, I

APRIL 1967 25¢

"THINGS KEEP GETTING CURIOSER AND CURIOSER"

CONTENTS

EDITOR

David Harris

MANAGING EDITORGreg Shaw

ART DIRECTORGeoff Evans

The MOJO-NAVIGATOR ROCK& ROLL NEWS is published mon-thly by the Mojo Publishing com-,pany, 1450 Che stnut St; , San Fran-cisco, Calif. 94123. Subscri~tions:$2.50 for 12 issues. Sub sc r ibe r splease notify the MOJO-NAVIGAT- ...or of any change of address. Theeditorial contents have not beenpublished before. We cannot acceptresponsibility for unsolicited man-uscripts or photographs. Any mat-erial submitted must be accompan-ied by return postage. Adve r tis in ;rates available on request.

The Mojo-Navigator Rockis a member of thePress Syndicate (UPS).

and photos.sible.

reviews,soon as pos-

.SOMETHING'S HAPPENING HERE .•.

The past year has seen an amazing growth in rock & roll, not only in popu-larity but in the quality of the music itself. Recording companies have dras-tically changed their policy regarding rock groups, and a band now can putjust about anything they want on their records, no matter how far-out it maybe. We are at the point now where virtually every group in existence, eventhose formed only within the past month or so, have recording contracts. Inshor t , it's becoming a field day for rock musicians, and the situation show severy sign of continued escalation in the corning year •

.There are a lot of interesting side effects of this trend, of which this maga-zine is one. The idea of serious rock criticism is an extremely new innova-ti~n. Rock publications have traditionally been teeny-bop oriented, and rec-.or d reviewers have ignored rock records. Now all the reviewers follow therock field closely, periodicals such as the Sunday Ramparts have a regul a rrock columnist, and there are at least two new magazines devoted to thestudy of rock music. The first to appear was CRAWDADDYl, published byPaul Williams of Boston. CRAWDADDYl takes a very dry, scholarlyapprc:achto the whole thing, is based primarily on record reviews which are occasion-ally good but usually bullshit (liThe spoken line at the end of the "B'" figureis the most conspicuous innovation in the entire work. It borders on a voc al,style used by Arnold Schoenberg in Pierrot Lunaire, in which a soprano speaksthe text, following in exaggerated high and low pitches a printed line of mus-ic. II This refers to a recent Supreme s record, which they say is the best sin-gle record to appear in this country in the last two or three years.). The mag-azine shows almost no awareness of what is happening in Tiv e rock & r 011,w h i chi s the most important aspect of the new rock movement, bas in gtheir expoundings entirely on recorded rock, which is still a good deal behindthe latest development s. The MOJO-NAVIGATOR, begun in August 1966 as asmall mimeographed newsletter covering the scene in San Francisco, has TON

reached the level of a national publication, and we hope to temper our ownscholarly analysis with some of the mood of the times, the 'happening' spiritof the whole rock scene. We also hope to avoid, as much as pos sible, the ~of bullshit that is going down all around us.

For yet another rnari if e station of rock & roll's new popularity is the gr eatquantity of meaningles s drivel that is being printed and spoken by all sorts ofpeople who claim to know something or are t .•.ying to convince people they do.Just about every major magazine and newspaper in the country has had it sstory on the 'psychedelic happenings' and the wild hippies and the bands withthe weird names. Editors in their offices puff on their pipes and expound on"a.cid rock' while the musicians in question mutter in disgust and drink their;?;inar..d tonic. Thousands of Bay Area teenyboppers read Ralph Gleason fourt irn e s a week and think he is saying something new and exciting. Mills Col-lege in Oakl and is having a three day Rock & Roll Conference with such eveots

(continued on page 11)MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 4

l _

THE WHO L E LEG END abouthim starting out at 17, taking the epi-taphfrom his father's tombstone inLong Island: "To Know Him, Is ToLove Him" and using it as the tit 1eof his song with the Teddy Bears-a No.1 record in 1958 - it's a 11true you know - and Phil's playin gguitar on it, with the other guy anda chick singing - and "where arethey now", etc. - and Spect or'sgotacrewcut; with the thick,,white knitted wool cardigan with thebig call a r in back, you know, and th efloppy, pleated black slacks, withwhite bucks. The record makes$20, 000 but he and the Teddy Be a r send up with only $3, 000 of it. By1960 he's writing and producing r e c -ords for a th era r tis t sand corno->anies: "Spanish Harlem" by Be n E.King, "Be My Boy" by the Paris Si s -ters from Lincoln High School, RayPetersen, and others not reallyworth mentioning.

1962 and he's going out on his a wnnow with his own publishing corn p a ny,Mother Bertha Productions, n a me dafter his mother, Bertha, who wo rksas a cleanup woman around the of-fice; and his own label, named af t e rhimself, Philles. And he starts withthese 5 spade chicks from high schoolin Brooklyn, the old R 'n B thing, andI don';t know how they got together or

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 5

how he ran into them - did he hear'some tapes or did somebody tellSpector about them? I don't know,anyway it's the Crystals, youngteenage Negro chicks from Brook-lyn with good, great voices and their1959 Junior Prom dresses on andSpector's persuaded the mf;o re-cord, you know, he's probab 1ygiven them a very lousy contract,and they're in Mirasound Studi 03

in New York, standing in front ofthe microphones and Jack Nitz scbe,a fantastic arranger,is telling themwhat's going to take place; LarryLevine, Spector's engineer, is set-ting up and balancing everything -and there's Phil, telling them whatto do; "just sing, I'll do the rest"and he's going nuts with the dialsand the controls in the booth andthey're just standing around,knock-ed out, the Crystals, wonder in gwhat's next, what's it finally go-ing to end up like (the whole thing)and they think he's kinda weird,you know, but they like him, the ythink he's funny - and they know,he's srria r t - so what happens?They produce 7 great hits togeth-er: "There's No Other (Like MyBaby)" #100, an old 50's type R&I3ballad thing, very nice, verysmooth; "Uptown" #102, the sociaicornrrentary, writ ten by Barry Mannand Cynth:iaWeill, with castanets andeve rything, all about tenement life;

"He.Hit Me (And It Felt Like AKiss)"#lO5, they're starting to get- intotheir own thing now - "He t s A Rebel II#lO6, written by Gene Pitney,strangel y enough, and no doubtinspired by Spector hirn seIf , And!then came 3 powerhouse, block-busting, driving, continuously-go-ing, never letting-down, symphonicorchestral rock extravaganzas, andthis is the Crystals, their own thing:"He~Sure the Boy lLove"#l09, "Th.Doo Ron Ron (When He Walked MeHome)" #1l2, and "Then He Kissed Me"#1l5 - fantastic records: tympanis,double pianos, saxe s, everything.

Spector's really into it now, he's gothis own thing and the whole indus t rknows it - nobody's ever done thi skind of thing before -- and 1963 is hisyear, the Spector Sound, and he justcan't seem to miss. Besides theCrystals he's picking up other people,probably for nothing,! and developingrecords out of them too: Bobb B. Soxxand the Blue Jeans with "Zip-A- Dee-Doo-Dah" #lO7, "Not Too Young ToGet Married" #1l3, and "Why Do Lov •.ers Break Each Other's Hearts" #1l0 -The Alley Cats with "Puddin' In Tain" -#108 - another girl group, with th espade -Puerto Rican teenage whore im-age, the Ronettes, who corne on verybigwith the great "Be My Baby" #1l6, "BabyI Love You" #1l8 - Darlene Love, laterlead singer of the Blossoms, the vocalbackup group on "Shi.ndrg", with a tre-mendous voice: "Today I Met the Boy I'mGonna Marry" #lll, a beautiful, nostalg-ic record, "Wait 'Til My Bobby GetsHome" #114 and a minor hit "A FineFine Boy" #1l7.

He Is being called "the teenage t Y>coon", the genius of the recording in-dustry, David Susskind grabs him foran appearance on his show "Open End"and a discus sion of "pop" music thenand now, and Spector Comes on verystrong - open and frank, he's puttingdown William B. Williams, an eaiy-listening type music disc jockey fa 0 1who's saying how great 1940 musicwas, and Susskind, who tries to comeon liberal but is full of crap, is tel-

;

PHIL SPEC TOR

ling Fh il that the words to his songsc:re meaningless and uninte Il igible e-so what? listen to the sound! andSpector just sits there, chewin ghis nails, fidgeting in his seat,putting them down, very out r ightand openly, great. He goes toEngland, meets the Stones andAndrew Loog Oldham, who is agreat admirer of his and has pick-ed up a lot from Spector, playsand screws a r ourid in the studiowith them and he and Nitzsche geton a couple of the tracks on theStone s I fir st albums.

Again on TV, the Me rv Griffinshow, Spector's telling the wholeau dienc e what fools they are andthe audience is liooing him and oh,straight-ass Merv just 10vesthis, controversy! rubbing hishands, goading Spector into morehassles until, exasperated, Philpulls out a little capsule, show s

. it to Merv and tells him he oughtatry it and then he 'd really seewhere things are at; and even tho-ugh there probably isn It any acidin it, Spector gets his mes sageacross, showing the capsule oncamera in front of everybody andMerv almost faints - "--uh, uh,it's time for a commercial now."

