Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
In this week’s edition of Saturday Night Shut-In Mr. Moderator dips into his so-called “Milk” crate, that is, his stack of rarely played, cheaply acquired used records that as much as 30 years ago he hoped would pay off. Rather than dump these records, he revisits them every few years in hopes that they will have aged properly and, as boring, old milk can age into something delicious, like cheese or yogurt, finally reveal their subtle delights. Why don’t you tune in and hear the results of this taste test, which is capped off by a sampling of a very deep Richard Harris album?
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-20-1.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 20][Note: The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player. In fact, you can even set your iTunes to search for an automatic download of each week’s podcast.]
I grabbed this one and a couple that I’m behind on (blame HankFan – that Rick Dube show he mentioned was really good and put me behind here!). So I’m gonna start catching up today!
Well done — I enjoyed the last Byrds song. I have been on a bit of Roger McGuinn kick of late, which started because somebody sent me a link to McGuinn’s cover of Joni Mitchell’s Dreamland.
I’m looking forward to checking out that Byrds album in more depth. That song I played isn’t too much different than all the Byrds songs I only like so much, but I love the sound of the guitars – very stereo/trippy, for lack of a better description. The live album (it’s a double album) was more interesting than I’d remembered too, mostly because the band sounds so worn down and grizzled.
Mod, I could tell that the Richard Harris track left you momentarily speechless. It had the same effect on me. The Yard Went on Forever is actually the second Harris album written wholly by Webb, the first being A Tramp Shining. That’s the one with MacArthur Park on it. So you have a whole album out there waiting for your exploration.
The lyrics on the track you played are so weird, and I’ve got to give Webb props for writing things like “Nagasaki housewives” in a pop song. Of course that doesn’t mean I want to listen to it. I couldn’t tell if Harris was singing Pompeii or Bombay, but it hardly matters.
And that Roy Wood song is at least the equal of anything on Boulders. I don’t know if I can trust the taste of anyone who doesn’t like milk.
You’re not alone, BigSteve. I was thinking he sings Pompeii the first time and Bombay the second time. I listened to it again today, and it’s an amazingly terrible song!
That’s “Ric” Dube. He’s *very* particular about that sort of thing.
Mod, I enjoyed the discussion of Cucumber Castle. I am a huge fan of Bee Gees’ First, start to finish. After that, their lps are a weird and fascinating–though not always consistently listenable–mixture of the sublime, the ridiculous, and the inexplicable. I mean: Horizontal, Idea, Cucumber Castle, Odessa, Trafalgar…and so on–these all have some great stuff. But also a lot of unlistenable tracks. I often find myself wondering just what the hell they were thinking.
You know that Cucumber Castle accompanied a TV special of the same name, or vice-versa? Anyone ever seen it? It must be…interesting.
“The Yard Went on Forever” sounded exactly like I thought/hoped/dreaded it would. That is definitely one of the most preposterous things I have ever heard: the putrid arrangement and production (those background singers!), Harris’ “singing,” the comically pretentious lyrics–the sense that everyone involved seems to have thought that a Big Statement of some kind was being made. Wow. Or possibly as soon as the song faded out they were all laughing their asses off?
It is not a bad record by any means, though as a double album it was a bit much. The selections from it on the Byrds box set–including Just a Season, which is indeed very good–are generally enough for me, anyway.
I hear you, misterioso. I own all of those albums except Odessa. I never felt like paying a few dollars extra to get the velvet cover. (All of my early Bee Gees albums were purchased very reasonably, in dollar bins.) They’re a bit of a precursor to Queen in that I have no idea where they’re coming from as people. What the hell were their collected interests? Could drugs make one come of with some of the unlistenable stuff? It’s beyond stuff I normally don’t comprehend, like fantasy.
Odessa is like the others: for every decent song there are at least two bizarre, quavery vocal numbers. Not sure what I mean? Here ya go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF8k87QjAwU
Hmmm…..that;s my name too. It’s weird without the K on the end.
The Song Goes on Forever. Man, that was really hard for me to get through, I found my mind wandering then he’d rope me in with some weird lyric. Luckily, I can’t remember it now, and I hope I never hear it again!
Maybe he’s a Ricardo, or some other Richard name in a language that doesn’t contain the letter k.
Yeah, I thought that’s what you meant. Robin Gibb could be a human theremin.