Cheevyjames’ Musical Roundhouse

These are a handful of pictures that were taken at the recording of our first album, 90% Live.  With the exception of the studio version of Sunshine, the album was recorded live (no overdubs) in front of an audience and TV cameras for the All You Can Eat Texas Music Café in Waco, Texas.  Pictures were taken by my mom, which is why there’s a high concentration of “me” in here.  All pictures taken during setup/rehearsal.

practicing the lap steel for use on When You Comin’ Home Tonight

rehearsal for Don’t Let Me Be Alone Tonight, featuring Matt Talbert on lead guitar.  Matt, Bryan, Wiley, America & Manuel’s shoulder.

full band (Ed was officially in the band at this point, but wasn’t able to make it to the show)

commentary on Bryan and James’ fashion sense is welcome!

in action

shot of the band with some of the crew members looking on

Matt waiting for his moment

Wiley and Manuel with a good shot of the equipment

James and America waiting sidestage

bass boy

Released: 1971
Tracks: Black Dog; Rock and Roll; The Battle of Evermore; Stairway to Heaven; Misty Mountain Hop; Four Sticks: Going to California; When the Levee Breaks
Best track: Stairway to Heaven
Track to skip: none

Side two comes into being with the great groove of Misty Mountain Hop.  Jeez, Bonham’s drums sound fantastic on this song!  What a great, fun song.  That 2nd section of Four Sticks is definitely one of the coolest things the band ever composed.  Another fantastic groove on this song.  I love how we get another reprise of the acoustic stuff with Going to California (gorgeous song!) before ending the album with When the Levee Breaks.  We get more Bonham greatness here.  Man, he just doesn’t quit.  To me this song seems like a redefining of blues-rock.  It’s relentless and heavy and absolutely intense.  What a perfect way to end this album.

Jeez, I mean, there’s not a bad song on this entire thing!  Everything on both sides of Led Zep IV is stellar.  They may not head into as many uncharted areas here, but what they came up with was soooooo good.  Absolute top-of-their-game material.  Every song is a classic; every song is brimming with a confidence that comes from 4 guys who are true experts of their craft.  Man, I’m blown away by this album.  True excellence – best one so far.

Rating: 97

Released: 1976
Tracks: Epitaph; Cadence & Cascade; Ladies of the Road; I Talk to the Wind (previously unreleased version); Red; Starless; The Night Watch; Book of Saturday; Peace – A Theme; Cat Food (single version); Groon; Coda from Lark’s Tongues in Aspic, Part I; Moonchild; Trio; In the Court of the Crimson King
Best track: Starless
Track to skip: none

The first thing you notice about this, what’s really a “best of” for the years ’69-’74, is the absence of Crimson’s biggest “hit”, 21st Century Schizoid Man.  Robert Fripp excluded this song on purpose – probably his odd sense of humor, or more important, forcing the listener to pay attention to the *other* great songs the band did.  I’m sure that by ’76 he was quite tired of the attention that Schizoid Man received.  In truth, it doesn’t detract from the quality of this compilation.  King Crimson has so many great songs, that if you leave off Schizoid Man, it’s not a huge loss.  It actually took me a few years to notice that it wasn’t there!

There are some rarities here, which is nice.  Side 1 gives us a previously unreleased version of I Talk to the Wind from 1968 featuring Judy Dyble on vocals.  This track is really Giles, Giles & Fripp with the addition of Dyble and Ian McDonald.  I love this version of the song – Judy Dyble has such a perfect voice for this song.  Except for this album (which immediately went out of print), the track would not surface again until the GGF archival album, The Brondesbury Tapes, released in 2001.  Side 3 features the rare Cat Food single from 1970: the single edit of Cat Food and its B-side, Groon.  Both of these tracks would later be released on 1991’s Frame By Frame Set, and then again on the 30th Anniversary Remaster of In the Wake of Poseidon.  Side 3 also features the Coda from Lark’s Tongues in Aspic, Part I (the last two minutes, just the crazy talking bit); it’s incorrectly labeled as the Coda from Lark’s II.  Otherwise, all of these tracks are found on their respective albums (Moonchild thankfully omits the annoying 6 minute improv from the In the Court of the Crimson King version).

