Ever read that book Alive, about the Uruguayans who crashed in the Andes and were so desperate for food that they resorted to cannibalism? I suffer like that once in a while as well. Sometimes I get so hungry for something new to listen to that I’ll plop just about anything on the turntable, literally anything: The Damnation of Adam Blessing, The Beacon Street Union (Boston, by the way, is hands down the all time worst town for rock and roll), The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump, etc. It’s been ages since I’ve unearthed a single gem. There’s damn good reason why all those obscure psych bands never got anywhere. They blow. The world would be much better off if some kind soul would root out all that crap and bury it in a landfill. Too much precious time is wasted trying to find studs of corn in those turds.
About a week or so ago, I decided to call it quits with the whole psych thing to spend time with a bunch of records that did well on the charts but never made it to my turntable. Hence, my visit with Nilsson Schmilsson. Over the years, I’ve had the thing for sale at least 30 times. It always sells. I just assumed it had to be bad based on the fact that Nilsson was responsible for it. Simply put, Nilsson meant “dogshit.” For years, I told myself I wasn’t gonna get screwed by him again. I pissed away good money on his first two records based on the fact that John and Paul high fived the efforts. They were both yawners, filled with lots of neat sounds that didn’t add up to anything.
That said, I loved and still love “One” and “Everybody’s Talkin’.” How can you not think those songs are absolute winners?
Probably because I was too tired to look for anything else as well as the two winners cited above, I decided to remove the Nilsson Schmilsson ultrafloppy RCA Dynaflex disc from its jacket and give it a spin. What follows is my take on the thing:
