1971 Reviews | Colossal Reviews

A Child’s Garden of Grass: A Pre-Legalization Comedy by Jack S. Margolis (Vinyl record album review)

August 20, 2022 By Natan Gesher Leave a Comment

Record basics

Album name: A Child’s Garden of Grass: A Pre-Legalization Comedy
Artist name: Jack S. Margolis, with Jere Alan Brian and Ron Jacobs
Year: 1971
Number of discs: one
Label: Elektra Records
Collection: Brenner / Gessner
Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
Buy it on Amazon: $131.00

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

Ummm. I’m familiar with “grass,” but this record is new to me.

What I expected

I have no idea.

What it was actually like

I guess to begin, despite its name, this record is not suitable for children – and not just on account of its primary subject matter, but also because parts of it would definitely be rated NC-17.

So what is its main subject matter? Let’s just say that in order to get the full experience of listening to “A Child’s Garden of Grass: A Pre-Legalization Comedy,” I first ingested a certain medicinal herb. As a result, it was difficult to keep my mind from wandering at times, until the sound effects returned.

Wait, what sound effects? This was a humor record, and one of the main approaches to humor of Jack S. Margolis (with Jere Alan Brian and Ron Jacobs) seems to have been goofiness, including a more than healthy dose of weird sound effects and silly voices, with lots of accent work, which is how you know it’s classy humor.

Just kidding. It was kind of like an audio recording of some sort of cringe avant-garde “theatre,” in which all aspects of marijuana use are explained to an audience of bourgeois naïfs, except that the real audience is the counter-culture. So to be clear, this was a comically half-assed extended insult of working class people, masquerading as critique of middle class culture and traditional values. They’re so uncool and easily swayed by advertising! Can you believe that?

I don’t understand why my parents’ generation had to be quite so weird, why they felt the need to subject their own parents and children to what is the very definition of cringe. I also don’t understand how Jack S. Margolis, Jere Alan Brian and Ron Jacobs didn’t die of the giggles while recording and editing “A Child’s Garden of Grass: A Pre-Legalization Comedy,” since they seem to have found their navel-gazing so insanely funny (one example: it was as if they had just invented the ability to record something in stereo, and took advantage of every opportunity to share the miracle of stereo recording with the audience).

Warning: don’t make any serious attempt to listen to “A Child’s Garden of Grass: A Pre-Legalization Comedy” without the aid of a certain medicinal herb. Also, beware that it ends with a whimper.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

The Inner Mounting Flame by The Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin (Vinyl record album review)

August 19, 2022 By Natan Gesher Leave a Comment

Record basics

Album name: The Inner Mounting Flame
Group name: The Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin
Year: 1971
Number of discs: one
Label: Columbia Records
Collection: Brenner / Gessner
Who owned it: almost certainly my father
Buy it on Amazon: $64.99

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

Issue one! Ok, that’s going to be my first and last John McLaughlin joke. I have never heard of this group and don’t have any idea what it is.

What I expected

There’s no justification whatsoever for me to know even a single word of Sanskrit, but I do happen to know that “maha” is the Sanskrit word for “great” (cognate with the Greek “mega”) and Vishnu is the preserver god in the Hindu trimurti, whose name means “all pervasive” or “he who is everything and within everything.” Could this maybe be Indian-style music? I love some ragas, but I’m going to guess soft rock.

What it was actually like

Wow. This was… maybe acid jazz? I didn’t really hear much Indian influence at all, though what I heard was so unlike what I’m accustomed to hearing that I don’t even know what I might have missed, or what might have been too subtle for me to pick up.

Parts had a very traditional electric blues sound like The Dance Of Maya, and other parts were more progressive rock and even hard rock, with electric guitar solos that I might expect of heavy metal (and recall that this was recorded in 1971), but the dominant sound was psychedelic, jazzy, and heavy. I loved it.

Vital Transformation was fantastic, and the beginning of it especially was incredible.

A Lotus On Irish Streams sounded a bit like my nature sounds playlist, pretty unlike the rest of the record (but ironically more like what I expected the whole record to be), and I’d say it was the worst song.

I really tend to prefer music that’s melodic and rhythmic, but “The Inner Mounting Flame” had a certain unmistakable excellence that really set it apart from… pretty much everything.

Grade

5/5: with absolute metaphysical certitude, you should check out the Mahavishnu Orchestra

Grateful Dead (Skull Fuck / Skull and Roses) by the Grateful Dead (Vinyl record album review)

August 18, 2022 By Natan Gesher 1 Comment

Record basics

Album name: Grateful Dead (Skull Fuck / Skull and Roses)
Group name: The Grateful Dead
Year: 1971
Number of discs: two
Label: Warner Bros. Records
Collection: Brenner / Gessner
Distinguishing characteristics: my parents had two copies of this record. One has no markings on it at all. The other has “Goldstein” written all over it – on the inside cover and on all four faces of the two LPs.
Buy it on Amazon: $69.89

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m just a bit too young to have seen the Grateful Dead perform live – I vividly recall being in my grandparents’ beach house in Margate, New Jersey, the adults and my cousins shocked and upset, after the news of Jerry Garcia’s death (which was also the same day as the Netscape IPO) when I was 14.

