Bram Tchaikovsky: Sarah Smiles

Bram Tchaikovsky: Sarah Smiles

1978

Criminal Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Sarah Smiles  2. Turn on the Light  3.Bloodline


This is Bram's earliest solo recording, done while he was still in the Motors.  Theoretically, I should have covered this one earlier, but I just bought it last weekend and my time machines in the shop, so here we go...

I was digging through the used record bins at Eastside and saw a Bram Tchaikovsky album I didn't own and was like, "Fuck yea!" However, I took a quick look at the cover and noticed that I already had all of these songs on "Strange Man, Changed Man..." As a result, I was this close to passing this one up.   But then I noticed the album was credited to "Bram Tchaikovsky's Battle Axe" which was such an overly bad-ass title for such a harmony-rich power-pop band that I was immediately sold...

And I'm glad I took the plunge on this...These are completely different recordings...More scrappy, spare and energetic than the versions on "Strange Man..." Although I always liked "Sarah Smiles," the song never fully popped for me until I heard this 12" version...My god, those harmonies jump right out of the speakers...The version of "Bloodlines" on here similarly tops the later re-recording...

"Turn On the Light" is neither an improvement or a disappointment...This type of throwback rockabilly rave-up is impervious to any and all recording approach....

Energetic enough for when you're in the mood for punk, fizzy enough for when you have a sweet tooth for pop and rootsy enough for when you're in a pub rock frame of mind...Good stuff all around...Pick it up, even if you have "Strange Man..."....

Here's "Sarah Smiles" by Bram Tchaikovsky...Enjoy...

Bram Tchaikovsky: Funland

Bram Tchaikovsky: Funland

1981

Arista Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Stand and Deliver  2.Shall We Dance?  3. Heart of Stone  4. Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache  5. Model Girl  6. Why Does Mother 'Phone Me?  7.   Used To Be My Used To Be  8. Soul Surrender  9. Together My Love  10. Miracle Cure  11. Egyptian Mummies


A sliiiight drop-off from the previous two albums, but still pretty damn stellar..I think the loss of Micky Broadbent and his ultra-slick harmonies might have impacted the band a little, but it's not a killer blow when you have Bram supplying his own back-up harmonies...

You can also hear a bit of softness slip in,with some blue eyed soul touches on "Together My Love" and "Soul Surrender" but mostly it's all hook-laden power-pop...Anyone who loved the first two albums would love this too..And a couple of my favorite Bram tracks appear here: Namely, "Stand and Deliver" which is just a perfectly crafted piece of understated pop...It escaped my attention the first time, but every subsequent play reveals a different facet of the hook catches my ear...

My other favorite is the completely bonkers "Why Does Mother 'Phone Me?" Built around a muted guitar riff and a pathetic-sounding Bram bemoaning the fact that his Mother calls just to remind him that she doesn't like him...He also wonders why he's the only happy person in the world and when it finally gets around to a triumphant mariachi trumpet solo you just can't help but marvel at what you're hearing...Do not miss this...

 There's plenty of other highlights too...Like the light and rootsy "Used To Be My Used To Be" which reminds me of "Cowboy Outfit"-era Nick Lowe (which is always a good thing)...When I initially heard the verses of  "Model Girl" I thought it was going to be a bum track. It kinda reminded me of a bizarre, stiff hybrid of "Baba O'Reilly" & "Addicted to Love" (although it predates the latter by many years) but suddenly the catchiest chorus ever starts pumping out of my speakers and I'm left with no choice but to declare it an album highlight...

Unfortunately, this was Bram's final album to date...He just stopped making records as far as I can tell (outside of Saxon's "Solid Ball of Rock" which I think I've covered in another post), which is the biggest damn shame I can possibly think of. How many more killer chorus could this guy have come up with?! I directly blame the record-buying audience of 1981 that decided to put Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes" at the top of the charts instead of Bram Tchaikovsky who wrote some of the greatest, catchiest tracks ever committed to tape...And to add insult to injury, "Funland" was never even issued on Compact Disc...What?!?! Luckily, I don't think it's too difficult to find a copy on vinyl...I managed to find one, anyway...And I recommend you do too, although you might want to start with the first two albums, but if this is all you can find, this one's almost as good...

Here's "Stand and Deliver" by Bram Tchaikovsky...Happy Frizzledicks!

