Come On Over - The Water's FIne!

Just tryin' something new.

Forever More "Yours" (1970)

(Sorry I couldn't find a better picture! My scanner's too small for the album cover)

Forever More "Yours"

(no password - encoded @ 320KBPS)

Allright - My first album post!

OK - Back in the late 80's I use to go to my local Radio Shack for connectors, cables, etc. They always had a very small cut-out bin with a few records in it. I always flipped through them but never saw anything that I really wanted. As time went on the number of LP's slowly got fewer and fewer until this was the only one left. When they finally marked it down to 25¢ I decided "what the heck" and took a chance. I'm glad I did! It's really a great album!!

Favorite songs? "We Sing", "Good to Me" and the title song.

Looks like someone recently paid $26 for it on E-Bay!

Forever More - Yours (1970)

Side 1
01 - Back in the States Again
02 - We Sing
03 - It's Home
04 - Home Country Blues
05 - Good to Me

Side 2
01 - Yours
02 - Beautiful Afternoon
03 - 8 O'Clock & All's Well
04 - Mean Pappie Blues
05 - You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
06 - Sylvester's Last Voyage

Personnel:
Alan Gorrie - Piano, Bass Guitar, Teapot (He went on to the Average White Band!)
Mick Travis - Guitar (his name sounds familiar)
Onnie Mair - Guitar, Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals
Stuart Francis - Drums, Backing Vocals

Produced by Ray Singer and Simon Napier-Bell.

And now you know all that I know!

This album runs the gamut. I hear Prog-Rock, Rock, Jazz, Country-Rock, Country. A little bit of everything.

I hear influences by Traffic, Youngbloods, Caravan, etc.

Anybody have any additional info out there it would be great.

Enjoy!

Angie

Angie - Peppermint Lump

OK - So it's really Pete Townshend. See? there's Pete right on the cover. Pete produces, plays guitar and sings background vocals. And apparently he likes young schoolgirls! Must have been before he liked boys!

Released in August 1979 on the fledging Stiff Records label (Elvis Costello, Ian Drury, Graham Parker, Nick Lowe, etc.). I don't know a lot about this. Songwriter credits are J. Asher (Jane? I doubt it.). I think Angie is Pete's daughter. But maybe not. Stiff Records says her name is Angela Turner. But below her name is Porter. Oh well, who cares.



Ah-Ha! here's a little more info.

Artist: Angie
(real name: Angela Porter)
Was a pupil at the Corona stage school. She appeared on numerous British TV programs. Stiff's press release at the time read: " A blatant attempt to corner the market of pre-teen and post-punk singles buyers".


Here's what became of her (at least several years ago)!

Biography
BURNT OUT STABLE GIRL formed in November 1998

The nucleus of the band are:-

Angie Porter (Vocals)
Paul Tierney (Writer/Producer)
Fraser ''Kipper'' McCormick (Writer/Producer)

Angie Porter is no stranger to the singing game.
As a child she worked with legendary producer Trevor Horn, providing backing vocals for Buggles'' number one hit, ''Video Killed The Radio Star''.
Aged eleven, she teamed up with The Who'' s Pete Townshend and released a single, ''Peppermint Lump'', on the seminal Stiff label. It was Radio One''s Record Of The Week.
At sixteen she signed a deal with Peer Music Publishing.
After a period spent training horses at Newmrket Racecourse, Angie answered an advert in Melody Maker. It was a move which led her to London and BURNT OUT STABLE GIRL, the stadio-based production team that consists of:-

Paul Tierney

Paul has been a successful music journalist for the past eleven years. His opinions and insights have graced the pages of many publications, including: i-D, Record Mirror,'' Ministry, Attitude and Flipside. He is currently Dance Music Editor of Top Magazine.
In 1996 he formed the band Belter, writing and producing tracks that impressed everyone from Faithless'' Rollo to EMI Music Publishing.
A life long music fan, Paul brings with him a finely tuned ear and the lyrical bite of a mis-spent youth.