And then -somehow, for somereason, inevitably I guess - the CIy-stals don't seem to be making it,any more: two more good r e cords"Little Boy" #119, and "All GrownUp" #122, are released but don't getplayed - and the poor Crystals, what'of them? is that it I guess, huh? andwhat, did he probably tell them "it'stoo bad, I guess it's over, they're netbuying your sound anymore" and givethem some halfway reasonable excusewhy they weren't making it any more,.and they probably didn't get beans rotof it either - and after all those beau-tifulrecords man! What do they donow, besides being forgotten -, dothey work in department stores, still

- remembering those times in the stud-io, the excitement they were a partof, the excitem-ent they were making,how' big they were, how much biggerthey could've been, they should'vebeen, because they were really great.- and they realize they're never goiq;to be up the re again, that they hadtheir chance, that that was it and it' s

.ove r now - and it's really too bad.Meanwhile Spector is starting to

click again: after 2 flops by the Ron-ettes- "Breakin' Up" #120 and l1flo ILove You" #121, they come up with ahuge hit, #123, "Walking In the Rain"complete with sound effects. Somehowhe also acquires the Righteous Bro-thers, who at th.a t tirn e were record-ing for Moonglow, a small Hollywoodlabel- subsidiary of Atco-Atlantic-.and Spector puts together a fantasticrecord for them, 11You've Lost ThatLovin' Feeling" #124, a really power-

"In her shack at the mudflats IndianJenny is writing a letter to the pub-lishers of Classic Comics, wonder-ing if they put out an illustrated ed-ition of the Tibetan Book of theDead. 11

ful thing. And sin c e it's aroundChristmas, Phil decides to do so meChristmas records - "Winter Won-de r Larid " #125 by Darlene Love, whogives a great rendition of this oldstandard, becomes a fair-sized hit,but man, nobody notices the backside:

"Christmas (Baby Please ComeHome)" written by Spector, Jef fBarry and Ellie Greenwich, which isa tremendous fat, thick-with-sound-great classical grand piano li n e scoming in at the end - record. '

In 1965 Spector pro d u c e d th e"T', N. T. 11show, which was supposedto be another "T, A. M. 1. 11 show-that electronovision, rock sh 0 wmovie, and you would have thought,you know, that with the stars he hadto work with: Ray Charles, the Lov-in' Spoonful, Bo Diddley, PetulaClark, Joan Baez, Donovan, the Ron-ettes, the Byrds, Ike and Tina Tur-ner, Roger Miller, and David Mc-Callum as M. C. for the te enyb opper s,,- that it would have been a greatshow - but it wasn't, it just didn'tcome off - really a letdown. Thewhole production seemed awk war d- the sound for the Spoonful was verybad, the Byrds looked like they we rejust doing a job for 10 minute s, th eaudience was very dead and the whdething took place in an atmosphere ofno excitement at all, nothing likethere was in the great liT. AM I. IIshow with James Brown and theStones, among others.. Back to the recording, and theonly thing which seemed to be mak-ing it for him anymore was the Riga-teous Brothers with their big pro-ductions of old standards, whi c hwere a drag - very thin, not muchat all - just some tremendous orch-estra backing up a pseudo-spare ren-dition of an old favorite: "Uncha ine dMelody" #129, and !IEbb Tide" #130;these 2 records were preceeded bya copy of "You+ve Lost That Lovin 'Feelin'": "Just Once In My Life II#127. Around this time also, Spec-tor released another record on asubsidiary label which he had formed,Phi-Dan, named after himself andDan Davis, his right hand and promo-tion man: IILand of the F re e, Homeof the Brave" by Bonnie and the Tre-asures. This record really bombed,and even Spector himself said it was

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 7

pretty bad. It was pretty corny, youknow, the story about the rebel inschool with the long hair and fu n n yclothe s , and the teache r s and the P..T. A. don't like him, and the othe r-kid s in class are always beating upon him; v~ry elementary but it didhave some good things about it: areal uplifting, head-held-high mar-

·ching, staunchness of heart feeling,sort of like "John Brown's Body",1 liked it. The record was writtenabout Spector by Barry Mann and:Cynthia Weill - great teen-idi 0 m·lyricists - it got played a few t irne s'but didn't move at all, then JodyMiller covered it on Capitol and itsold a little.

It'a 1966 now for Spector. As a con-clusion to this article and what maybe, unfortunately, a conclusion tohis career as a record producer,comes Phil with Ike and Tina Turner_ their raw vocals and gufsy R 'ri Bsound combined with his sophistica-ted all-encompas sing powerh 0 useinstrumentation and production -and a fantastic climax it is for Spec-tor and his fantastic career - outcomes "River Deep - MountainHigh"#131'by Ike and Tina; a record whichwasn't even played here - only a fewtimes on KLIV in San Jose, and thatshows you how really screwed upradio stations are - not one is in-dependent enough to play' any recordthat isn't programmed for their for-mat or that doesn't have some bigpromo campaign behind it. The rec-ord got to No. 4 in England on thestrength of Paul McCartney sayinghow much he dug it; it should havebeen No. 1 here, easily.

The record is really too much -I've already used up most of theadjectives describing his other rec-ords so I'll go into this one in somedepth. The record is unbelievable-rows of brass and horns blaring outlittle riffs that are mixed down intothe background, not coming out rruc hbut neve rthele s s contributing great-

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - t:

ly to the ove r al lJ'b lu r " sound of all'Spector's productions; soaring vio-lins, a tremendously low bass linebrought out greatly, t rumpet s , f rerc hhorn, fuzz guitar, baritone saxe s ,a line of violins throughout, a verysubdued chorus line mixed down tosound like instruments way in thebackground - tremendous walls andhills of sound, going down and bu:il.d-ing up again - surging to climaxes,great encompassing blurs of sound- and then the breaks - rna r acha s ,bass, grand piano and bongos on re-verb off in the distance - and greatvocal lines: "When you were a youngboy did you have a puppy that alwaysfollowed you around? 11 beautiful!And Tina screaming out, build.:-ing, rising to the climax: "Oh bay-bee! Oh baybee r 11 wow! An utterlyfantastic, unbelievably envelopingcrescendo of sound record. Buy it,listen to it on earphone s - you canimagine how that is. "River Deep-Mountain High" by Ike and Tina Tur-ner, Philles #131 and also "Christ-mas (Baby Please Come Home) #125- both records ought to be blastedout over the sound system at theAvalon Ballroom dll;ring the breaks,over and over.

The last I have heard of Spectoris that after this sessionwithlkeandTina, from which there was an album

Ii

IKE AND TINA TURNER

THE CRYSTALS- "THERE'S NO OTHER (LIKE MY BABY)"/"OH YEAH,MA YBE BAB Y"

JOLLY SCOTT- "HERE I STAND"/"YOU'RE MY ONLY LOVE"THE CRYSTALS- "UPTOWN"/"WHAT A NICE WAY TO TURN

SEVENTEEN"AL HAZAN- "MALAGUENA"(instr. )/"CHOPS'TICKS" (instr.)---"LIEUTENANT COLONEL BOGIE'S PARADE"(instr.)/ .--(NO ARTIST OR "B" SIDE LISTED, RECORD NEVER RELEASED)THE CRYSTALS- "HE HIT ME (AND IT FELT LIKE A KISS)"/"NO

ONE EVER TELLS YOU"THE CR YSTALS- "HE'S A REBEL"/ "I LOVE YOU EDDIE"BOB B. SOXX and THE BLUE JEANS- "ZIP-A-DEE DO-DAH"/

"F LIP AND NITTY" (instr.)THE ALLEY CATS- "PUDDIN N' TAIN (ASK ME AGAIN I'LL TELL

YOU THE SAME)"/"FEEL SO GOOD"THE CRYSTALS- "HE'S SURE TI"lE BOY I LOVE"/"WALKIN'

ALONG (LA-LA-LA)" (instr. )BOB B. SOXX and THE BLUE JEANS- "WHY DO LOVERS BREAK

EACH OTHER'S HEARTS"/"DR. KAPLAN'S OFFICE"

DARLENE LOVE- "(TODAY I MET) THE BOY I'M GONNA MARRY"/"PLAY ING FOR KEEPS"

THE CRYSTALS- "DA DOO RON RON (WHEN HE WALKED ME HOME)"/"GIT' IT" (instr.)

BOB B. SOXX and THE BLUE JEANS- "NOT TOO YOUNG TO GETMARRIED" / "ANNETTE"(instr. )

DARLENE LOVE- "WAIT TIL' MY BOBBY GETS HO~-lE"/"TAKEIT FROM ME"

THE CRYSTALS- "THEN HE KISSED ME"/"BROTHER JULIUS"(instr.)THE RONETTES- "BE MY BAB Y" / "TEDESCO AND PITMAN"(instr. )DARLENE LOVE- "A FINE FINE BOY"/"NINO AND SONNY (BIG

TROUBLE)" (instr. )

made (about 7 new thing sand 5 oldones) and another single, whichfor some stupid reason are now inrelease only in England, Spectorsplit to Mexico for awhile, cameback, and is now directing a moviecalled "The Last Movie" with BetteDavis and Dennis Hopper, the lat-ter helping finance it as well asstarring in it. Spector says themovie "will undoubtedly win theGrand Award" at the Cannes FilmFestival. Too much.

