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Balaklava by Pearls Before Swine (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Balaklava
  • Group name: Pearls Before Swine
  • Year: 1968
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: ESP-Disk
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $40.00

Balaklava by Pearls Before Swine

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard this Pearls Before Swine record before, but for some reason, I think that it was their most famous. It will be the fourth that I review from my father’s collection, and the previous three were:

What I expected

Psychedelic folk.

What it was actually like

Of all the records, from all the artists and bands, that I’ve reviewed since I started doing this last May, Pearls Before Swine stands out as having a really distinctive sound (while still fitting neatly into late 1960s / early 1970s music, even if I don’t know that any of their recordings would have gotten radio play). Though I’ve now only listened to each of their first four records a single time, I’m convinced that I would recognize any of their songs in any context. That’s how alike they sound to each other, and how different they sound from anything else.

I thought this record was all right – maybe better than These Things Too, but not as good as One Nation Underground. It definitely had some trippy songs, like Images of April, with lots of chirping birds and flute, which I thought was fine. Another with lots of sound effects was I Saw the World. Translucent Carriages was more in their wistful style, with whispering sound effects, guitar and vocals.

Then there were some more standard folk style songs, like There Was a Man, which did not really impress me. Their version of Suzanne was good, but Rapp definitely did not have Cohen’s voice, which I thought made all the backing instruments necessary, taking a lot away from the song.

A couple of the songs were quite disjointed and confusing: Ring Thing, which was basically gobbledygook, and Lepers and Roses, which had flute that I disliked a lot.

The album’s front cover was part of a Breughel painting, which was cool. The back cover, however, stated:

we wish to dedicate this album to pvt. edward d. slovik, u.s.army,deceased

They meant this guy: a career criminal who was drafted into the military against all reason, deserted, begged in writing to be punished, and then got executed. This sounds like some serious Dark Triad at work:

They’re not shooting me for deserting the United States Army… I used to steal things when I was a kid… They’re shooting me for the bread and chewing gum I stole when I was 12 years old.

Not very classy at all.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

A Gift From a Flower to a Garden by Donovan (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
  • Artist name: Donovan
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: Epic Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $68.40

A Gift From a Flower to a Garden by Donovan

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, but I recently reviewed The Real Donovan (1966) and thought it was not that bad!

What I expected

The Real Donovan was not that bad, but I’m getting a very bad sense about this double album.

First of all, lots of musicians were putting out double albums in the late 1960s, and the way they always did it was by having an extra sleeve in the album, and sticking the second record in there. For whatever reason, Donovan seems to have felt the need to go all out and create a whole box set for his double album, as if it was going to be an unforgettable experience to buy it and then take it home, lovingly unbox it, and diligently listen to it.

Moreover, there’s a folio inside, with DONOVAN printed on the cover, and he’s printed twelve sheets on very heavy stock, each in a different color and labeled “the first” through “the twelfth,” with a song name and that song’s lyrics, and a drawing that presumably illustrates the song. It’s as if he saw a William Blake book in a bookstore one day and decided to copy that exact idea.

Also, on the back cover, there’s a photograph of Donovan fawning towards his guru, captioned “His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Author.”

In short, all indications are that this will be an extremely pretentious record.

What it was actually like

You know the famous story about how automatic double tracking was invented for the Beatles to use when recording Revolver? I’m all for new advances in music recording, but there’s a good reason why no one listens to Revolver and finds the vocals to be distractingly unnatural, which is that the Beatles knew not to overdo it. Since they understood that it was critical to integrate technological changes judiciously, why couldn’t they tell their pal Donovan to chill out and not ruin his record with the ADT effect?

The whole first LP was so heavy on the voice effect that I could not stop noticing it. It was very folk rock and very psychedelic, and I recognized Wear Your Love Like Heaven, but I would not recommend it.

The second LP was way better, far more about folk music and some folk rock, and what it lost in ADT, it gained in flute, which was particularly prominent in songs like The Enchanted Gypsy and The Tinker and the Crab.

A low point of the second LP was the sound effects – seagulls and laughing children – at the beginning of Song of the Naturalist’s Wife, and then again with more chirping birds at the beginning of The Magpie. That was totally unnecessary.

There was also absolutely no justification for making this a double album, since very few of the songs were memorable enough that they needed to have been included.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Bee Gees’ 1st (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Bee Gees’ 1st
  • Group name: Bee Gees
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Atco
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • “Gess” written on top right of album front, indicating that my father owned it
    • “GESSNER” written on top right of album back, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $17.14

Bee Gees' 1st

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, or indeed any Bee Gees record, though I am familiar with them, and they came up on this site ten months ago when I reviewed Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track (1977). Not surprisingly, I was not a fan.

