Playing right now: Steppenwolf's For Ladies Only
Did I mention I'm a BIG Steppenwolf fan? It started when I was in grade school and I got a couple of their albums as gifts, from my folks (Steppenwolf 7 - the folks had a remarkably good track record w/blind buys considering they were not rock people), my brother Tom (At Your Birthday Party) and Tom's friend Jeff who had the unfortunate nickname Goo -- over a decade before the infamous Sonic Youth album, lest you wonder (he got me Steppenwolf Live, or Live Steppenwolf).
The only one of those that I have still have in the original copy is Birthday Party. I went through this phase in high school where I thought a lot of their songs were really stupid and pompous, which isn't totally unfounded. But then sometime, I don't know when, I started jonesing to hear them again. I bought a copy of 7, and someone gave us the live album.
Now For Ladies Only, now that's a piece of work. It's their concept album where they tried to come to terms with feminism, but it's almost as if they can't really drop the machismo. I mean there's a picture on the inside of a car shaped like a penis. It's an actual photo! And there was an insert of the band being chased by a long legged body that was just a set of teeth where the head would be. And they're cowering under it. Castration issues? And then they try to show their empathy in "Tenderness" by taking on the voice of a remorseful abuser. C'mon, brothers! At least that song wasn't written by anyone in the band (although the guy who wrote "Born To be Wild" is responsible for it.) But the title track is a really great song. So it was worth the $2 I paid at a flea market for it.
___________
I only wanted that to be an intro but now I think it'll be the majority of this post.
I listened to more of the Rahsaan Roland Kirk comp that I bought last week. Knowing most of that material already, I can say with some authority (so to speak) that it's not the best comp. It leans REALLY heavily on his album The Case of the 3-Sided Dream in Audio Color. I have that album and it has it's moments, but the thing is, half the songs aredifferent versions of the other half of the album and the compilation picks out the lesser, slicker versions of the songs. And out of context, they sound pretty cheesy. Lotta chunka-chink-chunka guitar, fonk-ay bass.....you get the idea.
Estate sale tomorrow.............."thousands of records" the ad says..........
No comments:
Post a Comment