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Wind on the Water by Crosby & Nash (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Wind on the Water
  • Group name: Crosby & Nash
  • Year: 1975
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: ABC Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics: clipped top right corner
  • Buy it on Amazon: $5.90

Wind on the Water by Crosby & Nash

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record and don’t think I’ve ever listened to any of the work of the Crosby & Nash duo, though I’ve previously reviewed several that come from the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young cinematic universe:

What I expected

Country rock, folk rock.

What it was actually like

I anticipated that I probably wasn’t going to enjoy this record, and I was right about that, though it had more of a rock sound than I predicted. For example, Low Down Payment was a hard rock song. Take the Money and Run, on the other hand, had a pretty extensive country sound with a lot of fiddle.

There weren’t any songs on Wind on the Water that made me want to listen again, though.

Also, I generally avoid commenting on someone’s physical appearance, but Graham Nash looks very unwell on the cover, almost emaciated, but I just checked in and he’s still doing fine after 47 years, so that’s a relief. David Crosby has always had the same goofy look.

Grade

2/5: weak, but I was able to listen to the whole thing

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

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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

The Inner Mounting Flame by The Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin

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

Hooligans by The Who (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Hooligans
  • Group name: The Who
  • Year: 1981
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: MCA Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: I think I bought this one!
  • Buy it on Amazon: $10.99

Hooligans by The Who

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve been a fan of the Who for decades, and I’m pretty sure that this record was part of my parents’ collection because I bought it and left it in their basement (as I never owned a turntable until my parents gave me theirs when they moved). It’s a compilation and I know most of the songs on it, especially the earlier songs, but I don’t have any clear memory of ever listening to it.

What I expected

Four sides of The Who, but focusing much more on their 1970s era music than on their earlier eras.

What it was actually like

If you name your band “the Who,” you’re obviously doing it for the puns, and for other people to use a lot of puns about you. In this case, the name of the record, “Hooligans,” is an obvious example, and then to take it a step further, they even named the four sides “First Bunch of Hooligans,” “Second Bunch…,” &c.

First Bunch of Hooligans

This was the most varied and excellent side, covering a very small sampling of their Maximum R&B era (I Can’t Explain), extending through the “Tommy” era (Pinball Wizard) and “Live at Leeds”[1] (Summertime Blues). I have always loved the Who’s reinterpretation of Summertime Blues as a hard rock song.

The Relay was the only song I didn’t already know, and also the only song I didn’t enjoy.

Second Bunch of Hooligans

It’s just four songs from Who’s Next (Baba O’Riley, Behind Blue Eyes, Bargain and The Song Is Over), so it might be easier just to read what I wrote when I listened to it last month.

Third Bunch of Hooligans

Slip Kid is an astonishingly bad song, and in fact, this is really the era of the Who that I enjoy much less, and I know very little about it – as far as I’m concerned, there was redeeming value in “Quadrophenia,” but so much of their work from the mid 1970s was highly questionable.

Join Together and Squeeze Box are both good, but I have a difficult time listening to Squeeze Box because it’s so over the top. The Real Me was also all right.

Fourth Bunch of Hooligans

I did not like side four of this double LP.

Who Are You is annoying, but doesn’t really bother me, except that it’s somehow treated as one of the Who’s better known and/or more important songs, but all three other songs – Drowned, Had Enough and Sister Disco were abysmal. Rock bands should not play disco music, period. And with extremely rare exceptions, such as “Who’s Next,” they should just avoid any and all techno music.

I really wish The Who had retired after “Quadrophenia.”

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References

References
↑1 “Live at Leeds” is a desert island record for me, and that was probably what I was listening to on repeat, on the CD player in my mother’s Volvo, around the time that I bought “Hooligans.” I’m guessing it would have been around summer 2000, at the used record store around East Gude Drive in Rockville.

Aqualung by Jethro Tull (Vinyl record album review)

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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

Aqualung by Jethro Tull

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

(Untitled) by The Byrds (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: (Untitled)
  • Group name: The Byrds
  • Year: 1970
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: Columbia Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $9.99

(Untitled) by The Byrds

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I listened to Farther Along a month ago and was pleasantly surprised, but I’ve never heard “(Untitled)” before.

What I expected

“Farther Along” had a decent diversity of musical styles – rock, country, Bob Dylan impressions, bluegrass, Oompa-Loompa – and this record is from the same era, with some Dylan covers, so I’ll guess a similar mix.

What it was actually like

The first two sides were recordings from concerts, and I thought they were both excellent, especially side one. Country rock was the predominant style, but parts were more hard rock. Lover Of The Bayou was a great blues rock opener, powerful but subtle, and I liked the rocking, fast tempo Nashville West (an instrumental) and So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N Roll Star, which had a pretty strong beat, but weaker vocals.

Both of the Bob Dylan covers, Positively 4th Street and Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, were excellent: faithful representations of what Dylan had written and performed, but with a lot more going on, the Byrds gave these songs a richer sound, and turned Hey Mr. Tambourine Man in particular into the rock song that I think it always wanted to be.

Eight Miles High was more of a long jam that took up the entire second side, and actually sounded more like multiple songs in one, and I thought it was pretty good.

The third and fourth sides were new studio recordings and were much more like “Farther Along” and what I expected. Parts were more country, like Yesterday’s Train, while Well Come Back Home was more of a standard Byrds-style rock song with strong folk influence. Just A Season also sounded a lot like the early Byrds, or early Dylan, or both.

Their version of Take A Whiff, the Lead Belly classic, was pretty good, but I’ve definitely heard better (and Lonnie Donegan’s version Have a Drink On Me is almost equally a classic).

Grade

4/5