Wings Of Dream

Born Don Vliet, Captain Beefheart was one of modern music's true innovators. The owner of a remarkable four-and-one-half octave vocal range, he employed idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist lyrics and an unholy alliance of free jazz, Delta blues, latter-day classical music and rock & roll to create a singular body of work virtually unrivalled in its daring and fluid creativity. While he never came even remotely close to mainstream success, Beefheart's impact was incalculable, and his fingerprints were all over punk, new wave and post-rock. 

Don Vliet was born January 15, 1941 in Glendale, California (he changed his name to Van Vliet in the early '60s). At the age …Read More

01 - Long Tall Sally  (My Babe)

02 - Mashed Potatoes

03 - I'm Talking About You

04 - What Did I Say

05 - Hummel Twist

06 - Money

07 - Jezebel

08 - Hully Gully

09 - Slippin' And Slidin' (We Are Slopping)

10 - Twiullyop

11 - Tell Me Baby

Somerset 583 (stereo)

12 - Mashed Potatoes

13 - I'm Talking About You

14 - Money

15 - Hully Gully

16 - Slippin' And Slidin' (We Are Slopping)

17 - Niemand ist ein Engel

18 - Dann sag nein

19 - Little Clementine

20 - Mein schoenster Tag

01 - Fabulous

02 - Simon Says

03 - Dancing In The Streets

04 - Can't You Hear My Heartbeat

05 - Wipe Out

06 - Another Minute

07 - Bread And Butter

08 - Land Of 1000 Dances

09 - Whiter Shade Of Pale

10 - Shake / What'd I Say

A sequel to the 2004 Ace CD Girls with Guitars, this likewise focuses on guitar-oriented, girl-sung 1960s rock from the '60s, though to be technical one 1970 cut sneaks in. These aren't all self-contained female groups who played their own instruments (although a few of them are); in fact, a number of these artists didn't play their own music, and some of them were solo acts, not bands. The common factor, however, is that all of them did play rougher, more guitar-heavy rock than the norm for woman rockers of the era. There's a fairly narrow pool of discs to choose from when you're making an anthology like this (though not as narrow as many people realize), which makes it hard if not impossible to make an "all killer no filler" compilation. That's how it goes with Destroy That Boy! More Girls with Guitars, which is usually fun, and occasionally very good, but often more interesting for historical oddity and energy than for the quality of the songs or performers. Still, there are some genuinely stand-out tracks here, none more so than Beverley Jones' "Hear You Talking," which is average Merseybeat musically, but has a vocal that's incredibly vicious by 1964 standards, and a chorus ("I'll cut you dead...if I hear you talking about her") that's downright gangsta in this company. Also very good is Sharon Tandy's "Hold On," justly hailed as a first-rate mod rocker long before its appearance on this compilation, and Ann-Margret's unlikely (and mighty strange) psychedelic Lee Hazlewood-written and produced 1968 rarity "You Turned My Head Around." Nothing else on the CD galvanizes like these three items, but it does at least present a wide range, from Merseybeat (including Liverpool's self-contained Liverbirds) and Beatles novelties to She Trinity's "He Fought the Law" (reportedly the inspiration for the Clash's "I Fought the Law" cover, according to the liner notes); a folk-rocker co-written by Erik Darling of the Rooftop Singers (Project X's "Don't You Think It's Fine"); and a rocking Donovan song that Donovan himself never put on his records (Karen Verros' "You Just Gotta Know My Mind"). Also neat is the Girls' previously unreleased "Here I Am in Love Again," with backing by the Beau Brummels, which was written and produced by Sly Stone, even if the vocals are pretty shaky. 

