi was a staunch member of the establishment, sneering at these hippie types, is quickly dashed when one actually reads the book. 

Speaking of actually reading Helter Skelter: I mentioned in my review of The Family that while reading it I’d find myself going down various rabbit holes of research. As hard as it is to believe, there are still conspiracy theories about the Tate-LaBianca murders; I guess I first learned this when I read Maury Terry’s The Ultimate Evil (1987) about a decade ago. And today there are blogs and websites that will tell you, with nothing but conjecture, that the Tate-LaBianca killings were in retaliation for a drug burn, or that the killings were really “copycat murders” to get an imprisoned Family member out of jail, or that the entire thing was an MK-Ultra project courtesy the government. (Granted, the people who tell you MK-Ultra was involved will also tell you the Moon Landing was staged.) 

The funny thing is, Helter Skelter takes on the majority of these alternate theories…and knocks them down, one by one. Of course, the modern sentiment is that Bugliosi was a prosecutor with a narrative he was trying to push (ie, that Helter Skelter was the reason behind the murders)…and yet, this guy spent years of his life on this case, fully committed to it, going to the locations and actually speaking to the killers, which is more than you can say about some guy who runs a Manson blog. All of which is to say, I take Bugliosi’s word as the final word on this topic; his “helter skelter” argument, while nuts, makes more sense than any of the other theories, all of which fall apart when prodded a little. And remember, Manson himself was fond of saying “no sense makes sense,” hence trying to figure out why the Tate and LaBianca homes were chosen might be a fool’s quest. That said, Bugliosi’s conjecture makes more sense than anything else: Sharon Tate was living in a house once occupied by producer Terry Melcher, and while Manson knew Melcher no longer lived there (Bugliosi also recounts how Manson visited the property twice while Tate lived there), it’s likely he wanted to send a message to Melcher, as Manson had a grudge with Melcher over a potential recording contract. As for the LaBiancas, they had the misfortune of living across the street from a house where the Manson Family would often hang out the year before. 

But just to look at a few of these conspiracy theories. For one, when I read The Family I shared Ed Sanders’s suspicions about the young groundskeeper at the Tate estate, William Garretson. This is the guy who was mere yards away from the murders as they went down, yet claimed to have neither heard nor saw anything. Sanders muses that he might’ve been hypnotized, and on one of those aforementioned blogs I saw a post that stated, without a shred of supporting evidence, that Garretson had gotten his job because he was a boytoy of Rudy Altobelli, owner of the Tate property. And further, Garretson had just had sex with young Steven Parent, the 18 year-old who was murdered for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time (the official story being that he’d shown up late at night to try to sell Garretson a ball clock radio). According to this post, Parent had really come over to Garretson’s place for a late-night fling, and was on his way home when he ran into the killers. 

And yet in Helter Skelter we are told that Garretson was polygraphed extensively by the LAPD, and one of the questions he was asked was whether he’d ever had sex with any of the victims. Garretson answered “no,” and he passed the goddamn test. This is what I mean when I say Helter Skelter constantly skewers any alternate theories. Not only that, but we are told that the LAPD also extensively researched Garretson’s story about not hearing any screams the night of the murders; a cop happened to notice what volume Garretson’s stereo was at the morning after the killings, and sound specialists went in there one night and played the stereo at that volume while others off in the Tate house screamed and tried to replicate the night of the murders. (Boy, sounds like a fun night’s work, doesn’t it?) And here too Garretson’s story passed muster; the experts proved that you could not hear screams and such in Garretson’s house, no doubt given the tricky way sound played there in the canyon. 

Bugliosi even goes back to Garretson much later in the book, briefly detailing his time on the stand during the trial. Again his story is cleared. And yet a stigma hangs over him even to this day (he died in 2016, so isn’t around to defend himself), courtesy conspiracy theories that started with Ed Sanders and others. Conspiracy theories like that Sharon Tate and her friends were into the occult, hence the “hood” that was found over Jay Sebring’s face, and also several more hoods that were found in the loft above the living room – this material, also originating in Sanders’s book, was a particular source of conjecture in Maury Terry’s The Ultimate Evil

And yet even here the alternate theory is shot; while never mentioning Sanders by name, Bugliosi sarcastically refers to “a writer” who made up those hoods whole-cloth, as there were no such things found in the Tate home. Nor – again disproving Sanders’s musings – were there any sex films or orgy movies, other that is than a brief film showing Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski having sex. (A film, Bugliosi tells us, that the LAPD respectfully put right back where they found it after their search.) As for the “hood” on Sebring’s corpse – itself the source of more “satanic mafia” conjecture – Bugliosi explains that as well: it was a towel, not a hood, and it was thrown there by murderer Susan “Sadie Glutz” Atkins, who wrote “Pig” in blood on the door with the towel and then tossed it behind her on the way out, not looking to see where it landed. 

Stuff like this is just an indication of how successfully we readers are pulled into the story; Bugliosi treats us as if we are the jury, giving us all kinds of information that was never made available to the public. (Given that this book was published in 1974 and Manson Family conspiracy theories still linger, one wonders if those conspiracy theorists have even ever read Helter Skelter.) There’s a part in the book where Bugliosi reveals how President Nixon made an errant comment that Manson was guilty, while the trial was still underway, and Bugliosi suspects that, if the sequestered jury had even heard the comment, they would’ve been offended because Nixon had taken away their decision. Having handled so many trials, Bugliosi is aware that jurors soon relish being part of the proceedings, privy to information the outside world doesn’t know. I found this a very astute observation, as I somewhat felt this way when called as a juror in a Federal criminal trial last year – it was like being pulled into a completely alien world, one where I was treated with great importance and expected to make the final decision. 

Unlike Sanders, where the tide of multiple-named Family members soon became overwhelming, as did their peripatetic wanderings, the story here unfolds with an almost relentless pace; evocative scene-setting in the opening quarter (the discovery of the corpses is especially well-handled…as is the darkly comic ineptness of the LAPD in mishandling the evidence), and the “good vs evil” motif of the trial is also entertaining and constantly gripping. And while Bugliosi clearly sees Manson as a force of evil – the Epilogue is essentially a condemnation of him as a modern Hitler – from the vantage point of fifty-plus years on I have to say Charles Manson comes off more like a buffoon than anything else. 