Fraser ''Kipper'' McCormick

Kipper has been in bands all his life.
At eighteen he sang with the Bournemouth-based group, The Cabin Boys, playing pubs and clubs across the south coast.
Moving to London, he later formed Navajo, a band fronted by ex-Jet Vegas vocalist, Michael Duignan.
In 1997, as Just Another Project, Kipper teamed up with club DJ, Keith Fielder and released three well received singles. Kipper does a lovely Force Legato.

BURNT OUT STABLE GIRL are currently seeking a deal.

Last year they performed two highly impressive showcases in central London and intend to spend the rest of 2000 building on their steadily growing following.

The Second Helping

The Second Helping - Let Me In

Kenny Loggins circa 1968-1969!

Got this one at a Half-Price Books back in the late 70's. I always thought that this might be Kenny Loggins (songwriter credits go to a "Ken Loggins"). Produced by John Macquarrie (Blue Cheer). Viva Records was started by Snuff Garrett.

Typical 60's garage band music.

Not a lot of information out there about The Second Helping.

Looks like he was in this band and a band called "Gator Creek" before he wrote four songs used on a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album in 1970, among them the hit "House at Pooh Corner". Next he signed a publishing deal with ABC/Wingate (staff writer with a music publisher for $100 a week). Then he met Jim Messina - the rest was musical history!

Oh yeah - Didn't know this tidbit! Apparently for a very short time he was also the guitarist in The Electric Prunes (of "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night" fame) in 1968 (one tour)! Who knew?
Hmmm, now this song does sound like it has some Electric Prunes type hooks in it. That would explain why they might have asked him to join the band.

Anybody have any more information about The Second Helpng they'd like to share?

So . . . since there ain't no album to buy, go out and buy (or rent) Loggins and Messina "Sittin' In Again" on DVD. The DVD is just great! Lots of "deep cuts" and you only have to watch 'Your Mama Don't Dance" only once!

Pezband

Pezband - On and On

Another record store 45 (aren't they all?). This one looks like a UK 45 so I probably bought this one. I think I just liked the fact that they had PEZ in the band name. Flip side is - "I'm Leavin'"

From the album "Laughing in the Dark" (1978).

A lot of similarities with The Producers (more to come from them later) and The Rubinoos. Great power pop with smart hooks (What? So now I sound like a record reviewer with a degree in Marketing? Ouch!).

Still, great stuff!

Praised by Billboard and Trouser Press for their debut album. Record World crowned Pezband “Most Promising New Act of the Year”. Jane Pauley even discussed them on The Today Show, saying “this is the sound everybody will be talking about.” They were the musical darlings of the time!

Their second album "Laughing in the Dark" was recorded in the U.K. at the height of the punk movement. Rolling Stone cited the album as one of the best of the year!

From the All Music Guide:
Hailing from the same state as Cheap Trick (Illinois), the Pezband was a mostly fine, occasionally wonderful, power pop band that specialized in hook-filled hard rock with sweet multi-part harmonies. Led by the strong, blues-inflected singing of Mimi (a guy) Betinis and the rampaging Jeff Beck-influenced guitar playing of Tommy Gawenda, the Pezzers' self-titled first LP (released in 1977) was not as hard and heavy as Cheap Trick, nor did it exhibit the berserk panache of their fellow Illinoisans. But that all changed with their second LP, Laughing in the Dark, which contained a high quotient of good-to-great songs, excellent production by Jesse Hood Jackson, and a wonderful lack of smugness and calculation that was slowly infiltrating every power pop band in America. A huge public reaction, however, was not forthcoming. The band had its supporters (like most of the editorial staff of -Trouser Press), but power pop/hard rock from Illinois was dominated by Cheap Trick, and everybody else had to find a place in the pecking order. For bands like the Pezband, that meant far less coverage than they deserved. There was also another issue: the band didn't deliver another record as good as Laughing, nor could they recapture the excitement and messy mania of their live show (forever preserved on an excellent pair of EPs, Too Old, Too Soon and Thirty Seconds Over Schaumburg) in the studio. Hence, the rest of their recorded output is serviceable, but only hints at what the band was truly capable of doing. It's too bad, because they were such unpretentious, likable guys. By the early '80s, the Pezband had virtually vanished from the music scene, but in 1994 a Chicago-based independent label released some outtakes and other previously unreleased material. ~ John Dougan, All Music Guide