MIKE DALY

PHILLES DISC '-.-:-1:-; P.APH Y

SINGLES

100

101102

103104

105

106107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

ll5116ll7

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 9

118 THE RONETTES- "BABY, I LOVE YOU"/"MISS JOAN AND MR. SAM"(instr. )

119 THE CRYSTALS- "LITTLE BOY"/"HARRY (FROM W. VA.) & MILT"(instr. )

120 THE RONETTES- "(THE BEST PART OF) BREAKIN' UP"/"BIGRED" (instr.)

121 THE RONETTES- "DO I LOVE YOU? "/ "BEBE AND SUSU" (instr. )122 THE CRYSTALS- "ALL GROWN UP"/"IRVING (JAGGERED SIXTEEN-

THS)" (instr.)123 THE RONETTES- "WALKING IN THE RAIN"/'fHOW DOES IT FEEL"

124 THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS- "YOU'VE LOST THAT LOVIN'FEELIN' "/"THERE'S A WOMAN"

125 DARLENE LOVE- "CHRISTMAS (BABY, PLEASE COME HOME)"/"WINTER WONDERL.AND" (NEW PRESSING OFTHIS RECORD HAS "WINTER BLUES" (instr.)AS "B" SIDE)

126 THE RONETTES- "BORN TO BE TOGETHER" / "BLUES FORBAB Y" (instr. )

127 THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS- "JUST ONCE IN MY LIFE"/"THEBLUES"

128 THE RONETTES- "IS THIS WHAT I GET FOR LOVING YOU?"/"OH,I LOVE YOU"

129 THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS- "UNCHAINED MELODY" / "HUNG ONYOU"

130 THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS- "EBB TIDE"/"FOR SENTIMENTALREASONS"

131 IKE and TINA TURNER- "RIVER DEEP-MOUNTAIN HIGH"/"I'LLKEEP YOU HAPPY"

132 THE RIGHTEOUS: BROTHERS- "WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER"/"SHE'SMINE ALL MINE"

133 THE RONETTES-, "I CAN HEAR MUSIC"/"WHEN I SAW YOU"134 IKE and TINA TURNER- "MAN IS A MAN IS A MAN" /

"TWO TO TANGO"ALBUMS

I

THE CRYSTALS- "THE CRYSTALS TWIST UPTOWN"THE CR YSTALS- "HE'S A REBEL"BOB B. SOXX and THE BLUE JEANS- "ZIP-i}-DEE DO-DAH"THE CRYSTALS- "THE CRYSTALS SING THE GREATEST HITS"VARIOUS ARTISTS (THE CRYSTALS, THE RONETTES, DARLENELOVE, BOB B. SOXX and THE BLUE JEANS, THE ALLEY CATS)-"VARIOUS ARTISTS SING TODA Y'S HITS"

4005 VARIOUS ARTISTS (THE CRYSTALS, THE RONETTES, DARLENELOVE, BOB B. SOXX and THE BLUE JEANS)- "A CHRISTMASGIFT FOR YOU" (CHRISTMAS LP)

4006 THE RONETTES- "THE FABULOUS RONETTES"4007 THE RIGHT~OUS BROTHERS- "YOU'VE LOST THAT LOVIN'

FEELIN' "4008 THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS- "JUST ONCE IN MY LIFE"4009 THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS- "BACK TO BACK"4010 LENNY BRUCE- "LENNY BRUCE IS OUT AGAIN"

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 10

40004001400240034004

PHI-DAN 5005 BONNIE and THE TREASURES- "HOME OF THEBRAVE"/"OUR SONG"

(11M NOT POSITIVE BUT THIS (instr.)COULD BE THE RONETTES UNDER A PIFFElIlENT NAM.E)

ON ALL THE PHILLES "A" SIDES CREDITS ARE AS FOLLOWS: PRODUC-'ER-PHIL SPECTOR, ARRANGER-JACK "SPECS" NITZSCHE, ENGINEER-:LARR Y LEVINE: (#133 WAS PRODUCED BY JEFF BARRY AND THE PHI-DAN SINGLE WAS PRODUCED BY JERRY RIOPELL AND ARRANGED BYNICK DE CARO) ALL RECORDING WAS DONE AT EITHER MIRASOUND .STUDIOS IN NEW YORK OR GOLD STAR STUDIOS IN HOLLYWOOD.:YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT A LOT OF THE "B" SIDES ARE IN,STRU-:MENTALS, THESE ARE JUST LOUSY JAZZ-FLAVORED INSTRUMENTALSTHAT SPECTOR THREW TOGETHER USING THE STUDIO MUSICIANS THATWORKED WITH HIM: THE TITLES ON A LOT OF THEM REFER TO PEO-PLE, SUCH AS #113 "ANNETTE" WHO WAS SPECTOR'S WIFE AT THETIME; #116 "TEDESCO AND PITMAN", TWO OF THE STUDIO MUSICIANS;#117 "NINO AND SONNY", NINO TEMPO AND SONNY BONO WHO WERE

J IISIDEMEN ON THE RECORDS AND #122 "IRVING (JAGGERED SIXTEENTHS)SO~E REFERENCE TO MICK JAGGER.

For a limited time only we are ableto offer these fantastically rare col-lectors I items, priced to be sold, aslong as our stock holds out.

*#3 --$1.00*#4 (Grateful Dead interview, part

one) --$1.50*#5 (Dead interview, conclusion)

- -$1. 50*#6 - -$. 50*#7 --$.25*#8 (Big Brother & the Holding

Company interview) - -$. 50*#10 (Mystery Trend interview)

--$.50*#11 (Country Joe & the Fish)

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terviews concluded, BritishBlues, part 1) --$.25

Don't hesitate! Order now whilethey last!

"Ls it the green in a phone booththat makes it turn to rubber?"

EDIT.9RIAL. continued

as Prof. James T. Carey from theU. C. Criminology Dept. speaking on"Dialogue of Involvement and Non-Involvement in Rock & Roll". Ourreporter Mike Daly will cover theconference in next month I s is sue.Phil Spector and Chuck Berry willal ao be attending, so perhaps some-,thing of value will go down. But itis very easy to be pompous and fool-ish in talking about rock, and it isa tra.p into which we will try very.ha rd not to fa.ll.

We welcome your comments ab-out this issue and about whateveraspects of rock music interest you.If response is forthcoming we willhave a letter column in future is-sues.

THE EDITORS

Waenlt it Lincoln who said, "Don'tchange horses in the middle of the

Ocean"?

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 11

•...

The Blues Ma goos (top to bottom}:'Ge off Daking (d rurn s}, Ronnie Gilbert(bass), Mike Esposito (lead), RalphScala (organ) and Ern il (Peppy) Thiel-heIrn [rhythrn},

MOJO: All right, the tape recorder'son.MIKE: Do n+t let us know it's on causewe get scared. We get paranoid.MOJO: All right, it's not really on.Now let's talk about your record ••••RONNIE: Yeah, Voleread your reviewof it. So you liked "T'ob ac co Road"?MOJO: Yeah, thought it was a gas.RONNIE: What'd you like about it?

MOJO -NAVIGA TOR - 12

MOJO: I like the part where you <tart-ed to irrrpr ov is e ,RONNIE; Oh , the traffic j arn ? Haveyou listened to it on 33 yet?MOJO: Yeah.RONNIE: On 16?MOJO: No, we didn't get down to 16.PEPPY: You're talking about the a l-bUITl ?MOJO: No, we've got the single. Wehad the single a long t irn e ago. I tliinkthe dj copy was better than the aIburncut.RONNIE: With a 4 1/2 rn irrute recordyou lose a 10 t of pre senc e ,MOJO: I thought the aIburri was rn ixeddiffe rentl y.

RONNIE: Well, I'll tell you some-thing. The album was cut in 2 studios,Also, part of it was cut when wefirst got together. As a matter offact, "One By One" was cut the firstday Geoff got into the group. And thenof course we had to walk 57 blocks tothe studio because there was a subwaystrike. Carrying our drums. Andsome of it was cut in a very smallstudio, about the size of this hotelroom.MIKE: Mercury studios.RONNIE: And the rest of it was cutat Regent. So there's a lotof varia-

"To topple a bobby with rotten cab-bage is as crackers as it is to pet-ard and 'earl' up your lorry in a lift"

tion in technique s ,MOJO: I thought the album coheredpretty well.RONNIE: You didn't like the cover,huh?MOJO: I liked it. Some of it. It wasan interesting idea. I think it wouldhave been groovier without pictures.MIKE: Should we expose the origin-al i~ea? The original idea for thecover was, what we were going to dowas have my painting, you know,that's what the cover is, a blowup ofpart of my painting of a lollipop. Andthe lollipop in its entirety is::- verybeautiful thing. And that was all itwas going to be. There wasn't goingto be any writing on it at all.MOJO: Oh, I see. That would've beengood.RONNIE: We're dealing with half thepopulace, which knows nothing.GEOFF: So we had to take this bigsnappy color photo.RONNIE: Now the cover-- well, ifyou say you dig the light show, youshould dig the cover. It's a very s im-

.iIa r thing.MOJO: It's better because it's more'full. The trouble with the light shovsis that they're too •••GEOFF: Weak.MOJO: Many people have a bett e rlight show going on in their headsthan they have up on the wall.

GEOFF: These things aren't concertsand they're not dances either. If youstand in one corner of the room andlook at the whole thing, everythi n gcomplements the other thing. Theband complements the lights, thepeople appear as though they're sway-ing back and forth in the strobe light,and you're supposed to take it allin at once. It reminds me of a rallywith all the people in the world get-ting in one room. It's like the Span-ish-American War in one room, if-you could see it all at once.MOJO: Different sections of the aud-ience don't associate with each otber,GEOFF: Yeah, I noticed that. Espec-ially in the Fillmore. There's thepeople up front watching and then •••RONNIE: I noticed something elsewhile I was there, too. That even inthe disunity there was a lot of uni ty,It's not like sorn.ebody l s going topunch someone else.GEOFF: Yeah, it looks like you coul-dn't start a fight there if you wantedto.MOJO: Yeah, it wouldn't be possible.GEOFF: Yeah, it's a groove.PEPPY: Looked like the cops werestoned.MIKE: What about the radio statimsaround here, do they play an impor-tant part?MOJO: Yeah, they ~lay a negativerole.MIKE: That's what I thought. I ttzre d.in to a college station and hit threehours of electronic music. It waslike Dylan with electro nic music overit, and the guy in the studio wasscreaming. It was really beautiful.MOJO: Yeah, that was probablyKPF A. Around here the commercial.rock & roll stations are a drag. Butthere is a lot of good stuff happeningon FM and it's only a matter of timebefore the big stations catch on thatgood music, is getting popular.MIKE: In the east the commercialstations are the trend setters. They

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 13

are the ones that either make you orbreak you.MOJO: Around here they break you ,automatically:MIKE: Around here the kids are thereand the kids are listening becausethey haven't been initiated to the newthing •. Once they become initiatedthe station starts to lose its ratings,one by one, as each kid switche sover to what we call the "scene".MOJO: How aid your band get to-gether?MIKE: Ronnie, Ralph and Peppy weretogether originally with anotherdrummer. That was about a year anda half, two years ago.PEPPY: Yeah, about two years ago.Then the guitarist left.MIKE: They played around their h~.town for awhile and then went to thecity. And from then on they were inthe Village. I was painting in Dela-ware and I went up to New York tobuy a pair of boots. And I joined'ern. I don't know how it happened. Istill don't remember. Ijust wentinto the Night Owl because I used towork there at one time. I had quita band a couple of years ago, thathad played up the street from theNight Owl. And I'd just corne backafter a year of painting, and I sawthis band that said they needed alead guitar.PEPPY: He couldn't even play chordsthen. He'd forgotten his chords, hehadn't played guitar in so long.MIKE: Jld been playing bass for aboirthree years. I'd played bass so longI'd forgotten my guitar. And then thedrummer started really copping outon us. So we got Geof£, cause I knewhim. And since then ••• well, we gotBob and Art* and the Mercury con-tract, but it was mostly the NightOwl. What other clubs in the Village

*. -Bob Wyld and Art Polhemus,Longhai r Productions

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 14

feature rock & roll be side s the NightOwl?MOJO: The Cafe Au Go Go•••MIKE: The Go Go is the blues place.They have big blues festivals, withJohn Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters,the Blues Project, all in the samenight. I get the impression that theyounger groups from the Village hav-en't made much impact here at all.MOJO: The Blaies Project are popul-ar out here. And then you're aboutsecond to them, and then nobody else.MIKE: Blues is big out here, isn't it?MOJO: Yeah, they have big bluesfestivals over in Berkeley. But ofthe Village groups that I know of, likethe Strangers, the Fugitives, and theMagicians when they were together,none of those groups have made it.ar ound here.MIKE: The Strangers aren't really.togethe r either. They're just record-ing. They don't play any more.MOJO: What about the Fugitives?MIKE: They still play. All thosegr oup s got screwed up by the Village.The Village is a really rough •••RONNIE: Just like they get screwedup ar ourid here.MIKE: It's hard to last there, itreally is. You just have to go out ofyour mind after awhile. The samething, night after night. There's nochanges in the Village. There's no.scene out there, there's nothingthat's happening..RONNIE: It's a quiet scene, you'vegot to know a bout it.MIKE: Yeah, very quiet. It's a very'in' thing, you know. It's not opento the public in Greenwich Village.RONNIE: For good reasons, too.MIKE: You walk down the street andthere's nothing going on at all.RONNIE: It's all behind closed doors.PEPPY: On the weekends, though •••MIKE: On the weekends you havefh eSunset Strip scene. It's like 5, 000kids and policemen on horses, herd-ing them around like cattle.MOJO: That's the way it got in theHaight-Ashbury, but not for music.

MIKE: This isn't for music, either,it's just a meeting-place.RONNIE: All them Long Island ch ickscome down, and they smoke in thebasement and think, "Maybe I'llget busted. "MIKE: And they have Junkie Row inWashington Square Park. Whereeverybody sits. And on Sundayseverybody that owns a guitar goesout there and plays.PEPPY: And you'll catch peopleturning on in the park, but it's notthe people from the Village.MIKE: People that live in the Villageare very much to themselves. Theydon't do anything for the sake of thepublic. They have their own lives,they have the East Village and theWest Village. You have the artistson the east side and the musicians onthe west side.RONNIE: That's what I liked a littlebit more about the east coast thanabout the west coast.MIKE: The east coast is actuallyquieter.MOJO: That's the thing around here,people want action, loudness.PEPPY: But too much of it is goingto screw up the whole thing.MIKE: It's getting national attentionout here, and that's not what youwant, really. There'll be a Lifething pretty soon on Avalon. Like, assoon as you have a centerpage thingin Life, you're through.MOJO: No, I disa gree, becausethere's a real audience for this mus-ic, al rrrost like a cult of thousandsand thousands of people. The time isright for this thing to spread, to getnationwide attention. There Is nolimit to how big this thing can get.MIKE: It's gonna be nationwide in 10years, maybe five. It'll be one giantfraternity. You'd be surprised. Yougo into a town, and no matter how.small it is, say 300 people, you'llfind a group of hippies.RONNIE: You go across country, yourun into a lot of weird people.

MIKE: Right here you have the top-less thing, that's the commercialbranch-off of the LSD thing.MOJO: Yeah, that's' really catchingon here.MIKE: Are the re any groups outhere that really psych-out electron-ically?MOJO: Big B'rothe.r & the Holding Co..The Oxford Circle. The Sparrow.MIKE: Do they have all kinds of gad-gets, or what?MOJO: No, nobody uses the gadget-ry. They're really fast out here,that's the emphasis. The guitarplayers are fast.MIKE: What about feedback?MOJO: Yeah, they use it a little bit.It's not so much feedback as the'fastest guitar in town' bit.MIKE: I noticed that. Everybody triesto outdo each other. I went to the Mat-rix the other night and there was aguitar player sweating because therewere about five other guitarists wat-·ching. They all have one fast runand they do it about a million timesa night. It shouldn't be that way. Itlooks like a very friendly thing. Ontop it looks like "wow, they're reallydigging each other. " But it's notthat at all. You can't get away fromthe envy thing; everybody out here isgood musically, they concentrate onit. But they concentrate on it not to.be tte r themselves but to-be betterthan the next guy.MOJO: Yeah,' but there's a terrificamount of friendly jamming that goeson.MIKE: Are' the bands around here'just interested in making it locallyor nationally?MOJO: Many of them don't particul-arly care about national.MIKE: That's what I thought. Theyjust want to play. You see, it's anentirely different thing in New York.You've got the Night Owl which islike a contract" workshop. The ban dsgo in there and they play until theyget a contract. Cause there's always

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 15 1

people coming down to watch, andsee who's there. You'll see a band 3or 4 times and all of a sudden they'regone, with a recording contract intheir hands. In New York it's a do ordie thing.MOJO: Around here most of thegroups are skeptical about howthey'll be treated by the record com-panies.MIKE: A lot of the groups aroundhere are writing great things. Theyshould •••RONNIE: I don't think they're reallygood enough. .MIKE: The groups? They're all con-£ert groups.RONNIE: That's not where it's at.Agroup has to be good enough to lis-ten. Otherwise they're no good at allMIKE: 1 found most of the groups thatwe heard very listenable.RONNIE: No, I'm talking about themlistening to other people. The onlyreason why the Beatles stay wherethey are is because they never stoplistening. The groups here justhaven't got what it takes. It takesan awful lot to make a national hit.MIKE: Well it's all underground"cause the underground reaches New·York, it reaches everywhere. It's-arna zin g, I heard about the Airplaneand the Holding Co. a long time ago.A year ago. 'MOJO: What about the New York.groups ?MIKE: Well. there's the J'a gged Edge.

