"To get to the point: This record is a piece of junk. It drives me out of the room when it's on the record player; it gives me a headache if I stay. Yet it is one of the top 40 best-selling albums in the country...Thirty minutes of listening to a hack organist and a metronome playing basically the same song in eight variations is one of the most abrasive experiences I've undergone in months." (Russell Gersten, 4/12/73 Review)
I realize I'm probably in the minority on this, but I think it is kind of awesome that a song that consists entirely of a guy singing and playing an organ, accompanied only by a primitive drum machine, could reach the top ten - the simplicity of the presentation is precisely what makes this record so affecting. And I actually prefer Timmy's "Coldest Days of My Life" to the saccharine Chi-lites version.
I also love this one, on the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin (1999), #313:
Rating: 3 Stars
"Their music isn't, how you say, universally accessible, and the weirdness gets same-y, but no one else has posited a parallel universe in which the Sixties and the Nineties exist simultaneously, allowing for a peculiarly convincing brand of monolithic robotic swirl." (Arion Burger, 5/27/99 Review)
"The weirdness gets same-y" in a "monolothic robotic swirl"?? What the fuck are you yammering about??
Yeah. The robotic swirl would come on their next album!!
You can start at the beginning of the list - he's currently up to #376 (Snooki-Riding-A-Metal-Phallus cover).
So here I am, on vacation - doing what I always do: reading people's Top 10 lists. And I notice on Demdike Miles' list at Boomkat that he's included Conrad Schnitzler Live '72 in there. I remember getting a free .mp from this (Vol. 8 comp coming soon!) and was interested, but it might have been while my computer/internet was down last year. So I never did order it...
Boomkat's sold out of the 2xLP, no digital-dowload version there, and not among Con's records at Forced Exposure (but that Trigger Trilogy 3xCD does looks intriguing). Although the Boomkat product description sounds impressive, they pretty much always do. So I thought, just live to order another record.
But then I noticed: the record label. I've never heard of Further Records, but I figured an internet search couldn't hurt. Not only are they on the WWW, but they run it run it as Bandcamp, and you can stream Live '72 from there...
And they still have "61 remaining" copies to sell as of this posting - for $20! (That's after I ordered my copy.)
Here's that glowing Boomkat entry:
**Edition of 500, housed in hand screen printed DIY black french paper jacket** Conrad Schnitzler is without a doubt one of the most important figures in 20th century electronic music. His CV includes a prominent role initiating the seminal Zodiak Free Arts Lab in Berlin circa 1967, essentially creating the nucleus of what would become known as the Kosmische movement. From this he became a founder member of Kluster and collaborated with the likes of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, laying the foundations for future generations of Techno and Ambient electronic musicians. It's not often that unreleased material of his comes to the surface, but Further Records have somehow gained access to this 1972 live session, salvaged from cheap old tapes. Considering the time frame, this stuff is just incredible, spanning twelve tracks of signature metallic pulses and starry synth plumes framing his beautifully restrained melodic arrangements. What separates Con from the rest of the crowd, and makes him so important to the development of electronic music and Techno in particular, is that intuitive and engrossing element of restraint and repetition, especially when coupled with his knack for darker, moodier melodies and that brooding sense of space. No hyperbole intended, this is a genuinely exceptional piece of work, easily one of the very best reissues we've encountered in the recent deluge. Mastered by CGB at D&M, Berlin
I'd meant to put this up as part of the Krautrock series that kind of went off the rails. On the trip after I got Popol Vuh used, I found Agitation Free's Malesch (1972) - also used! [Lala]
[05/28/2012: Updated some disabled embedded video samples.]
Agitation Free were space-jammers and included some members of Ash Ra Tempel, Guru Guru, and Tangerine Dream - according to All Music Guide. This album was inspired by some cultural exchange travels in Egypt (and Cyprus and Greece per AMG), and there's field recordings from Cairo are sprinkled throughout. Some, but not all, of the highlights...