Bram Tchaikovsky: Pressure

Bram Tchaikovsky: Pressure

1980

Polydor Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Let's Dance  2. Heartache  3. Letter From The USA  4. Can't Give You Reasons  5. Pressure  6. The Russians Are Coming  7. Hollywood Nightmare  8. Missfortune  9. Jeux Sans Frontieres (Game With No Rules)  10. Mister President  11. New York Paranoia


 Alright! Some more Bram Tchaikovsky...I did a post on his first album awhile back, which you can read here: http://fridaynightrecordparty.blogspot.com/2014/02/bram-tchaikovsky-strange-man-changed-man.html  

 "Pressure" is the U.S.version of Bram's second album, "The Russians Are Coming"...The title of the UK version is muuuuuch cooler, however, I have to give the edge to the US cover art, which continues the Russian Propaganda art theme, but does it with an attractive deep red. Much more striking than the British version which resembles the first album's color scheme a little too closely...

I've seen copies of the UK version at my local record store and the first couple of times it just scanned in my mind as the first album...Then I was confused when I turned it over and discovered it had the same songs as "Pressure" except they were just out of order.  I actually don't really see the point in this shuffled track list, since this record is so consistent...Probably even more so than their first album, however there's not really a song on "Pressure" that tops "Girl of My Dreams," or "Strange Man, Changed Man"...But I don't view that as a real drawback when there's stuff like "Jeux Sans Frontieres (Game With No Rules)" and "Can't Give You Reasons" on here...Power pop fans will lose their shit when they lay their ears on these songs...So much chime and jangle topped with liquid chrome harmonies...

Come to think of it, barring "Hollywood Nightmare," the singing isn't quite as jagged as on the previous album...The harmonies are extra smooth and blend together seamlessly this time...That's probably the reason this album is usually seen as the slightly weaker follow-up to "Strange Man..." It doesn't quite have the same raw excitement that album had...Again, not a big problem for me...A degree of slickness is practically a given in this genre...

Trust me, if you like guitars and harmonies, you're gonna need this record...Sure, not every track is a hit single, I could probably live without the trudging "Mister President" and the tracks where they dabble in old-timey rock n' roll are a bit weaker...But then you run across the perfect pop of "Let's Dance" or the positively epic "The Russians Are Coming" and you have no choice but to kick yourself for not hearing them sooner...Bram's CD catalog is woefully out of print, but you can still find this on vinyl for a pretty reasonable price, so I say comb the used bins and pick up both this and "Strange Man..." for a great pop-rock double-feature for your Friday night record party...

Here's "Can't Give You Reasons" by Bram Tchaikovsky...Enjoy...

Bouncing Souls: Anchors Aweigh

Bouncing Souls: Anchors Aweigh

2003

Epitaph Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Apartment 5F  2. Kids and Heroes 3. New Day  4. Sing Along Forever  5. Born Free   6. Inside Out  7. Simple Man  8. Better Days  9. Night Train  10. Todd's Song  11. Blind Date  12. Highway Kings  13. Anchors Aweigh  14. I Get Lost  15. The Day I Turned My Back On You  16. I'm from There


I was very interested to hear this again...I think this was really the album responsible for getting me out of the Bouncing Souls. Which was quite an achievement, given the endless hours  I'd spent listening to their run of albums up to "How I Spent My Summer Vacation"... I've done previous posts about many of those albums and I think that I briefly touched on my "bleh" feelings toward "Achors Aweigh.".

But I don't blame the band...Again, I think I touched on this subject in my post for the self-titled Blink 182 album, but I kinda categorize this whole era of music as the "bleh" period where most music felt overly morose or hollowly uplifting...9/11 was still a very raw wound back then and a good-time party band like the Bouncing Souls were going to sound like boneheads if they put out an album bragging about wearing Adidas as the world was falling apart around them...Plus, they're human beings too, as far as I know...I'm sure bragging about wearing Adidas was the last thing on their minds during this time too...As I recall, most folks were still paralyzed by fear in 2003...