I

They're called the Headmastersnow" for obvious reasons. Like onenight the guitar 'playe r shows up forwork and he doesn't know that heplays guitar. They had to take himdownstairs a~d explain what hisguitar was. Then there's the UFO's.And the Time became the ChicagoLoop.MOJO: They have a strange recordout •••

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 16

J

MIKE: Yeah, nice guitar work on it.Bloomfield played with them on thatrecord. The Sopwith Camel playedat the Night Owl for a few weeks.MOJO: How did they go down outthere?MIKE: Good. They had their own fol-lowing. After a week they had the irown following. Just like Lotha r andthe Hand People had their own folkw-ing. Lothar plays a lot of Mose Alli-son stuff, a lot of quiet stuff. Andthey're ve ry good. But it IS hard torealize that in a big place. Theyhaveone thing called "It Comes On Any-way" that's really wild. They havetheir own light show that they carrywith them and they blow up Super-beatle amps.MOJO: Some people around here arereally on the Yardbirds thing.MIKE: Yeah, we were originally in-fluenced by the Yardbirds too. Andthe Who. The Who are one of thegreatest bands ever. 1 heard a Whorecord at the Avalon and then Iheard the Strangers and 1 thoughtlike, Wow, 1 was back at the NightOwl. We played opposite the Strang-e r s for six months. We got firedthere five times, the Spoonful gotfired five times. The owner isreally a prick. He's a legendaryclub owner. Joe Marra. He thinkshe's the big entrepeneur of rock &roll groups. Or so he thinks •MOJO: What are your future record-ing plans?·MIKE: Our next album should have awild, long thing on it. We Ire going tohave a weird, freak-out track. Witha theme - song and eve rything.MOJO: How's the single moving?RONNIE: Oh, it I S about 100,000 sales,And the album's about half that.MOJO: What kind of airplay do youget in the East on the single?MIKE: It's full coverage east oftheMississippi. Number 3 in Cleve-land; No. 6 in Chicago. New YorkCity, No.3.MOJO: That's great. We wish youthe best of luck. Thanks a lot!

ir

e- ((eJit»)

gle, though it's received little air-play here as yet. "Light My Fire"feature s a five minute instrum e n t albreak, consisting of first an organand then a guitar solo. The effect' issimilar to that achieved by theGrateful De ad ins u c h songs as"Vi.ola Lee" (the live performanceof it), and is indicative of SOme ofthe trends toward use of jazz tech-niques in recent rock albums, bestexemplified by the Blue s Project'sProjections album and Butterfield'sEast-West album. An extremely ex-citing song. The songs are all well-written, especially "The CrystalShip" and the last song on the r ecord,"The End".

I have saved this song for lastbecause it is by far the most origin-al and significant song on this album.Nothing like this has ever been re-corded except on certain obscureexperimental jazz records, and it sappearance here is really a break-through in the development of rockmusic.

The song is 111/2 minutes longand done in the improvisational st~used in the Stones' "Going Home" ,though the lyrics here have suchpoetic perfection that they were ob-viously not improvised. Jim Morris-on narrate s the song, some t i in e ssinging, sometimes chanting, some-times talking. The instrumental

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 17

The Doors (Elektra)

I first heard of the Doors last Julywhile visiting Los Angeles. The new-ly- formed group was playing at theBrave New World and the hand-drav.nposter said, "hear the wile riew sourisof the Doors". I didn't get to seethem, but I heard several good re-ports. Since then ever-growing num-bers of people have been praising thedoors, and now with the appearanceof their first album the whole musicworld should soon be talking aboutthem.

The personnel of the band are JimMorrison, vocalist, and unquestion-ably one of the finest rock singers inthe country, Ray Manzarek, who'play s organ, piano, and 'bass, RobbyKrieger, guitar, and John Densmore,drums. All four are extremely com-petent musicians, and their rnu s i.chas a tightness, a solidness, a total-ity of sound that is unequaled on theWest Coast except perhaps by theGrateful Dead.

Of the 11 songs on the album, allbut two are originals. The renditionof "Back Door Man" is the best re-corded version yet by a rock group,and "Alabama Song", from Kurt Weilland Berthold Brecht's "ThreepennyOpera", comes across nicely. In-strumental effects give it a delight-ful German beer-hall sort of sound.Of the original songs, "Break OnThrough", a fast-moving, hard rocknumber, has been released on a sin-

background is very soft throughoutthe song except where it builds to acouple of really fine climaxes. Thesitar-like sound of the guitar issuperbly and tastefully done. Thestory itself is based on a section ofthe Tibetan Book of the Dead settingforth the method for destroying, one-self without hurting anyone close toyou and without remorse. If one lis-tens carefully through the splendidimage ry of the lyric s a mode rniaedversion of the ancient story can beextracted. Briefly, the narratorstarts off saying goodbye tohis bestfriend, then his words ramble forawhile like the ravings of a madman,

;though each unconnected phrase' is aquote from the Book of the Dead, andit all makes perfect sense if one isfamiliar with the mystical backgrourrlof the song. Then he tells how hewoke up that morning and murde re dhis sister and his brother and hisparents, then lured his girlfriendand other good friends into a blue

, bus where he killed them. in a violentfrenzy of destructivenes s (the mu sc-al accompaniment during this partis particularly good). Then he saysgoodbye to his friend again and atthe end of the song it is implied thathe kills him and then himself.

Suggested listening for this songis quietly, in a dark room, with per-haps a candle and/ or incense, atgreatest possible volume, -or throughheadphones if they are available. Itis really an amazing song.

The Doors are perhaps the bestgroup to come out of Los An g e Ie s ,and this album is certainly the fire styet by any West Coast group. I sug-gest that everyone who reads thisbuy a copy. There is not a bad cuton it, the re are three standout, trul ygreat songs, and the better this rec-ord sells the sooner it will be beor ethe Door s ' next album. /GREG SHAW

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 18

The Youngbloods (RCA Victor)

Anyone who saw the Youngbloodsat the Avalon last month will undoub-,tedly be interested in this album. Ernnot sure how wide spread its distrib-ution is; I found my copy about sixweeks ago, but since then I have n+tseen it anywhere else. It can pr ob=ably be ordered through RCA if youcan+t find it in your local gangster-run record store.

The Youngbloods mix up their tun-es very well, throwing in fine vers-ions of Dino Valenti Is IILe t 's Get To-gethe r " and Fred Neill s "Other Sid eof this Lifeil in between their r 'n ' btunes like "Statesboro Blues'l (whichfeatures great guitar work and sing-ing by the Banana, who plays electricpiano on the other tunes), "Airi+t ThatLov in ' You Bab y!", and their finerendition of 'IC. C. Rider". On the,latter they achieve a really nice feel-ing in the rhythm section, not theheavy pounding beat one would expectto hear out of the Chicago-center e dblues groups. On the whole, TheYoungbloods present their blues mat-erial in a very subtle and intriguin gfashion. Jerry Co rb itt ' s lead guitarand Jesse Colin Youngls bass workvery tightly together and give th eband a good, full sound.

Those of you who have made theGil Hile scene will find an extra bo-nus on this album, a tune titled "Fourin the Morning". Although its not ab v:

out Gil, it really is in a way. This isa very worthwhile first album fromone of New Yor ks best groups.

The Buffalo Springfield (Atco)

The Buffalo Springfield present onthis album twelve original songs ofvery high quality both in terms oftheir structure and their performan-ce. 'IFor What It ' s Worth" is not in-cluded in this collection;how ever,"S'it Down I Think I Love You", alarge hit for the Mojo Men is here,as is "Nowadays Clancy Can+t Even

Sing", the Springfield's first (un-successful) single and one of thei rbest songs.

An interesting sidelight on thisgroup is their resemblance to a lo-cal group, Moby Grape, both interms of the specific instrumenta -tion (three guitars, bass) and thegeneral sound of the songs bot hgroups write. One song in particularon this album, "Leave", is stronglyreminiscent of Moby Grape in its useof what is basically a jazz structurein the presentation of the melody andthen the solos. The jazz feelin:gworks very well there and I thinkother groups would dowell to attempta similar sort of thing (the DailyFlash's brilliant "Cantalope" comesto mind as another successful mer-ging of a jazz style into rock. ).

The reason why this album makesit in a way that most debut albu m sof new groups don't is that all thesongs, while unified by a generalstyle, are es sentially different f r orn.each other. Many of them have avery nice semi-country-and-westernfeeling and the words are re a 11yright on the beat of a variety ofthings which are happening in thecountry and its councountry and its culture. This is oneof those rare albums which I canfind little wrong with. Buy it.

The Byrds/ Younger Than Yesterday(Columbia)

With this album, the Byrds marktheir progress into purely electron-ic, rather than electronic music. In5th D one could see a synthesis ofrock and Indian classical music; onthis Ip they are doing to Stockhausenand Variese what they previously didto Rav i Shankar and Jafa Khan. On-cTA 102" electronic effects arecombined with electric instrumentsto simultaneously tell a little jokeabout space travel and scare the hell

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 19

out of the listener. Throughout thisalbum there is an experimentationwith new sounds in rock which is ofthe highest level.

Chris Hillman erne rge s on this setas a writer of real merit. A coupleof his numbers are C&W styledtune s, "Time Between" and "GirlWith No Name", and they come offwell. "Have You Seen Her Face"could well be a hit if it were releas-ed as a single. All in all, Hillman's\Vork is very effective because itcompliments the other tunes on thealbum, written by McGuinn and C'ros-by.

In essence, this is a modern sym-phony. Everything on this -lp is link-ed together by a cornrrrorrFe eIing , a

comrn ou perception. This is an albumwhich you should not let slip by.

