The Mojo Collection. Various Mojo Magazine
and was an immediate critical success. Reviewers in Time, Life and Rolling Stone acclaimed it as a work which presciently articulated contemporary doubts and uncertainties about the direction of American ‘progress’, while musicians such as George Harrison and Eric Clapton also garlanded it with praise. Appropriately enough, it is one of the few recordings from its era whose power remains immune to the passage of time.
Blue Cheer
Outsideinside
Second album by San Francisco lysergic hard rock outfit who sowed the seeds of punk and grunge.
Record label: Mercury
Produced: Abe ‘Voco’ Kesh
Recorded: Outside at Gate 5, Sausalito, and Muir Beach, California; Pier 57 (Department Of Marine And Aviation), New York City; studio sessions recorded at Pacific Recorders, San Mateo, California; A&R Studios, Olmstead Studios and The Record Plant, New York City; early 1968
Released: August 1968
Chart peaks: None (UK) 90 (US)
Personnel: Dickie Peterson (b, v); Leigh Stephens (g, v); Paul Whaley (d, v); Ralph Burns Kellogg (k); Eric Albronda (v); Eddie Kramer, Hank McGill, Jay Snyder, Tony May (e)
Track listing: Feathers From Your Tree (S); Sun Cycle (S); Just A Little Bit; Gypsy Ball; Come And Get It; (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction; The Hunter; Magnolia Caboose Babyfinger; Babylon
Running time: 33.10
Current CD: Akarma AKO12CD
Further listening: Vincebus Eruptum (1968); New! Improved! (1969)
Further reading: www.bluecheer.us
Download: Not currently legally available
Blue Cheer’s fearsome reputation as one of the founding fathers of the metal genre is largely due to the ferocity of their bombastic Vincebus Eruptum debut. A fine example of cro-magnon hard rock, it featured a deranged reworking of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues along with a similarly crazed cover of Mose Allison’s Parchment Farm. While Vincebus can be seen as reflecting the growing sense of social unrest and violence fuelled by the escalation of the Vietnam conflict, it also happens to sound one-dimensional when placed alongside Blue Cheer’s second effort, Outsideinside.
The album’s intriguing title is down to the fact that the threesome of Dickie Peterson, Leigh Stevens (as he’s credited on the sleeve, despite spelling his surname Stephens) and Paul Whaley elected to record half of the album outdoors. Rock mythology suggests that this occured after the band’s use of excessive volume caused too much damage to assorted studios.
The result adds a melodic edge to Blue Cheer’s patented sonic assault. Tracks like Sun Cycle and Gypsy Ball, for instance, both bear testimony to Jimi Hendrix’s influence on the trio, the latter nodding in the direction of The Wind Cries Mary and making the most of the newfound joys of stereo panning.
High-octane tracks like Come And Get It point the way forward for the likes of the MC5, Just A Little Bit boasts a similar feel to Hendrix’s reworking of Fire, while the fantastically titled Magnolia Caboose Babyfinger is an instrumental piece of proto-grunge which Mudhoney would later cover. Elsewhere, Blue Cheer attempt to emulate the success of their Summertime Blues cover by turning their hand to a version of the Stones’s (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, delivering it at double the speed. Album closer Babylon is a further slice of funky, cowbell-banging hard rock.
Virtually ignored on its release (most UK publications didn’t even bother to review the album), Outsideinside just about managed to sneak into the Billboard 100 in the US. A remarkable dip in form when you consider that Vincebus … managed to peak at Number 11 less than 12 months earlier.
Outsideinside remains a criminally underrated second effort from a band whose legacy is substantial but who have yet to receive the credit for embarking on what Leigh Stephens describes as ‘a violent and frightening trip’.
Nilsson
Aerial Ballet
The Beatles’ favourite songwriter shines.
Record label: RCA Victor
Produced: Rick Jarrard
Recorded: RCA Victor’s Music Center of the World, Los Angeles; late 1967–early 1968
Released: November 8, 1968
Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)
Personnel: Harry Nilsson (v); Larry Knechtel (b, p); Lyle Ritz (b); Al Casey (g); Dennis Budimir (g); Michael Melvoin (harpsichord, o, p); with orchestra; George Tipton (ar)
Track listing: Good Old Desk; Don’t Leave Me; Mr Richland’s Favorite Song; Little Cowboy; Together; Everybody’s Talkin’; I Said Goodbye To Me; Little Cowboy (reprise); Mr Tinker; One; The Wailing Of The Willow; Bath
Running time: 25.15
Current CD: Camden Deluxe 74321 757422 2CD set includes Pandemonium Shadow Show and Aerial Pandemonium Ballet, the 1971 remixed compilation of the two albums.
Further listening: Nilsson said that his albums came in trilogies. Aerial Ballet could be said to be the middle of a trilogy that began with his debut, Pandemonium Shadow Show (1967), and ended with Harry (1969), both highly recommended.
Further reading: www.harrynilsson.com
Download: Not currently legally available
‘I always thought,’ mused Harry Nilsson, ‘I was a street cat who could pass for someone who went to college.’ Aerial Ballet, his second album, perfectly showcases his unique, utterly charming blend of earthiness and airiness. In an era bloated with confessional songwriters, Nilsson was a contradiction. His lyrics often seemed extraordinarily intimate, yet he bristled when fans attempted to read too much meaning into them. He was accommodating enough to explain the album’s title – Nilsson’s Aerial Ballet was a name his grandparents used for their trapeze act. However, when asked the meaning of one of his songs, he was likely to give an answer like the one he gave Hugh Hefner on TV’s Playboy After Dark. Hef had inquired as to the inspiration behind Aerial Ballet’s Good Old Desk. With a straight face, Nilsson replied that the song’s meaning was in its initials: GOD; ‘I bullshitted him,’ Harry admitted later. ‘I thought it was funny. Nobody else thought it was funny!’
Shortly before the release of Aerial Ballet, Nilsson’s career received the kind of boost most performers can only dream of. Derek Taylor, The Beatles’ close friend and former press agent, had given the group a copy of Nilsson’s first album, Pandemonium Shadow Show. At an Apple press conference, when asked to name their favourite singer, The Beatles said, ‘Nilsson’. Asked about their favourite group, they gave the same reply. Nilsson subsequently met the Fabs during a trip to England, where he played Lennon Aerial Ballet. Lennon especially liked Mr Richland’s Favorite Song (named after record promoter Tony Richland). Recalling those times with Lennon, Nilsson told Rolling Stone, ‘I really fell in love with him. I knew he was all those things you wanted somebody to be.’
Although it was largely Nilsson’s songwriting that impressed The Beatles, it was Aerial Ballet’s lone non-original that would catapult him to fame. According to legend, it was the inexhaustible Taylor who turned director John Schlesinger on to Nilsson’s version of Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’, which had an unsuccessful run as a single on Aerial Ballet’s release. When it emerged in August 1969