Let’s review the ground rules here. The Mystery Date song is not necessarily something I believe to be good. So feel free to rip it or praise it. Rather the song is something of interest due to the artist, influences, time period… Your job is to decipher as much as you can about the artist without research. Who do you think it is? Or, Who do you think it sounds like? When do you think it was recorded? Etc…
If you know who it is, don’t spoil it for the rest. Anyone who knows it can play the “mockcarr option.” (And I’ve got a hunch that some of you know this one.) This option is for those of you who just can’t hold your tongue and must let everyone know just how in-the-know you are by calling it. So if you know who it is and want everyone else to know that you know, email Mr. Moderator at mrmoderator [at] rocktownhall [dot] com. If correct we will post how brilliant you are in the Comments section.
The real test of strength though is to guess as close as possible without knowing. Ready, steady, go!
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Mystery-Date-031111.mp3|titles=Mystery Date 031111]
Boy this guy’s voice sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. This is ’70s prog, right?
This song’s pretty bad, but in an interesting way, as a Mystery Date often can be.
I like how you phrase that, Oats, “pretty bad, but in an interesting way.”
I don’t know that I’ve ever heard Daevid Allen, but this is what I always guessed he would have sounded like.
If I were walking by a radio and heard that I’d wonder when Ray Davies had recorded a concept album about elves.
Mr. Mod, is anyone on this track affiliated in some way with the Bonzo Dog Band?
This kind of sounds like someone heard the first few Roxy Music records and hired Donovan to front a band based on that. Despite some Beck-esque sound effects here and there, the horns sound too authentic-of-the-time for it to be someone later trying to recapture that kind of vibe, so I’ll go ahead and guess this is a genuine article from the early-to-mid ’70s, maybe ’73 or ’74?
It doesn’t have the boozed-up sleazy goodness of prime quality Bolan, which again brings me back to that Donovan stuff that I think HVB was trying to pass off as being better than T. Rex a few years back here, but the singer is hitting the same “soft s” style that he and Bolan did. I don’t know, did Steve Peregrine Took put out some kind of answer album to Tanx?
I actually like the first half of this, musically. It loses me a bit towards the end, and I think Oats is right that someone in here was or would be involved in prog. Judging from the little bit of the lyrics I can pick out from these speakers and bostonhistorian’s comment, I’m guessing it was also someone not hip enough to realize you need to dump the elf stuff and embrace the sleaze like Bolan figured out.