Cheevyjames’ Musical Roundhouse

Released: 1992
Tracks: Brother; Got Me Wrong; Right Turn; Am I Inside; (Hidden Track)
Best track: I’m cheap, but it’s the whole thing
Track to skip: absolutely none

It’s nearly impossible to pick a ‘best’ track since all 4 of the non-hidden ones are fantastic. The guest singers (Ann Wilson on Brother and Chris Cornell on Right Turn) sound great on their respective tracks. So yeah, I can’t pick a best track here. Sue me. Do yourself a favor and go buy this.

Rating: 93

Released: 1973
Tracks: The Great Filling Station Holdup; Railroad Lady; He Went to Paris; Grapefruit – Juicy Fruit; Cuban Crime of Passion; Why Don’t We Get Drunk; Peanut Butter Conspiracy; They Don’t Dance Like Carmen No More; I Have Found Me a Home; My Lovely Lady; Death of an Unpopular Poet
Best track: He Went to Paris
Track to skip: none

There’s really something fresh and exciting about this album. His songwriting is great and he’s very enthusiastic throughout the whole thing. So many classics are on here. Consider that 3 of these songs are on his Greatest Hits album. There’s not a bad track on here and even if you own the Box Set, you’ll still want to pick this up for the 4 tracks from this album that aren’t on there. The album still has the huge country influence that all his early stuff has, but he dips more into the “Caribbean” vibe than I figured he would on this. There is some fantastic material on here and I think my favorite one is He Went to Paris. It’s a gorgeous and sad song; I love it. This CD is harder to find now; I think it’s going out of print. So, get it while you can…and besides, you can find it for around $10-a great deal for a great album.

Rating: 90

Released: 1975
Tracks: Bastille Day; I Think I’m Going Bald; Lakeside Park; The Necromancer (Into Darkness / Under the Shadow / Return of the Prince); The Fountain of Lamneth (In the Valley / Didacts and Narpets / No One at the Bridge / Panacea / Bacchus Plateau / The Fountain)
Best track: Fountain of Lamneth (the whole thing)
Tracks to skip: Going Bald, Necromancer

Besides the horrible By-Tor from the previous album, this was Rush’s first real attempt at doing some long songs that told stories. Necromancer is a sort of Part 2 for By-Tor, and maybe that’s why it’s not too hot. Side 2 (Fountain of Lamneth suite) is a lot better than side 1 and the whole Fountain thing is really cool. There are some great riffs in here and Panacea is a gorgeous piece of music.

If the album was just Bastille Day, Lakeside Park and The Fountain of Lamneth then it’d be very good, but very short. The bad songs in the first half drag it down, but the album is eventually redeemed by Lamneth. Rush fans should dig this, but I don’t think that Rush’s music has reached a ‘mass popularity’ quality yet. They’d get there, but just not yet.

Rating: 84

Released: 1990
Tracks: The Squirming Coil; Reba; My Sweet One; Split Open and Melt; The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony; Bathtub Gin; Run Like an Antelope; Lawn Boy; Bouncing Around the Room
Best track: Squirming Coil, possibly Lawn Boy
Track to skip: none

The absurd eclecticism continues here and all of these songs really are Phish Classics. I think anytime that any of these songs come up (OK, except for Bouncing, which a lot of idiots don’t like) at a concert everybody goes nuts. Good reason too, since there’s always some significant improv in these songs. Coil, Reba, Melt, Bathtub Gin, Antelope are all serious jamming songs.

The band is still kind of figuring everything out on this one, they’re not professionals yet. This album is essential for anyone who likes Phish since (as always) there’s something that everybody can enjoy on this. It’s by no means perfect, but I like it. And Lawn Boy is a great song.

Rating: 89

Released: 1989
Tracks: Teas’n, Pleas’n; Scared; Bones in the Gutter; Take Me Drunk; Feels Like a Hammer; Sport’n a Woody; Queen of the Nile; Outlaw; Here Comes Trouble; Ten Boots (Stompin’); That Dog
Best track: Scared
Tracks to skip: Take Me Drunk, everything after Queen of the Nile

The rest of the album has its highs and lows, but it’s really not an essential thing. I really like how these guys are proud to be Texans and just let it flow all through the music. It’s not quite “Texas Swing” but the music swings a lot more than most metal bands. Sport’n a Woody is so juvenile, but it still makes me chuckle. It IS a stupid song, but it makes me laugh, so who cares. Like I said, good and bad points about this album. Jason McMaster is now fronting a very heavy band in Austin called Gahdzilla Motor Company. If you’re doing some research into heavy metal of the 80’s pick this up, otherwise it’s not essential.