- - DAVID HARRIS

The Electric Prunes/ (Reprise)

The A&R man on this date, Dave.Ha s eing er (former L. A. hero engin-eer), ought to be awarded a medal'for making a fairly minor band soundgood. The Prunes' are pretty goodinstrumentally (the recorded soundand the overdubbed effects are verywell done), rather weak vocally, andjust mediocre in terms of their writ-ing abilities. Some of their tunes,like "Onie", "Luvin"', and "Bargle s"are embarrassingly bad lyrically.

However, the Prunes do have adistinctiv~ sound of their own, andiri spots this lp comes off very well.On "Sold to the Highest Bidder" thereare some mandolin passages that arevery effective. And this is one of themost clearly recorded rock Ips I'veever heard. Perhaps when the Pru-nes hit the road and start perform-ing their tunes a great deal they willhave the opportunity to modify themand make them more effective. Thepainting of the Electric Prunes, byStan Leong, which is printed onboth sides of the album, is devastat-ingly accurate. --DAVID HARRIS

Tue Psychedelic Sounds of the Th i r t-teenth Floor Elevators (Interna-t iona, Artists)"The Psychedelic Sounds of th e

Thirteenth Floor Elevators", say theliner notes on the back of this album.This kind of jazz turned me off im-

:mediately; "psychedelic" is the ITI)st·overused term around (after "trip"and "wow"). "Psychedelic music"seems to refer to any piece which isclouded up with reverb, all kinds 0 fnoise, and lyrics about "the neon fromyour eyes", etc. Anyway, "psyche-:delic" is a misnomer for the musicof the Thirteenth Floor Elevators.

Their music is fairly unique, ifnotalways appealing. The material onthis Ip varie s in quality. The re is alot of reverb and neon stuff, butthere's also some very solid rock."You're Gonna Miss Me" is probablythe stronge st cut, but the blue s -ting-ed "Monkey To Hide", the flip of"You're Gonna Miss Me", comes offwell; it is purposely slowed down andarranged much cleaner (as a single,'it was too fast, too much like "GonnaMiss Me"). The Elevators' secondsingle, "Reverberation", is included,and remains a very competent at-tempt. The softer numbers are harrl-led especially well; the instrumental-

_.chorus arrangement on "Splash 1"is fascinating, and "Don't Fall Down'drones incessantly, a very catchymelody. '

If you've dug the Elevators in per-son, you should enjoy the Ip, Themixing and general production, whilenot pe rfect by any means, do re-create the group's sound quite well ,as least as good as "Blind Man" didfor Big Brother & the Holding Comp-any. This album is commen dab 1e ,within the context of the group invol-ved and their visible limitat ion s ..Pe r sona Ily, the Elevators seem tome to Come off here like a combina-tion Great Society-Seeds; the East-ern influences of the former arepresent here, a c are the vocal styie s

')JO-NA VIGATOR - 20

5

of the latter. However, it becorre sevident after listening to this albumthat the Elevators possess neith e rthe talent for adaptation and invent-iveness of Grace and Darby Slick,nor the peculiar appeal of Sky Saxon.and his bunch. The Elevators aren't·that interesting, yet.

The Kin k s / F ACE T 0 F ACE(Reprise)

When the Kinks come up as a top-ic for conversation, the situation isalways relatively uncomplicated. Ei-ther you've never cared for them,oryou've dug them straight since "YouReally Got Me" and "It's All Right".If you have grooved the Kinks all al-ong, you probably realize there'susually a problem in previewing a"And with seven million heads, that'sa lot of hair L!' - - Vitalis commercial

new Kinks album. At first play, thesongs have a tendency to all soundalike. It therefore takes two 01" threeruns through an lp to realize justwhat's there. In the case of "Face to1;'ac e", the r e ' s plenty there.

Providing you understand the Kinks'music and acknowledge their talent,the obvious conclusion to be made ab-out "Face to Face" is that it is theKinks' "Rubber Soul". It has the ·in-gredients; it's tight (structurally incontent, and in pe rformance), it hasa theme (sunshine), it has variety(contrast "Party Line" with "RainyDay in June"), and it has abundance- fourteen bands. The head linersingle is here, "Sunny Afternoon".C&W is handled in "Party Line",(fairly Beatle -ish), goodtime in"Little Miss Queen of Darkness".Blues is the foundation for "You'reLookin' Fine". "Holiday in Wa ikiki.'manages successfully to integratesound effects with instrumentation,much in the manner of "Summer inthe City". Even Ray Davies' "Dandy"is palatable here. The most strikingachievement, however, is'Ro sy WcntYou Please Come Home", which,

while definitely within the context ofthe Kinks, comes off as one of themost refreshing pieces in some time.

So the Kinks have reached "Rubber'Soul" status with their sixth album.It's intere sting to note that what for-merly characterized the Kinks' sty-le is all but removed here. PeteQuaife's tough bass and Dave Drvie s'Chuck Berry-derivative leads seemto have given way here to more sub-tle rhythms and a consistent, unif-ied sonority. The results prov idefor a new Kinks music which issofter, infinitely more textu red ,and stylishly more sophisticated.

---GENE SCULATTI

The Siegel-Schwall Blues Band(Vanguard)

The rush is on to record ( an dmake money out of) the white Chic-ago blues thing, and to a certainextent this record is a product ofth at rush. This is a pretty good al-bum in many ways {sometunes,like11 I Have Had All I Can Take 11 and 11 S:>Glad You're Mine" come off in goodstyle, but the problem boils down tothis: if you have the original record-ings of these tunes (six of the twelveare from other r'n'b sources) theSiegel-Schwall versions won't meanmuch to you. And, unfortuna tel y ,their original tunes, although theyshow a good deal of promise, never,quite come off to my ear. I feel thatthis group has been recorded some-what too soon.

Now, to move from their styleof soug to the musicianship: CorkySiegel is a very good piano player,

,and Jim Schwall has developed arather unique style of lead guitar.However, I think both of these menare strait-jacketing themselves inthe blues idiom. Their styles wouldseem to me to indicate that theycould produce much more interest-ing, much less academic music ina straight rock bag.

The Vanguard recorded sound may

be fine for solo folk singers, but.their Chicago blues records haveleft much to be desired in terms ofdynamic s , Some example s of goodreco~ding: Spencer Davis' 11 Gi.rnrn e-Some Lovin' ", the Motown things,Spector's work with Ike and TinaTurner. Dig the message, Van-K,uard? ---DAVE HARRIS

Tim Buckley (Elektra)

A recording of Tim Buckley, Elek-t r a ' s latest new talent, has been as -saulting my ears for the past halfhour or so. And I do mean assaul t •The album is one of the poorest ex-amples of artistry since the Shadowsof Knight fiasco.

On the surface it looks very good.The cover is impres sively designed,the liner notes suitably cryptic. Thepersonnel are distinguished: Lee Un-de rwood on lead guitar" Mr. Buckleyon guitar, James Fielder on bas s ,B illy Mundi on drums, and Van DykeParks on piano, harpsichord, and ce-,leste. With bated breath you put therecord on the machine.

And are thoroughly disappointed.The first song, "I Can't See You",sounds beautiful until Mr. Buckle ystarts to sing. Then you realize saneghastly error has been made. Mr.Buckley sounds as if the song is twoor three keys too high. But this isjust a mistake on one track, to berectified later, you think. You shouldlive so long. The side wends its waythrough five more songs, each com-

You can lose your mind on apogo stick.

peting for bomb of the year.Calm reflection at this point re-

veals the problems. Mr. Buckle ycan 'f sing, and the song lyric s aremystic, inane, and absolutely pre-dictable. But there is a good soundcoming from somewhere.

By the time you've heard side two,the somewhere is apparent. BillyMundi and Van Dyke Parks are stand-

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 21

--~-------------------------------------- a~ •••••• ~Y

'outs. There are sorrre truly out-:standing performances by these a rt-:ist s , Mundi is great on "Grief InMy Soul " and "Song Slowly Song",Parks on "Gr ief In My Soul" and"Ar en+t You the Girl? II

But, unfortunately, Tim Buckley,.mana ge s to submerge them both. Heso dominates the album as to ren-,der it almost unlistenable for theaverage, intelligent Mojo reader.If you enjoy poor performances buyit. If not, forget it. I PHIL BROWN

,Lovel Da Capo (Elektra)

This album represents a gr eat ad-vance over the first lp which Love is-sued last Spring. The entire structureof the band has changed since then,with Alban Pfisterer switching fromdrums to piano I or gany ha r psIch o r d,Michael Stuart replacing him on per-cussion and Tjay Cantrelli joining theLove on a variety of reeds. Love'~musical ideas have grown a good deal,too; right now they are working bas-ically on an integration of jazz androck & roll into a new form of music..In general, they do very well at this,especially instrumentally. At timesArthur Lee Is vocals are a bit strain-e d and his style somewhat exaggerat-ed to my ears; occasionally he is veryeffective.