Maybe in 1974, with the fear of more Tate-LaBianca-style murders in the dead of night (Bugliosi often scares us by noting various Family members who have a proclivity to kill…and then warning us that they’re “still out there”), Manson might have seemed like a supernatural force of evil. Indeed, The Cult Of Killers was about this very concept. Seen from the modern perspective, however, Manson doesn’t so much seem malicious as he does a guy who relishes his brief moment in the national spotlight. The trial is the best indication of this, with Manson and his three female followers looking like fools as they throw tantrums in court, or talk about how Manson might be the reincarnation of Christ, and so on. That anyone took them seriously is yet another indication of how, despite the drugs and stuff, the ‘60s were just a more innocent time. 

Bugliosi himself feels no fear – though he frequently reminds us that he had reason to be scared – and indeed there are some funny parts where he has interractions with female Family members, calling two of them a “bitch” in confrontations. He also “raps” often with Manson during the trial, and, at least insofar as the text goes, Bugliosi displays how there was a respectful rivalry between the two of them, with another humorous part at the end where Manson himself has to defend Bugliosi in court, given that Manson asked to talk to Bugliosi after the trial and the defense lawyers thought it might be a breach. It’s curious, though, because when Manson does interract with Bugliosi in the book, he comes off as a harmless befuddled hippie, not the malevolent mastermind of the Helter Skelter plot…but then, that was probably inentional. Bugliosi also astutely notes how Manson could turn himself off and on, how he could be a different person for different audiences – particularly when there were cameras around. Or when impressionable, acid-fried young women and men were around. 

Also unlike in The Family the characters here are memorable, and Bugliosi actually does Manson a service by keeping him off-page for the majority. This gives Charles Manson even more of an “evil mastermind” persona, again no doubt intentionally; it’s his true-blue female believers Bugliosi most encounters, in particular future would-be Presidential assassin Squeaky Fromme. (An act which occurred after publication of the book, though Bugliosi again sees the future by stating in the Epilogue how Squeaky is more than capable of evil, and is “still out there”). Bugliosi also seems a little taken with Susan Atkins aka Sadie Glutz, the former topless dancer who nonchalantly talked on the witness stand about stabbing Sharon Tate until she stopped screaming, and then turned “snitch” on Manson. And then changed her mind, to be condemned to death with the others. I got a chuckle out of Bugliosi’s random comment that most of Manson’s girls were flat-chested…except for Sadie, of course. 

As with his comments on Squeaky, Bugliosi demonstrates a strange prescience when discussing Leslie Van Houten. Given less narrative space than the other killers in Helter Skelter, Van Houten is ultimately portrayed as a spoiled rich girl with little concern for others. However, Bugliosi notes when quoting prison psych evals, Van Houten was “less devoted” to Manson than the other killers, and there was question of what exactly she did on the LaBianca killing (she wasn’t part of the Tate group): from her own account Van Houten “stabbed” Rosemary LaBianca, but was Rosemary already dead? There is a sort of question mark hanging over Leslie Van Houten in Helter Skelter, as if Bugliosi is unsure how to feel about her…which makes it interesting that Van Houten is the only one of the killers who is now free (released from prison in 2023). But then, Bugliosi also notes that Van Houten’s lawyer was better than the other defense lawyers. 

The other benefit of reading Helter Skelter so long after publication is to see how everything panned out – given that the death sentences were commuted to life per California Supreme Court decree, Bugliosi speculates that Manson and the others will be eligible for parole in seven years, and further speculates that while Manson might not get out, the girls probably would in twenty or thirty years. But it turns out that “life” really meant life, at least for Susan Atkins (who died of brain cancer in prison in 2009) and Manson himself (who died of natural causes in prison in 2017). This only leaves Patricia Krenwinkel and Tex Watson, and given the savagery of their actions those nights I doubt either will ever be released from prison. Speaking of Tex I was very surprised to learn he was from nearby Denton, Texas. And Linda Kasabian had one of the sadder fates, essentially disappearing from public view before appearing in a few Manson docs in the late 2000s, ultimately dying penniless in 2023. 

It’s a credit to Bugliosi that he even got Manson and his followers convicted, as Bugliosi didn’t receive much help from the cops. Again the idea that “the experts” know what they are doing is put to the test as we read how evidence was overlooked, misplaced, or not even properly gathered – Bugliosi is particularly vexed that one of the techs failed to take blood samples from all of the pools of blood at the Tate residence, merely assuming they were from the same victim. Of course this has only served to inspire more conspiracy theory conjecture today. Speaking of which, another angle Ed Sanders mused upon was that Sharon Tate’s body was moved post-mortem, but not by her killers, intimating that Manson came back later to do so. None of that is mentioned here, and in fact we are told that the killers did indeed have rope with them, in the hopes of hanging their prey from rafters, thus bringing to life one of Manson’s Helter Skelter maxims. Bugliosi also refers frequently to the mysterious pair of glasses left at the scene, but this is another non-mystery, given comments Sadie made to an inmate that none of the killers wore glasses. 

I didn’t think I’d be as interested in the trial material, but it turned out to be just as fascinating as everything else – though admitedly I enjoyed the opening sequence of the book the most, with its brutal documentation of the discovery of the corpses, up to the capture of Manson and the killers. I almost wish the entire book had been like that. But then, Bugliosi as mentioned becomes part of the story itself, and to be honest once he was the protagonist of the book I could barely remember him not being in the book. He successfully brings you into the story, and I didn’t think he was arrogant so much as he was convinced of how right he was…and again, there’s a lot of subtle humor throughout, as he essentially bangs his head against the wall when confronted by errant stupidity, most notably by the blustering delay tactics of one of the defense attorneys. 

Again, this is not a quick read. It took me about a month to read Helter Skelter, but then I was reading other books at the same time. Well, not at the same time, but you know what I mean. I kind of wanted to savor the experience because I enjoyed it so much. And more than Sanders, Bugliosi brings home the loss of the victims; I was especially moved by his closing argument in the trial: “Sharon Tate…Abigail Folger…Voytek Frykowski…Jay Sebring…Steven Parent…Leno LaBianca…Rosemary LaBianca…are not here with us now in this courtroom, but from their graves they cry out for justice.” Helter Skelter is the enthralling account of how Vincent Bugliosi got them that justice. If like me you’ve gone this long without reading it – well, read it now! I loved it, and will probably read it again someday.