"You Play For Us Today" from Malesch (1972)
In fact, the album starts of with a pilot asking, "You will play for us today? I fly the aeroplane, and you play for us. Deal?" Sounds like a fantastic deal! As with much of the album, the music is in no rush to get anywhere. Finding a groove's as important as the groove, exploring the boundaries as important as what's brought back.
"Ala Tul" from Malesch (1972)
Noise-intro to space-funk organ jam. Wave drones into polyrhythms.
Aptly named hyperdrone, like some warped, Middle Eastern-inflected "Baba O'Riley" intro that doesn't break.
"Malesch / Rucksturz" from Malesch (1972)
The last two tracks coalesce into more formed songs. The title track is still a jam, but it's the kid of big jam that jambands have long been jamming on. But really, seriously excellent! And "Rucksturz" finishes up with almost 90 seconds of a rocked-out guitar riff song. Almost like they're easing you back into the ol' normal world of rock music...
All Music Guide calls 2nd "one of Germany's finest instrumental rock albums of the 1970s." The only tune I've heard comes from a comp, but it's pretty sweet too:
1972. The Grateful Dead were on a roll, having released four of their best albums ever: Live/Dead (1969), Workingman's Dead, American Beauty (both 1970), and Grateful Dead (1971), known as "Skull & Roses." Title proposed to Warner Bros.: Skullfuck.
How to follow that? Well, how 'bout a monumental two-month tour of Europe, yielding a triple-"live" album? Plus three members' "solo" debuts?? "Live" because Europe '72 is based on live multi-track soundboard recordings, played in a studio through the stage sound system, then cleaned-up with overdubs and edits. "Solo" because rhythm guitarist Bob Weir's Ace is a Grateful Dead record with only Bob songs, and drummer Mickey Hart's Rolling Thunder has most all of the surviving Bay Area hippies on it (plus the titular Shoshone medicine man). Only Garcia is truly solo, with Jerry doing everything but the drums, provided by the jazzier one.
So, one at at time: Europe '72! If I was asked to suggest one Dead album to own, it would be tempting. If asked to suggest one live album, it's a lock. You get sweet 1970 album highlights like Truckin', Sugar Magnolia, and Cumberland Blues. New songs like Brown-Eyed Women, Ramble On Rose, and Jack Straw. The definitive released versions of China> Rider and Morning Dew. There's some signature noodley explorations, but much more of the ol' time party-rockin' jams. Hell, even a Hank Williams cover! The only possible issue is the shortage of blues-belting from Pigpen, who would die within a year. (Corrected with 1973's memorial Bear's Choice, compiled by Owsley Stanley.) This line-up had everything... Pigpen's organ and harmonica balanced with new member Keith Godchaux's piano. Double-drummers at the height of their power. [Edit 11/28: just caught some Fillmore doc on PBS, and made me rethink and recheck: Mickey wasn't playing with the band in '72 - solo drummer, d'oh!!!] The front line firing on all cylinders, and then some! This is some seriously primo triple-live stuff, man.
None of the solo records can match those heights, but they're all good too. Garcia has Dead mainstays like Loser and The Wheel. But also several weird electronic noise experiments - used in the opening to The Grateful Dead Movie (1977). Ace has the full band going on other long-time lynchpins, plus great nuggets like Cassidy and Mexicali Blues. Definitely a fertile period for Weir songwriting, maybe the only one. But the Grateful Dead were never a top-flight studio band, and Rolling Thunder has the most Dead-like ragged, lived-in feel of the three. Clearly made on the casual with buddies in a ranch-home recording studio, it's the least professional and most personal. Probably not the place anyone would start, but still criminally overlooked within the Dead library.
1972 is among the most highly revered years from the Grateful Dead, up there with 1977, 1970, 1989-90, 1967-68. These things are determined almost entirely by the live show history, but this particular peak is also reflected in the official record.
In case you couldn't make it... the Europe '72 tour!! (Links to streams, with DeadBase tape rankings. Seriously... Rotterdam.)
