THE MONKEES - GOOD TIMES @ 5

 

May 27th marks the fifth anniversary of the release of The Monkees 50th anniversary comeback album, Good Times!, which was released on this day in 2016.

It’s strange how a mere five years seems like a lifetime ago now. Back then, we were teetering on the precipice of the decent into hell that would be the Dumpo presidency. It didn’t seem possible, yet it happened and now we’re in this surreal pandemic dystopia looking down the barrel of potential social, economic and climate collapse. I remember when this album came out, it was a slap in the face to all the toxic pessimism that was rearing its head at the time. It was like the most revolutionary thing that you could do was to put out an album of unassailable joy.

There are simply so many inexplicably marvelous facets to this album, but it could easily have been something so much less than it was. It could have been nothing more than maudlin nostalgia and rehashed, recycled cliches of 1960s “summer of love” bullshit. Yet somehow, the right people came together at the right time to make this happen. They were able to unearth some foundational bits and pieces from the Rhino archives and then carefully stitch them together with contemporary extrapolations and augmentations which did far more than simply recollect the past glories of this cherished pop phenomenon. They effectively re-birthed it with an inexplicable sense of vitality and freshness that belies the half century legacy of the product.

Shortly after its release, Micky Dolenz summed up the extraordinary nature of its success by trying to imagine someone from 1916 revitalizing their career in 1966. The cultural gulf between those two eras is so clearly great from our contemporary retrospect that it starkly puts into perspective the idea of The Monkees reviving their essence so successfully for this sophomore decade of the 21st century. This was all made possible by a carefully assembled collection of creative professionals who not only understood what they were working with, but imbued it with a sincere passion and love that pushed it beyond mere marketing and consumer exploitation. They found the FUN in it again and infused every aspect of this project with it, from the first track to the last, including the clutch of bonus tracks that were sprinkled in various editions along the way.

For me, it became the soundtrack to my summer that year, a season which culminated with the opportunity to actually see The Monkees perform live for the very first time when they came to Vancouver’s PNE on September 4th of that year. What a painful irony it was that I would end up having to duck out of the last 15 minutes of the show due to medical issues which would end up resulting in my having to undergo heart bypass surgery on Sept 12th, the exact date when The Monkees TV show debuted on NBC back in 1966. That coincidence has never been lost on me and forever ties all of these events together into the strangest package. Fortunately, I’m still here to write about it and recollect the release of one of the best Monkees albums since their heyday in the late 1960s.

DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE & HART @ 45

 

May 29th marks the 45th anniversary of the release of the eponymous titled debut album by Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart. That is: Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart.

For all practically purposes, this was a reunion of The Monkees, but in 1976, the legal rights to use that name did not reside with any of the band members nor the song writing duo who created many of their biggest hits. This was nearly 10 years after the debut of the TV series and almost exactly 6 years since the release of the last official Monkees LP, Changes. Since that time, the value of their brand had taken a nose-dive and the world was still nearly 10 years away from the infamous MTV marathon of the TV show, which would kick-start a massive wave of nostalgia for the band. But in 1976, to be a Monkee was to be a has-been; forgotten and often despised and ridiculed. Yet enough time had passed that a little nostalgia for the boys was percolating to the point where principal lead vocalists, Dolenz & Jones, and the creative core of the songwriting and production team, Boyce & Hart, felt that they might be able to tap into the old vein one more time. Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork were both approached to participate in this, but declined.

To record the album, Boyce & Hart recruited many of the same musicians who’d been part of their house band at the time they did their original hits. Chip Douglas, who had produced the band for several albums after the ousting of Don Kirshner, also came onboard. Together, they managed to craft a pretty nicely updated version of The Monkees, even though they couldn’t call it that. They’d embraced the sounds of the times and the vocal talents of Dolenz & Jones were always reliable. The selection of songs is quite good with maybe one or two exceptions. Overall, they created a very enjoyable and listenable album.

Sadly, the public weren’t quite ready for it and not even the help of a tour and a number of national TV appearances could help push the record into significant sales. The album pretty quickly dropped from sight, but it still managed to get Peter Tork to change his mind and join Micky and Davy to record a Christmas single, Christmas Is My Time of Year, released in time for the holiday season of 1976. Again, however, the spark of sales didn’t quite ignite and, after the tour, The Monkees went their separate ways again for the next decade. They’d bide their time on solo projects until that fateful day in February of 1986 when the world would rediscover them and set ablaze the Monkeemania that would continue to flare up again and again to the present day.