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Random Record Reviews: Volume 8

Why Isn’t Dennis Linde A Household Name? 

As mentioned in a previous Random Record Review, I recently became aware of singer-songwriter Dennis Linde via the Elektra-Asylum Fall 1974 Releases compilation LP, which featured the title track from Linde’s album Trapped In The Suburbs. This song really caught my attention, and I immediately sought a copy of the album it was sourced from…and liked it so much that I got Linde’s other two solo albums soon after. Actually there were really three other Linde albums, but his first one, Linde Manor (Intrepid Records, 1970), is grossly overpriced on the records marketplace, no doubt because DJ Shadow sampled something off of it for his trendsetting 1996 LP Entroducing

Well anyway, Dennis Linde was a Nashville-based songwriter whose biggest claim to fame was that he wrote the song “Burning Love,” which of course Elvis Presley had a huge hit with. Linde wrote and produced very prolifically on the Nashville scene, so he’s often regarded as a country musician. But make no mistake, the three solo LPs reviewed here are very much in the rock camp. Indeed, Trapped In The Suburbs most reminds me of Gene Clarke’s No Other, from the same year and on the same label, but Linde’s record is leaner and less mired in country tonk. It’s also a helluva lot better than No Other, which makes it very strange that it hasn’t been discovered by the hipsters of today. 

I consulted my Rolling Stone Cover To Cover CD-ROM and saw that all three of these albums received favorable reviews at the time they were released, so there was at least a little contemporary acclaim for Linde’s work. But it would appear that none of the releases made a ripple. That’s the thing about being a record collector. You come across so many albums that were worthy of great success but went unnoticed, and you wonder why. Then you remember that all the stuff that plays monotonously on classic rock radio today was new then, and just being discovered, so that’s what people were listening to instead of Dennis Linde! 


Dennis Linde: Dennis Linde 
Elektra Records, 1973 

This one is my least favorite of the three here, but I only mean that when speaking comparatively. Otherwise Dennis Linde is a great album, if a little more on the country-esque singer-songwriter tip than the following two records. That said, it hits the ground running with what I consider Linde’s best-ever song, and a track that should have been blasting from transistor radios across this great land of ours in 1973: “Hello, I Am Your Heart:” 


How this incredible track didn’t become a hit is a mystery. One thing I haven’t mentioned is that Dennis Linde was similar to Todd Rundgren, Paul McCartney, and some others in that he not only wrote the songs but sang them, played all the instruments on them, and produced them. “Hello, I Am Your Heart” is a masterpiece in multi-tracking, and I love how that anthemic chorus just keeps building on itself with the fuzz bass and thundering drums. I mean when a guy produces something like this and it’s ignored you wonder why he didn’t just throw in the goddamn towel. 

This is not to say Dennis Linde is a one-good-song record. While most of the songs do play on Linde’s Nashville connection, with a country tinge (or instrumental blues, as is the case with “East St. Louis Nights”), there are some notable exceptions. Like the experimental “Dr-31,” comprised of textured synthscapes with a rock beat and telling the sci-fi tale of the building of a starship; the song is a prefigure of the funkier sci-fi outings on Linde’s later Under The Eye

And of course I have to mention that Dennis Linde’s most famous song is also here, though it’s arguable how many people even know it’s a Dennis Linde song; like me, they probably just assumed Elvis wrote it. But yes, this is “Burning Love,” which is another one where Linde builds on his own vocals and instrumentation, giving the track more of a groove than Elvis’s version: 


The contemporary Rolling Stone reviewer capped off his review with something to the effect that this album would be unjustly overlooked (obviously I’m too lazy to boot up my old PC – which is the only thing I can play that CD-ROM on – and see what exactly the reviewer stated, let alone who the reviewer was!). Of course history has proven him correct. While I wouldn’t rank this as my favorite Dennis Linde album, I still definitely recommend it – I have the original US pressing, which sounds great and comes with a little biographical insert on Linde, where it’s mentioned how busy he was while self-producing the album, including even becoming a father. I thought this was a cool note, as the child, apparently a daughter, is mentioned in a song off the following album. Also because I was born the year after this album was released, so it’s cool to think Dennis Linde’s kid is around my age – hopefully she appreciates her dad’s work! 

You should buy the record (if you have a turntable, that is; there’s no CD), but here’s the full album on Youtube. This upload at least sounds better than the uploads above, but as ever these Youtube uploads aren’t at all reflective of the true depth of the original vinyl’s sound: 



Dennis Linde: Trapped In The Suburbs 
Elektra, 1974 

All I can say is, this has already become one of my favorite albums of all time…and I just discovered it a few months ago! How Trapped In The Suburbs still hasn’t been discovered by the rock hipsters is yet another mystery. It’s basically the perfect rock album, Linde again writing all the songs, playing all the instruments, and producing himself. Have I mentioned yet he also uses a mellotron? There’s a mellotron present on this and the other two albums here, but these records are so obscure that they aren’t even mentioned on the otherwise-comprehensive Planet Mellotron site. 

While there’s nothing here that sounds as “immediate hit!” as “Hello, I Am Your Heart,” the thing about Trapped In The Suburbs is that it’s more of an album album, if you get my drift, not so much a collection of songs. It’s also a great headphone album; Linde wasn’t just talented in the music department but in the production department as well. There’s a progressive element at play here, with the country singer-songwriter vibe of the previous album only on a few selected tracks…and even then it’s done in a more progressive fashion. 

My favorite song is “He Likes To Hurt You,” which features a high-drama, almost histrionic chorus that will get stuck in your head. The progressive touch is definitely present on this one, as it is on the similar “Just To Think” on Side 2. In fact there’s almost an ELO touch to the latter, but with more grit than Jeff Lynne’s polish. “Hell Or High Water” could have been the single off the album, another progressive number in which Linde’s voice duels with itself from the right and left channels – as I say, the album is perfect for headphones. Good old rock and roll is also present, in particular in the heavy groover “My Guitar,” the aforementioned track where Linde mentions his child – whom he ignores because he’s too busy “playin’ my damn guitar.” This one’s also got some great production touches; I love how the drums kick in once the song is underway. 

