Moog of Hyman

US 69 - Yesterdays Folks (1969 Buddah)

This is music for me! Great, great album. It is a easygoing journey without map or gps from location a to location x never touring or seeing once passed places again, and that is the way i like music. Every second brings something new to your ears. Great trip!

I'm on my way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF_M4w-mdmY

Fever Tree - Creation (1969 Uni)

Dali style enigmatic cover art. Album's music is quite enigmatic too, but not infered from the cover art. Wild Woman Ways: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvcgPkbqfKI

Jericho - S/T (1972 A&M re 2011Acid Nightmare)

Great hard-prog-psych album. The guitarist plays well and the sound of his guitar is pleasant especially on track "Justin and Nova" which is a great piece of rock.

Justin and Nova: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU9c9Nksb04

Tee And Cara - As They Are (1969 United Artists)

Tee Sapoff and Cara Beckenstein, 18 and 16 years old John Adams high school students from NY in 1969 have created an atmospheric album. Before they went duo there was a third wheel too, but after few sessions Tee and Cara found this form better. Have to admit their voices fit well together. These young talented musicians have of course written all but two of the songs by themselves. Beatles's Hard days night they do is nice, slow and soulful version too. I think i can hear they were more than a s-s-w duo. The picture on the cover is moodfull. I would like to shared that moment of meal on the pavement edge with them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biPAngT5sQQ&feature=relmfu

Phantom's Divine Comedy - Part 1 (1974 re 2003)

Tom Carson sounds a bit like Iggy Pop but his melodramacy is more forced. Gary Meissner on guitar is very good. The others are John Bdanjeck (d,p), Dennis Craner (b) and Mike DeMartino (k). The entire album is a kind of hard-psych operetta. I can imagine seeing scenes come replaced by Phantom's recitative briefing when guitarist Carson conveys the story line. Overall this less known light and "mysterious" rock opera is high-class art work.

Design - Tomorrow I So Far Away

A big disappointment! This is a vocal group with guitar and the harmony singing is not very harmonic at times. I don't care of this kind of music. But who cares.

The Zig Zag People - Take Bubble Gum Music Underground (1969 Decca)

Gum goes under quite interestingly. Chewy chewy! Some say that though TZZP actually existed, this album is mostly played by a studio band with no name. Fuzzy guitar, horny horns and more. Bubble gum goes under ground and raises in every hole on the earth and keeps on growin in theirpsychedelic garden.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5IMNMDbg7o

Ron Nagle - Bad Rice (1970 WB)

Rock'n roll and real life ballads. Ron has something to say and his message and lyrics appear at least as important as his songs. there is nothing left from his light psych past and the anti drug piece "Marijuana Hell" is one those where the song and the lyrics are in pleasant balance. I like these crazy american album covers. Ron seems to be a companion of misfortune to me. I know exactly what bad rice may cause. It happened years ago in school eatery. I was eating cabbage casserole made of cabbage and rice. Some grains were still rocky and broke one my tooth. Fortunately it was not any front tooth like what seems to have happened to poor Ron. He later "went down to 61 clay" in his own pottery making wonderful ceramic art. He now is retired professor of ceramics. I really'd like to have one of those artefacts made by him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMD0AR9ltGo
Frank's Store: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT8fve-wd1A

Bill Puka - S/T (1970)

I like to dig and pick up this kind of totally unknown never heard records when available cheap at flea. Singer/songwriter pianist Bill Puka is not bad at all. There is something he wants to say and he does in some bluesy way with the help of about 30 person named on the back cover. Bill Puka seems to be a professor Ph. D since 1980. It was funny to notice that John Rawls was one of his advisors. I happen to know Rawls's Theory of Justice as i have studied philosophy and taught it some courses in high school too. Billy Cobham, Ron Carter and Mike Mainieri are told to be present on the album but there is no mention of the first two on the cover. Nice and interesting album!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ts7oQjhHFM

Old Mill Bay

Jukka Gustavson Organ Fusion Band with Strings - Root & Stalk & Flower Music (2011 RockAdillo)

Music for modern gardeners? The upper sleeve is a painting on wild flowers but inner sleeves are full of pictures of flowers in garden. Just garden flowers... not even one radish, beetroot, carrot, swede or turnip. But yet there is some beatroot to find among all those roses, lilies and daffodils. Fortunately there aren't any white lilies! "Being" is my all time favourite Wigwan album. Jukka G played organ and other keys with them and was the head of the band on Being. The music on this one is serious fusion, funky fusion, progressive rock, blues, classical music, and skillful musicianship of course. But to the roots again... this is not any "Happy Hammond" -music and it is just a good thing that there do not grow any hidden beetroots (in finnish "punajuuri" = redroot) in Gustavson's garden anymore, but the "beatroot" of "Being" which still grows seasoning here and there is the best thing on the album. once more... Most i like those parts where i can hear some echoes from Being and when JG sings. He is a great sounding original vocalist too.The rest material around and the main beingbeetroot sound of the album is important and obligatory framework. R&S&FM is very Hammond-organic music and JG will allways be my favourite organist. "This Elegy Will Always be" is my favorite piece after hearing the album two times for now.