The first side of this lp is; devoted'to six relatively short numb e r s ( in-.clu.ding the hit 117 & 7 Is "}, all ofwhich corne off in fine form. AlbanPfisterer is especially effective onseveral of these - in fact the whole,band is extremely well-rehearsed anitight on all the tunes. The flip sideof the album is composed of one song,"Reve Iati on'", which runs for 18 min-ute sand give seve ryone ample timeto demonstrate their abilities assoloists. The piece starts after ab r i e f harpsichord solo by Pfister-er) as an R & B number in the styleof John Lee Hooker, runs throu gh

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 22

some vocalizing by Arthur Lee whichcan only be described as ernba r r ass -Ing , (although in fa ir-ne s s it must besaid that Lee wrote all but one of thesongs on this album, and structural-ly they are excellent) arric e guitarsolo by John Echols [who has a nicetrick of starting off a chorus with arush of very fast, high-pitched notesand then rounding off with almost B.B. King-like ph r a'se s}. Then Lee re-turns for a somewhat more success-ful stint of singing and some out ofhand harp work. Then Tjay Cantrelli

. takes a very fine solo, with the \\holeorientation of the band switching rru s-ical context behind him from rock tojazz. This is done very cleanly. Af-ter Cantrelli I s solo the rhythm sec-tion takes over completely. Ken For-ssi contributes some fine bass, andthen Michae.l Stuart performs a mini-blowing drum solo which in my mind'ranks him with such jazz great's asTony Williams, Elvin Jones, andCharles Moffat in terms of what hemay potentially achieve in the rockfield.

Love Is second album is a very finemusical achievement, and well worthyour investment. It is little liketheir first album, which, althoughI enjoyed it, was basically an~.:nit~-tion of the Byrds. Love has foundits own voice. -- D A V ID HARRIS

The Rolling Stone s IBetween the But-tons (London)

The Rolling Stones continue on thislp the musical progression whichtheir last album "Got Live 1£YouWant'It" interrupted. One of the trulygreat things about the contemporaryR & R scene is the way the groupsare constantly topping not only eachother with each new release, but alsotheir own back records. The soundswhich marked I'Afte rm ath ' I as a clas-sic album have been refined and re-worked on this set to produce musicof even higher quality. One need not

say more than this: Everything hereis brilliant, classic, worthwhile: buythe album and dig for you r se lf,

- - DAVID HARRIS

Bobby Darin/ If I Were A Carpenter(Atlantic)

Depending on the type 'of music )IOudig, this album may be great, 0 rmerely pleasant, or a drag. Pe r scrr-ally, being more inclined toward aharder sound, I find it somewhatdull. The predominant sound of thi slp is soft; no electric guitars, littlebass, much strings. Darin is a good.s inge r , but he comes off in this con-text like a male Marianne Faithfull.

The best thing here is the title.song, which was one of the best re-cords of 1966. Everything else in-cluded here is pretty bland, and thereason is quite vis ible - - poor ar-.ranging. "Reason To Believe" is abastard son of "Carpenter", and an-other Tim Hardin piece. "Girl ThatStood Beside Me", while a nice com-mercial follow-up, isn't much as asong in itself. "Until It's Time ForYou To Go" is done straight, likeBuffy St. -Marie's original (Samewavering voice and the whole bit),as are "Daydream", "Sittin' He reLovin' You", and "For Baby". "RedBalloon", a Hardin number, fallsto faulty arrangement again- - couldbe a better pie ce if more were madeof the violin-bass contrasts. Darin'soriginal, "Amy"," is pretty, a loveballad something like Ray Charles'"Georgia". "Misty Roses" (Hardinagain) is really poor, it's in sortof a Chris Montez-Baja MarimbaBand bag. The most depressing cutis Hardin's "Don't Make Promises."A "Memphis" rhythm, one itha.t isdesigned for hard rock specifically,gets all crapped up here with addi-tive instrumentation, and comes outjust plain loud.

This album, for the genuine hardrock freak, is at best "tolerable".

If you dig Darin's. voice and C h r ~.sMontez and "That's Life" and BajaMarimba Band, you'll enjoy thisone. Also, this lp is a full-fledge dKoppelrn.an-Rubin deal, 'and it shows:that they too are capable of tu~ning , ,out bad stuff .• The only great thin gabout this album is that most of thesongs were written by Hardin andSebastian, and not P. F. Sloan.

--GENE SCULATTIi

i~~ ~~

I'Looking for a re cor d. shop that's fertile?

Music 5 is ripe for yourpickin' •

5th & MarketYou know where

RECORDS

"The guidance-system of weapons-item 207, which consists of six hun-dred miniaturized electronic compo-nents, can best be plow-shared as alacquered ceramic owl which appearsto the unenlightened only as an orna-ment; the informed knowing, howev-er , that the owl's head, when remov-ed, reveals a hollow body in whichcigars or pencils can be stored •••

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 23___________________________________ ~ __wt

-....

. . ..... .~.'. ":.'- ..

h . lT ere is much talk in San Francisco these days about the Lovin' Spoonful;

everyone from the heads of the rock scene down to the lowliest teenybopperis concerned about the Spoonful Scandal, and its pos sible consequence s.

Just what is this scandal that has upset so many people? A couple of rrxrfhsago, photocopies of a page compiled from an official court transcript, thetext of which accompanies this article, began appearing in public pl.a cesaround this city. Immediately all manner of gossip began spreading. Our re~porter went to the victim himself, referred to in the transcript as "defend-ant", to get the full story. What happened is basically no more than what isstated in the transcript. Steven Boone and Zal Yasinski of the Lovin' Spoon-.ful were asked by a police undercover agent to assist him in a bust. "I'h ey tcdchim to a friend, vouche d for him, and when the friend sold the agent two lidsof grass he was arrested. '

Naturally people became outraged on he a r ing this story. Contempt forpolice narcotics agents is exceeded only by contempt for i.nfor m e r s in thenew morality of today's youth, or at least in San Francisco it is, and exper-ience has taught us that the rest of the country is only a step behind anythingthat is happening here.

Bill Lougrborough, the guy that got busted, surprisingly enough is not asha r sh on Steve and Zal as most non-involved pa rtie s tend to be. He has kn ovnthem for some time, and, in his words, "They didn't know any better. II Hewent on to make a statement to the effect that I.!They really ~idnlt mean anyharm. They're just puppies. They had no idea it would lead to all of this. Ithink they've learned a Ie s sonv,

If the vict irri himself can take SUC:-l a benevolent attitude, perhaps the restof us would do best to merely forget the whole affair. But the reaction ofpeople who have found out about this has been very strong. A lot of pe opleare saying that they just can't seem to enjoy the music of the Lovin' Spoonfulany more, and that they will certainly never buy another of their records. TheSpoonful themselves have cancelled a series of concerts they were to haveperformed here recently, whether because of this or not we have no way ofknowing.

We present the facts of this case without comment, except to caution ourreaders to be wary, personally, in the company of these musicians. The fateof the Lovin' Spoonful itself depends on how much of the public really caresabout such things at this point. MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 25

CALIFORNIA,Ne. L-50007l/2-F

A FELONY, TO-WIT:Viol at ion of Se ct ion 11531

of the Health and Safety Cede.

Plaintiff,v s ,

WILLIAM B. LOUGRBOROUGH,

Defendant.

REPORTER IS TRANSCRIPT

PreceEiPreceedings of

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1966: 4:00 P. M.

Q Will you please state yeur full name and spell yeur last name?·A My name is James J. Harnpton , H-a-m-p-t-e-n.Q And in May of 1966 were you an offic e r of the. San Francisce Pol ic e

Department?A I was.Q Officer Harripton , en the 25th day of Mayer thereabeuts when yeu

went to 2471 Washingten Street and you purchased the two lids of grass,f r orn whom did yeu get the gras s, as you ptt it?

THE WITNESS: The defendant obta ine d the evidence in the bed r oornf r om a drawer and the drawer is right next to the doorway, He turneda r ound and handed it to Steven Beene and he

THE COURT: He handed it to Steven Beene and Beene in turnhanded it te you ?

THE WITNESS: Yes, and handed it to me.Q Can yeu tell us who was present with yeu and the man who furnished

the green vegetable material eventually at the time yeu first centactedwith that man at the Cemmittee?

A I was intreduced to the defendant by a Steven Beene in the companyof Zal Yasinski and Bob Ca r va Iho,

QAnd a spa rt of that intreductien were yeu intreduced as a musicianor a pe r son interested in singing?

A I was intreduced as a friend.MR. WHITE: Q Officer Harn pton , when did yeu first meet or

have contact with Steve Beene, appreximately?A A day or two befere May 25th.Q And did a cenversatien oc cu r between Inspecter Mangnani and

Inspecter Ma r tinov ich and yeurself that these two individuals -- StevenBeene and Zalman Yasinski -- were geing to help yeu in yeur wo r k as apol ic e .officer? Did semething like that happen?

A Semething to that effect, ye s ,Q Are Steven Beene and Zalman Yasinski part of the musical greup

known as Levin IS Spoonful ?THE REPORTER: Weuld yeu please spell that?MR. WHITE: L-e-v-i-n-I-s S-p-e-e-n-f-u-l.-:THECOURT: It certainly sound s like an interesting

(Cepies ot ·the photocopy of the actual cou r t transcript are available fremus at a cosf ·ef 25¢ each, if yeu are interested or if yeu dont t be.lieve us.)