The title track also could’ve been a single, and indeed is how I discovered the album, given that an edited version of it was present on the Elektra-Asylum Fall 1974 Releases promo compilation. This one does have a bit of a Gene Clarke vibe, at least in how it merges country with a progressive funk edge; it’s cool but certainly not my favorite track here. But then I think every track is great, save for the sole misfire “Burn Away My Blues,” which is a lame (to me at least) blues number that closes out side 1. The country-esque tracks are even good, like “Country Steel Man,” a mournful number about musicians on the radio becoming your heroes, and augmented by a very David Gilmour-esque steel guitar (similar to what the actual Gilmour at the time was doing on steel guitar). 

This is another instance where you should just get the record for sure; I have the US pressing, and it sounds great. This release didn’t come with an insert, though, and it would prove to be Linde’s last with this label – indicating, of course, that his records weren’t selling. But like with Dennis Linde, the entire album has been uploaded to Youtube: 



Dennis Linde: Under The Eye 
Monument Records, 1978 

Dennis Linde’s last album sees him heading into a cosmic funk territory, but with a definite rock backbone. The country stuff is almost entirely absent. This is surprising, because this label was known for country, being based out of Nashville (at least partly, I think). Regardless, this is a sci-fi trip, sporting one helluva great cover – even the inner sleeve is cool, with a very “modern” looking silhouette shot of Linde sporting big headphones. I mean it could almost be an ad for Beats, or whatever those overpriced headphones of today are called. Album cover and inner photo all do a great job of summing up the headphone, sci-fi funk vibe of Under The Eye, which by the way is the rarest of the three LPs discussed here, though still not absurdly priced on the used records marketplace. My copy cost me ten bucks. 

Also unlike the other two albums discussed here, Under The Eye has not been uploaded in full to Youtube. So if you want to hear the full monty, you’ll need to get the vinyl, at least for now. Rolling Stone wasn’t as enthusiastic about this one, but the reviewer did acknowledge that Dennis Linde had been on a science fiction trip from the beginning, noting not only the track “Dr-103” on his self-titled album, but also the sci-fi liner notes on that release. That said, Rolling Stone was never shy about disliking anything experimental or envelope-pushing, so it’s not surprising they weren’t as fond of this one. 

Some of Under The Eye almost sounds like Daft Punk a few decades early. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album’s standout track – which happens to be the only song on a Dennis Linde album that was not written by Dennis Linde. This would be “Ghost Riders In The Sky,” here named “Ghost Riders.” Good grief does this thing sound like it’s from a few decades later or what? 


Once again Linde plays all the instruments and self-produces. You can hear he’s now added some vintage analog synths to his setup, giving the entire album an almost post-modern vibe. He hasn’t forgotten basic rock, though, as heard in “The Good Ship Rock And Roll,” a song which sounds like it could’ve been released in the ‘80s in how it bridges electronics and anthemic rock: 


Actually the track sounds to me like something that could’ve been on the soundtrack for Transformers: The Movie, ie the 1986 animated feature (with Orson Welles!!). But for the most part Linde sticks to a groove for the entire album; “Strange Groove” is the title of another such song. He does still indulge in a little country; “Funky Hoe-Down” is a country funk piece that reels back on the cosmic vibe. Speaking of which, the title track is another funk number that’s all about UFOs, a sort of novely number that still is a great song in its own right, similar to the same year’s “Flying Saucers,” by obscure British band Yellow Dog (which was fronted by American singer-songwriter Kenny Young, of Last Stage For Silver World). 

But this was it for Dennis Linde, at least so far as his solo releases went. Three albums released over a span of five years, all of them worthy of a greater audience. But they definitely went under the radar; according to Discogs, Under The Eye was only released in the US, whereas Dennis Linde and Trapped In The Suburbs had at least also been released in the UK. But clearly they made even less of an impression there than here. Linde went back into songwriting and producing, and passed away in 2006. 

So in closing, I heartily recommend these three records. I discovered Dennis Linde through a fluke – I literally picked up that Elektra-Asylum compilation because I wanted to hear the single edit of Gene Clarke’s “No Other” – but I would now rank him as one of my favorite music artists ever.

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Random Record Reviews: Volume 7

CAP-FM: What’s In-Store For You 

In previous posts I’ve mentioned how much I enjoy what was known as “progressive freeform” FM rock radio, the history of which was recounted in WNEW-FM DJ Richard Neer’s FM: The Rise And Fall Of Rock Radio. I’ve also mentioned Javed Jefri’s wonderful Let The Universe Answer, in which you can hear airchecks of the actual freeform era. 

I started wondering if any records of the day followed the FM format of seguing tracks with a DJ patter between the songs…and somehow stumbled upon that very thing! This is CAP-FM, aka the FM radio station that never was. The brainchild of Capitol Records’s national manager for Album Oriented Rock, Ray Tusken, the CAP-FM: What’s In-Store For You promo-only records followed the format of an FM broadcast of the day, the idea being that stores would play the records over the stereo system and interested shoppers might scan the bins for the albums the DJ talked about. Also a nice play on words in the title – “what’s in store for you” referring not only to new music out from Capitol, but also literally referring to the albums shoppers could find in the store. 

A pretty brilliant idea, I think, but I’m guessing the CAP-FM: What’s In-Store For You albums were too expensive to make, or provided too little ROI, thus there were only four of them…all released over a period of 2 years. There also seems to have been some behind-the-scenes wrangling, as Ray Tusken is not listed as “executive producer” on the back of What’s In-Store For You #4. That volume also sees a female “announcer” (uncredited, same as the male one was on volumes 1-3), as well as more of a focus on guitar rock than the first three volumes, which could indicate more shake-uppery. 

I recently came across a contemporary feature on the first CAP-FM release, in an industry journal called Cash Box. There Ray Tusken was interviewed, where he stated that the album was specifically put together like a radio set, with the songs seguing into one another in a cohesive block, “like a good [radio] jock would do.” He also noted that something called a “limiter” had been applied to the album, meaning that it “sounded like a tuner,” not like a regular record. I can say that these records sound incredible and are some of the best-sounding records in my 2,000+ collection. Capitol clearly put some effort into the production, engineering, and mastering…which could be another indication why there were only 4 of them. 

