Posts Tagged ‘The Byrds’

First Impressions: Land of No Junction by Aoife Nessa Frances

Posted: January 26, 2020 in 2020, 2020s, Aoife Nessa Frances, First Impressions
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Here’s an odd way to begin a review: Halfway through my first listen of the opening track of Aoife Nessa Frances’ Land of No Junction, “Geranium,” I switched to another album by another artist. It was early morning – aka still dark outside – and I was on my way to work, yet to be fully caffeinated, and I found the track too languid. Frances’ vocals were thick and omnipresent, akin to fog draped across a misty field.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

The next afternoon, however, the staccato rhythm from “Geranium” began bouncing around my head. Her vocals clogged my inner-ear. On my way home, I clicked play on the album again and let the music flow. In the words of the bard Bob Dylan circa the Byrds on Younger Than Yesterday, “Crimson flames tied through my ears, rollin’ high and mighty traps pounced with fire on flaming roads using ideas as my maps.”

In other words, as the wafting rhythms and cloudy vocals of the second and third tracks – “Blow Up” and “Here in the Dark” – drifted from the speakers during my commute home, the music began to make sense – as did my initial reaction. I’d noticed a four-star review for the album in Mojo, but hadn’t read said review; all I knew was that Frances was (Northern) Irish. I expected something more celestial and traditional, singer-songwriterish…

…and traditional the music is, actually, just not traditional Irish. Instead, it conjures the Byrds and textured, psychedelia-tinged pop of the mid-1960s, as well as the Paisley Underground of the ‘80s. Check out “Libra,” the most upbeat song on the album, which would be at home on the Notorious Byrd Brothers or aforementioned Younger Than Yesterday:

The title track is another highlight:

Now that I’ve listened to it numerous times, I find Land of No Junction quite compelling and hypnotic. It possesses a strong undertow that pulls you under its seemingly calm surface. It’s more of a late-night album than an early-morning affair, more Opal than Mazzy Star, but regardless of when you listen, you’ll be glad you did.

Today’s Top 3: Monterey Pop

Posted: June 15, 2017 in 1960s, 1967, Monterey Pop, Top 5
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June 16th, 1967 was a momentous day in the world of rock ’n’ roll: the three-day Monterey International Pop Music Festival kicked off.

Wikipedia provides the specifics for the now-legendary event, so I’ll skip listing each and every act that partook in the weekend. Among them, however, were such stalwarts as Simon & Garfunkel, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Byrds, Laura Nyro, Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, Buffalo Springfield, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, and the Mamas & the Papas. (I say “stalwarts” but, of course, several of those acts wouldn’t have been described as such at the time. And no act was considered legendary. “Legendary” and “rock ‘n’ roll” weren’t believed to go together.)

In any event, D.A. Pennebacker filmed the festivities for what became the beloved Monterey Pop concert doc. Big Brother’s manager didn’t want the unknown group filmed without getting paid, so ordered the crew to turn off the cameras; Janis Joplin, their lead singer, so wowed the crowd on Saturday afternoon, however, that she and the group were talked into returning the next day and performing for the cameras.

It was also an inexpensive proposition. How much would a similar three-day fest set you back today? According to the Inflation Calculator, the top ticket ($6.50) would now cost a little less than $50…

All in all, the weekend was – in a word – groovy; and in two words, really groovy.

So, with that in mind, here’s today’s Top 3: Monterey Pop. As in, highlights from each of the three days…

1) Friday:

Eric Burdon and the Animals – “Paint It Black.” Burdon & Co. cover the Stones.

Simon & Garfunkel – “The Sound of Silence.” Why this stupendous rendition of this timeless song wasn’t included in the movie proper, who knows? (It’s now a bonus on the DVD/blu-ray release.)

2) Saturday:

The Byrds – “He Was a Friend of Mine.” David Crosby’s impromptu rap in this clip supposedly ruffled the feathers of Mssrs. McGuinn and Hillman. And the set was the last time he performed with them…

Laura Nyro – “Wedding Bell Blues/Poverty Train.” The lore surrounding Laura Nyro’s appearance is that she was booed…but it was less being booed and more being ignored for reasons that had little to do with her. No one knew who she was, as was the case for other acts, but she was backed by a band she’d rehearsed with just once – and, as a result, her delicate music became something of a sludge hammer. That said, the bonus clips on the DVD/blu-ray are well worth watching – the camera picked up the magic that the audience missed.

Jefferson Airplane – “Somebody to Love.” The Airplane was flying high this pre-summer’s night thanks to the success of this song, which soared to No. 5 on the charts this weekend.

Otis Redding – “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.” Another timeless performance.

3) Sunday:

Big Brother and the Holding Company – “Ball & Chain.” Does it get any better than this? The band’s performance is raw and ragged, but backing that voice…as Mama Cass says at the end, “wow.”

Buffalo Springfield – “For What It’s Worth.” David Crosby substituted for an AWOL Neil Young in the Springfield’s set, which didn’t sit well with his fellow Byrds…

The Who – “My Generation.” So the Who and Jimi Hendrix flipped a coin to see who followed who… and the Who lost. The poor Grateful Dead were stuck between them – and made to seem all the more boring by comparison.

Jimi Hendrix – “Hey Joe.” Well…a full performance on YouTube of Hendrix’s infamous “Wild Thing,” which culminated with him lighting his guitar on fire, isn’t to be found. This incendiary rendition of “Hey Joe” is, however.

The Mamas & the Papas – “California Dreamin’.” The Mamas & the Papas following Hendrix, the Dead and the Who just seems…weird. But they were the hippie kings and queens of the moment, while the others were basically unknowns.

