Singles #2

Here is the second installment of favorite singles.  Each of these songs are interesting because they are different in their own way and each changed the way I looked at music.  There is a few genres to that are mixed in this group as well.  We have Psychedelic, Classic Rock, Progressive Rock, and Post-Punk.  Two songs off these singles were never put in digital form until the late in the CD age when albums were remastered and had the added value of including bonus tracks, or in the case of the Talking Heads it was found on a career retrospective.  A live version is on the awesome The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads, but to me it's the studio version is a bit more powerful.  

Where do I start with the song "Fire" by Arthur Brown.  Early in my music buying I heard this song on the radio one day and fell quickly in love with everything that this song had.  Trippy was the first word that came along, second was the heavy, heavy organ in the part.  It was so awesome.  Once in a while as a early teenager I would request it and it got played, and when it did the whole house heard it.  This song was bought three times before I turned 16 years old.  I had the single and was very content, but I wanted to hear the album.  It exceeded my expectations and is now one of my favorite Psychedelic albums of the time.  The third time I found it on cassette for the car and played that to death too.

The Kinks, were one of the bands I like as a teenager because I heard them on the radio all the time.  It was not one song I heard, but they played a handful of their tunes and each was just as cool as the last.  As a teenager I picked up a greatest hits that was 82 minutes of bliss.  The Kink Kronikles was full of awesome Kinks music that I still go back and listen to all the time.  Side one opened with one of my favorite Kinks songs "Victoria" a song that still keeps my interest to this day.  There are a lot Kinks songs that are played on the radio and for some reason although catchy, "Victoria" is not one of them. 

If you have known me long enough you know my favorite band is King Crimson.  I have been a fan since middle school when I saw the artwork for In the Court of the Crimson King in an art book and then had a cassette copy that I played over and over.  I knew the album by heart by the time I was a freshman and by sophomore year I had a vinyl copy that I played religiously everyday after school. Around that same time I had going record shopping and started collecting their cassettes and one that was interesting was an album called Starless and Bible Black it was always trying to bump up to a top favorite.  It is one of their classics.  At forty-six minutes it hold attention of the most devout listener and only can imagine what a new listener might feel.

"The Great Deceiver" is just as abrasive as "21st Century Schizoid Man" and I can only imagine what this sounded like on radio stations who had a copy of this to play.  DJ's all over must have been shaking their collective heads.  Wetton's vocals are in their prime and Bruford's drumming some of the best.  Fripp's guitar work is jaw dropping.  Classic all the way, single worthy?  Not quite sure it was the best choice.  The B-side a bit more mellow, but could have been the single.  Who knows how these choices get made.  

Speaking of Bruford he appears on this nice single by Yes.  This was a make or break for them.  Atlantic Records felt like if you have nothing for us, then we might have to drop you.  Not sure why Atlantic thought this, but "I've Seen All Good People"is a pretty awesome song.  Hit worthy, not sure about it.  The song as a single was divided into two parts.  The single was mostly acoustic, the second part "All Good People" with heavy Steve Howe fret work and fun Tony Kaye keyboard work which almost has a church organ feel near the end.  I love early Yes and it all started here.

Another band I just love way too much.  At some point I will talk about Marquee Moon but I still have to figure how to narrow down the post to at least eight paragraphs without sounding like a bumbling fool.  I want to talk about how the album is such a classic it rewards even the biggest fan, myself and a friend who will remain nameless because he has over 30 bootlegs of the band.  At first listen of the album I was a teenager who melted with every note from every song.  This song "Little Johnny Jewel (Pts.1 & 2)" originally put out on the Ork label. Upon hearing Tom Verlaine play these blistering licks from a clear plastic guitar almost like a homage to the plastic saxophone of Ornette Coleman. My only question why this was not added to the album and why it took so long (26 years) to put this on an official release.

When the Talking Heads came out with their first album in 1977 they came out of nowhere.  Sure they had a CBGB's reputation.  They weren't brash like other bands of that famous club.  The single  

"Love → Building on Fire" was not even their first single in for an album.  It came out seven months before their debut album.  I can only imagine what the record company saw in their music.  When the album was released most of the album will be remembered for their big hit that even a novice Talking Heads fan can recite all the damn words to, "Psycho Killer." Two of their singles featured songs that were not even on the album. "Love → Building on Fire" and the "I Wish You Wouldn't Say That" got lost till the 1992 compilation.  I will tell you the B-Side to "Psycho Killer" which is "I Wish You Wouldn't Say That" has the same jittery theme that is a showcase in both songs.  "Love→ Building on Fire" is unreleased track that made me a Talking Heads fan. I had few of their albums as teenager, but when Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites came out and the first four songs were not released until that set came out,  I knew that they had some really cool music even before we jumped into that building.

These are Singles #2.  They are a mix of great music that once again I can relate to.  The music on these singles are music I go to again and again.  Sadly, I don't here these often on the radio, but when I do, the volume gets raised and I smile with only a music geek finding that diamond in the rough.