Rating: 71

Released: 1979
Tracks: Majestic; Too Late; Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’; City of the Angels; When You’re Alone (It Ain’t Easy); Sweet and Simple; Lovin’ You is Easy; Just the Same Way; Do You Recall; Daydream; Lady Luck
Best track: Daydream
Tracks to skip: When You’re Alone, Lovin’ You is Easy

Daydream is an incredible song and I have absolutely no idea why it’s not popular. It’s such a cool song. At the same time, I’m so completely sick of Lovin, Touchin, Squeezin that if I don’t hear it again for the next decade I’ll be happy. It’s a pretty good song, but it totally doesn’t deserve the amount of airplay (and concert play) it has.

All Journey fans should own this album, and if you’re not a big Journey fan it won’t hurt you to avoid it. However, if you do you’ll be missing Daydream (and LTS!!) so it’s your loss. This isn’t close to being my fave Journey, but it’s still pretty good.

Rating: 84

Released: 1984
Tracks: Fight Fire With Fire; Ride the Lightning; For Whom the Bell Tolls; Fade to Black; Trapped Under Ice; Escape; Creeping Death; The Call of Ktulu
Best track: Creeping Death or For Whom the Bell Tolls…can’t decide
Tracks to skip: Trapped Under Ice & Escape

It’s frankly jawdropping to hear the change between Kill ‘Em All and this. The songs are a lot more grown up and the band’s playing has increased many levels. This is absolutely powerful stuff. Every second of this album (minus the 2 stupid tracks) is perfect. And the album cover is so cool. Please, go do yourself a favor and buy this. Awesome, awesome stuff.

Rating: 93

Released: 2002
Tracks: Alcohol and Nicotine; Growl; By My Name; Forgotten Days; She Waits By the Sea; It Turns Me On; Faith, Hope and Love; Beautiful; Butterflies in Glass; The Last Romantic; Ebony; Resurrection Street; Diamonds
Best tracks: She Waits By the Sea, It Turns Me On & Last Romantic are all incredible things…too hard to choose
Track to skip: Resurrection Street is too cheesy for me

I saw Simple Thing’s first gig and had a great time and I had also heard a number of these songs on the website, but it was almost like hearing them all for the first time when I got this. There are some really, really great songs on here. For the most part, all the songs are dead on. A couple of slight question marks, but otherwise it’s just damn good. Better than that since it’s the debut.

It’s really too hard to pick a favorite track on here. Both She Waits By the Sea and Last Romantic are beautiful songs. Last Romantic almost brings me to tears; it’s excellent. For the upbeat songs, It Turns Me On has such an amazing chorus…I wish I’d written it. The music is still pretty eclectic on here, even though it’s not as jarring as Miniver Cheevy was or as groovy-eclectic like 3PO. I really like how comfortable Bryan is in all the different kinds of songs on here: the contemplative ballads, the groove-rock numbers, the all-out pop ones, the slinky and mysterious ones…he fills them all out with ease.

Simple Thing is a band, but in all honesty it’s really Bryan Dunn’s project. That’s not slighting the other guys (Wiley ‘The Monster’ Koepp on drums, David C. on bass and Jonny Hi-fi on rhythm guitar), as they’re all really good players, but they are acting as support for Bryan on this one. Maybe future releases will have more of a band feel to them. All that is really irrelevant though. This CD rocks, and even after typing a bunch of other stuff I still have Growl stuck in my head. Great stuff. I highly recommend picking this up at a Simple Thing live show. Totally worth it. (And in case you’re doubting my honesty in this, as Bryan is a good friend of mine and a former bandmate, I have no problems AT ALL pointing out when he makes a mistake or just does something that’s awful. Ask him, I’m probably *too* honest for him sometimes. But I really do like this CD; it’s the best one he’s done so far.)

Rating: 93

Released: 1997
Tracks: Sunshine; Forgotten Days; Give Your Love to Me; Without You; Don’t Let Me Be Alone Tonight; Mr. Raleigh’s Dilemma; Bethlehem; Adam & Eve; The Last Romantic; When You Comin’ Home Tonight
Best track: Don’t Let Me Be Alone Tonight
Track to skip: none

Hmm, am I on this thing? Supposedly I’m somewhere in there. Before I go into Sunshine I’ll do the briefing. This album, 3PO’s debut, is named ‘90% Live’ since 9 of the 10 songs were recorded live. Sunshine is the studio track. The live stuff was recorded 8/14/97 at our third gig. Sunshine is the same version from the EJ CD, but with America’s vocals instead of Christine’s and the addition of Manuel’s congas. My beef with Sunshine is that I am totally inaudible. Our intention was to hop into the studio on a Saturday and just add America and Manuel’s parts. Bryan then gets the idea that his guitar solo was bad and decided to spend 4 or 5 hours (after vocals and percussion were laid down) to try to come up with a good solo. The rest of us thought his solo was just fine, but he didn’t, and since he was paying for the studio time he got his way. At the end of the day, he still didn’t have his solo right so he just said he’d come back the next day and oversee the mixing and use the original solo.