And From Wikipedia:

Pezband’s Swansong

Pezband had enough tenacity to head back into the studio (this time a mobile unit due to the constrictive budget)—-to self-produce their third album, Cover to Cover. Mike Gorman stepped up once again with the confessional “Meika” and with the still-pertinent-today politics of “African Night,” a hook-filled rocker about Idi Amin’s death squads.
But Cover also finds Pezband’s other star, Betinis, going dark. While he does dash off rambunctious hard-pop like “Stella Blue”—Betinis’ haunting “Didn’t We” lays bare a dream on the brink [why’s it all wrong / tried for so long / didn’t we?].
Cover to Cover was given short-shrift by Passport, and the record quickly fell off the map.

By early 1980—Pezband was unceremoniously over.

After the break-up, Betinis and Rain recorded demos in hopes of another deal, while Mike Gorman joined Atlantic Records act Off Broadway USA (led by original Pezband member Cliff Johnson). Ironically Tommy Gawenda found himself working with The Knack’s producer Mike Chapman (as guitarist for RCA’s TAMI Show)—but none of the four’s post-Pezband projects caught spark.

Buy their CD's - Here and Here

Northern Front - (Song of the) Jackhammer

Northern Front - (Song of the) Jackhammer

Hmm . . . I didn't think I'd find out anything about these guys at all since the last time I looked I found nothing.

Another of those great record store 45 dj copies. This time from 1976. This is one long song! It clocks in at a painful 5 minutes and 40 seconds. And yes, that really is how the record ends! I thought it was skipping - 3 times in a row! Over and over and over!

Here's what I found out about the band (very little):

Apparently these guys were a progressive rock band from California on the Kader label (I think that was their own label). Looks like they even had an album out too! One site describes it as "completely stoned psych"!

"The Furniture Store" (1975 Kader Records - K-4321 - featuring The Babies of Their Family)



(from Acid Archives)

NORTHERN FRONT (CA)

"Presents Furniture Store" 1975 (Kader k-4321) [2 inserts] [1]

This humorous, proggy band falls somewhere between Broken Bow & Idabell and Oho, with the addition of a power pop edge. The style is reasonably appealing, the instrumentation diverse, the vocals pleasant, and the performances are nice, but the songs aren’t memorable, leading to a pretty bland album. It came with two inserts, and most copies are missing them, leaving the listener with no information at all other than song titles (listed on the labels). [AM]

Saw the same album at another site where it had sold for $60! Whew! Another site has $73 bucks for this here elpee! And yet another for $75! Not sure if this song is from that album or not. Can't find a track listing. Album is listed on several "want lists".

But as it says above it's pretty bland stuff (at least this one song is)! Progressive? Maybe. But Hell, I played more progressive stuff than this back then. It is kind "Beatle-esque" too. I can't put my finger on the song - but it sounds like something I've heard before.

Anyway - enjoy! More to come from the vinyl vault!
(Actually it's a large plastic Rubbermaid® bin!)

And if you know anything about these guys, please let me know. I've always wondered about them.

R.I.P. Wilson Pickett (1941 - 2006)

Wilson Pickett "You Left The Water Running"

I'd rather be posting something bad (music-wise) today, but sometimes the fates don't allow it! So it just ain't gonna happen!

Bummer!

Here's a song the band I'm in used to do about 15 years ago. Not one of his major hits. But still very cool.

Download (2.15 MB - Vinyl rip from original album)

Enjoy!
And Buy the Album!