Author: Renfield

spider gourmand
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Sagittarius/Ballroom/Millennium

The various 60’s projects of Curt Boettcher are an addiction I come back to every couple of years.  There’s a 30 minute Andrew Hickey episode on “My World Fell Down” that tells the full, ultimately sad story.  Here’s what I know: “My World Fell Down” was originally a flop single by the Ivy League, a British band.  Across the pond in LA, Gary Usher* thought it could be a hit, but he could find no takers.  So he got some studio musicians (a pre-fame Glen Campbell on verse lead vocals and Bruce Johnston on chorus lead vocals) to record it.  He pitched it to an A&R guy at Columbia who signed the “band.”  

But there was no band, which Usher didn’t mention.  Friend Curt Boettcher had a band called The Ballroom, mostly a studio project. Boettcher had made a name for himself by writing amazing vocal arrangements for the Association, among others. It’s his work you hear on their hits.  He was a Brian Wilson type (BW admired him and was likely influenced by him)  who spent many studio hours on a single song, which was unusual back then for anyone not named the Beatles or Brian Wilson. Anyway, Usher brought in Boettcher and the Ballroom to complete an excellent album which was released under the name Sagittarius.  Boettcher ended up dominating the project.  “My World Fell Down” and “Hotel Indiscreet” were released as singles.  The first did ok on the west coast but flopped nationally.  The other just flopped.  Both single versions had Musique Concrete sections that were edgy for the time.  

Boettcher’s next project was The Millennium.  They made one album, Begin, which is brilliant, a sunshine pop masterpiece with far less filler than the Sagittarius album.  At the time it was the most expensive album ever made due to CB’s obsessiveness. It flopped, so Columbia dropped them.  Perhaps it could have gone somewhere had they not been so studio obsessed, or maybe sunshine pop needed the novelty of a family group like the Cowsills to sell it.  I also wonder if the burgeoning acid rock scene up north in the Bay area rendered them passe.  I’m not sure about the timing, but tastes changed very rapidly back then, and vocal pop was getting to be old hat.

And maybe it still is.  Back when we were doing Music League, I posted a couple of the songs above, and they tanked.  But but give them a shot.  Some of it sounds twee, but the musical ideas are outstanding. I think all of the released music is available for streaming.  Word is, there’s strong work that’s never become available. Even the released music used to be very hard to find. “My World Fell Down” appeared on Nuggets, and Various CD releases of the Sagittarius and Millennium albums trickled out over the years, but a small box of all the Millennium sessions didn’t come out until 2021.  We’re in extreme cult territory here…

”Another Time” would have been perfect for The Carpenters.

*producer of the Byrds and Beach Boys, and best of all, the horror hot rod/surf album Dracula’s Deuce by the Ghouls, featuring such classics as “The Little Old Lady From Transylvania” and “Be True To Your Ghoul.”

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They’ve Gotten Cheaper

EV’s, that is.  Because not many people want one anymore.  But I did after driving this one.  You see, Renfield the Younger is beginning to learn to drive this summer.  The Renfield fleet consisted of two manuals and one automatic.  So we needed another automatic.  Mrs. Renfield led the vehicle search with my input, as she would likely be the main driver.  We looked at ICE cars in a designated price range; mostly hybrids due to her current vehicle (the main family car) being a thirsty guzzler.  The best vehicles were very good and reliable, but decidedly ho-hum and overpriced: everyone wants a hybrid right now.  Wait times are very common, and you don’t get much negotiation leverage when the car isn’t on the lot with the dealer eager to see it drive out.  So one day Mrs. Renfield checked out a Mustang Mach E, mostly because she thought it looked cool. She really liked it.  I wasn’t in favor at first, but when I drove it I was mightily impressed. My main concern was depreciation, but the price was good.

ICE manuals are still my four-wheeled drugs of choice, but I’ve never driven an ICE automatic that I enjoy as much as this EV.  Precise steering, agile handling, slightly bumpy ride like a sports car, but not jarring.  Plenty of power and great acceleration.  Smooth power delivery.  Was this purchase an error?  Ask me in a year or two.  Some kinks in the earlier generation seem to have been ironed out.  We shall see.

I swear I’m not trying to turn this blog into “look what I just bought” Facebook nonsense.  I just posted about it because we’ve discussed EV’s here before.  I’m still of the opinion that the attempted EV transition via government fiat was a lousy idea driven by politics, not reality.  The current infrastructure cannot support mass adoption.  Almost everyone owning one of these will also need an ICE car.  And I have no idea how a non-homeowner could get by with one due to charging access, or lack thereof.

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Yes, I Ordered One

I’m usually not a fan of composer t-shirts, but I had to make an exception here: the fact that this image looks more like Clark Kent than Shostakovich makes some kind of demented sense to me.  Hardly matters anyway.  Only  0.000002% of Americans will know who it’s supposed to be.

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Another Beatles Book?