I’m pretty particular about my bass tone and presence in the mix so I was pretty peeved that I wouldn’t be there for the mixdown (I was heading back to Austin the next day for a Phish concert). I got a promise that my bass would be fine and they’d (Bry and Amado, the engineer) make sure it sounded good. I had to trust them. By the time I heard the end result of the mix, it was way too late as the album had already gone to be duplicated. The song itself sounds great, but you just can’t hear me on there. I think I’ll always have that chip on my shoulder about that.

The rest of the album is quite good. (I’m trying to forget my steel guitar solo in When You Comin’ Home Tonight, as it is horrible and I’m still surprised they let me do it!) As usual, all the others really hate it, and are embarrassed by it, but I enjoy listening to it. It still surprises me how good we were for our third gig. The enthusiasm is just overflowing on this whole thing. I totally flub the bridge in Give Your Love and it sounds awful. There are rough spots by all of us on this, but all the good stuff we do (like Without You) is really good. Matt Talbert does a guest spot on DLMBAT and he just kicks ass all over the place. DLMBAT may be the best overall song on here, but my favorite single moment is America tearing the roof off in the bridge of Last Romantic. That gets me every time I hear it. If I were just Joe Fan here, hearing this would make me a big fan of 3 Penny Opera.

Rating: 91

Recorded: 1969, Released: 1997
Tracks: [Disc 1] 21st Century Schizoid Man; In the Court of the Crimson King; Get Thy Bearings; Epitaph; A Man, A City; Epitaph; 21st Century Schizoid Man; Mantra; Travel Weary Capricorn; Improv – Travel Bleary Capricorn; Mars [Disc 2] In the Court of the Crimson King; Drop In; A Man, A City; Epitaph; 21st Century Schizoid Man; Mars [Disc 3] 21st Century Schizoid Man; Get Thy Bearings; In the Court of the Crimson King; Mantra; Travel Weary Capricorn; Improv; Mars [Disc 4] 21st Century Schizoid Man; Drop In; Epitaph; Get Thy Bearings; Mantra; Travel Weary Capricorn; Improv; Mars
Best track (per disc): Disc 1-Schiziod Man (Fillmore), 2-Mars, 3-Bearings, 4-Mars
Track to skip (per disc): 1-none, 2-none, 3-the improv, 4-none

Disc 1 consists of BBC radio sessions (tks 1-4), live at the Fillmore East (5-7) and live at the Fillmore West (8-11). The BBC material is interesting since it’s older than the studio album (In the Court) by a few months. In the Court (the song)…has some alternate lyrics and Bearings is the only studio version of this cover song, written by Donovan. The F.E. recording of A Man, A City (later renamed Pictures of a City for the Poseidon album) is the song’s debut performance and the improv from the F.W. is actually fun! Right off the bat throughout the first disc you get the sense that King Crimson was already one of the best live bands in 1969. The band is especially ON FIRE on the F.E. version of Schizoid Man. Absolutely blistering stuff.

Disc 2 continues on with the band’s final concert before Ian McDonald and Michael Giles quit. It’s the entire show (minus a bit from the guitar solo in Drop In) so that’s really nice to be able to hear the whole last show. The show is pretty good, but not the ’69 Crimson’s best. There is a small dip in energy from the material the night before (disc 1 tracks 8-11), but sensing the significance of the occasion, the band rise up at the end and play a frightening version of Mars.

Discs 1 & 2 are what you’ll find in the stores, while 3 & 4 are only available through DGM (and as imports, but they’re harder to find nowadays). Disc 3 was recorded at the Plumpton Festival in August of ’69 and disc 4 is from a September show at the Chesterfield Jazz Club. Both of these discs sound inferior to the previous two (thus the web-only release), but to my ears the sound is just fine. I realize it’s 1969, so I don’t expect the quality to be like our standards today. I like disc 4 better than disc 3; I just wish disc 4 had the whole show (it’s missing Court and I Talk to the Wind, a song that’s not represented once here). It’s a stronger and more enthusiastic show than the Plumpton show.

By looking at the tracklist above, you’ll notice that there are many repeated songs in this box set. The band had only 10 or 11 songs in their set (was Moonchild ever played live? I’ll have to check) so repeats are bound to happen. In other words, if you’re just starting to get into Crimson you might want to hold off on the full 4 discs for now, but you would probably like the 2 disc version. In any case, serious Crimheads (or Crimdorks, whatever you prefer) drool over all this since many feel this is the best Crimson ever. I don’t agree, but this set (and the Marquee CD) shows that most bands in 1969 couldn’t touch King Crimson. Top notch.

Rating: 90

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