There’s no need to seek out this album, unless you just want it for collector purposes.  That’s the only reason I have it.  All of the songs and edits have been released since this compilation, most are from their original albums.  Taken on its own, however, it’s a great summary of what King Crimson did from 1969-1974.  Schizoid Man is the obvious exception, but it’s also a little strange that Lizard isn’t represented here.  A “little” strange, but really not much, as Fripp completely dislikes that album.  No matter.  I think the track selection is very good with the only odd omission being The Sailor’s Tale from Islands.  Otherwise, all of the highpoints are hit here.  It’s a solid compilation with a ton of great material and not a weak second on the whole thing.  I’m sure Fripp could sell enough copies to justify the cost if he issued it on CD (both discs total 75 minutes), but for whatever reason he didn’t.  No matter.  I think all of these songs are excellent and it’s kind of hard to choose a “best track”; for me it’s probably Starless.  I think this was the best song from this early period in Crimson’s history.  A great way to spend 75 minutes of my day.

Rating: 94

Released: 1993
Tracks: You; Creep; How Do You?; Stop Whispering; Thinking About You; Anyone Can Play Guitar; Ripcord; Vegetable; Prove Yourself; I Can’t; Lurgee; Blow Out
Best track: Blow Out
Tracks to skip: Vegetable, I Can’t, Lurgee

Pablo Honey is best known for the unexpected hit single, Creep.  Some people still only know Radiohead by this song and (somehow) don’t realize they’ve done anything since.  It has still retained its catchiness all these years and it doesn’t annoy me anywhere near as much as it used to in 1993.  It’s a good song, not the best on the disc (about in the middle somewhere), but it’s certainly not anything I ever skip.  I have to say, I love having this uncensored version as opposed to what was released in the US initially.  The rest of the songs aren’t as well-known, but they probably should be.  Songs like You, Stop Whispering, Prove Yourself and especially Blow Out are all excellent songs.  Blow Out is definitely my favorite here – a well-written song with some unexpected turns and it definitely points to the sound and songs of The Bends.

I really love that ending “jam” in Stop Whispering.  Slightly bit whiny in the vocals throughout, but the jam shows that these guys could create some seriously cool and intense music out of “noise”.  Overall the band has some pretty good choruses here, definitely catchy.  I also think that on all of these songs the music itself is consistently solid.  The main parts that annoy me are Thom Yorke’s vocals.  Mostly they’re tolerable, but he frequently gets pretty whiny.  It’s a minor complaint, but I can see people being turned off by it.  Then again, he still sings this way, so if you can’t stand his voice there’s a good chance you won’t get into much of their material.  My main problem with this album on the whole is that most of the songs are just way too short.  Songs like You, Thinking About You and especially Prove Yourself end way too soon.  These songs should have definitely been fleshed out more.  A few of these songs are only decent, stuff like How Do You? and Ripcord, and of the three skippers listed above, they’re not outright horrible (well, Lurgee just kind of plods along) but they just sound like throwaways.

I think Pablo Honey is a good start.  Some minor annoyances and some “meh” songs, but nothing is outright *bad*.  On the whole it doesn’t deserve the reputation it gets.  There are some true gems here and shockingly they’re not called Creep!  If you like Radiohead’s “guitar” music then you should check this out.  I enjoy it.

Rating: 83

In 2009 this album (along with The Bends & OK Computer) was reissued with a second disc featuring all of the album’s B-sides, some BBC sessions and most importantly the band’s long out of print debut EP, Drill.  Every one of these songs on the second disc are very hard to find and you can’t even download them from iTunes like you can the B-sides from the rest of their albums.  The rare studio and live songs fit in nicely with the quality of the songs on the album proper.