What I expected

Of course, when I think of the Bee Gees, I think of disco, but this record is from 1967, which is way too early for disco. It’s also got some wholesome, record company-approved psychedelia on the cover. I don’t really know what to expect.

What it was actually like

From the first few notes of the first song, Turn of the Century, I knew exactly what this record was not – disco – and exactly what it was – a cheap knockoff of Sgt. Pepper. That should not, of course, have been possible, since the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper in late May 1967 and the Bee Gees must already have been recording 1st before then, but it sure sounded awfully like a moderately talented group trying to to mimic the Beatles from exactly that era, at every single step.

To what extent did this record copy the Beatles? It even managed, somehow, to include some of Faul’s granny shit, the extremely Oompa Loompa song Craise Finton Kirk Royal Academy of Arts.

I may have recognized To Love Somebody, a pretty bad song with totally unnecessary orchestral backing.

The only song that did not sound entirely like a Beatles impersonation was Please Read Me, which sounded at parts like a Beach Boys impersonation.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Patterns Of Reality by Andy Robinson (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Patterns Of Reality
  • Artist name: Andy Robinson
  • Year: 1968
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Philips
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “Brenner” written on lower right of album cover, indicating that my mother owned it
  • Buy the CD on Amazon: $27.42

Patterns Of Reality by Andy Robinson

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I am not familiar at all with Andy Robinson or with this record.

What I expected

Folk rock.

What it was actually like

One of the things that I sometimes dislike about some folk and folk rock music is that it can be a real drag to listen to it, partly because of its lyrical self-importance and also partly because music is supposed to be fun, and a lot of times it just isn’t (that’s often what I mean when I describe something as slow and boring). Fortunately, this record wasn’t like that for the most part, with just a couple of exceptions: Time For Decision, which might have been more boring than the rest, but still not bad, and the title track Patterns Of Reality, which had the most sad violin and piano.

Mostly, though, this was lively and interesting folk rock, often with an organ, that did not run from extensive percussion when necessary, and occasionally used an echo effect on the vocals that reminded me of Pearls Before Swine. This is the sort of music that I might have thought my father would have preferred; I was at least a little bit impressed that my mother owned it[1].

Much of the record walked a line between sounding partly earnest and even naive in that early to mid 1960s way (like The Monkees, a little), and also partly psychedelic and transgressive in that late 1960s way. To Tell You The Truth was a good example of both in one song, but a lot of songs sounded like that.

I was also fond of the organ in The Exhibition and Absolutely The End, that helped to put a psychedelic twist on the folk sound. Are You Sleeping? also had an extensive organ (or keyboard) solo.

Ballad Of A Summer Girl was the only song that sounded a little bit country, with a subtle country-sounding rhythm guitar, but I thought it was great.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

References

References
↑1 Technically, “Brenner” on the album might have meant that her younger sister, or even her younger brother, owned it, but I assume it was hers. I have reviewed one record that belonged to my aunt, and it had “Annie” written on James Taylor’s head.

Second Album by Roy Buchanan (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Second Album
  • Artist name: Roy Buchanan
  • Year: 1973
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Polydor
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $79.99

Second Album by Roy Buchanan

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never heard this record before, but I listened to Roy Buchanan (1972) last fall and loved it.

What I expected

More electric blues and psychedelic rock with very good guitar.

What it was actually like

Like the previous Roy Buchanan record, this one was an outstanding display of electric blues guitar mastery, with some piano backing and vocals, and I was consistently amazed that he could pull so many different kinds of sounds out of his guitar.

The guitar repeatedly sang like a real person singing, and on multiple songs, such as Filthy Teddy, it sounded like a saxophone or a trumpet.

Five String Blues was much slower than I preferred, and its vocal part was totally unnecessary, but I was still awed at what he could do, and even its piano solo was wild.

Like John’s Blues on the previous record, Treat Her Right on this one was much more of a rock song, and I thought it was great, though not exactly the most consistent with the rest of the record. My favorite, though, was Tribute To Elmore James, which may have been exactly why the electric blues was invented in the first place.

She Once Lived Here was more of a country song, and slower, but still great.

The only song that I did not really enjoy was Thank You Lord, which was kind of a waste of a track, with very little to it and no searing, singing guitar like the others had.

Grade

5/5: love it