OK, as promised I'll continue the quick run-throughs of my most recent acquisitions:

Charles Ives - Piano Sonata No. 1 (Nonesuch, 196?)

Ives wrote two piano sonatas, and this is supposedly the lesser known of them, though it's certainly not for lack of quality. Presented in solo-piano format, it moves through some widely contrasting sections, injecting/subverting/deconstructing the melodies from a number of hymns along the way, and using the kind of precocioiusly unconventional structures and harmonies that are Ives's stock in trade. Full of passion, humor, and knotty, very American brilliance.

Seguin - Festin D'Amour

I picked this up as part of my ongoing French-Canadian psych/folk/prog preoccupation (and it only cost about two dollars). It turns out to be a prime example of mid-'70s Montreal folk-psych, mostly acoustic but very richly arranged, with a gentle folk feel that's uniquely French-Canadian. Not unlike a Gallic Pentangle.

Ecology - Environment/Evolution

I picked this up because I found out that it included late Blue Things frontman Val Stoecklein (whose lone solo album is nothing to sneeze at either, but that's a story for another time). Given that it was obviously a hippie concept album about--you guessed it--ecology, and that Stoecklein was not the primary songwriter, I steeled myself for a possible trainwreck of gargantuan proportions. However, I was delightfully surprised. It's not unlike what the Blue Things might have sounded like if they'd stuck around for a couple more years, which is to say somewhat Byrdsy folk-rock with some country flavoring and a few psych touches, with excellenting singing, songwriting, and production.

Bill Cowsill - Nervous Breakthrough

This was one of the biggest dissapointments of the bunch. Most of you probably know that Billy "Bud" Cowsill was part of the briefly famous sunshine-pop family group the Cowsills, who had a couple of big hits and were the model for the Partridge Family. That's an interesting enough history on its own, but considerably fewer people know that in the '80s Billy moved to Canada and started the Blue Shadows, one of the best roots-rock bands of the era, who made one fantastic album (On the Floor of Heaven) and then seemingly vanished, as far as I can tell. From the cover I was expecting this to be some kind of quirky, post-hippie country-rock album, but instead it's a totally bland singer-songwriter record with no good songs and some downright embarrassing cover tunes. Sorry, Bill.

Kensington Market - Avenue Road

Canadians again, but not Frenchies this time. The first of two albums by this late-'60s band, this is rather Beatlesque, harmony-laden pop-rock with a fair number of ballads but a few rockers for good measure, and some really high-quality songwriting and musicianship. Eugene Martynec, who would soon become ubiquitous on the Candian music scene, playing with Bruce Cockburn and others, is the lead guitarist.

More to come soon!

"Whatever became of the Record Geek?" I can hear you ask. He's not dead he's just:
a) lazy
b) busy
c) bored
d) all of the above

in any case, for those of you who haven't yet given up on this blog as a living, breathing source of information, let me at least take a very quick run through the batch of stuff I mentioned in my last posting, the stuff I got at the WFMU record fair. Or at any rate, as much of it as I've gotten through so far.

The Boswell Sisters - 1932-34

Many of you will already be familiar with the Boswell Sisters, but for those who aren't, they were a hugely important vocal group of the pre-war era, mixing pop songs and structures with jazzy harmonies in a unique way. The easy way out would be to say that they were like the white, female Mills Brothers without the vocal imitiation of instruments, but they were in fact much more than that. Dig in and see.

Richard Himber & his Ritz-Carlton Orchestra w/Joey Nash - 1934-35

Even those familiar with the Boswells and other artists of the era may not know about Messrs. Himber and Nash. To be honest, you could quite concievably live your whole life without this knowledge and not be too bothered about it. It was a decidedly non-jazz band that specialized in the songs that were on their way to becoming standards. But if, like me, you've got a soft spot for the pre-war American pop sound, there's no reason not to like this, as Himber, Nash and company are all quite good at what they do.

Ruth Etting - Hello Baby

Again, many of you may know Etting, who was a huge star of film and music in the '20s and '30s. She was pretty much on the pop side, but guys like jazz guitarist Eddie Lang show up on some of these sides to add some swing. Occasionally it gets a little too "vo-do-dee-o-do," if you will, and some of it hasn't aged as well as some of her peers' recordings, but she was an effective singer, and there are certainly some fine moments.

The Grimms - Rockin' Duck

Featuring members of the Scaffold (specifically singer/songwriter Mike McGear, better known to history as Michael McCartney (yes, Paul's little brother) and the great Bonzo Dog Band, you'd think this would be great. They wanted to come off as some kind of combination of the Bonzos, Monty Python, and the Firesign Theater, but they're far too straight, and neither as funny nor as quirky as they think they are (or were, I guess), and there are no memorable tunes. Too bad.

The Mud Hutters - Factory Farming

The Mud Hutters were a great UK DIY band of the late-'70s/early-'80s post-punk era that's the cat's pajamas these days, but nobody seems to talk about these guys much. They struck a nice balance of post-punk guitar-and-drums racket, wild electronics, the occasional off-kilter funk rhythm, and the all-out, left-field wierdness of cult contemporaries like the Homosexuals and Desperate Bicycles.

Pete McCabe - The Man Who Ate the Plant

A real find, for which thanks must go out to both my man Bill Zurat and the buddha of record geekdom, Tony Coulter. This was on Tumbleweed Records, a '70s indie label out of Denver, CO, also home to the great Arthur Gee. Nevertheless, somebody put a lot of money into this album, as its full of Wrecking Crew types like Larry Knechtel, et al. And the orchestrations and arrangements are by none other than Jimmie Haskell. Pete McCabe himself is/was a decidedly idiosyncratic singer-songwriter who can perhaps best be described as Randy Newman with a banjo and bag of marijuana. Original and surprising both lyrically and musically, this is a real gem of obscure singer/songwriterdom.

Tomrerclaus - s/t

The notorious Tomrerclaus was a Danish singer/songwriter/cellist/violinist/guitarist of the psych-folk persuasion, though with more of a rock tinge than that description usually implies. From his Manson-on-an-acid-bender look to his psychedelic-painted-bus he was obviously a hardcore hippie, and he self-released this stuff in the mid-to-late '70s. If falls somewhere between the shambolic hippie folk-psych of bands like Siloah and the harder, equally freaky sounds of Amon Duul II.

alright, that's enough for now, it's late and I'm starting to get tired. More sooner rather than later, I promise.