"Anchors Aweigh" almost pulls it off though...It's a mix of some of my favorite and some of my least favorite Bouncing Souls stuff...I'll start with the least favorite stuff first, so I can end this on a positive note: Songs like "New Day" and "Born Free" sound like your typical Bouncing Souls fist-pumpers but somehow come off as empty...And "Sing Along Forever" urges us to sing along, but to what exactly? The melody is just...bleh......Compare this to "87" or "Kid"...Now those were proper sing-a-longs...They had gusto...spirit...This just sounds like a rousing shrug...Then there's a series of bleak, ugly hardcore-ish tracks like "Inside Out," "Blind Date" and "Better Days" which also don't do much for me...

But just when you're ready to give up on the whole thing,  the second half of the record shocks the hell out of you by being absolutely full of awesomeness...Some of the best tracks show the Bouncing Souls were surprisingly adept at emo..."Night Train," "Todd's Song" and the title track have tons of autumnal atmosphere and towering instrumentation...Big, heartfelt sing-a-longs that give the impression that if the band had dropped the hardcore and all the hollow-anthems-striving-for-universality and  made a mellow, more introspective album they might have had a real-deal homerun here...My God, is the title track stunning...Suddenly they achieve that moody,  moonlit feel of the front cover...Probably my all-time favorite Bouncing Souls song...My other favorite track is "The Day I Turned My Back On You" which is no-bullshit punk where they finally summon up some of that old fighting spirit, but take it so much further with a bit of hard-won wisdom..."I Get Lost " is another anthem that would stand shoulder to shoulder with anything on their previous albums... The "Whoa-oh-oh's" at the end of "Highway Kings" also deserve a shout-out for sheer transcendence...

So in the end what we have is a rare example of that elusive creature, the back-loaded album...It's a huge chore for me to get through the first half and the second half makes me wish it wouldn't end (despite the false ending after the knockout "I'm from There")...I'm glad I revisited this, although it's still a little odd to hear a Bouncing Souls album that's no fun whatsoever...But if you can stomach the idea of a more mature Bouncing Souls, then go for it...I still haven't listened to a single Bouncing Souls album that came out after this one...Still taking recommendations...

.

Ken Boothe: A Man and His Hits

Ken Boothe: A Man and His Hits

197?

Studio One Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Thinking  2. Tomorrow  3. Live Good  4. You're On My Mind  5. Moving Away  6. Without Love  7. The Train Is Coming  8. Danger Zone  9. Oh Babe  10. Lonely Tear Drops  11. Crying Over You  12. Give Me The Right


I don't really know all the details  about this release... I can't really find much info online because apparently there was a more widely-released CD issued in the 90's with the exact same title, but totally different tracklisting...

...But after buying the "Mr. Rocksteady" album I was aching to hear some different Ken Boothe stuff .I eventually found a copy of some album called "A Man and His Hits" that had a pink and maroon cover that I can only describe as both hideous and beautiful...

All I know about it is that it came out sometime in the 70's (I see 1970, 1972 and 1974 pop up as release dates on various websites) and that it's packed with 60's Ken Boothe Studio One goodness...Lots of uplifting, midtempo chunk-chunk-chunk...Plus, there's only one overlapping track with the "Mr., Rock Steady" album (Give Me The Right), so score for me!

 I guess the big highpoint here would probably be "The Train Is Coming" which is notable for featuring an early appearance by the soon-to-be-legendary Bob Marley and the Wailers...And it's a good one!  Choogling forward, locomotive-like, with train-whistle backing vocals...The "I say the train is coming baby, I say the train is coming now..."  mantra eventually taking up permanent residence in your brain and I haven't been able to stop singing it since...It's so much fun to endlessly repeat it in that deep breathy voice...Try it sometime...You'll feel a lot better...

 Other favorite moments: That chirpy organ-line on "Live Good." I also love "Danger Zone" which is such a strong,  authentic soul track that I can't believe it's not a cover...If I'm not mistaken, I think this was originally the B-Side of the "Train in Coming" single, which must have been one fuck of an amazing 7-inch...Huh, looking it up on youtube, apparently he did a remake of this with Shaggy...Remind me to never hear this version...Before Shaggy, Ken did a pretty cool duet with Delroy Wilson, where they do a skanking version of an old Fats Domino song ("Oh Babe"), which is included here...