MOJO,:"NAVIGATOR .: 26

RECORDNEWS:~.'pOWer(WhOhave~ .cleus the long _ ~~~~Vfolks in gin gand Tina Melt-.signed by Van-Sopwith Camel ' s"Postcard Franout on Kama Su-bum, which isfirst dub as 11el{_

trepid ace Philbe out soon •••Trend Is fir stWas a Good Boy"the Hill" out on ~the next week. •. ~and the Fish willfirst lp on Van- ~ ~~~~~~Their single, "Happiness is a Porpoise Mouth" will he, released simultaneous:ly ••• Blackburn & Snow' s first album, on Verve, will appear sometime inApril ••• If their single, which unfortunately didn't make it, is any indication,the album will be excellent. •• The Daily Flash I s second single is out, "SiIve rRings"; it is definitely heave - by the way it amused me that no one seemed 10be amused at the Avalon recently when the Daily Flash played their fanta stic"Bulgarian Baby". The scene is getting just a wee bit too deadly grim seriousfor the collective taste of the Mojo aces ••• The Chambers Brothers I thi rdsingle on Columbia, "All Strung Out" is in the stores .•• Big Brother and theHolding Co. IS new single on Mainstream "Call On Me"/"Down On Me" hasbeen released and is doing pretty well. It' s number 8 in Santa Rosa, is get-ting airplay on many Northern California stations, and furthermore is gettiq>;heavy play from Eastern soul stations ••• The Peanut Butter Conspiracy'sfirst disc lilt Is a Happening Thing" _onColumbia, flopped after extensive air-play in Sacramento seemed to indicate that it rn i ght break out here. Their al-bum was due out in March ••• The Byrds have released Dylan' s "My BackPages" from their new lp on a single ..• Barry Goldberg has a new singlecalled "Gotta Carry On". Mike Bloomfield and Frank Zappa assist on the roc-ord ••. The Blues Magoos have issued a new single "Pipe Dream" which I

shows a marked improvement over the material on their first lp •.• The Whcalso have a new single out. They will- be in the US for 10 days during April,and will appear on TV with Murray the K. They 'Ll be back this summer for atour of the country. The Spencer Davis group is also expected to do a tourhere this summer •.• The Steve Miller Blues Band from Chicago have decid-ed to remain in San Francisco. They're an incredibly good band and a wel-come addition to this city •..• The Sparrow, whose latest sing le , "Greentle Lover" recently flopped in the wake of their first flop, are also a San FraFrancisco band. They are originally from Canada ••• The Nitty Gritty DirtBand have r eLea sed a fine album on Liberty ••• the Left Banke Is first albumon Smash is very good also ••• The most important recording event so farthis year is the release of the Grateful Dead album on March 20. We will

:probably review it in depth next issue ••• In case you weren't awere, TheGrateful Dead almost released a single last year on the Scorpio label "Steal-in'''/''Don't Ease Me In". This side is destined~ be a really rare item, sircethe only copy that we knew of to date (the Dead ted the cuts and didn't aIlov'the record to be released) was in our possessio. Not so. Eight more copieshave turned up in a junk shop near Ukiah. Apparently a syndicate was formedfor distribution up there, and after buying out the entire remaining stock ofthis extremely ra:te non-masterpiece at 10f a copy, the Ukiah locals have be-gun to jack up their friends for the exorbitant prices that this 45 can bring -the first few went for 2-3 dollars apiece ••• The Baltimore Steam Packethave been signed to a seven year contract by Capitol. Why? I ask. This bandis still imitating the Airplane, and not doing that very well at it either •••••John Francis Gunning, one of the best drummers on the West Coast, hasleft Country Joe and the Fish. Their new drummer, however, is almost asgood ••• somebody is making a bloody fortune peddling SF dance posters .•••

Newsweek reports that in one month 57,000 Wes Wilson posters were sold.They are being sold now all over the country, the usual price is $1here,$L;outside SF. By now every house in the Bay Area that contains a kid age 12 or'older also contains several poster reprints. By the time every kid in thecountry ka s as many of the hundred or more that are available as he wants,-eve r-yorie connected with the poster scene will be a millionaire several timesover. First editions of the posters and copies of posters that were never re-printed are bringing fabulous prices from fanatical collectors here. It's rea-lly too much ••• Rick Stanley & the Gentle Soul will issue their first singlesoon on Columbia •••

We're the hairiest wild wonder I'veever seen.

NICK "THE GREEK" GRAVENITIS and STEVE MILLER

MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 28 Mojo photo by "Ace" Mitchellt

Rock is now a very going concern on the FM radio stations, due mostly tothe recent FCC decision to ban simulcasting (the simultaneous broadcast onboth an AM station and its FM affiliate of the same program), and to th egrowth of the rock audience both in maturity and in simple economic power.A survey of FM stations now in the rock bag:

KPFA: 92.4 mg: KPFA broadcasts the best rock music on the dial, as onewould expect, since they also broadcast the best of just about everythingelse. The main vehicle for R&R is the Cocoanut Grove show, on Monday--Saturday nights from 12 midnight to 6 in the morning. Intersperced wi t han excellent cross -section of the best recorded rock around are some veryinteresting discussions on the scene. This program is very important, andone wishes sometimes that it could be on at a different time so that more

. people could hear it. KPFA also programs Mike Chetchek's show, KingBiscuit West (with Ed Denson on second microphone) every other Monday

night at 11o'clock. In addition, program fillers are also rock sometimes.No commercials at all. Bravo, KPFA.

KMPX: 106.9 mg. stereo: KMPX is gradually working into a rock bag. Theprogramming is very hip - for the first time around here it is possible totune in to the excellent recordings of local groups on the air (Big Brother81. the Holding Co, , the new Sopwith Camel side, Country Joe and the Fish.the Charlatans, etc.). The D. J. s are casual, relaxed, and the commer-cials are quiet: in short, listening to KMPX is a pleasant experience. As-ide from airing local bands, they also play the best of recorded sides fromother parts of the land (Dylan, Butterfield, the Blues Project, and theDaily Flash. seem to hit the turntables often). At present R&R is on from12 midnight - 10:30 in the morning, then again from 1:30 until 4 in the pm.KMPX is already developing into a very strong agent for the maturing ofthe audience around here by launching the really good rock group singles

and forcing KFRC to pick up on them. Examples: The Blues Project's "NoTime Like the Right Time" and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Buy For Me·the Rain". Without KMPX these would have'died; now they seem to be des-tined to hit •.

KFRC-FM: 106.1 mg: I don't understand it, but apparently the FM outletof KFRC is still operating under at least partial simulcast, because when-ever I tune in and check, it's br oadc a st ing -exac tl y what the AM station is.Perhaps I just haven't caught the different program sections yet (the FCCordinance allows a certain percentage of simulcasting for a Lirn ite d time;eventually it must all be phased out). If KFRC is going to hold its own inthe EM market against the substantial lead which KPF'A arid KMPX arepiling up, it had better do something different quickly.

KGO-FM: 103.7 mg. stereo: A semi-chicken rock station. Jim Moore isannouncing records no matter when I tune in, so I assume that this is acomputerized, pre -taped operation. Commercials about the same in cori-tent as KGO-AM, but somewhat more subdued in volume. This stationvaries widely between irite r e st ing album cuts in the quiet rock bag (LauraNyro, Cyrkle) and mushy Hollywood string arrangements. 1£they hardenup the sound they might have some impact, since they have almost no talkand quite a bit of music (unfortunately of varying quality, as I indicatedabove). MOJO-NAVIGATOR - 29

KOlT: 93. 3 nlg. stereo: Bill Kafury and his electric cornpute r spin theKYA .play list, with sorne rnu sh=mu sh mu s ic irib etwe en, This is a good d~allike KGO-FM, except that the pr og r amm ing is a wee bit rno r e adventurous.1 get the irnp r e s s ion that KOlT is serving as a sort of testing ground forKYA in sorne cases - they aired a side by the Music Machine on KOlTwhich, justifiably, didn't rriake KYA. Again, t irne will tell.

Sorne Rarid orn Corrirn errts. KPFA and KMPX are the only ones which 1 can listen to for a long time.

Yet, the others aren't really unpleasant, and if they started programming'with a little daring and flair they m ight be corne very valuable. The marketfor FM rock is certainly there; let us hope that both the requirements ofa rnatu r ing audience and the cornrn e r ci.al hangups of the stations can besatisfied in the exploitation of that rna r ke t,

The Rock & Roll press has gained a new rnerribe r , The first issue ofElectric Frog has appeared, dated Feb. 26, 1967. Electric Frog is thefirst rock fanzine to appear on the scene;.it is m irne ogr aphe d, three pages

of record reviews andpersonal c ornm ent onthe roc k scene. In his"notice of intent" edito rJ'arne s Wright says: "Ifa person wants to intel-ligently discuss rock &roll he has to do itthrough (Mojo-Navigat-or, Crawdaddy or HitParader). Rather thanwork through the abovesources I've rne r ely cre-ated my own source. L'vedecided to open the pag-es of Electric Frog· toanybody with somethingto say about rnu sic , Ifyou have anything at allto say out there, sitdown and write it outand send it on in. "

Electric Frog: 1605Thayer St. , RichlandWash. 99352. Subscrip-tions: 10 is sue s for $l.We wish Electric Frogthe best of luck and en-courage our readers totake advantage of thisopportunity to discussrock rnu sic informally •

JOHN FRANCIS GUNNING

.K?'

Mojo photo by "Ace" MitchellMOJO-NAVIGATOR - 30

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