First a note on the DJs, merely credited as “Announcer” on the back cover. (We know from the feature story mentioned above that the male announcer on #1-3 was someone named Mike Harrison, but I don’t know who the female Announcer on #4 was.) One main difference between these faux-FM broadcasts and real ones is that the CAP-FM announcer(s) have zero personality. The male Announcer on #1-3 and the female Announcer on #4 just indicate the songs about to be played, or that were just played, and might occasionally provide a few brief asides about the group. But there’s no attempt at “connecting” with the audience. Also worth noting is that there’s no hard selling on the records, no “You can find this album right here in the store!” sort of stuff. In fact they try to make it sound like a legitimate radio broadcast…the first What’s In-Store For You record even carries the conceit so far as to identify the faux-station as “WCAP-FM,” ie adding a “W” like real stations on the East Coast would have. Also worth noting that the Announcers do not say “Cap-FM;” the station call letters are spelled out, again like a real station: “C-A-P-FM.” 

There’s also no intro or outro on any of the records. The idea was likely for the store employees to just keep flipping the record over, so that customers coming in would have no idea they weren’t hearing a real FM radio broadcast. Each record in the series opens with the Announcer’s blank statement “This is CAP-FM,” then it goes straight into a song. Each side ends with the Announcer stating, “This is CAP-FM. We’ll be back.” Another thing to note is they didn’t go all the way with the “real radio station” conceit; there are no fake advertisements, a la The Who’s The Who Sell Out

Other than that old Cash Box feature, there’s not much info out there about the CAP-FM: What’s In-Store For You LP series. Also there were no uploads on Youtube prior to the ones I’ve listed below. On the plus side, the records are not pricey at all; the first one cost me the most, at six bucks. I picked up #2-4 for about $2 each, in VG+ condition! Anyway, on to looking at each release… 


CAP-FM: What’s In-Store For You #1 
Capitol Records, 1976 

The first CAP-FM is certainly the best. It’s also the one that might cost you the most, as only a thousand copies were pressed. But of all 4 records, this one most replicates an FM broadcast of the day, with some cool seques between tracks and some obscure artists being featured. The segues are also very well done, nowhere more notably than on side 2, in which the “space sounds” outro of Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle” seamlessly melds into the “space sounds” intro of obscure German prog outfit Triumvirat’s “I Believe:” 


Side 2 also demonstrates Ray Tusken’s note that the songs would form “blocks…like a good jock would do;” the theme on this side is centered around lost time and the travails of being a rocker. Obscure singer-songwriter Tom Snow’s “Rock And Roll Widow,” with its focus on a groupie who wonders if she’s wasted her life, is played before The Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle” (with it’s “time keeps on slipping” lyrics). That track segues into Triumvirat’s “I Believe,” a song that’s all about the frustrations of being a famous rockstar. (Surely the members of Triumvirat* indulging in some wishful thinking!!) So in other words, a complete “block” of songs that all follow the same general theme. Speaking of Tom Snow, he also appears on side 1, with “Hurry Boy,” featuring backing vocals by Stevie Nicks (thanks to the Announcer for letting us know…though of course her vocals are pretty distinctive anyway). 

Otherwise on #1 we have rockers Starz, Australia’s Little River Band (another thanks to the Announcer – I’d seen their name but had no idea they were Australians), and on another obscure tip we have HUB, a group comprised of former members of Rare Earth. Overall What’s In-Store For You #1 was my intro to the series and I played it a bunch when I got it, and likely this will be the one in the series I play the most in the future. 


CAP-FM: What’s In-Store For You #2 
Capitol Records, 1977 

Full disclosure: this is my least favorite in the series, to the extent that I didn’t even make a video recording of any of the songs on it. There’s none of the variety of #1 and the segues aren’t as well done. For that matter, “Fly Like An Eagle” appears again, for some reason, but whereas the spacey outro section was expertly used as a segue into the next song on the first LP, this time “Fly Like An Eagle” just ends cold and the next track, Cockney Rebel’s Beatles cover “Here Comes The Sun,” starts right up. Otherwise the aim this time appears to have been to play it safe: we have Sammy Hagar and Bob Seger on both sides, each time their tracks unimaginatively seguing into each other. The obscure artists as seen on the previous release have been replaced by better-known MOR types, though we do get prog rock again in the form of Gentle Giant’s “Just The Same.” But it’s a cut from their live album and isn’t very proggy at all. A group called Maze also takes us into an unwanted Soul detour at the end of the album (“Happy Feelin’s”); they will return for the final CAP-FM release. 

Also of note is that the Announcer, an uncredited Mike Harrison once again, has dropped the “W” from the name of his pseudo-station; it will remain just “CAP-FM” for the rest of the series. He also adds a little more color commentary between tracks, for example telling us that we should catch certain acts in concert where possible. But otherwise there is a bland, “safe” vibe to What’s In-Store For You #2, so I wouldn’t suggest this as the one to check out first if you want to listen to this series. 


CAP-FM: What’s In-Store For You #3 
Capitol Records, 1977 

Things improve with the third release. Mike Harrison is still our uncredited “Announcer,” and he shows more personality this time than on the previous records. Still nothing on the level of a real-life jock, though. I just mean he’ll have these periodic asides like “Good stuff” after a track is played…which actually comes off as so facile that it’s funny. But once again his main purpose is to introduce each track, tell us where the band’s from, and give us the name of the album. And luckily there’s more variety here, getting away from the Middle of the Road vibe of #2. 

Little River Band and Gentle Giant are back, but we also get Be-Bop Deluxe (“Shine,” from their live LP), the unsung Bob Welch (who had just started his solo career), and a Lou Reed-type called Mink DeVille. On the prog side we have none other than Klaatu, whose “Around The Universe In Eighty Days” segues so perfectly into Gentle Giant’s “I’m Turning Around” that you’d think it was all one long song: 


The thematic work behind the segues still isn’t as on-point as in #1, but this one’s a definite improvement over its predecessor. Oh and I forgot – no mention is made over the Klaatu flap of the year before, where everyone thought Klaatu was really the Beatles. What you hear in my Youtube upload above is all that is said about Klaatu…just a generic intro with a mention they’d done “a rather unique space opera” with the London Symphony Orchestra. The LP, by the way, is Hope, which I don’t like nearly as much as Klaatu’s first album. But still, there is a bit of a bland sound to What’s In-Store For You #3, with not as much variety as in the first record…which makes the following LP come as quite a shock.


