The College Crowd Digs Me

The College Crowd Digs Me Snowy White   (Pink Floyd, Thin Lizzy) "It's funny how these things happen,  but they're pretty loose most of the time when they do." ~ Snowy White ~   Jamison Newlander  ( Alan Frog -  "The Lost Boys") "Kill your brother. You'll feel better." Jamison Newlander     Henry Lee Summer "I just always have played music.  For better   or worse, I banked my whole life on it." ~ Henry Lee Summer ~  Courtney Gains ( Malachai -  "Children Of The Corn") "It's an iconic line at this point.  People scream that to me still to this day." ~ Courtney Gains ~ A big thank you to everyone who dropped by The College Crowd Digs Me this year. Good stuff. Casey Chambers Follow Me On FACEBOOK    

"Head Hunters" - Herbie Hancock (1973 )      I'm not up too much on my jazz, but I do pick up some things here and there.  Herbie Hancock's "Head Hunters" is one of those albums I've had on my radar.  It's some early representations of jazz fusion and certainly one of the most successful.  At one time it was the largest-selling jazz album of all time.  One of the things that make the square so tasty is the seamless blend of funk that mixes into the jazz.  No big thing nowadays, I suppose, but back in 1973 the idea was almost blasphemous.  "Head Hunters" is jazz-whipped and funky. It grooves and trips and jazzes off in all the right places.  There are jazz improv breaks throughout the songs, for sure, so Herbie doesn't bite the hand that feeds him.  But he does gnaw on them a little bit.  Jazz purists might have been taken aback, but as for the rest... ...give me some more candy! I'm glad I waited until actually spinning the...

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley (2012) Softcover, 486 pages   NO SPOILERS:      Author Daniel O'Malley takes a familiar trope and turns it the fawk on its noggin.   In The Rook , we meet Myfanwy (pronounced Miff-un-ee) Thomas, a member of a clandestine government of "special" agents, who discovers she has amnesia via instructions she left for herself to read should this circumstance ever occur.  With this premise quickly laid out, Myfawny takes the reader on a thrilling adventure that is grossly graphic and totally unpredictable.  Like a Scully/Mulder/Jason Bourne hook-up, The Rook is one coffee-spitting idea after another.   The main characters, good and bad, are easy to take a shine to.  The bombardment of ideas and sticky situations are non-stop.  And the clever web of mysteries Myfanwy finds herself caught in is both dangerous and amusing.  For an author's debut, Daniel O'Malley takes it to the house.   I...

"Red Hash" - Gary Higgins (1973 - Rei 2008) Gary Higgins's only album... "Red Hash" ...is a highly recommended folk-psych album that rubs shoulders a bit with loner-rock and together creates an aura of self-introspection that drifts and dips like a trail of incense.  Restlessness and loneliness are captured in the strangest of ways.  Familiar, yet not.  Flutes, cellos, and organs lightly drop in and out of songs, without ever taking over.  Seasoning the mood.  Haunting the rooms.  The lysergic vibes that wander around the square are hard to pin down, but when the needle lifts, it feels like we've taken a little trip.  Higgins , from the state of Connecticut, produced the album himself and it succeeds on every level Shortly before the album's release, Higgins was arrested for selling or possessing marijuana and was incarcerated for two years.  Friends distributed the album for him, less than a thousand got out, but all the necessary promotion ne...

"Midnight Express Soundtrack" - Giorgio Moroder (1978) Without ever having seen the film or heard the soundtrack, you might still be familiar with one of the songs.  Late-night radio "Coast To Coast AM" has been using "The Chase"   as their opening theme for years.  The hypnotic electronica sets a tone that's uneasy and urgent.  The "Midnight Express Soundtrack" is filled with various shadows of synth and techno that create an overall aura of both portents and despair.  Melodic in a heavy-hearted way.   All instrumentals but for a mockish blues-like song and a vocal adaptation of the Midnight Express theme.  Fine, but not as enjoyable as the instrumentals.   Soundtrack film scores can often be a rabid octopus with songs coming from every direction.  Finding a square with an unerring balance can be a landmine.  They are out there, but not a given.  I think Giorgio Moroder mostly succeeds with this score and gives th...

"Akido" - Akido (1972)      For an obscurity, this one-and-done album "Akido" is pretty good.  There is a nice symbiosis between the funky African-style drumbeats and vocals...and the psych-inspired guitar work that really mesh.  Together, they make for a heady, exotic spin.  The album sets the table with traditional African rhythms before sliding into funky acid psych grooves that never let up.  It's a spin that grows with every rotation.  Not overly psych embellished, but there is an overall psych aura that more than brushes the edges of the genre.  It's good.  This is the kind of album you can actively listen to or simply have partying in the background.  I'm glad I grabbed it. "Akido" (back) "Akido" (inside gatefold) Favorites include: "Psychedelic Baby" "Midnight Lady" "Confusion" "Happy Song" This album was part of the trifecta of my estate sale finds.  The third and last album I grabb...

"American Flyer" - American Flyer (1976) File "American Flyer" under the heading of bargain bin gold.  Semi-gold, anyway.  The music has a nice Eagles-Poco-Parsons singer-songwriter aura about it.  Nothing mind-blowing, but it's pretty solid.  No tracks to skip.  The harmonies and vocals are warm and soothing, as is the music.  Side one is fantastic.  It's the kind of album to spin in the evenings when you're winding down.  And one or two simoleons will let you take it home all day long.  And ain't it nice when the ol' billfold takes a gentle hit for a change.  Kinda makes up for some of the bigger purchases.  And in this case...it was a steal.   For better or worse, American Flyer carries a bit of a "supergroup" tag on its back with members of Pure Prairie League , Blues Magoos , BS&T , and Velvet Underground each represented.  And it was produced by George Martin.  However, their self-titled album was ...