While the D, J, B & H LP vanished into the ether for many years, eventually, aficionados for the band would dig it back up from its grave and it would see a reissue on CD in 2005 and is now readily available on streaming mediums like YouTube. Fans of the band have recognized its value after all these years and it is widely accepted as a legitimate part of The Monkees canon of albums. And it deserves this recognition since it is a full fledged representation of the people who were always a part of the project, even if the name is missing.

POLYESTER @ 40

 

May 29th marks the 40th anniversary of the release of John Waters’ crossover film, Polyester. After a decade of working on the fringes of midnight movie cult cinema with such low budget features as Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living, Polyester was his first attempt at doing anything approaching a “mainstream” feature. Being shot on actual 35mm film and featuring a real Hollywood star in the form of one aging heartthrob, Tab Hunter, it was a significant step into accessing a much broader audience than the freaks who’d slither into a late night theater when most respectable people were all tucked up in their beds. That's not to say it was bereft of the bizarre transgressions of his earlier films, but it did tamp them down enough to smuggle them into a few mainstream big screens.

In 1981, I was still living in Thunder Bay, ON and had only come across a few scant mentions of John Waters and Divine in the odd punk music magazine. Yet I knew enough to realize that, when I saw his new movie advertised as playing in the local theater, I had to check it out. The advance promo regarding the “Odorama” gimmick also piqued my curiosity. So when it came, some friends and I made our way downtown and settled in for a scent filled evening of warped suburban dysfunctional family fun!

The film begins with a scientist describing the Odorama process and offering some examples of how it worked and what you were supposed to do. This was all inspired by the old William Castle style gags and tricks he’s incorporate into his horror B-movies. Everyone was issued a card with numbered pink circles on one side and the Polyester logo on the other. We were instructed to scratch a numbered circle whenever the corresponding number appeared on the lower corner of the screen. The first number on the card, when scratched, gave off a lovely rose smell in conjunction with the rose the scientist displayed on the screen. After this demonstration, the movie proper started and we found ourselves in the Fishpaw household master bedroom as Francine (Divine) and her husband are in bed preparing to go to sleep. As we see the number 2 begin to flash on the screen, we all scratch and the unmistakable sulfuric scent of a fart fills our nostrils as poor Francine begins fanning her face with her hand in disgust at her husband’s foul bowel expulsion. That was when we knew that we were likely not going to get too many pleasant scents wafting off our scratch cards for the remainder of the movie. From there, it was everything from airplane glue to dirty sneakers to skunk and any other unsettling odor that could be stuck under our noses. It only relented with the final 10th circle at the end of the movie when we got to smell some air freshener to leave us with a “happy” ending!

Multi-sensory gags aside, the movie is a riotously melodramatic descent into a struggling housewife’s crumbling marriage and the trauma and stress of dealing with two delinquent teens - one a daughter dealing with an unwanted pregnancy and the other a son obsessed with women’s shoes and smashing their feet in terrible random assaults. Francine’s only support through it all comes from her dear clueless debutante friend, Cuddles, played to oblivious perfection by Edith Massey. The tears and the sorrows of the Fishpaw family become an exercise in schadenfreude comedy as each progressive indignation leads to more and more hilarity for the audience.

From here, the gateway drug of Polyester sent me into the theater again and again whenever a John Waters movie found its way to any local silver screen. Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living became essential staples in my underground cinema education. After crossing into more mainstream works, I continued to follow him through Cry Baby, Hairspray, Serial Mom, Pecker and A Dirty Shame. John Waters became more than just a film director for me. He became the fount of a particular kind of “trash” culture which sent me searching for so many other bizarre examples of movies, music and fashion as well as histories of people and events which went beyond the mundane realities of so called “normal” life. Aunt Ida from Female Trouble gave me a guiding principal that I’ve since held onto when she famously said, “The world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life.” I wholeheartedly concur with that and continue to be dedicated to seeking out the bent in all things. That quest found its “ground zero” in the work of John Waters. For me, Polyester was the flash point which began that journey.

EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN @ EXPO '86

 

May 24 marks the 35th anniversary of the performance by Einstürzende Neubauten in Vancouver at the Xerox International Amphitheater as part of Expo ’86.  The group was booked for the appearance thanks to the involvement of members of Skinny Puppy in the planning committee for these shows.  They were also responsible for getting Test Department to perform shortly after this.  This day was my first visit to Expo and it was an incredibly memorable day from start to finish. 

Expo ’86 was a massive event for the city of Vancouver.  With it’s theme of transportation, it was an invitation to the world to come and discover this “world in a city”, as the winning slogan promoted the event.  A massive area of the downtown was reconfigured and custom built for the fair.  This included a new rapid transit system, stadium and convention center.  It was intended to showcase the city’s attractions and ultimately succeeded in putting Vancouver on the international map of destination cities.  For me, however, being a 23 year old Industrial Goth hipster, it was all commercialism and corporate consumerism and I looked at it primarily as a bizarre collection of expenditures designed to illicit investment and immigration.  What I wasn’t expecting was to have one of the world’s most extreme Industrial bands show up to do a show in the middle of it all.  

My plans for that day were simple.  A close friend and I procured some good blotter LSD and we dropped it shortly after arriving on site in the early afternoon.  I’m pretty sure we had a booster blotter for the evening when it would be show time.  For the day, we planned to explore the fair and the pavilions and see what was there to see.  As we started to check out some of the main exhibits, we soon realized that standing in lineups for an hour or so per pavilion was not going to be conducive to good tripping.  We made it through 2 or three of those before we ran out of ways to amuse ourselves while in line.  It was fascinating, briefly, to see the methodology of line management that had been implemented.  It’s something I’d never seen before, the way lineup size was concealed by wrapping it or folding it into zig-zags hidden by foliage and fencing.  There was also the presence of roaming entertainers who would work lineups to try to distract patrons from their fatigue and boredom. 

After a few of these lines, we strategized a bit on how to make the most of our time there while avoiding this obvious pitfall.  I theorized that there must be an “underbelly” to this place.  That there must be unpopular exhibits from small, poor countries which were being ignored and overlooked and that they may have a kind of appeal in their D-grade execution that could offer some fun and amusement.  This indeed turned out to be the case as we started to explore the outer periphery of the grounds, into the less desirable lots where the big boys stayed away due to lack of exposure.  So we whiled away the rest of the afternoon trolling the underclass booths, tents and pavilions and enjoying the neglected sights.  

Throughout our time exploring the grounds, we began to notice the presence of a certain anomalous sort of people mixed among the throngs of families and tourists.  You’d see them sticking out in the crowd like invaders - hair sticking up on end, black clothes, garish eyeliner and pancaked white skin.  Something was definitely afoot in this crowd.  Something didn’t belong here and you could see them infiltrating the space with greater frequency as the day went on. 

The second clue to this unusual day was a noise.  We were getting a late afternoon bite to eat at the giant floating McDonald's barge when we noticed it.  Apparently Neubauten were doing their sound check at the theater and all you could hear was this massive groaning metallic moan echo across the site as they tested some unfathomable industrial noise maker.  It sounded like some kind of iron dinosaur rearing its head in the distance.  As the sound continued, the excitement of what was ahead began to really take hold.  

When it was finally show time, people began to assemble in the outdoor theater and the incongruity of the audience became very quickly notable.  The majority of the crowd were decked out Goths & post-punks in black with frizzed out hair and shock-horror makeup.  Mixed in among them were the families who would wander in, clueless as to what was about to happen.  They’d have a seat and then you’d see the smiles drop from their faces as they looked around to see what was surrounding them.  Over and over, you could see the look of anxiety sweep over their faces as their eyes caught a glimpse of the weird collection of freaks that this event had attracted.  Some were brave and stayed while others quickly took stock of the situation and opted to abandon ship. 

Once the show started, the line between tourist and aficionado was quickly established as the remaining looky-loos were driven out by a barrage of feedback, metal clanking and nightmarish screams from Blixa.  I was in the perfect state of altered awareness and the sound system for the show was magnificent.  As loud and aggressive as it was, it didn’t hurt to listen to.  The equalization and tonal balance was so spot on, you could decipher every sound and nuance, from the loudest thunder crash, to the smallest shopping cart squeak.  The band played a set that was heavily weighted with material from their most recent Halber Mensch LP, opening their set with the choral title track.  By the time they got to the finale, they had set the entire front of the stage on fire and my LSD addled brain pretty much exploded with the spectacle.  It was a profoundly moving experience and gave me a new appreciation for the band and their ability to deliver a performance with such a clear sense of deliberation.  

I attended the fair 2 more times after this: once for the Test Dept. show and a third time just to hang out and look around.  I didn’t enjoy the TD show as much as the EN one, mostly because the TD show was much more politically focused and emphasized labor strikes and unrest with the UK miners strike in full swing at the time.  At that time in my life, I didn’t really identify with that content very much, whereas the EN show was much more visceral and emotional and seemed to be more metaphysically driven that political.  It just had a deeper resonance for me.  The EN show and the entire day that lead up to it still stands as one of the most amazing days of my life.  It’s a memory that constantly reminds me of how wonderful Vancouver was during those years.

MATT BERRY - THE BLUE ELEPHANT (REVIEW)

 

For Matt Berry’s newest album, The Blue Elephant, he’s gone and popped the lid off of a veritable Pandora’s box of 1960s psychedelic influences and turned himself into the proverbial “kid in a candy store”, filling his basket with a plethora of tricks and treats, threatening to over-indulge at every turn, yet somehow managing to keep it all from becoming a mess. The neatest trick here is that he’s managed to invoke the essence of that sound without resorting to overt parody or homage. It’s all very authentic sounding from the brutal stereo panning to the swirls of phaser that periodically send the mix into the stratosphere. The man simply knows the ins and outs of what he’s doing with this style and has managed to expertly craft this album to create a transcendent journey that swirls, shimmers and seduces while never succumbing to hubris or arrogance.

It’s a pretty slick maneuver considering the kinds of characters Berry is famous for and the bravado of the material being executed. Doing psyche-rock effectively requires a degree of confidence that isn’t burdened by overt egotism. The magic of this genre is when you can lose yourself in it and Berry has meticulously fashioned a trip worthy of the finest state altering substances. To accomplish this, he’s woven a few different tangential styles together that stretch the theme just enough to foster the unexpected. As well as the classic psyche tropes, there are also facets of early 1970s progressive and glam rock that refract through his musical kaleidoscope, adding to its depth and range.

The structuring of this album is impressive on just about every level, beginning with the overall arrangements. There’s a broad range of dynamic variations, unexpected shifts and intricate transitions that unfold seemingly spontaneously with organic ease without sounding contrived or overworked. It’s a very freewheeling sensibility that instills the album with an innate sense of fun, even when the lyrical content is somewhat melancholic. You can simply hear the joy in Berry’s process as he puts this all together. Atop this prowess for putting things in the right place is an artful palette of sounds which service this conceptual framework to its maximum potential. Guitars jangle & fuzz, tremolo modulated keyboards and organ riffs glide in and out, flutes drift on high and heavily processed voices find the strangest nooks and crannies to occupy.

While Berry is responsible for the bulk of everything you hear, including mixing, engineering and production, there is one other contributor to this tapestry that deserves special commendation and that is drummer/percussionist, Craig Blundell, a regular collaborator with Berry. His performance on this album is the secret sauce that makes all the magic Matt weaves around him sound fluid and dynamic. Craig’s got his finger on the pulse of this album from start to finish and the interplay between him and Matt is some kind of sorcery that leaves me marveling at how tightly entwined they remain from track to track and transition to transition.

While there’s a very carefully contained maximalist approach to the music on this album, lyrically, Berry has gone in the opposite direction and kept his phrasing down to a bare minimum. There aren’t any elaborate verses or pronunciations atop these songs. Mostly the lyrics are suggestive or nearly fragmentary, leaving room for interpretation or bemusement. When he sings, “It’s a drag to be set on fire” in Now Disappear, it’s a surreal kind of implication that is never elaborated upon and merely hangs there in the breeze of the tune. It’s vocal impressionism, which highlights the overall painterly quality of the album. It doesn’t feel composed at all, but rather expressed through brush strokes and the lyrics are there to give the music just enough contextual grounding to give the listener a foothold while not tethering them entirely to the earth.

The world of actors who make music is rife with self-indulgence and musical careers which should never have left the privacy of hobby land. It’s very rare that a stage/screen performer is able to muster a convincing career in music, but Matt Berry is an exception where his talents in both fields seem to be equally matched. I’ve seen some fans of Berry’s screen work strain to imagine him as a “serious” musician, but it’s clear that he’s more than capable of laying claim to both professions with equal conviction. He’s now got over 20 years and at least a dozen albums behind him to prove it. This latest may well be his best yet!

THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES @ 50

 

Celebrating 50 glorious years on the screen, it’s the 1971 Vincent Price classic, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, which was released in the US on May 18, 1971 (its UK release was in April of that year). Dr. Phibes has become one of Price’s most memorable characters, even with the limitation that he couldn’t move his prosthetic face! Somehow, Price managed to emote through the deadpan expression and imbue the character with charm, charisma and pathos.

Directed by Robert Fuest, who also came up with the story idea, the character of Phibes bares a striking resemblance to a certain acquaintance of the director, the notorious founder of The Church of Satan, Anton LaVey. LaVey even claimed as much and, given the character’s name is Dr. Anton Phibes and he’s an organist, researcher, medical doctor, biblical scholar and ex-vaudevillian who has created a clockwork band of robot musicians to play old standards at his whim, it’s hard not to see the similarities. I tend to give credence to this after having read LaVey’s writings and been a fan of the film (and its sequel) for decades.

Feust gained recognition as an extremely inventive set designer working on series like The Avengers and the New Avengers and it’s easy to see his talents on display in both Phibes movies. While the rudimentary plot of revenge does not offer a great deal of depth, the film soars on the strength of evocative set pieces and stylish Art Deco visuals. Each of the death scenes is constructed like a meticulously choreographed macabre ballet and Phibes’ home setting is a wonderful fantasy land of mechanical musicians, an ornately animated theater organ and his high fashion mute muse, Vulnavia, who deftly assists the doctor on his quest to redress the wrongs he perceives were inflicted upon his deceased, but preserved wife, Victoria.

Phibes is the quintessential anti-hero and the revenge story told here is very much the opposite of the norm for such fiction, which commonly function as cautionary tales about the cost of vengeance to those pursuing it. In this case, vengeance is a delicious dish to be savored and enjoyed to the fullest, whether served hot or cold or covered in honey for the locusts to feast upon. Each victim in this symphony of sadism is relished and lingered upon to extract every morsel of sustenance. Whereas mere mortals are diminished by their pursuit of revenge, Phibes is enriched and nourished by it. His adversaries, the London police, are shown as bumbling amateurs and fools who are always 10 steps behind their foe. It’s one of the first film series I ever encountered where the “bad guy” always comes out on top. There’s no comeuppance, no moral price to pay, no defeat at the hands of the “good guys”.

I first encountered these movies in the mid 1970s when local TV stations would often have a weekend midnight horror movie. Friday or Saturday nights were the time to tune into the creep shows after mom and dad were in bed and us kids were allowed to stay up late and lose ourselves in these strange scenes. Phibes was an immediate favorite because it looked so beautiful and the story was unlike anything I’d seen in any other horror movie. My appreciation for these films has only grown over the years as I’ve seen them again and again. It’s that combination of artistic style and flair setting the stage for Vincent Price’s nuanced performance that make these films so timeless and transcendent. There’s a sort of “Zen” to them that is rare and leaves one with a wonderful sense of clarity.

AEROSMITH - ROCKS @ 45

 

Celebrating 45 years in the saddle, it’s Aerosmith’s 4th studio album, Rocks, released on May 14th 1976. After the breakout success of Toys in the Attic the previous year, which spawned the iconic hits, Sweet Emotion and Walk This way, the band were looking to secure their position on the top of the hard rock heap and Rocks was more than capable of accomplishing that goal.

The album was created at a time when the indulgences of the band’s “rock ’n’ roll lifestyle” were still offering creative inspiration, before the substance abuse began to take its toll, both creatively and personally. It’s that fine line where the debauchery hasn’t quite caused the band’s artistic vision to become too blurry. Given that they were still a relatively young band, their stamina was such that the excessive indulgences were fodder for expression. That wouldn’t always be the case though, but they sure did make the most of the good times for this album.

The album was produced utilizing the Record Plant’s mobile recording truck, which was backed into Aerosmith’s Waltham, Massachusetts warehouse space, affectionately known as the “Wherehouse”. This gave the band the freedom to focus on their songwriting and, as a result, the album benefits from input from all the members, more so that on previous albums. They were able to submerge themselves into the process and ride the wave of indulgence while producing a tight, hard rocking record that kept plenty of edge and avoided over indulgences, at least musically. For many hard rock fans, Rocks represents Aerosmith at their peak and it has been repeatedly cited as an influence by countless performers over the years, and deservedly so.

Rocks was one of the first records I ever bought when I was just beginning to collect vinyl back in 1976. It may have been among the first half dozen or so LPs I ever bought, so it’s got a long history with me. At the time that I first bought it, it wasn’t one of my favorite albums, although the opening bluster of Back In the Saddle was always able to get my head bobbing. However, the band were soon to start losing their footing after the rousing success of Rocks. The follow-up, Draw the Line, had a killer title track, but the rest of the album came across as halfhearted compared to the previous two albums and things would only get worse in the next few years for the band. Of course they’d make a massive comeback in the 1980s with monster top 10 hits, but I had long since moved onto more challenging music and had no interest in 80's power ballads. For me, Toys in the Attic and Rocks (and the title track from Draw the Line) are all the Aerosmith I need.