Fats Domino was cool! And fat! A pretty formidable combination if you ask me! We'll be getting to the Fats Domino section in about oh one billion years based on my current rate of two posts a week (while buying approximately 5 records a week)...I was thinking of doing a catch-up week where I just do a ton of short succinct, one-paragraph reviews for a couple weeks to get through some of the backlog...Just cut down all the screwing around and bust through, like, 50 albums..Maybe covering 10 albums in a single post....I can't tell if that sounds like an exciting experiment or sheer laziness...Also I kinda think that all the screwing around is what makes this challenge of listening to all my records in a row and writing about every single one so much fun for me...I'm still undecided....

Wait, what was I talking about?

 Oh yea, being fat...Del Taco is good...I don't know where else you can get tacos and crinkle-cut fries in the same value meal...But wait, wasn't I talking about something else earlier?

That's right...Ken Boothe! Now that I think about the release date of this, I think I have to put it at 1974 or later, based on the inclusion of "Crying Over You," a gentle love song that was a smashola for Mr. Boothe in '74...So, there...We accomplished something here today...We disproved two out of three common release dates that are often given online...Or that I'm 100% wrong...Either way, let's crack a beer and  listen to some music...

Here's "Train is Coming" by Ken Boothe...Enjoy...

Ken Boothe: Mr. Rock Steady

Ken Boothe: Mr. Rock Steady

1967

Studio One Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Puppet On A String  2. I Don't Want To See You Cry  3. Don't Cry Little Girl  4. Let The Water Dry.  5. My Heart Is Gone  6. When I Fall In Love  7. The Girl I Left Behind.  8. Home, Home, Home  9. This Is Rock Steady.  10. Give Me Back My Heart  11. Mustang Sally  12. Give Me The Right.  13. Run Coming Back.  14. Artibella.



Welcome to the Secret Society of the Record Party....

Only a handful of people know of its existence, while the population at large remains willfully ignorant  of our machinations (callously ignoring our facebook invites)....To gain entrance, you must perform the secret handshake...\

(slips chocolate coin into handshake)

You're just in time for our Sunday fish fry and human sacrifice...But first we must review the sacred text...

 Yes! It's Mr. Rocksteady himself, Ken MF-ing Boothe! A wonder of steady, mid-tempo Jamaican soul sweetened with that smooth voice Ken utilized early in his career...Folks who stumble upon this via the reggae route may be a bit put off by the vocal-centric approach, since its recorded and presented like old soul or doo wop. (vocals often way out front...Less of an emphasis on instrumental groove, although the groove is nice too) ...Your grandparents would probably be more comfortable with Ken Boothe than say, Lee Perry...Take a listen to "Give Me the Right" or "Give Me Back My Heart" for an example of the often pronounced doo-wop vibe...

Just about every song on Ken's debut full-length (he had a mighty run of singles prior to this) is pure classic Studio One.  Hell, "This is Rock Steady" pretty much helped to define the era, although I can imagine any one of these tracks burning up the Jamaican charts...The only song that doesn't do a lot for me is his take on "Mustang Sally" which sounds awfully mild compared to Wilson Pickett's sweaty, superior version...He sounds much more natural with cooler, more laid-back standards-type material (See his haunting, spooky take on oldie "When I Fall in Love")...

One thing I've noticed in my time buying Jamaican records is that its not uncommon for them to contain unlisted bonus tracks...The back cover (and the front cover, now that I look at it again)  only lists 12 tracks but there are actually 14....Which is great, since "Run Coming Back" (their spelling, not mine) is probably the best track on the album...That bass is just about the deepest thing I've ever heard...It practically shakes the entire apartment building whenever I play it (which may be why my neighbors openly curse the day I was born)...The other bonus track is another scorcher..."Artibella" which was also an important track in Boothe's discography...So if you see this record in a used bin, take it out and count the grooves...You're going to want this particular pressing...

"Mr. Rock Steady" is a fine place to start if you're looking to getting deeper into the roots of reggae...And its very diverse...The most common complaint I hear about the genre is the sameyness...No such problem here...

Oh yea, wasn't I doing some Secret Society gimmick today?

Well, here's a top-secret coded message for members of the Secret Society of the Record Party:

D X R X I X N X K  M X O X R X E  BX E X E X R !!!

The first person that wins it gets...oh, I dunno... Five Hundred Friday Night Record Party Bucks...

Which buys up to .05 seconds of false hope when you give them to the wino on the corner (until he figures out it's not real money)...

Alright, enough of this tomfoolery...Here's "Run Coming Back" by Ken Boothe...Enjoy...