Released: 1997
Tracks: Airbag; Paranoid Android; Subterranean Homesick Alien; Exit Music (For a Film); Let Down; Karma Police; Fitter Happier; Electioneering; Climbing Up the Walls; No Surprises; Lucky; The Tourist
Best track: Subterranean Homesick Alien
Track to skip: not a second

Man, the production on this album is just perfect; absolutely beautiful.  Even when they’re being noisy, everything sounds perfect.  I don’t know, what to say?  As much as I love the Bends (and everything else they’ve done) the band just blew it all out of the water with OK Computer.  Such great songs on here!  Subterranean Homesick Alien is my favorite of the bunch.  One of my all-time favorite songs and such a gorgeous piece of music.  Man, speaking of gorgeous, what about The Tourist?  What a perfect and beautiful way to end this album.  Paranoid Android, another fantastic song.  Electioneering?  Wow, what a powerhouse.  I have to make a special point about the bass playing on Airbag – Colin Greenwood’s presence on there is fantastic and highly inspirational.

I don’t ever skip a note of this album when listening to it.  Even Fitter Happier – I think it’s a great interlude that nicely splits up the album.  Pretty startling track, too.  It’s terribly easy for me to review this album – I just LOVE IT.  Absolutely love it.  It’s definitely the best album by the most creative and original band of my adulthood.  Sounds like some cliché…I don’t care.  I think it’s a fantastic album.

Rating: 98

In 2009 this album (along with Pablo Honey & The Bends) was reissued with a second disc featuring all of the album’s B-sides and some BBC sessions.  OK Computer produced some *excellent* B-sides and I highly recommend getting the 2-disc version.

Released: 1981
Tracks: The Spirit of Radio; Red Barchetta; YYZ; A Passage to Bangkok; Closer to the Heart; Beneath, Between & Behind; Jacob’s Ladder; Broon’s Bane; The Trees; Xanadu; Freewill; Tom Sawyer; La Villa Strangiato
Best track: Red Barchetta or La Villa Strangiato
Track to skip: none

Spirit of Radio kicks it off and honestly, it’s a slightly flat performance.  I feel that on a lot of these songs, they’re certainly *good*, but for the most part this sounds like a studio compilation of these years; just different versions than the ones we’re normally used to.  I mean, the band definitely does sound good.  Sometimes it’s just not as electric as I’ve heard these songs be live.  But you know what?  That’s OK.  I still enjoy listening to this album.  Red Barchetta is a nice kick in the pants after the opener and it’s totally on fire.  Xanadu is a brilliant performance and Alex Lifeson absolutely RAGES on La Villa Strangiato.  Well, the whole band does.  They rip that song to shreds.  Geddy Lee gets his points here just on his tone in general.  He’s mixed really loud on this album and it’s just heaven for a bassist like me.  Neil Peart’s shining moment comes in his solo in YYZ.  It’s absolutely bad ass and light years better than the one on All the World’s a Stage.  All three simply blow the roof off during the solo section of Freewill.

As I said, it’s a good overview of their most progressive period.  Sums it all up very nicely.  There aren’t too many weak moments on here, but the feeling of a “studio album played live” does kind of hang over it a bit.  No big deal.  It’s quite an enjoyable album.

Rating: 92

Released: 1991
Tracks: The Power of Equality; If You Have to Ask; Breaking the Girl; Funky Monks; Suck My Kiss; I Could Have Lied: Mellowship Slinky in B Major; The Righteous & the Wicked; Give it Away; Blood Sugar Sex Magik; Under the Bridge; Naked in the Rain; Apache Rose Peacock; The Greeting Song; My Lovely Man; Sir Psycho Sexy; They’re Red Hot
Best track: Breaking the Girl
Tracks to skip: Funky Monks, I Could Have Lied, Mellowship Slinky in B Major, Give it Away, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Naked in the Rain, Apache Rose Peacock, Greeting Song, My Lovely Man, Sir Psycho Sexy

