Monthly Archives: February 2010

Octopus

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(U.K. cover)

(U.S. cover)
Band: Gentle Giant
Album: Octopus
Best song: “A Cry for Everyone” is awesome.
Worst song: “The Boys In The Band” is mostly nonsense.

As previously mentioned elsewhere, I went throught a mini progressive rock period in my life. It was about a year long and I continue to hold a candle for the type of bands Roger Dean probably enjoys (he certainly works for them).

I’m no connoisseur; I’ve always simply skimmed prog rock for the bands that had influenced my favorite bands. Pink Floyd remains my favorite prog band and there’s no real agreement about music people whether Floyd’s work is really all that proggy. But, I do love and continue to listen to albums by Yes, Genesis, Rush and King Crimson.

Gentle Giant is considered one of the more influential and skilled progressive rock bands of the 1970s. Where Crimson’s records are insane, dreamy and not tied to a particular national sound, Gentle Giant is a decidedly English band, with minstrel-esque strings and layered harmonies dotting the record.

The record is the band’s hardest, with some interesting synth lines and some hard(ish) guitar riffs. John Weathers’ drumming is not the star of the show — Neil Peart seems to be the only one who did this in a 70s prog band — but keeps excellent time. DErek Shulman’s voice is clear and clean, with little in the way of embellishment. Again, classically trained musicians can pull off some excellent prog.

Lyrically, the album is pretentious, as is the progressive rock way. Evoking Camus, the album incluces lyrics such as “Everyone dies if only to justify life.” Rush it is not.

“Knots” is bizarre and circus-sounding at the onset, with full band dropping in and out of the record. Based on a book by Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, the song is a mindfuck.

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I bought Octopus largely on a whim. It’s a difficult thing to justify; I mostly just wanted to grow my prog collection and add a band I’d not heard enough. I’m glad I did. Every time I pick it up, I enjoy it.

Hot Buttered Soul

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Band: Isaac Hayes
Album: Hot Buttered Soul
Best song: Four songs. Four classics.
Worst song: See above.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but just after I graduated college and moved out here to the DC area, I shunned modern and independent music. I dove headfirst into 1970s soul and picked up as many Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers, Teddy Pendergrass and Isaac Hayes records as I could find. I eventually got into the O’Jays and the Ohio Players. They were the only records on my stereo for about 18 months in late 2003 into early 2005. Hot Buttered Soul is the best of those records.

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It’s easy to forget how odd Hot Buttered Soul is, as an album. Though it’s not a part of our collective mind like Dark Side of the Moon is, it’s similarly inaccessible. Isaac Hayes had been a songwriter, producer and session player for many years before Stax picked him up in 1967. Hayes’ first record was a flop, containing more radio-friendly short tracks and medleys. Before he’d recorded Presenting Isaac Hayes, he’d written hits for Sam and Dave, including “Soul Man” and “Hold On I’m Comin.” In an attempt to build up the label’s catalog in the post-Otis Redding world, Hot Buttered Soul was promoted heavily, but Hayes demanded full creative control. It was quite a gamble, as Hayes was hardly the household name he is now.

The results are devastating. Hot Buttered Soul 75% covers and only four songs long. The record contains an eight (!!) minute spoken word introduction — by the way, less than half the song’s length — to a soul version of a number one country hit. Which is not to say “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” is anything but brilliant. Because, really, it is amazing.

The criticism of Hayes’ music is not incorrect. The songs on the album are a bit repetitive and drawn-out. My refutation to that is that the subtleties in changes in the song as it goes on are what makes the album so very amazing. The small arrangements in “Walk on By” around the ninth minute may not be grand, but they make the song move along. Like Daft Punk’s amazing “Around the World,” “Walk on By” adds and subtracts characters as instruments. (Let’s forget, for a minute, that the song was originally recorded by Dionne Warwick and was written by Burt Bacharach.)

“One Woman” is the most accessible of the songs on the album, tells the classic musical story of an infidelity. Hayes’ sweet baritone and string-and-piano-heavy production produces a dreamy feel completely lacking in the normal funk for which Hayes would become known. “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” is the only original on the record, with backup singers, the fiercest groove in funk and Hayes’ awesome keyboard soloing filling the record. Like “Walk on By,” the song adds bits and pieces to its nine-minute tableau as Hayes drops multisyllabic words about his brain.

(By the way, this album has sold over a million copies. These are the kind of things that remind me of my faith in the American consumer.)

Screw Shaft. It’s not, but Hot Buttered Soul is, no doubt, Hayes’ masterwork. It’s one of the best albumns to bump in your car on a hot summer day or to warm you up in a snow storm.

Collector of Cactus Echo Bags

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Band: The Lonesome Organist
Album: Collector of Cactus Echo Bags
Best song: “The Lonesome Organist Theme” is great.
Worst song: All the songs are pretty short — the longest is two and a half minutes — so, even if you don’t like it, you’ll like the next one.

I don’t remember which show Jeremy Jacobsen I saw open up, but I do remember the exact reaction I had when I saw him as the opening act: “Wow, this is totally awesome and totally unnecessary.”

The Lonesome Organist is the side project of Jacobsen, keyboard player for 5ive Style. It is entertainment at its most vaudevillian. Seeing it for the first time — I’ve seen Lonesome Organist thrice — was a revelation. This straggly-looking dude strapped a guitar on, sitting next to a series of keyboards and a drum set. This it wasn’t.

After the second time I saw Jacobsen’s act, I bought Collector of Cactus Echo Bags at the local record store. Needless to say, it’s a different experience. It’s not bad, per se. It’s just not much of anything. The songs range from silly circus music (“The Wind Up Bird”) to bluesy, fake-JSBX-style rambling (“The End of the Road”). Clocking in at just under a minute twenty, “The Lonsome Organist Theme” is the album’s highlight, as Jacobsen plays a reverb-y guitar while dancing around the organ keys and singing that he is, indeed, the lonesome organist.

I have no idea if Jacobsen is still trotting the Lonesome Organist thing around. I hope he is. It’s worth seeing. Great live gimmick, just OK album.