You’d think the Beatles and Dylan had been examined from every possible angle, but nope.  Here’s a chronological look at their careers in parallel, with plenty of commentary on their influence on each other, friendship, rivalry, etc. I’m about three fourths in, and I’ve enjoyed it.  Good mixture of things I know, things I’d known and forgotten, and things I’d never known.  It’s always interesting and moves along.  A few of the analogies seem a bit forced, but of course no two people will agree on everything.

As I’m biased towards music over lyrics, I might have preferred a book on the Beatles and Brian Wilson, but no doubt they had fewer interactions.

One minor peeve.  Like just about every other Beatles book, the quote about “Aeolian cadences” and Mahler’s Song of the Earth rears its ugly head like it’s evidence of the Beatles’ artistic viability.  I don’t get why these journalists who are obviously good at research never bother to examine that quote.  “Aeolian cadence “ has about as much meaning as “C major time signature” or “F minor drumstick.”  Or “the explosion left a 15 mph deep crater. “ It makes no sense.  And the song in question, “Not a Second Time,” absolutely does not end with the same chords or chord pattern as Song of the Earth.  There’s no room for debate on the matter, it’s factually wrong.

I can’t believe that quote is still getting recycled.  Just put it in the trash.

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Favorite 7ths

It’s March 7, so here are my favorite 7ths.  Rather than blab for twenty paragraphs, I’ll let these things speak for themselves.  I like how Szell takes the catchy second movement fast, closer to a true allegretto than the others.  Some other recordings do that, but I don’t remember hearing one that didn’t have some disqualifying issue for me.

Also, a special shout out to Sir Thomas Beecham with the Royal Philharmonic.  I like it as much as the ones above but figured I should stop at three.

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My Favorite Fifths

Of Beethoven, not booze.  Haven’t had a drop in a year, and what better way to celebrate than with this monument to triumph? If you buy into the finale as revolutionary triumphalism (I partially do), then who better to perform it than musicians from the city that stormed the Bastille?  Markevitch must have understood that, because he got the sometimes lazy Lamoureaux orchestra to catch fire like few versions I’ve heard.  It also helps that some members of the Lamoureaux also played with the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire of Paris, who had the longest unbroken tradition of Beethoven performance in history (they were formed in 1828 specifically to perform Beethoven) until the French government in its infinite wisdom broke them up sometime in the 60’s.  You hear the traditional French orchestral sound in all its unblended glory–thank God they and others were recorded for posterity in the 60’s and earlier.  Their characteristic sound has disappeared.  French orchestras now sound like everyone else.

George Szell, who turned the Cleveland Orchestra into a world-class ensemble (they were Stravinsky’s favorite orchestra and one of the “big five” who dominated classical music in the US from the 50’s-80’s–the others were Boston, Phildelphia, Chicago, and New York) made three “official” (i.e. commercial releases recorded under controlled circumstances) recordings of the fifth, all great.  But this live one with the Vienna Philharmonic (another group with a long tradition in this music) absolutely smokes.

If you Google top recordings of Beethoven’s fifth, you’ll find that everyone recommends Carlos Kleiber/Vienna Philharmonic as “the best. ” It’s excellent, but I find these to have more mojo.  Anyway, the idea of there being a “best” in a work capable of infinite interpretations is just silly.

Other of my faves are any of the recordings by Otto Klemperer, whose son played Col. Klink on Hogan’s Heroes.  If you don’t mind inferior 40’s to mid ‘50’s sound quality, there are also stunning 5ths by Erich Kleiber (father of Carlos), Bruno Walter, and Wilhelm Furtwängler.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Here’s something to liven up the dullest holiday of the year (for me at least; I hope you’re loving it, but I care nothing for turkey, dressing, pumpkin pie or football).  Anyway, I’ve read over the years that the Quadrophenia tour was a mess.  Here’s one reason why.

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More AI Fun

These AI exposes popped up in my feed this week. The blatantly cynical fakery is actually pretty funny.  I also like the Goonies shirt.

Apparently gullible music lovers trend Christian. 

The existence of AI music doesn’t bother me.  To my ears, much of the generic, auto-tuned, committee-written pop music of the past 20 years sounds like AI anyway, so why not?  Music is  strictly utilitarian for many people, something to have in the background while working.  Or to soothe them after work.  Or to fill the air at some god awful party.  If AI works for them, that’s their business.

Of course there’s an ethical issue with the fake charity, but I can’t get very worked up over that either.  That kind of crime requires enablers. Caveat emptor.

 

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Hey Punk!

It seems like everyone and his grandmother recorded “Hey Joe.”  I don’t know who wrote it or who did it first, but the single we had lying around the Renfield household was by the Leaves. That’s the template for the garage-rock take on the song.  The Standells are also in that vein.  The Byrds cleaned it up a little.  Love recorded a more garagey and psychotic take on the Byrds’ version ( I’m assuming Love’s came afterwards).  Everyone knows Hendrix’s cover, which stands in its own category.  As does the Mothers’, which came at the height of Zappa’s hippie-skewering phase.  After all these years I still find this hilarious, especially the dueling monologues, one in each channel, during the closing mayhem.