There’s so much negative stuff I could say about this album, but I’d rather not waste my breath.  In general Kiedis’ lyrics are awful and his voice is horrible.  If he shut up, I’d probably like this album (and band) a lot more.  I think Flea, Chad Smith & John Frusciante are all great musicians and their contributions to this album are stellar.  Esp. Frusciante, he absolutely *owns* this album.  He’s got great guitar solos throughout – If you Have to Ask, Mellowship Slinky.  The music on Righteous & the Wicked is great.  There are 3 songs on here I think are excellent, all throughout: Under the Bridge, Suck My Kiss and especially Breaking the Girl.  It’s definitely one of my favorite RHCP songs and certainly the highlight of this album.  I absolutely love how Flea waits to come in on Under the Bridge.  He’s such a great musician and he knows exactly what to do.  I love the transitions & song sequencing on this album.  All of the songs flow perfectly into each other and the album’s completely continuous.  From a production standpoint everything sounds great.

Yes, there are a ton of songs I skip.  Really, I only like those 3 songs.  The rest I could do without.  And yes, I skip Give it Away.  I’ve always hated Give it Away.  I think I’m the only one in the world.  Funky, yes, but the song is incredibly stupid.  I could do without ever hearing it again.  I like the band in isolated moments and I think Mother’s Milk is a stellar album.  This one isn’t though.  Too long and too much Kiedis here for me to get into it.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m the only one who has this opinion, as most people seem to think it’s a classic.  For them it may be, for me the vocals & lyrics ruin what could be a solid album.

Rating: 65

Released: 1985
Tracks: Break on Through; Light My Fire; The Crystal Ship; People Are Strange; Strange Days; Love Me Two Times; Alabama Song; Five to One; Waiting for the Sun; Spanish Caravan; When the Music’s Over; Hello, I Love You; Roadhouse Blues; L.A. Woman; Riders on the Storm; Touch Me; Love Her Madly; The Unknown Soldier; The End
Best tracks: LA Woman, Break on Through, The End, Light My Fire
Tracks to skip: Spanish Caravan, Five to One

Focusing on the actual music, though, you get a really good overview of the Doors’ music.  You get all of the hits, you get the epics and for most people it’s all they’ll need.  Light My Fire, lyrical strangeness aside, is still such a great song.  It’s catchy, yes, but the music is solid.  I think the older I get the less I relate to the lyrics and the more I drawn in by the music.  Morrison is what is he is, but for me it’s the other three guys that MAKE this band (Robby Krieger, John Densmore & Ray Manzarek).  Their playing is highly inspiring and no one else really sounded like them.  I love that transition from Unknown Soldier > The End.  Great sequencing there.  The End continues to be a great song.  I really couldn’t care less about what Jim Morrison’s singing about, but the music is incredible.  I love what the band was able to do here.  My other favorite song here, at least on this particular listen, was L.A. Woman.  I love this song and it has such a great vibe to it.  A truly classic song and one I never get tired of hearing.  There are a couple of songs I don’t dig too much on here, but I can get kind of picky sometimes.  Spanish Caravan has some good guitar playing, but the song itself is really aimless.  It’s a pretty poor composition to me.  I’ve never got into Five to One.  It just kind of plods along to me.  I can tolerate Touch Me, because it’s not a bad song, it’s just that the strings and horns on there sound very dated and make the song really cheesy.

As I said earlier, there are better Doors compilation albums out there.  I think that Legacy: The Absolute Best is the best one, but I think there’s even been another 2-disc one that’s come out in the past few years.  And there will be more, I’m sure.  Still, for what this is, it’s solid.  This is a great overview of the band’s career and you get a lot of great songs here.  The band had a short run, but the music is still relevant today and this is a nice, broad picture of the band’s work.