CAP-FM: What’s In-Store For You #4 
Capitol Records, 1978 

We immediately notice two things about this fourth (and final) CAP-FM release: Executive Producer Ray Tusken is not listed on the back cover, as he was for the previous three records, and our uncredited Announcer is now…a woman!! No idea who she was, but I detect a slight Southern twang in her delivery, as heard in the upload below. Otherwise Ms. Announcer is much the same as her male counterpart, introducing each track without much personality. She interjects the same sort of tidbits on each act, leading me to believe that the same person handled the scripts for all four records in the series. 

As mentioned above, another big change with #4 is the sudden focus on guitar rock. This is by far the most head-nodding CAP-FM record, featuring such glammy hard rockers as The Sweet, Status Quo, Starz and Be-Bop Deluxe. The latter’s “Panic In The World” was new to me (I prefer my rock from earlier in the ‘70s), but by gum if it didn’t have me ready to pick up a copy of the album it came from. It segues into a non-album track by the obscure Tom Robinson Band (sorry, maybe not so obscure…the Announcer says they’re one of the hottest new acts in England!!): 


Damn that “Panic In The World” can get stuck in your head. Crazy how it sounds like something from a few years later – this track would’ve been huge if it had been released in 1982. Also you might notice that the song here is an edit, same as are most of the other songs featured in the series (something I neglected to mention). For example, The Sweet’s excellent, ELO-ish “Love Is Like Oxygen” is half the length of the album version, cutting out a groovy second half. Speaking of which, the second half of What’s In-Store For You #4 loses the guitar-rocking vibe of side 1 and slows way down with the 1-2 finale of Crane and Maze, two acts that go in more of a Soul direction…the Maze song in particular, “Golden Time Of Day,” seems like it’s never going to friggin’ end. 

But it finally does end, after which our Announcer says, “CAP-FM. We’ll be back,” and with that the stylus reaches the runoff groove and the record comes to a close – thus ending the CAP-FM: What’s In-Store For You series. These records are certainly recommended if you like ‘70s rock in general and ‘70s FM rock radio in particular, with the caveat that #2 isn’t too great and the “fake radio station” conceit only goes so far. But as stated the records sound phenomenal, with a wide stage presence that likely sounded great pounding out of the stereo systems in record stores of yore. 

*I discovered Triumvirat in 1996, when I bought a cassette of their 1975 album Spartacus from the clearance section of a Camelot Records store in Dallas. I’d never heard of the group but the album title caught my eye, given that I had been obsessed with historical epics as a kid. I would play this progressive, ELP-style album on the tape deck of my buddy Ken’s 1980s Saab as we’d drive around Dallas. Ken’s tape deck had this weird gimmick where, if you pressed two buttons at once (I think it was Eject and Power), the tape would instantly flip over and play the same spot on the other side. Somehow Ken managed to discover a possibly intentional fluke on the Spartacus tape. There was a song on Side 1 where the vocals went, “The sun is shining.” Ken discovered that if he hit that “auto flip” function at that moment, it would flip over to Side 2, where you’d hear the line, “Time to die,” with the vocals in the same key. In other words, “The sun is shining/Time to die,” which became a running joke in those carefree, unmarried days of my youth, where I had the time to waste on such trivialities. Speaking of which, next week I’ll be celebrating twenty-one years of wedded bliss, so it’s likely I will not have a post up.

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Random Record Reviews: Volume 6

1970s California Rock (and its modern apotheosis):

It’s been a while since I did a Random Record Review. I’ve been reading Barney Hoskyns’s Hotel California, which concerns the ‘70s California rock scene, and it got me listening to that era of music. Actually I think it was the other way around – I think I was already listening to such music, then decided to read Hoskyns’s book. 


1. William Truckaway: Breakaway 
Reprise, 1971 

William Truckaway, previously known as William Sievers, was a member of obscure San Francisco psychedelic rock group Sopwith Camel. This was his one and only solo LP, pretty much the epitome of country-tinged Californian hippie rock. I mean look at that dude’s dirty feet on the cover! Wash your friggin’ feet, hippie! Truckaway has a pleasantly mellow voice and in some ways Breakaway is like a proto-Beck album, especially in its usage of unusual instruments and blue-eyed funk. A lof of it is in the country-rock vibe of the time, but not too grating, with the occasional dobro and/or harmonica augmenting Truckaway’s slacker-esque lyrics; or we will get something as unusual as a sitar, like on the hummable ditty “I Go Slow,” which comes off like a slacker anthem two decades early. Moogs will just as often appear, most notably in the shoulda-been-a-huge-hit “Bluegreens.” Originally released as a single in 1969, when it had been titled “Bluegreens On The Wing,” this track basically encapsulates the vibe of summer. The LP version is slightly different from the earlier single mix, a bit more refined and polished. Previously this LP version wasn’t online – until now! Here it is, playing on my Pioneer PL-518: 



2. Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends: Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends 
Warehouse Sound Co., 1974 

I discovered this obscure LP a few years ago, while researching any appearances of Dr. Patrick Gleeson, an early synth player I knew from Herbie Hancock’s Sextant. This led me to the discovery of this LP, and thanks to a Youtube upload I heard the multi-suite song “Medicine Wheel,” which had been taken from the album. A very cool song that opens with some Gleeson synth experimentation before morphing into a mellow stoned acoustic number, courtesy someone named David Riordan (more on whom anon). Warehouse Sound Co. was an audio store in Los Angeles and here they released their own record that would come with stereos purchased in their store, or somesuch. This is a professionally-packaged product, though, and I wonder if Capitol Records was involved in some fashion. A nice touch is that the cover also feels like wood, matching the photo. 

Other than the “Medicine Wheel” suite, I could find nothing from this album uploaded online, and there was no digital release. Luckily, copies are inexpensive. It turns out the album is more on a soft rock tip than the “Medicine Wheel” suite would imply. It’s also a short record, under 30 minutes, with 4 songs per side. It sounds great, though, and is well mastered. The featured performer is a person named David Riordan, previously in an L.A. band called Sweet Pain, here doing more of a singer-songwriter thing with a bunch of studio musicians, people who worked at Warehouse Sound, and also Gleeson. Other than “Medicine Wheel,” the song that I really like here – and again one that sounds dissimilar from the other pleasant-toned songs on the album – is a number called “Lady Grace.” It too features Gleeson’s synths. Since there was no other version online, I once again lazily recorded my copy as it played on my turntable: 



3. David Riordan, Medicine Wheel 
Capitol, 1974 

After I’d played Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends a few times I decided to look up this David Riordan guy. I saw that, the same year that other record came out, Riordan also released a solo album on Capitol – and also this was his one and only solo LP. Most interestingly, a lot of tracks on Medicine Wheel, like for example the title track, were the same as those that appeared on Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends. But were they the same versions? Or had Riordan re-recorded them with different studio musicians? I also saw that Patrick Gleeson was credited on the solo LP, so my curiousity was very piqued. But absolutely nothing from Medicine Wheel was on Youtube or anywhere else online, so to find the answers to my questions I would have to buy the record itself. Luckily, copies are inexpensive; I got mine for a little over two bucks. 

