40 Year Itch : Stones Record "Angie" Demo

Following their exhausting, drug-fueled North American "STP" Tour, The Rolling Stones gathered in Jamaica in late November to begin sessions for their follow up to Exile On Main St. Although the Stones would never admit it, something was missing. Sure,  the single "Angie" would hit #1 in the US in 1973 and so would  the album Goats Head Soup.  But this hit and miss record marks the end of the classic Rolling Stones album era which...

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40 Year Itch: Those We Missed from Nov '72

[Purchase]I'm reading Neil Young's Waging Heavy Peace ( skip the first 50 pages and Neil starts to settle down and tell his story). I think it's fair to say Neil's the kind of guy who likes to have a lot of plates spinning at the same time. Journey Through the Past is the soundtrack to an experimental, critically panned concert film that wouldn't be seen for two more years. Unreleased on CD, among the best stuff is this seven minute Crosby,...

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40 Year Itch: Focus III

[Purchase]The greatest things Dutch guitar god Jan Akkerman ever did wasn't with Focus. It was refusing to play with Sting "because I didn't like his music".Anyway, Focus followed up their international prog metal yodeling classic "Hocus Pocus" with this double album, Focus III, released in November of 1972. The yodeling is kept to a minimum tho I think you can hear some hints of operatic singing about two minutes into  "Sylvia", a major hit...

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40 Year Itch: On Butterflies and Lilac Sprays

[Purchase]In Kicking And Dreaming, Nancy Wilson tells the story of searching for Joni Mitchell on Sechelt Island off the British Columbia coast. This is years before she became famous herself. Nancy had read that Joni owned an 80 acre farm on the 15 square mile island. The journey proved fruitless. Islanders who could have pointed the way usually sent Nancy in the opposite direction. Though I can't prove it, I always felt I recognized the backdrop...

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40 Year Itch: Slayed?

[Purchase]Yob-Rock at its finest. Though their impact on US charts was minimal. Slade owned the UK Charts between 1971 and 1976. They placed 17 consecutive singles into the UK Top 20 including 6 Number Ones. The ultimate Slade album is their UK#1  Slayed?, released in November of 1972. It features the chronically poor-spelling band's huge hits (UK#1) "Mama We're All Crazee Now" and (UK#2) "Gudbuy T'Jane" as well as "Look At Last Night", perhaps...

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40 Year Itch: Grey Lagoons

On November 25, 1972 Roxy Music performed a three song set on the BBC arts program Full House. You'll hear a bit of "Re-Make/Re-Model", "Ladytron" and a new song, "Grey Lagoons", which would appear on the band's second album For Your Pleasure.  The sound is tinny and the picture is low-res but it's worth your time if you're a big fan of Roxy Music. Phil Manzanera takes quite the solo on "Ladytron". Andrew Mackay and Bryan Ferry trade off solos...

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40 Year Itch: Space Chuggin

[Purchase]Space rock pioneers Hawkwind followed up their #3 UK charting single "Silver Machine" with their third album  Doremi Fasol Latido, a record that would appeal to the same "fanboys" of the early 70's who liked sci fi novels, prog rock and dropping acid in their basement apartments. This is the first album to feature bassist Lemmy from Motorhead and drummer Simon King. Doremi Fasol Latido was recorded at  Rockfield Studios in Wales...

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40 Year Itch : Two Beauties from November '72

[Purchase]Colin Blunstone could sing the obituary section of a newspaper and make it gorgeous. The former Zombies singer released his second solo album, Ennismore, in November of 1972. The lead-off track, "I Don't Believe in Miracles", was he first single and peaked at #31 in the UK. It was written by Argent singer Russ Ballard. In fact Argent backed up Blunstone on most of the album making this the closest thing to a new Zombies record any fan could...

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40 Year Itch : Thanksgiving at Sing Sing

[Purchase DVD]There was a riot at Sing Sing Prison but it was a riot of music, emotion, enthusiasm and good feelings. What a day. What a concert!-Jerry Oster, New York Daily NewsOn Thanksgiving Day in 1972, Joan Baez her sister Mimi Farina, B B King, The Voices of East Harlem and comedian Jimmy Walker performed at the maximum security prison Sing Sing in New York State. Joan Baez opened with " I Shall Be Released". Then her sister joined her for...

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40 Year Itch : Alligator Lizards In The Air

[Purchase]The critics never forgave America for "A Horse With No Name".  Aping Neil Young was bad enough. Knocking the real Neil Young out of the #1 singles chart with a Neil Young sound-alike was nearly criminal. Having lyrics like "the heat was hot" in that song was apparently unforgivable. The Rolling Stone Album Guide still gives all of America's studio albums one star ( "Disastrous") ratings and the most recent edition complains of thin...

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40 Year Itch: Aloha From Hawaii Press Conference

On November 20, 1972 reporters gathered at the Hawaiian Village Hotel where Elvis Presley announced he'd be performing a live concert called "Aloha From Hawaii" on January 14, 1973 that would be beamed around the world via satellite.He also announced the concert would also raise money for the local Kui Lee Cancer Fund. If the King seemed a bit off, he may have been tired. Elvis had performed three shows on November 17 and 18.   To prepare...