I’ve listened to approximately a zillion hours of live Grateful Dead recordings – in part because my parents were fans when I was a kid, and also in the past ten or fifteen years my father has always had their concerts playing on satellite radio when he’s in his car, but also I love a lot of their music despite not being a “jam band” fan.

I’ve never specifically listened to this this record (which I guess is just called “Grateful Dead,” despite being known by their fans as “Skull and Roses,” and which the band named “Skull Fuck”), but I expect that I’ll know more or less all the songs on it.

What I expected

It’s a live Dead record from 1971, so that basically says everything.

What it was actually like

First of all, this was awesome, and especially so because in 1971, these guys were not really a big deal, but by doing essentially the same things, again and again for three decades or so, they made themselves into the biggest deal. So I’m sure that someone listening to “Skull and Roses” shortly after it was recorded might have enjoyed it, and maybe even loved it, but would have completely lacked the ability to grasp how significant it was.

Also, the Dead could have gone the way of a lot of bands who made horrible music in the later 1970s and 1980s, but chose not to do that, and that’s special.

At any rate: the sound on this record seemed maybe a little flat, or almost compressed too much. It was as if I was listening to MP3s on a MacBook, and wasn’t able to pick out the sharp sounds. Maybe that was the copy I listened to, but what a bummer.

I loved it, though. Two of their covers really stood out: Me and Bobby McGee was good, but their version of Johnny B. Goode was outstanding. Playing in the Band was also so, so good.

Side 2 was an 18+ minute jam called The Other One and, predictably, was the most boring part.

Grade

5/5: love it

Aqualung by Jethro Tull (Vinyl record album review)

August 14, 2022 By Natan Gesher Leave a Comment

Record basics

Album name: Aqualung
Group name: Jethro Tull
Year: 1971
Number of discs: one
Label: Chrysalis Records
Collection: Brenner / Gessner
Distinguishing characteristics:
- “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
- “PRAGER” written on top of album, indicating that it was owned by a family friend
Buy it on Amazon: $28.99

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I think I first heard this on classic rock radio in the 1990s, and I’ve probably listened to it about a hundred times in the past few decades.

What I expected

Progressive rock, hard rock, folk rock, weirdness, and a flute.

What it was actually like

All of the above and more!

I suppose I can’t be the only person who has long assumed that this record was a joke of some kind, though I acknowledge that I’ve never been able to articulate the joke’s punchline, and occasionally worried if that means it’s on me.

Aqualung and Cross-eyed Mary on side one (which is called “Aqualung”) are an uncommon pair of thematically linked, dark, dispiriting and creepy hard rock songs that are also excellent and even moving, while Hymn 43 and especially Locomotive breath on side two (which is called “My God”) are in a similar style and add even more depth the record’s own little universe.

I understand that I’m not supposed to treat it as a concept album, but I see it as much more of one than other records that are widely treated that way.

Of the acoustic, folkier songs, Mother Goose is the best.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour by The Moody Blues (Vinyl record album review)

July 26, 2022 By Natan Gesher Leave a Comment

Record basics

Album name: Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
Group name: The Moody Blues
Year: 1971
Number of discs: one
Label: Threshold Records
Collection: Brenner / Gessner
Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned this record
Buy it on Amazon: $9.89

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve previously reviewed two Moody Blues records: On The Threshold of a Dream and a compilation called This Is The Moody Blues. My general impression is that they had some good parts, but that the self conscious weirdness (“Space Oddity vibes”) detracted significantly from the overall experience.

What I expected

More progressive rock with Space Oddity vibes.

What it was actually like

That was basically right, and Procession, the opening track, was exactly what I meant; it would be difficult for me to imagine a dumber song than this. One More Time to Live must have been their attempt to do that: it’s an attempt to see how many words they can rhyme with “Desolation” (answer: a lot).

The Story in Your Eyes, however, is about as good as progressive rock gets: coherent, rhythmic and melodic, and with a guitar riff that evokes the Allman Brothers (or something) – which is far better than Our Guessing Game, which I kept thinking was about to turn into Somewhere Over the Rainbow (and not the ukulele version by that extraordinarily large Polynesian fellow on youtube, but rather the version you remember from “The Wizard of Oz”).

Emily’s Song was familiar to me, though I don’t think this is the version I’ve heard in the past, and very Beatlesque.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me