CD 1

CD 2

"What makes this Kinks compilation such an essential addition to the group's catalogue," writes Patrick Humphries in his liner notes, "is that for the first time it contains in correct chronological sequence, virtually all the Kinks' singles they recorded for the old Pye label, 1964-1970." Humphries' statement is correct, right down to the key word "virtually," which needs to be explored in greater detail. As its title implies, the two-CD set, which runs over 114 minutes, contains 40 tracks drawn from Kinks singles released during their first seven years of existence, 20 A-sides and 20 B-sides. As such, it is half a greatest-hits album, containing well-known tracks like "You Really Got Me," "All Day and All of the Night," and "Lola," and a half a rarities album containing some of the group's most obscure recordings, and they alternate with each other through the collection. But back to the word "virtually." Given that this is a British compilation, it is not surprising (but still disappointing) that "A Well Respected Man," which reached the Top 20 of the U.S. singles charts, but which was not released as a single in the U.K., is missing. But there is no apparent explanation for the omission of "Dedicated Follower of Fashion," a Top Ten hit in the U.K. Of course, that single's B-side, "Sitting on My Sofa," is also missing, as is the wonderful non-chart 1969 single "Drivin'." And, as a singles collection, the album contains nothing from the album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, from which no singles were issued. Only one of the first 33 of the 40 tracks is in stereo, and oddly enough it's the first one, "I Took My Baby Home," which actually was the B-side of the Kinks' debut single, a cover of the Little Richard hit "Long Tall Sally." Starting with "Shangri-La," the last seven tracks are in stereo. Since bandleader Ray Davies was such a good songwriter, there are many excellent compositions among the lesser known tracks here, notably several with lead vocals by guitarist Dave Davies. There are also hints of what was to come after 1970 -- "Act Nice and Gentle" (the B-side of "Waterloo Sunset") and "Plastic Man" (actually a Top 40 hit in Britain) both sound like they could have come from the Kinks' country-rock album Muswell Hillbillies of 1971. But the main joy of the set is hearing the group evolve from its hard rock days with "You Really Got Me" and its soundalikes to more idiosyncratic and sophisticated fare such as "Victoria," even if some key 

songs are missing, some for no obvious reason.

Although Chad & Jeremy's Second Album was not released in the U.S., there's not much reason for collectors to sweat out trying to find the LP, as all of its tracks did come out in some form stateside. In fact, Second Album had nearly the same contents as the duo's second American LP (titled Sing for You, and, confusingly, not at all the same as the British LP called Sing for You, which was their first U.K. long-player). The only differences between Second Album and the U.S. Sing for You are that Second Album has a few songs not on the American counterpart, two of which ("Now and Forever" and "Too Soon My Love") had already appeared in the U.S. on the Yesterday's Gone album, the other of which ("It Was a Very Good Year") would soon appear on an American B-side, and subsequently on U.S. album compilations. And naturally, in this transatlantic mishmash, the American Sing for You has two songs which don't appear on Second Album, "Donna Donna" and "From a Window," though they'd already appeared on the British version of Sing for You. The musical merits of Second Album were, naturally, similar to those of the American Sing for You: no big hits, but generally likeable lightweight British Invasion music, though the songs that actually verge on cheery British Invasion rock ("My How the Time Goes By," "Now and Forever," "Too Soon My Love," "Only Those in Love") are far better than the covers of popular standards ("The Girl From Ipanema," "It Was a Very Good Year") and the bossa nova-cum-folk on their cover of Ian & Sylvia's "Four Strong Winds." If you do want to hear everything from Second Album in the original order, try to find the reissue compilation Sing for You/Second Album, which combines the first two albums and five additional tracks on a single-CD release.

Marijuana Unknowns is indeed a collection of obscure marijuana-related '60s tracks, but the bad news (or good news, depending on your perspective) is that it's not nearly as fried an experience as one might expect. Sure, there are plenty of veiled and not-so-veiled references to the evil weed, but most of the tunes themselves are pretty lightweight freakbeat and British Invasion pop ditties, not fuzzed out stoner anthems. The nadir has to be "Pot Party," by the World, where a bunch of supposedly stoned fools giggle at nothing over a sped-up "Spirit in the Sky" riff. This is good for a chuckle, but probably not the best thing for your next incense-and-black-light bong party.

The Plastic Cloud were an Ontario-based folk-rock quartet, consisting of Brian Madill (bass), Don Brewer (lead vocals, 12-string guitar), Mike Cadieux (guitar), and Randy Umphrey (drums). Formed in 1967, they managed to encompass the commercial side of the music in pleasant, Byrds-like original numbers, but also showed a much harder sound dominated by fuzztone guitar and other effects, for a much more spaced-out sound on about half of their recorded material. Madill and Umphrey were the initial partners, with Cadieux and Brewer -- who not only sang lead but wrote all of their original songs -- coming aboard next. 

They were signed to Allied Records in Ontario and got one self-titled LP out which, sadly enough, never found an audience, despite beautiful production and some bold, ambitious use of psychedelic effects. Their vocals were pretty and they played better than that, and the results, with a sympathetic producer in charge, were mighty impressive -- their one album is worth hearing a lot more than once, and you get the feeling that if these guys had been working out of, say, L.A. or the Bay Area and been signed to a label with some real marketing power, they'd be a lot more than a footnote today with exactly the music they did leave behind. In 2005, Pacemaker Entertainment reissued their album on CD, and based on the results, Steven Van Zandt or CaveStomp! should be digging these guys up, if they're still around, for a gig as soon as possible.