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40 Year Itch : An Ocean Full of Faces

[Purchase]Seventh Sojourn, released on November 19, 1972 is the seventh and last of a stretch of gold albums released by the classic line-up of the Moody Blues before group members took a long sabbatical to pursue solo careers. Its late 1972 release helped ensure Seventh Sojourn would be the #1 Billboard album for weeks leading to Christmas.The best known song on the album is the US # 13 single "I'm Just A Singer ( In a Rock n Roll Band), Justin...

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40 Year Itch : "American City Suite" Peaks at #27

[Purchase]1972 began with an epic hit single in the eight minute long #1 "American Pie" and ended with another epic single , Cashman and West's ten minute "American City Suite", which peaked at #27 on November 18. Terry Cashman and Tommy West were best known for producing Jim Croce hits like "Operator", "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" and "Operator" .With the help of great studio musicians, including Jeff "Skunk" Baxter ( Steely Dan, The Doobie...

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Blancmange Picks All Time Top Ten

To promote the 1982 Blancmange debut album Happy Families,  founders Stephen Luscombe and Neil Arthur gave Smash Hits a Top Ten list showcasing their love of synth pop and exotic world music. This list comes courtesy of Brian at Like Punk Never Happen...

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40 Year Itch: David Bowie Writes "Time"

[Purchase]David Bowie performed two concerts in New Orleans in mid November. The first was uptown, November 14 at the Jesuit university, Loyola, which always had a better meal plan than Tulane University across the street. The second was November 22 at The Warehouse downtown, where Jim Morrison performed his last show with The Doors and where a friend of mine made out with a shockingly beautiful girl at a 1982 Talking Heads concert and discovered...

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40 Year Itch: You Hit Me With A Flower

[Purchase]With his long overdue success finally attained, David Bowie also seemed to have picked up 3 "Get Your Idol Out Of Purgatory" cards. He used the first one on Mott The Hoople by providing them with a Top 5 UK hit in "All The Young Dudes". Another would be used on (Z)Iggy Pop by producing his final Stooges album, 1973's Raw Power. But his most memorable intervention was in the career of Bowie's idol and inspiration, former Velvet...

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40 Year Itch : The Jackson 5 Live in Paris

[Purchase]The Jackson 5 spent the first half of November 1972 touring Europe to promote Lookin' Through the Window, the very first album I asked somebody to buy for me. By this point, Michael Jackson's voice had changed from boy soprano to tenor and his solo career was beginning to eclipse the band's. "I Wanna Be Where You Are" is one of the great singles of 1972.Where are the sounds of screaming girls? Apparently in France, audiences come to concerts...

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40 Year Itch: The World Is A Ghetto

[Purchase]"The World is a Ghetto" may have sounded like one of the most political statements of the years, especially coming from a band whose members had still vivid memories of the Watts riots. But War's 1972 album, which would go on to be one of the best selling albums of 1973, is a celebration of ghetto life. To mark the 40th anniversary of The World Is a Ghetto, here's an interview with one of the band's founders, the harmonica wizard Lee Oskar....

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40 Year Itch : Whole Oats

[Purchase]Daryl Hall and John Oates, the #1 charting duo in rock and roll history, released their debut album Whole Oats on November 12, 1972. It didn't attract a whole lot of attention then but, in retrospect, maybe it should have. Produced by Arif Mardin ( who helmed great albums by The Rascals and Dusty Springfield), Whole Oats fills out the folksy sound these favorite sons of Philadelphia had created by plugging in funky guitars, horns and other...

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40 Year Itch: A Song for Syd Barrett

40 years ago this month ex-Soft Machine guitarist Kevin Ayers released as a single "Oh! Wot A Dream", a song about his eccentric friend Syd Barrett: You are the most extraordinary person / You write the most peculiar kind of tunes / I met you floating as I was boating / One Afternoon”.   The song appeared on Ayers's 1973 album Bananamour, his follow up to 1971's acclaimed Whatevershebringswesing which featured the...

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More Krautrock From 1972

Popol Vuh  1972 was an exceptional year for Krautrock and for German rock and roll. And there is a difference. Krautrock is that experimental form of rock n roll based on the work of minimalists and mad scientist composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen. Bands like Can ( see yesterday's post) , NEU!, Popl Vuh, Faust, Kraftwerk, and Cluster are clearly Krautrock. The great Twenty Sixty Six And Then is probably just German  rock and roll ( as...

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40 Year Itch: Ege Bamyasi

[Purchase]This was the first Can LP I bought brand new (Torquay 1972) and it is still my favourite. -Julian CopeThere is probably no better introduction to the sonically trance-inducing, highly experimental world of Krautrock than Can's approachable fourth album. That's despite its fairly unapproachable name Ege Bamyasi --which means Aegean Okra in Turkish.Thanks to a hit single, "Spoon", which hit #6 in the German charts and sold 300,000 copies,...

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Curt Smith of Tears For Fears Picks His Top Ten

[Purchase]To promote their singles "Pale Shelter" and "Mad World" ( then climbing to #3 on the UK charts) , Tears For Fears vocalist, bass player and keyboardist Curt Smith offered this art rock Top 10 list to the October 28th issue of Smash Hits which comes courtesy of Brian at Like Punk Never Happen...

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