MrQwerty: Six Obscure Recommendations

    MrQwerty (Fil)  
 # 1
 # 2

Name: Fil
Email: mr.qwerty@bigfoot.com
Location: Fylde Coast, England
 
1. History of Flo & Eddie & The Turtles
2. Open Book Lemon Trees
3. Morning Morning
4. Gideon Gaye High Llamas
5. Neverland dB's
6. I Am The Cosmos Chris Bell

Comments:
I really hesitated on this selection. If you've visited the page whilst under construction you'll have seen album sleeves flying in and out, left, right and centre, as I constantly changed my mind. Seeing as how I came up with the obscure classics suggestion, it may seem odd - one man's obscure is another's familiar - but this was a hard one.

I wanted to include a few Teen type albums, that weren't particularly popular but should have been, but decided to leave that over to another listing for somewhere else on the site.

1. .For the Turtles I originally chose Turtle Soup, their last official album, produced by the Kinks Ray Davies and woefully overlooked in 1969. It includes the marvellous You Don't Have To Walk In The Rain, Love In The City & Lady-O. But, I felt it wasn't representative enough of this great American Band. Then I remembered one of my most treasured albums: The History of... a 3 album set which documents, the bands beginnings (The Crossfires - surf instrumental), The Turtles themselves (great songs & harmonies either from their own pen, or emerging singer/songwriters like Judee Sill & Warren Zeavon, and established hit writers like Sloan-Barri & Bonner-Gordon), then lastly Flo & Eddie, where the Turtles sound matures and their great loony Radio Show, which I can only enjoy from these extracts (living in the UK as I do).

Like the Monkees (a great parallel with the Turtles) these guys drew on the cream of contemporary Pop songwriters, and the song, arrangement and harmonies are king - no indulgent, redundant guitar solos here guys.

This Rhino album is a peach - hard to find these days - there is no real CD substitute - an exhaustive recent CD Collection centres on the Turtles, but the accent here is more on Flo & Eddie. Highlights include the aforementioned Lady-O, Another Pop Star's Life, Feel Older Now and Steve Marriott's Afterglow (which almost eclipses the Small Faces original) and that is saying something.

2.  My attention was first arrested by Guy Chambers' work with World Party, Julian Cope, Aztec Camera and Stress. When I read of the release of the Lemon Trees album I snapped it up - as for the first time, Chambers was fronting his own band, as Singer, Writer & Guitarist. The album was a revelation: every track bar maybe one is drenched in hooks to die for, harmonies, drama and an eclectic musical slant which always delights the listener. Child of Love touched me lyrically as I was just celebrating the birth of my 1st born when I heard it (1994).

You'll have heard some of the songs from the posts I've made, but the whole album is a veritable feast.

After the commercial failure of this album and the few singles which followed, Chambers faded into a production background until in the mid to late 90's he partnered Robbie Williams in a bid for world domination and won!

Ever wondered why Williams material is so strong, Chambers is the man writing the songs. First thing I heard was when a friend played "Old Before I Die" - I thought it was the new Lemon Trees single and was surprised to hear it was an ex-member of Take That - the rest is history..

3.  I know little about this curio, except for its enduring brillance for over 3 decades. Two ex-members of Arthur Lee's Love formed an LA based group, originally known as The Morning and The Evening.

Luckily for them & us the band signed a contract giving them complete control of the writing, engineering, arranging & production of their first album, which is a highly underrated Folk-Country-Pop jewel.

It has a crisp, timeless, laid-back sound, which shines through every track, but particularly on And I'm Gone and Sleepy Eyes. The album closes with a ninety second country gem Dirt Roads - and for this 90 seconds alone, is worth the price of entry. (Comments continue below)

 

 History Of Flo & Eddie & The Turtles

1. Westchester High School Alma Mater(Kaylan & Volman as Kids)
2. Silver Bullet (Crossfires)
3. I Get Out of Breath (Turtles)
4. Outside Chance (Turtles)
5. Grim Reaper of Love (Turtles)
6. Lady-0 (Turtles)
7. Turtles Hits Medley (Turtles)
8. Happy Together(Live) (Turtles)
9. Goodbye Suprise (Turtles)
10. There You Sit Lonely (Turtles)
11. We Ain't Gonna Party No More
12 The Flo & Eddie Theme
13. Feel Older Now
14. Nikki Hoi
15. I've Been Born Again
16. Best Part of Breaking Up
17. Another Pop Star's Life
18. Just Another Town
19. Afterglow
20. Your'e A Lady
21. Marmendy Mill
22. Illegal, Immoral & Fattening
23. Rebecca
24. Let Me Make Love To You
25. Mama Open Up
26. Keep It Warm
27. Moving Targets
The Flow & Eddie Radio Show:
28. Flo & Eddie By the Fireside Theme
29. The Big Showdown
30. This Could Be The Day
31. You're Nothing but a Good Duck
32. Medley #1 (Rhythm Butchers)
33. The Flo & Eddie Show
34. Getaway Back to LA
35. Livin' In The Jungle
36. Youth In Asia
37. Medley # 2

All Tracks by Flo & Eddie unless otherwise credited. Rear Cover shot
illustrated (I don't like the front much!)
 Open Book Lemon Trees