04/07/1972 [n/r] Wembley Empire Pool, London 04/08/1972 [released] Wembley Empire Pool, London 04/11/1972 [n/r] City Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne 04/14/1972[#136] Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen 04/16/1972 [n/r] Aarhus University, Denmark 04/17/1972[#310] Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen 04/21/1972 [n/r] Beat Club, Bremen, Germany 04/24/1972 [released] Rheinhalle, Duesseldorf, Germany 04/26/1972 [partial, #473] Jahrhundert Halle, Frankfurt 04/29/1972 [#474] Musikhalle, Hamburg, Germany 05/03/1972 [#475] Olympia Theater, Paris 05/04/1972 [#476] Olympia Theater, Paris 05/07/1972 [released] Bickershaw Festival, Wigan, England 05/10/1972 [#477] Concertgebouw, Amsterdam 05/11/1972[#23] Rotterdam Civic Hall, Holland 05/13/1972 [n/r] Lille Fairgrounds, France 05/16/1972 [n/r] Radio Luxembourg, Luxembourg 05/18/1972 [#478] Kongressaal, Deutsches Museum, Munich 05/23/1972 [released] The Strand Lyceum, London 05/24/1972 [partial] The Strand Lyceum, London 05/25/1972 [partial, #479] The Strand Lyceum, London 05/26/1972[#35] The Strand Lyceum, London
You might expect nothing but Glam and Prog and Kraut from 1972, and you'd be not far from right! Not much prog in the top ten, actually. And there's a bit of diversity to break up the one-two punch. And then the shocking conclusion!!
A beauty all the way through, two of The Watersons bring all sorts of post-folk music into the tradition. It's veddy British, and for me the best of their side's folk.
Four exploratory epics of power-trio guitar jamming, which often detours into exploratory spaciness. Approaching prog, sometimes heavy, often psychedelic, always flowing over the next musical horizon.
The album kicks off where Loaded (1970) left off, but goes in many directions from there. "Walk on the Wild Side" draws attention, but "Satellite of Love" is the peak on Lou's best solo album. As a scene, glam was a good fit for him - but he was just passing through: one foot in the Velvets, the other already in the future.
Their debut, with Eno still on board. The first half alone would warrant this spot... the rock, the swank, the squalling sax, the otherworldly synth! Too explosive to be contained in any one genre, Roxy Music promised to be everything popular music could aspire to. Though they only ended up being a very great band.
#6The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars - David Bowie
Mick Ronson is the not-so-secret weapon, slinging the flashy guitar hard-rock, but never really surrending to glam. Which served as a perfect balance to Bowie's true-believer embrace, of anything and everything. Packed to the gills with classic tunes.
The other shoe drops, high-heeled and dazzlingly-spangled. Almost the equal of Electric Warrior (1971), especially on the expanded-version release. It brings the guitar-god rock, plays power-pop to the kids, and even slows things down for the mystic ballroom romance. A titan of pop music!
Can tightens up after the sprawling jams of Tago Mago (1971). Not only in the shorter structures, but in a tenser tone. The basic funk of Can becomes even more explicit, but it's a restricted, claustrophobic bounce. Except for the dreamy "Sing Swan Song," which flows... floats... levitates.
Neu! does so many different things amazingly well on their debut: rock 'n' roll things, experimental things, things that erase the border between those two. This album exists as a nexus between the short history of rock music, the infinite future of rock-based music, and whatever dimensions run sideways across that axis.
They might have been the American Lennon/McCartney of the '70s, Alex Chilton and Chris Bell. But this was the only album they made together. Beatlesque in the extreme, the good songs just overflow through the entire running time. Another amazing debut album!!
#1Europe '72 - Grateful Dead Garcia - Jerry Garcia Ace - Bob Weir Rolling Thunder - Mickey Hart
1972 was a banner year for the Grateful Dead. Probably their best line-up: Jerry, Bobby, Phil, Billy and Pigpen (the originals), plus second drummer Mickey Hart [11/28: wrong!], and new keyboardist Keith Godchaux. A two-month European tour yielded a massive 3xLP document, probably their best 'live' record and maybe best overall. Three members released their debut solo albums, all among the best solo Dead stuff (not a high bar). I think it'll deserve its own post!
And Ten more that could be in the Top 20. Album title links go to a sample track/video... Artist name links go mostly to Wikipedia.