Beck: Morning Phase

Beck: Morning Phase

2014

Capitol Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Cycle  2. Morning  3. Heart is a Drum  4. Say Goodbye  5. Blue Moon  6. Unforgiven  7. Wave  8. Don't Let it Go  9. Blackbird Chain  10. Phase  11. Turn Away  12. Country Down  13. Waking Light


Oh, man...I forgot I even bought this one...I should have covered this album a week or so ago but glossed right past it...My CD rack is still a little out of order since the flood last year and blah blah blah I'm too lazy to put them back in order...

This was released after a six year wait, during which I figured we might have heard the last of Beck...I figured he had bowed out of the whole album every two years cycle to focus on writing sheet music, doing digital only cover albums, etc...Which I don't begrudge him...You don't always feel like making an album...I get it...

But the announcement last year of a new Beck album last year was surprising news and when I heard it was gentler, acoustic stuff I immediately thought, "Hmmm, like 'Sea Change?"...Then I saw the album cover and exclaimed, "EXACTLY like 'Sea Change!"

  Hey, I really like "Sea Change' so if he wants to revisit that muse, that's alright with me...And it does sound a lot like "Sea Change"... Mellow and reflective with sparse yet lush production...Slow Drumbeats, languidly strummed acoustic guitars and hazy string arrangements...I'd say where it differs is the actual emotional content..."Sea Change" had a very specific emotional hurt whereas "Morning Phase" just has a general malaise surrounding it...."Sea Change" has always sounded great when you're in a gloomy mood, but  the mood of "Morning Phase" is much harder to define, allowing you to somewhat project your own mood onto it...I've heard of the album described as "sad," but to my ears, I interpret it as a "silver lining" type of thing...There's still some darkness on tracks like "Wave" but then "Don't Let it Go" comes on and I instantly feel a little better...In fact, the final moments of album closer "Waking Light,' with its woo-ooo-ooo's and gospel grandeur read as downright uplifting to me...I guess "Morning Phase" could be viewed as a more "adult" album in that sense...There's not the pretense of "Yes, cocoon yourself in my infinite darkness"...It's sounds more conflicted... A jumble of many moods at once, which I tend to equate with the prevailing emotional state of adulthood...

And the whole thing sounds great...Play it on some nice headphones or big speakers and the warm ambiance will suck you right in...Like a big thick comforter for the ears...That said, a lot of the songs don't stick with you like the ones on "Sea Change" did..."The Golden Age"? "Paper Tigers"? "Little One"? "Guess I'm Doing Fine"? I swear to you those were etched into my brain immediately, on the other hand after listening to "Morning Phase" again I was like, "Oh yea...This song! Oh, yea...This song!" Take from that what you will... Is immediacy a prerequisite for great art? No, not at all...I actually kind of admire how elusive and amorphous this is...It will probably never draw the immediate emotional response that a replay of "Sea Change" does for me...But  I bet it's going to continue to sound new and interesting on ...When you really think about it, Beck is really the...Awww, man...Here comes Kanye West...

"Beyonce'! Beyonce'! Beyonce'! Nobody respects a true artist like Beyonce' (and not the army of producers and song writers who record all the music and write all the songs for her album)!"

 (channels his talentlessness into an autotune program that processes him to sound exactly like T-Pain, thereby creating the illusion of talent to folks who have never listened to anything more challenging than Lady Gaga..) Bleeeooo-bloooorp-bleeeeep!!! (translation: "Look like a fat booty Celine Dion! Sex is on fire! I’m the King of Leona Lewis!"  (somehow writes this garbage and still has the nerve to consider himself a genius (Devil's Advocate: "But wait! Isn't it a type of genius to suck and still have the nerve to call yourself a genius?" Naw, it's still just nerve...Misplaced nerve...))).

Ahhh, shit...It was actually kinda classy of him to apologize...Maybe I misjudged him...Maybe I ought to apology to Kanye now:

I Would like to publicly apologize to Kanye, I'm sorry Kanye...

...I'm sorry that you suck!!

I'd like to apologize to The word "suck" for comparing it to Kanye West...I'm sorry suck....

Wait! What am I doing sitting around apologizing for? It's Friday night! Saturday morning is when I normally do my apologizing! Let's crack a beer and listen to some music...

(Note: Some people may see this Gold and White beer as Black and Blue...)

...Here's  "Don't Let it Go" by