1. Love the Sun
2. Love is in Your Eyes
3. Everything I want To Know
4. Child Of Love
5. The Way I Feel
6. Instrumental
7. Tidal Wave
8. Let It Loose
9. I Can't Face The World
10. Submerge
11. Bad
12. Bittersweetness
13. Open Book
 # 3 # 4
Morning Morning

1. Angelena
2. Early Morning
3. Tell Me A Story
4. Easy Keeper
5. Roll Em Down
6. Sleepy Eyes
7. New Day
8. As It Was
9. Time
10. It'll Take Time
11. And I'm Gone
12. Dirt Roads 		Gideon Gaye High Llamas

1. Giddy Strings
2. Dutchman
3. Giddy and Gay
4. Easy Rod
5. Checking in, Checking Out
6. Goat Strings
7. Up in the Hills
8. Goat Looks On
9. Taog Skool No
10. Little Collie
11. Track Goes By
12. Let's Have Another Look
13. Goat
 # 5 # 6
Stands for Decibels / Repercussion The dB's

1. Black & White
2. Dynamite
3. She's Not Worried
4. Fight
5. Espionage
6. Tearjerkin'
7. Baby Talk
8. Cycles Per Second
9. Bad Reputation
10. Big Brown Eyes
11. I'm In Love
12. Moving In Your Sleep
13. Judy
14. Happenstance
15. We Where Here There
16. Living A Lie
17. From A Window To A Screen
18. Ask For Jill
19. Amplifier
20. Soul Kiss
21. Neverland
22. Storm Warning
23. Ups & Downs
24. Nothing Is Wrong
25. In Spain
26. I Feel Good (Today)

These two albums have also been repackaged under the title Neverland the track listing is identical however.		 I Am The Cosmos Chris Bell

1. I Am the Cosmos
2. Better Save Yourself
3. Speed of Sound
4. Get Away
5. You and Your Sister
6. Make a Scene
7. Look Up
8. I Got Kinda Lost
9. There Was a Light
10. Fight at the Table
11. I Don't Know
12. Though I Know She Lies
13. I Am the Cosmos [Slow Version]
14. You and Your Sister [Country Version]
15. You and Your Sister [Acoustic Version]


Comments continued (yeah I really went to town on this one!)

Later, the line-up changed, they made a 2nd album: Struck Like Silver, and although good, doesn't deliver quite like Morning does. Both are highly recomended if you can take your Pop with a country-rock tinge.

4.  If like me you wondered why no one has taken up the mantle laid down by Brain Wilson and the course he steered through Pet Sounds and Smile, then look no further. Sean O'Hagan's vision is not merely imitation, although there are obvious references to tunes like Let's Get Away for a While and Surf's Up. It's both lush and beautiful and takes cues from Wilson's melodic and eccentric qualities. It's an impressive outing that sounds like little else in the alternative rock world of the mid-'90s. It establishes the High Llamas as musicians existing in a class of one (the Wondermints perhaps being the only other contemporary band, and their perspective is decidedly different) and there is innovation as well as emulation.

If your sufficiently impressed (and why wouldn't you be?) investigate Santa Barbara, Hawaii and Cold & Bouncy, the Llamas other major albums.

5.  The dB's are one of the pioneers of Powerpop, their fabulous single I Thought You Wanted To Know was a breath of fresh air, and dates from the mid to late 70's. They combine a reverence for British pop and art school cool, post-punk leanings that switch between minimalism and a love of quirky embellishment, odd sounds, and unexpected twists.

Their first two, and greatest albums from the early 80's: Stands for Decibels and Repercussion make this experimentation of styles and quirks so very enjoyable and irresistibly catchy. Singing and songwriting duties are shared equally by Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple. Stamey, more quirky and psychedelic-leaning with a winsome, pure-pop whine, nicely balanced by Holsapple's more earthy drawl and straightforward approach. The album stands not only as a landmark power-pop album but also as a prototype for the jangle bands that would follow.

Repercussion is more polished of the two, but both are outstanding examples of the genre. Now available as a pair in two different presentations - "go get 'em Floyd".

6.  Not released until many years after his tragically premature death, Chris Bell's solo album demonstrates how pivitol he was to the Big Star sound. For me, it puts Big Star's critically lauded schizophrenic Third effort in the shade.

I Am the Cosmos is an enduring testament to the brilliance of Chris Bell; lyrically poignant and melodically stunning, his solo album is proof positive of his underappreciated pop mastery. While cuts like Get Away, I Got Kinda Lost and Fight at the Table recall the glowing, energetic power-pop of Bell's earlier work, the majority of the songs on I Am the Cosmos are more reflective and deeply personal; the title track is a harrowingly schizophrenic tale of romantic despair, while other cuts like the lurching Better Save Yourself and the lovely Look Up are infused with a spiritual power largely missing from his Big Star material. The album's highlight, You and Your Sister which features backing vocals from none other than Alex Chilton is simply one of the great unknown love songs in the pop canon, a luminous and fragile ballad almost otherworldly in its beauty.

A Few That Narrowly Missed


Greasy Truckers Various

A rare live double album which features Brinsley Schwarz & Nick Lowe's finest 30 mins before his solo glory.


Rainmakers Rainmakers

A Creedence for the 80's. Let My People Go Go is a superb slice of rootsy pop.


Hats Blue Nile

An album that transcends all genres. Every song is crafted with merticulous precision. A masterpeice.