"Aorta" - Aorta (1969)   The Chicago-based band... Aorta ...and their 1969 self-titled debut album, reminds me of Three Dog Night if they had all dropped acid on the way to the studio and were just starting to feel the rush.  The harmonies are tight and bright, as you might expect, but there's also fuzz guitars and keyboard flourishes to be found here as well.  Many of the songs are dusted with shenanigans and take unexpected louies that please the head and keep things from becoming Malt-o-meal.   "Aorta" is a psych pop-rock album, to be sure.  Not heavy, but a few songs  really do get out there.  Overall, there's a lot to like on this album.  The band released another album the following year but I'd read somewhere that the music had a more Christian country rock vibe.  Not at all like their debut.  I haven't heard the LP myself, so correct me if I'm off-base.     "Aorta" - Aorta (back) "Aorta" - Aorta (ins...

"Harumi" - Harumi (1968) The mysterious Japanese singer, Harumi , traveled to New York and recorded this self-titled double album, his one and only, and then just disappeared.  Literally.  But what a groovy psychedelic treat he left us.  The square is in a beautiful gatefold filled with four sides of psychedelia.  Two sides are wonderful baroque-ish psych-pop gifts each dusted with gentle mind-pleasing studio effects.  Not a misstep in the bunch. The other sides, three and four, are a totally different psych bag with each having only one track. "Twice Told Tales..." is a floaty mind-expanding Japanese musical journey that travels beneath a soft-spoken (stoned-like) conversation.  "Samurai Memories" is a jammy trip with Harumi, his parents, and his sister sharing memories in spoken Japanese.  Different, for sure, but not at all bad.  And in the proper state of mind, can take you on a magic bus.  Tom Wilson (Velvet Underground, Dylan, S ...

"The Buddy Holly Story" - Buddy Holly and the Crickets (1959) I knew I wanted to own a copy of this iconic album.  I really like the cover.  But I was never actively looking for it.   "The Buddy Holly Story"  is not a difficult album to come by, nor is it expensive.  I've stumbled on it out in the wild many times, but whenever our paths crossed, something else would always be tugging at my pockets.  However, last year, I found the album at a local swap meet for $10.00 with the seller taking half-off of everything he had brought.  As I said,  "The Buddy Holly Story" is an album that can usually be found on the cheap. Buddy Holly was only 22 when the plane he was on went down.  It was the winter of '59.  February 3rd.  The day the music died.   Coral Records put this Buddy Holly compilation out in record time. (No pun intended.)  It was on the shelves less than a month after the tragedy.  The album holds twe...

Fairy Tale   by Stephen King (2022) Hardbook, 599 pages NO SPOILERS: Fairy Tale is an homage of sorts to the fairy tales of old.  The tales that snuck horrific, disturbing acts of nastiness behind pictures of smiling faces.  But Fairy Tale is much more than this.  Stephen King delivers the goods in a piecemeal, meticulous fashion...taking his sweet, wonderful time setting up the details before embarking the reader on a familiar adventure of fantasmic proportions. And don't mistake meticulous and familiar for boring.  King brings to these pages what fairy tales of old seemed to always lack.  Well-developed characters.  We are given persons we can recognize.  And plenty of reasons to like, love, and empathize or dislike, hate, and despise.  And for reasons more than just being good or bad.  We have Charlie, a likable, talented high-schooler, and Mr Bowditch, the grouchy old man on the hill.  And his dog. (The dog exhibit...

"Merkurius" - Baby Grandmothers (2018 ) Baby Grandmothers was a Swedish band and one of the earlier purveyors of the psych juice.  In the early days, the band was asked to support Jimi Hendrix while he was on his Scandinavian tour.  Later, the band would morph into the second formation of the Mecki Mark Men , another Swedish legend.  In 2007, Subliminal Sounds issued Baby Grandmothers' first album which was made up of unreleased 1967-68 material along with their only single.  And the album is a must-own for any collector of psych. In 2018, the original members of Baby Grandmothers recorded a reunion album,  "Merkurius" and the square sounds almost equally as good.  Like they had never left the studio.  Just top-notch stuff.  The undercurrent of stoner psych still permeates throughout the spin with space-rock vibes and drone-like rushes to feed your head.  Each song is different, but nothing drifts away from the mind-tripping journey....

"It's an iconic line at this point.  People scream that to me still to this day." ~Courtney Gains ~ We've all seen the original  "Children Of The Corn."  (1984)  Many, like myself, watch it whenever it pops up on the TV.  The redheaded horror icon, Courtney Gains , is known to fans everywhere as Malachai ...one of the young leaders in charge of killing any adults who happen through their town.  Sure, it's a guilty pleasure, but what can you do except grab a box of Pepper Jack Cheez-itz, pull up a nice piece of chair, and give in to the quirky horror fun.  We'll soon be coming up on the 40th anniversary of "Children Of The Corn" and October is nearly in our pocket.  The perfect time to revisit the friendly kids from the cornfield. However, if you thought that Courtney Gains was merely a one-and-done actor, better think again.  Gains has been working in this medium for decades and has racked up nearly 150 film and television credits since ...