It turns out that the versions of the songs on Medicine Wheel are indeed different than the ones on Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends. And in most cases the versions here on this solo LP are superior. Not all of the songs are repeats, though, and some tracks from that other album don’t appear here, like for example the aforementioned “Lady Grace.” Also, title track “Medicine Wheel” drops the suite format of the Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends version, losing the experimental intro but at the same time becoming even more dreamy, thanks to additional instrumentation and effects in the mix. Overall this album too goes for a pleasant, bouncy, summery type of soft rock, most of the tracks being upbeat and happy. The only anomaly would be the title track, which comes off like the epitome of that early-to-mid-‘70s Laurel Canyon “I just lit a fat joint and I’m gonna sit here and watch the sun go down and ponder the cosmos” Californian singer-songwriter vibe. Since it’s not on Youtube, I made a video of it myself: 



4. Various Artists: Elektra/Asylum Fall 1974 Releases 
Elektra/Asylum, 1974 

This promo-only compilation LP comes off like the soundtrack to Barney Hoskyns’s Hotel California, given that book’s focus on the Elektra and Asylum rosters. However, I got this LP due to the fact that it features the title track of Gene Clark’s 1974 big-budget bomb No Other; so far as I know, other than the overpriced original pressing, this is the only place you can get a song from No Other on a contemporary vinyl release. Like Skip Spence’s Oar, No Other was rediscovered by the hipsters of the ‘90s and the prices of the original pressing skyrocketed accordingly. Even modern represses are pricey. I’ve never bothered getting any of the pressings, though, happy with the CD I bought many years ago, because No Other isn’t an album I play frequently at all. Too much of it is country-focused; too little of it is the blown-out mid-‘70s madness I want. A notable exception is the title track, which appears here…but this version is an edit. The LP version of “No Other” runs over 6 minutes, this one’s not even 4 minutes. I’m uncertain if it’s the same mix as on the UK-only single release of “No Other.” Once again I had to resort to recording my own copy, as there was no other Youtube upload: 


Note that this is the last song on a very long side. Fall 1974 Releases will not win any audiophile rewards, as the music has been crammed on here; each side is 30 minutes long. The more information that’s jammed into vinyl the more fidelity is lost; it’s my understanding the bass is the first to go. However as you’ll note, it actually sounds pretty good! And I’m using my new cartridge here, an Audio Technica AT-VM95C, which is a conical – aka the “lowest” level of stylii, so far as price and precision of cut goes. But man, this thing sounds phenomenal, even better than the thrice-the-price Nagaoka MP-110 I was previously using. Anyway, enough geekery. Otherwise this compilation focuses on country-rock (side 1 in particular), with singer-songerwriters like Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne appearing. Side 2 gets more into a rock focus, with Jo Jo Gunne and Traffic. A track here that made me stand up and take notice was the new-to-me Dennis Linde, with the title track of his ’74 album Trapped In The Suburbs. That one immediately had me hitting Discogs for a copy – and, like the David Riordan solo LP, a copy was available for practically nothing. I’ll review that one someday as well. 


5. Jonathan Wilson: Fanfare 
Bella Union, 2013 

I’m gonna try to keep this one brief. I’ll just say, if you love ‘70s rock in general and ‘70s California rock in particular, GET THIS ALBUM. And if you’re in the US, get the vinyl release from K-F Merch. They are selling the pink vinyl UK release that comes with a CD (it’s hidden in the sleeve with the second vinyl disc), and their copy is very affordable; currently no sellers in the US have Fanfare on vinyl on Discogs. I first learned about Jonathan Wilson a few years ago, on the Steve Hoffman music forums. Soon after I listened to Fanfare, Wilson’s tribute to big-budget ‘70s rock, on streaming, and I thought it was good, but I didn’t really focus on it, and soon moved on to other things. Through happenstance I rediscovered the album recently and the damn thing knocked me out. It was like I wasn’t ready for it before. Now I’m prepared to rank Fanfare in my top five favorite records of all time, if not higher. And folks if you know anything about me, you know I prefer vintage stuff. I mean I practically live in the past. I never thought I’d be declaring the merits of something released just ten years ago. 

I recently went on a Jonathan Wilson obsession and here’s what I can tell you. He’s my age; actually he’s two months younger than me, as he was born in December of 1974. He grew up in a small town and grew up with a love of ‘60s and ‘70s rock. He must have learned to play instruments at a young age; he's a guitar wiz now, and surely would be known as one of the giants of the day had he been around in the era he so wonderfully recreates on his albums.  He plays tons of other instruments besides, and also has vast experience in producing music.  He even uses vintage equipment in his personal studio, as lovably described in this comprehensive overview. Wilson was in a late ‘90s alternative band I hadn’t heard of (Muscadine), then after that fell apart he moved on to session work and served as guitarist in the touring groups of several musicians. 

Wilson initially struck off on his solo career with Frankie Ray, an Oar-type ode to ‘70s rock in that, like Skip Spence, Wilson not only did vocals but played every instrument, multi-tracking himself like some decades-removed version of Emmit Rhodes. This was in 2005, but the album was never officially released – and it’s still crying out for a proper release, especially on vinyl. It’s out on Youtube, though. A few years later Wilson released Gentle Spirit, often mistakenly referred to as his “first album” and almost universally described as “Pink Floyd jamming with Crosby, Stills, and Nash.” 