Rating: 90

Released: 1976
Tracks: Bastille Day; Anthem; Fly By Night/In the Mood; Something for Nothing; Lakeside Park; 2112; By-Tor and the Snow Dog; In the End; Working Man/Finding My Way; What You’re Doing
Best tracks: Fly By Night, maybe the middle bit of By-Tor
Tracks to skip: Something for Nothing, In the End, In the Mood

Bastille Day is a great way to open the show and through the disc they manage to hit the highlights from their first 4 albums.  One of my peeves, though, is their infernal use of medleys.  They’ve done this for their whole career and as a fan I just can’t stand it.  I want to hear all of Fly By Night, dammit!  It’s such a great version on here, but they cut it drastically short and go right into In the Mood, which is a horrible song.  Geddy wrote some awful lyrics to this one.  The other medley comes near the end of the disc with a back and forth version of Working Man/Finding My Way.  Working Man is a *much* better song, since FMW has some more awful lyrics from the bass player.  Thank goodness Peart came in the band and took over the lyricist role.  Then again, his words on Something for Nothing are bad too.  I just can’t stand this song, I never have.  Anyway, when listening to Working Man I forgot there was a drum solo.  My first thought was “dammit, I want this song to end!”.  In reality, it’s not a bad solo at all.  Even at this early in his career, Peart was a better drummer and soloist (especially) than most drummers.  It’s a pretty good solo, not his best, but there are some good moments in there.  He’d definitely improve on it in the upcoming years.

My only other complaint is that In the End is played too slow.  It nearly put me to sleep.  I mean, it’s a pretty stupid song anyway.  Ugh, that echo on Geddy’s voice at the end is really annoying.  Really, the only songs I outright skip are In the End, Something for Nothing and once the greatness of Fly By Night moves over to the boredom of In the Mood, I hit the fwd button.  The rest of the album is solid and the band sounds great.  Really nice rendition of Lakeside Park and that leads wonderfully into a shortened version of 2112.  I’m still not impressed with the later sections of the song, but there’s no denying that the 2112 Overture is one of the coolest things the band’s ever composed.  Strangely, I was not annoyed by By-Tor and the Snow Dog, a song I usually dislike.  Maybe it’s just the studio version?  The middle section of this song (improvised?) is really cool and was certainly a surprise the first time I heard this.

I alluded to this up in the first paragraph, but the sound on this album is really good.  The mix especially is great, with everyone’s parts being crystal clear.  Overall this is a good, but not perfect, document of Rush from early in their career.  At the time I’m sure this was viewed as amazing, and while some of it still is, it’s not the best live album they’ve put out.  I’ll get to the others soon enough (as in, I’m about to put in Exit, Stage Left), but I love that they consistently improved themselves over the years.  Both in terms of songwriting, but also in their performances.  This is a solid album, but they get even better.

Rating: 87

Recorded: 1968/69
Released: 2001 (original album released in 1969)
Tracks: [Disc 1] Mademoiselle Mabry; Frelon Brun; Two Faced; Dual Mr. Anthony Tillmon Williams Process; Splash; Splashdown; [Disc 2] Ascent; Directions I; Directions II; Shhh/Peaceful; In a Silent Way (Rehearsal);  In a Silent Way; It’s About That Time; [Disc 3] The Ghetto Walk; Early Minor; Shhh/Peaceful (LP Version); In a Silent Way/It’s About That Time (LP Version)
Best tracks: [Disc 1] Dual Mr. Anthony Tillmon Williams Process, [Disc 2] Directions I, Directions II, In a Silent Way, [Disc 3] In a Silent Way/It’s About That Time
Tracks to skip: [Disc 1] Splash, Splashdown, [Disc 2] none, [Disc 3] none

This set is obviously the complete sessions for the In a Silent Way album and in addition to that album, we get songs that found their way onto Filles de Kilimanjaro, Water Babies, Circle in the Round and Directions.  The set features some previously unreleased material and ends with the LP versions of side 1 & 2 from In a Silent Way.  Lots of material covered here, even if it’s only 14 songs.  If you need shorter songs, avoid this set.