 

The Essentials: The Byrds – Younger Than Yesterday

Posted: March 11, 2017 in 1960s, 1967, The Byrds, The Essentials
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(As noted in my first Essentials entry, this is an occasional series in which I spotlight albums that, in my estimation, everyone should experience at least once.)

Released on Feb. 6, 1967 in the U.S., Younger Than Yesterday was greeted by lukewarm reviews and sallow sales, stalling on the Billboard charts at No. 24. “So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star,” the lead single, made it only to No. 29; and the follow-up singles of “My Back Pages” and “Have You Seen Her Face” did worse, ascending to a mere 30 and 74 during their brief chart runs.

It’s also a brief album, the 11 songs collectively clocking in a few ticks short of 30 minutes. (The 1996 CD reissue adds 6 songs and 17 minutes.)  And, yet, Younger Than Yesterday is a wondrous album well worth repeated listens. The songs, save for one, are exquisite; and while it isn’t the best Byrds album, it certainly flies with them.

The set opens with the gleefully cynical “So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star,” which is said to have been written by Jim McGuinn and Chris Hillman in response to the meteoric success of the Monkees. It features Hugh Masekela on trumpet; the audience screams were recorded at a 1965 Byrds concert in England.

“Have You Seen Her Face,” the first of four Chris Hillman-penned tracks on the LP, follows. As noted by many a Byrd historian, Hillman’s songwriting flowered on Younger Than Yesterday – an easy observation to make given that his only prior contribution was co-writing “Captain Soul” on Fifth Dimension with the rest of the band. He also, for the first time, sings lead.

“The Girl With No Name” is another Hillman gem. One can make the case that in less than two minutes it lays the foundation for the country-rock genre as a whole.

David Crosby’s “Renaissance Fair,” co-written with McGuinn, foreshadows the fabled Summer of Love, cinnamon and spice, and everything nice…

…while “Everybody’s Been Burned” conjures his work with Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Another Crosby contribution, “Why,” was also cowritten with McGuinn. It had previously been released as the b-side to “Eight Miles High” almost a year before; why the band chose to re-record it for Younger Than Yesterday remains a delightful mystery. I say “delightful” because it’s a great song and the perfect end to an almost perfect album.

As great as “Why” is? That’s how bad Crosby’s “Mind Gardens,” the longest song on the original album (at 3:28), is. It’s the kind of track programmable CD players were made for. If, say, the bonus track of “It Happens Each Day,” which was likely left off due to its similarity to “Everybody’s Been Burned,” had been included instead? Younger Than Yesterday would have been the greatest Byrds album of all time – well, second greatest. Nothing beats Mr. Tambourine Man.

Another highlight: the cover of Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages,” from which the album title comes. It was originally released on Dylan’s classic 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan.

The songs:

  1. “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”
  2. “Have You Seen Her Face”
  3. “C.T.A.-102″
  4. “Renaissance Fair”
  5. “Time Between”
  6. “Everybody’s Been Burned”
  7. “Thoughts and Words”
  8. “Mind Gardens”
  9. “My Back Pages”
  10. “The Girl With No Name”
  11. “Why”

Today’s Top 5: From A to E

Posted: August 2, 2015 in Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, The Byrds, Top 5
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ByrdsGreatestHits

In today’s world, music discovery is a breeze. You hear something, maybe on the soundtrack to a favorite TV show, and odds are you can immediately sample it on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Music. Maybe you hop over to Allmusic or Wikipedia to read about the artist and, if so desired, follow the links to acts that influenced him or her and that, in turn, he or she may have inspired. And for anyone who belongs to a subscription service, which seems to be more people every month, you generally have their entire catalogs at your fingertips to explore at once.

In the abstract, it sounds great. In practice, however, I’m not sure it’s a good thing. It seems to guarantee many artists will be written off simply because listeners aren’t ready for them. Years long ago, just as now, Act A led to acts B, C, D and E, but the process played out over a period of time. The upside: You gradually became acclimated to the stylistic differences between acts A and E through repeated playings of B, C and D. (A and E are both vowels, but they don’t sound the same. That’s my point.)

Emmylou-Harris-Elite-HotelAnyway, I mentioned two posts back that, of late, I’ve been enjoying the high-res fidelity of Emmylou Harris’ Elite Hotel. I first bought it and Emmy’s Pieces of the Sky (on a 2-for-1 cassette) on the same March day in 1985, a few weeks after picking up Ballad of Sally Rose on vinyl. It was the culmination of what, in retrospect, was a trek that began in 1980, when I was 15, with the purchase of the Byrds’ Greatest Hits LP. If the journey had been condensed into a few weeks or months, I doubt I would have been ready for Emmy’s crystalline take on country music. That first listen of Sally Rose made me want to explore her oeuvre; and after checking into her Elite Hotel, well, that was that. I’ve been a fan ever since.

The Byrds’ Greatest Hits —> the Byrds’ Younger Than Yesterday, which – thanks to Chris Hillman – had several country-flavored songs —> the Byrds’ hardcore country Sweetheart of the Rodeo LP, purchased used because it was out-of-print at the time —> Gram Parsons’ G.P. and Grievous Angel, both of with feature Emmy on vocals —> Emmylou.

(It goes without saying, but I’ll say it, anyway: the Byrds’ Greatest Hits also led me to Bob Dylan and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Those are Top 5s for another day, however.)

1) The Byrds – “Turn, Turn, Turn.”

2)  The Byrds – “The Girl With No Name.”

3) The Byrds – “Hickory Wind.”

4) Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris – “That’s All It Took.”

5) Emmylou Harris – “Sweet Dreams.”