From the success of that album Wilson moved on to Fanfare, which was to be his tribute to “widescreen, blown out,” mid-‘70s epics like…well, like No Other. It really comes off like the album Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young never made in the mid-1970s. Maybe with walk-ons from Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys (no relation to Jonathan Wilson) and Pink Floyd. But hell, the album itself has walk-ons from those actual musicians: David Crosby and Graham Nash appear, as does Jackson Browne, among others. Fanfare is really the distillation of that entire ‘70s rock sound, head music in its truest sense, mixing the airy harmonies of CSN, the ragged rock of Neil Young, the aural vibe of Dennis Wilson’s Pacific Ocean Blue, the “I live in the studio” ambiance of Electric Ladyland. It is just about as perfect a rock album as one could want, and it’s incredible that Wilson has released, in today’s age, such a big-budget rock album that demands you put on the headphones, turn off the lights, and give the music your full attention. Perhaps that’s why the first impression didn’t resonate with me. 

For this is not a “first impressions album” by any means. We all know “deep cuts,” those tracks buried on albums of yore that weren’t hits but went on to be loved by the fans; usually they were longer than standard single length, and would go through a few changes within the course of the song. Essentially Fanfare is an album of deep cuts. It’s debatable whether an LP like this would have been released in the actual 1970s; the label would have demanded more “hits.” That said, there are songs on here that are at odds with the “deep cuts” vibe, and almost come off like the “potential hit” the label might have demanded; Side 2 opener “Love To Love,” a Southern-tinged rocker in the Allman Brothers vein, would be one example. 

But man, on a performance level – instrumentation, singing, production – this album rocks. And it is a dense record, too, each track layered with instruments and period effects.  There’s even a friggin mellotron on a few tracks...that’s how “1970s” Fanfare is!  Wilson’s singing voice somewhat sounds like Dennis Coulson, of the unjustly-obcsure 1972 album Lo And Behold, mixed with a bit of a Stephen Stills rasp. In fact, other reviewers have noted that Jonathan Wilson’s voice seems to combine all three of CSN into one; this is especially notable in standout track “Cecil Taylor,” with Wilson serving as the Stills to the actual Crosby and Nash; it sounds like a lost CSN number, complete with the touch of spaciness CSN often brought to their songs: 


Opening title track “Fanfare” is also like a lost track…from Dennis Wilson’s 1977 masterpiece Pacific Ocean Blue. It actually sounds more like POB than any of the songs that appeared on the actual Dennis Wilson’s follow-up album Bambu (which by the way was never completed by Wilson). “Dear Friend” is where the Electric Ladyland vibe comes in; it starts off like a dreamy psychedelic number before turning into a heavy in-the-studio jam where Wilson smokes on wah-wah guitar. Good grief! How in the world is someone able to make rock music like this in today’s age? 

Fanfare is filled with songs that start off in one direction before going in another entirely. “Future Vision,” for example, initially comes off like John Lennon's early '70s solo work, with Wilson’s echoed voice singing of “The sweet caprice of love” over a Steinway Grand Piano, before morphing into something out of the Bob Welch era of Fleetwood Mac. There’s also a hidden reference, melody-wise, to John Lennon’s “#9 Dream” at the two-minute mark. There are such knowing winks to classic rock throughout; heavy number “Illumination,” another of those tracks where Wilson plays every instrument, starts off like a cover of Neil Young’s “Dangerbird” (but maybe with Tom Petty’s The Heartbreakers backing Young instead of Crazy Horse), then veers course into its own thing. “Moses Pain” starts off like Bob Dylan and ends as an anthemic singalong; it wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the aforementioned Lo And Behold. All of the songs were written by Jonathan Wilson, save for “New Mexico,” in which the music was written by Wilson but the lyrics by Roy Harper, and the psychedellically funky “Fazon,” which is a cover of a tune by Sopwith Camel…aka the band that William Truckaway was in, thus bringing this Random Record Review full circle. 

One thing I didn’t want to do was describe every track, so I’ll cut it off here. (And please don’t assume the tracks I haven’t mentioned aren’t as great as the others!)  Essentially, Fanfare was created by someone who grew up on rock for people who grew up on rock. In olden times troubadors were performers who would carry on traditions, augmenting here and there but basically sticking to a template through the centuries. This has been lost in today’s era, in which progressivism is key – it’s always about what is new, what breaks tradition. In that regard Fanfare might be disregarded as an overly slavish attempt at mimicking the sound of an earlier time. But that would be a mistake. This album is more rewarding than most any other I can think of, certainly any other modern album. It truly deserves to be put in the pantheon of rock classics; it’s not Jonathan Wilson’s fault that he was born after the rock era ended. 

And you want Fanfare on vinyl! Now one thing I have to get out of the way is that the vinyl release is actually missing a track: “All The Way Down,” which is on the CD and streaming releases, does not appear on the vinyl release. This is a long LP; the average song length is over 5 minutes. Thus Bella Union has split it up to a double-vinyl release with 3 tracks per side, totalling 12 tracks. Unfortunately then, unlucky 13th track “All The Way Down” didn’t make the cut. But this is fine, really; if I had to cut one track from Fanfare, that would be it. Not that it’s bad. It’s just relatively unecessary after the epic, Abbey Road-esque “Lovestrong” (which features an actual Heartbreaker, pianist Benmont Trench). This means “Lovestrong” is the final track of the vinyl release, and I think that works out better. In my world “All The Way Down” would be a bonus track, maybe the B-side of the single if we’re sticking to the fantasy that Fanfare really is a product of the 1970s. 

Now about this vinyl pressing. It’s pretty great! It’s on super thick pink vinyl; I’m guessing it’s 180 gram. The gatefold release looks great, with the Sistine Chapel cover and a psychedelic photo of Jonathan Wilson on back. The inner gatefold is an artsy photo of some topless masked women who initially look nice…until you see their hairy armpits. Sorry, not my thing! The sleeves are thick, too; you really have to fight to get the records out. I actually put the sleeves aside and replaced them with standard ones. The pressing is not analog, certainly; like most modern records, the Fanfare vinyl release is digitally sourced. As Wilson explains in the feature I linked to above, while the album was mostly recorded analog, in the final stage of the “chain” it went to digital. This is fine…I mean the record sounds good, and certainly better than the digital release (that said, the CD sounds good, too, pressed with more care to fidelity than to winning the “loudness wars”). The most important note is that I heard things on the vinyl release I hadn’t noticed in the digital release; little details that weren’t as apparent in the digital releases. This is always one of the best things about vinyl. And it looks great, too; here’s the pink vinyl spinning on my turntable: