40 Year Itch: Coming over Charaton Bridge

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Cult faves Gentle Giant--celebrated even today for their complex, sophisticated, eccentric recordings-- had to endure the most shaming indignity before heading out on the tour to support Octopus ( released in December of 1972). They had to open for Black Sabbath:

"It was perhaps the most ridiculous pairing of groups ever in the history of show business. For the most part we got booed off the stage... At a show at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, we went on stage and the Sabbath fans were shouting "get off, we want Sabbath" and we were just getting set to play 'Funny Ways'. We pulled out the cellos and violins, and the crowd starting heckling immediately, but we were gradually starting to get past it, when someone threw a cherry bomb on stage. (Phil Shulman) made sure we all stopped playing and said we needed to get off the stage. As we were leaving the stage, Phil grabbed the mic and said to the crowd "you guys are a bunch of fucking cunts!", and the boo that went up after that was enormous! To this day I'll never forget it! We were sort of vindicated later on, as we thought we were never going to play Los Angeles again after the cherry bomb incident, but later on the Octopus tour we were able to sell out consistently there, so something clicked with the fans. “”Derek Shulman on Gentle Giant's failure to win over Black Sabbath's audience in 1972



For  the Gentle Giant novice, Octopus is the place to begin. It features all the odd, multi-instrumental, multi vocal adventures and  twee and twiddly moments that are the hallmark of this band of brilliant musicians... with the benefit of being extremely listenable.

                                                         Octopus, the US album cover

   One of the album highlights is "Knots" which kicks off with three part a capella vocals and then just gets stranger and stranger.



I suppose the oddest footnote to Gentle Giant is the fact that upon the band's break up, Derek Shulman became a big deal at Polygram Records. He's the guy who signed Bon Jovi.

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40 Year Itch : The Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival

Is this the rock fest that killed the Woodstock nation?

 The Erie Canal Soda Pop fest on Indiana's Bull Island certainly drew a huge crowd -- an estimated 200,00 hippies who came from all over the country Labor Day Weekend of 1972 to see Santana, Foghat, Canned Heat , Black Sabbath, the Allman Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Joe Cocker and Nazareth.

 That's not who showed up though.

 Black Sabbath was a no show. So were the Allman Brothers. Nobody saw Fleetwood Mac. When Joe Cocker saw the crowd he reportedly asked for more money and left when organizers turned him down.

 The traffic was a nightmare.

So were the drugs. Somebody was selling bleach. Two people died. And it rained.

 One very entertaining blogger who claims to have been there writes:

 If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would swear that the festival was a set-up, a sort of psyops to put an end to the ideal of the Woodstock nation. If it wasn't, then it was the biggest f**k up in the history of rock festival promotions.

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40 Year Itch : Three We Missed

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This is the end of the month round-up of albums I didn't get to for one reason or another.

Radio has such a short memory. When Dave Edmunds released "I Hear You Knockin" in 1971, there wasn't anything else like it getting played. The music of Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Smiley Lewis couldn't be heard anymore.

For his debut album, Rockpile, Edmunds recorded the music of his idols, a few originals and some surprising covers: Neil Young's "Dance Dance Dance", Ron Davies's "It Ain't Easy" (which would also show up on David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust a month later) and "Down, Down, Down" from The Move's Trevor Burton. Everything great thing Dave Edmunds has ever done can be heard in these three glorious minutes.

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No sophomore slump for Los Angeles slacker boogie artists Little Feat. The critically acclaimed Sailin' Shoes features a second version of Lowell George's classic "Willin'" which I don't think I'll ever get tired of listening to. I managed to grow up without hearing a lot of Little Feat. Even when I bought Dixie Chicken I didn't listen to it much.

 In college I had The Neville Brothers and Radiators delivering the same kind of dazed funk --the air on campus smelling like ripe magnolias and sweet weed. In New Orleans "Sailin' Shoes" meant the Robert Palmer cover version recorded with The Meters. It's still taking some time for me to get into this one. Where am I going wrong?

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1972 was a great year for Italian progressive rock. We got the first two albums from  Premiata Forneria Marconi (the name means Award-Winning Macaroni Bakery) and the first two albums from Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso ("Tour the Mutual Aid"?) as well as Le Orme 's Uomo di Pezza..

Founded by brothers Vittorio and Gianni Nocenzi, Banco specialized in complex, symphonic prog rock a la Emerson Lake and Palmer or Gentle Giant. Frankly, it's not the kind of stuff I listen to for pleasure. The follow-up Darwin!, released later in the year, is said to be their masterpiece.

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40 Year Itch: Henry, The Hobo and 3 Friends

These are three albums released in April I failed to mention for one reason or another.

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Ex-Fairport Convention  Richard Thompson's first solo album has the distinction of being the poorest selling album in the Warner Brothers catalog. But if you judged album quality on sales you wouldn't be reading 1001Songs. Henry the Human Fly reveals all the witty playfulness and intelligence that would be the cornerstone of the 40 year career that followed.

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Best known for the the Top 40 hit "City of New Orleans", Hobo's Lullaby also offers an entertaining mix of originals ("Days Are Short" features some fine Ry Cooder lines) and covers from Dylan ("When The Ship Comes In") Arlo's Dad ("1913 Massacre") and a playful sing-along version of the 1925 standard "Ukelele Lady". A grower.

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Gentle Giant's third release is a concept album about three friends who go off on separate ways after school.  Gentle Giant isn't for everyone. They are keen musicians who plow into odd arrangements and odd meters  with odd lyrics. But if you're ready for a challenge, give these prog rock legends a try.

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