[Disc 1]

I think Disc 1 is my least favorite of the bunch.  For the most part it has a very relaxed, but spacey quality to it.  I think it’s good for meditating, but I don’t necessarily love it for actual listening.  Dual Mr. Anthony…has some nice grooves on it and is my favorite on this particular disc.  Naturally, some great playing from Tony Williams on here.  Both Splash and Splashdown are a bit more upbeat that the others, but I don’t think they’re as good of compositions.  That’s probably why they were unreleased until this set.  I like that the playing on these songs, esp. the first 3, is very subtle.  The frequent stops and starts get distracting, but it’s clear that’s what Davis was aiming for with this music.  I can listen to these songs from time to time, but to be honest, if I’m actively listening it’s kind of a chore to sit through all of disc 1.  It sounds like the songs aren’t quite finished…I just get that feeling from them.

[Disc 2]

Now, this is the meat of this set.  We get the full versions of Shhh/Peaceful, It’s About That Time and In a Silent Way, along with the excellent Directions I & II and  a trippy as all hell Ascent.  This disc is what makes the box for me.  Ascent is indeed trippy as hell and it’s possibly the only long song on this entire set that doesn’t feel like it’s 14 minutes long.  It’s a great start to this disc and clearly illustrates we’re into the serious material here.  As for Directions I & II….wow.  Two different takes on one of my favorite Miles Davis compositions.  Directions II is probably my favorite of the two, but both are excellent.  They’re not quite as frantic as they’d be on the It’s About That Time live album recorded later in ’69, but I prefer them in these ferocious, but still tame, versions.  Excellent playing from everyone on here.

Shhh/Peaceful introduces John McLaughlin into the mix with a perfected version of the start/stop stuff that the band played around with on the first disc.  This is cool track that goes back and forth between the 2 sections/songs.  There are a lot of great, funky grooves here and they’re happily continuing on with the spacey stuff.  The rehearsal take of In a Silent Way is definitely interesting, esp. to hear how the song evolved.  It’s not really essential, though.  It’s a bit more bouncy than the released version, but it’s a nice blueprint and something different to hear.  Once we get to the song proper, though, look out.  In a Silent Way is definitely one of my favorite Miles Davis tunes and possibly my favorite melody he ever played.  It’s just such a gorgeous song.  It’s About That Time concludes the disc with some nice, spooky grooves from Dave Holland and Tony Williams.

[Disc 3]

The last disc rounds out the set and presents 2 previously unreleased tracks, The Ghetto Walk & Early Minor, along with the LP version of the In a Silent Way album.  Ghetto Walk is definitely the better of these two unreleased tracks.  There’s some delay on Miles’ trumpet and the song definitely sounds like the link between In a Silent Way and the chaos of Bitches Brew, which came out later in 1969.  It’s got a great, dark groove to it.  Even with it being 26 minutes, I did hear an edit in there.  Not too obvious, though.  Early Minor is a decent track, but it’s kinda forgettable esp. being sandwiched in between the longer pieces.

I like hearing everything that led up to the album and then getting the album proper at the end of this box set.  It’s a nice bit of completion to the whole thing.  I think that when you’re presented with the 2 sides of the album, it becomes a lot more mysterious than in dealing with them all as individual tracks.  That’s the beauty of what Miles and Teo Macero did with the album.  They condensed all of this great material into 40 minutes of music that’s simultaneously creepy, beautiful, funky and intense.  I prefer hearing the tracks on an individual level, but there’s no denying the power that the original album contained.  My only gripe is the really bad edit at 10:43 of the LP version of Shhh/Peaceful.  It’s *too obvious* of an edit, where all of the other ones are fairly seamless.  Still, not a big deal.

Overall, the stuff on disc 2 is clearly my favorite, but it’s also fascinating to hear the development of this classic album.  This is some pretty heady material and it takes a lot of listens to really get what’s happening on some of the longer cuts.  It’s worth it though.  When it comes down to it, I really prefer the whole box to the album itself.  As with all of the other Miles Davis box sets, the packaging is beautifully done with excellent liner notes that have interviews with the players, session information & breakdowns of quite a few of the song structures.  There’s a lot of information here and it’s great to have it available.  Or, you can just sit back and listen to the music.

Rating: 94

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