Jimmie Spheeris - Isle Of View (1971

The cover art did not mislead me even it seems to be making war on the contrary to the music on the album which is plainly made for making the other one thing. Beautiful music with extended instrument gathering such as viola, violin, flute and conga.
The Nest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y30P9OMZ4HY
For Roach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jMZjeNTvRM

Big Brother And The Holding Company - How Hard It Is (1971)

Janis Joplin is not with them anymore but the music is is still good, rolling and jammy blues based stuff.

Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick 2 (2012)

Thick As A Brick means me a lot. What happened to fictious Gerald Bostock after 1972 is to be heard on this new album. As i said, TAAB means me a lot, the music, the sounds, everything on the album is one and takes me always back to time and place where i used to listen it again and again. So what to think of this second one? It is not about what happened to Gerald later but what might have happened. He might have come banker, homeless, military man, chorister or just ordinary man. Anderson tells us about those possible histories of Gerald. This album unfortunately does not take me to any retro feelings. The sounds are mostly today's sounds of course and the spirit is only partly 70's. I must confess i was hoping TAAB2 would sound somehow more like TAAB1 and somehow it does, but is not stuffy enough to fulfill all my expectations. The compositions and production itself are top, but when even Dream Theater occasionally comes to my mind it makes me drift in some other worlds than in 1974 when i heared the original one first time. Maybe it would be too much to ask for Ian Anderson to make me feel the same again 40 years later on the same concept, but i always demand for the best. Great post-progressive record but not great enough when comparing it to my world according to "GB". I don't like those spoken word parts at all. I think Anderson made this as a compromise for both old and new listeners. Now it is proved: You can not step two times in the same river. Or maybe i just am thick as a brick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2jVCj79E1A&feature=related

Ralph Humphrey - Drums

I'd like to introduce some of my favorite musicians who maybe are not too well known, but who i think are masters on their own area.

Some of my favorite Zappa albums from the first half of seventies are those on what Ralph Humphrey played drums at the same time as Chester Thompson.

C.T. may be better known than Ralph Humphrey but how R.H. plays his instrument on "Overnite Sensation" for example (One size fits all, Roxy & Elsewhere) is something that makes the album. I listened that record today and once again thought what is the main thing that makes the sound of it. There are many things but to me one of the most important ones are how Ralph H- plays his set. "Overnite Sensation" is one of those album i know throughly note by note.

Ralph Humphrey's way of doing things with his drums is something i have not heard from anyone else.

Wow, i found this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN9eZNfWbEo

Supertramp - S/T (1970)

It was in late 70s or early 80s when i first heard "Supertramp" and did not like it at all. It was the kind of irritating thin and high-pitched aor rock sound that i can not stand. When i much later, in fact just last year found this their debut album, my feeling was totally different. This is excellent light, smart and born-nostalgic progressive pop-rock. What bothers me is that i have a feeling i have heard this before somewhere maybe by some other bands, but i'm sure i haven't. The whole thing on the album brings many kind of things to my mind, but i don't know where they come and that is enigmatic. As i listen to this it is like suffering amnesia, like remembering and getting, but not... "Try again" is great!

Rare Earth - MA (1973 Rare Earth)

17 minutes "Ma" is nice jamming psychedelic soul. Good album. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhyWZeXbfH8

London Pop News - Sampler (1969 Island)

Sorry these news are a bit late but aren't not the not the seventies news. How i hate mr. Bean! What am i talking about?

Pop Sound 70 - Sampler (1970 Polydor)

Very listenable cavalcade. But why did they smother the tiger with that plastic bag?

Jamul - Jamul (1970 Lizard)

This is the third time for me to stumble upon on this album. I paid 10 euros for this near mint condition one copy and that makes me happy because Jamul is so good music. It really is one of those so called "lost gems" or at least "hidden pearls". Worth investigating!

Jan Garbarek & Bobo Stenson Quartet - Witchi-Tai-To (1973 ECM)

When i saw this in a second hand book shop i thought i finally found my first Jim Pepper album. That was because i knew Witchi-Tai-To is his song. So i was a bit disappointed to notice that Witchi-Tai-To was just the name to this Danish fusion jazz band's album. Pepper's song is on the album and because fusion jazz is my music too i decided to purchase this. G-S Q's music is quite soprano saxofone-orienteed. That is natural of course, because Garbarek is saxophonist. I used to like the sound of it some, but in the long run i got a bit bored with if. It is funny that I don't recognize W-T-T when played this jazz way. "Kukka" is a song by Palle Danielson and it means "Flower" in my own language. It also is a girls name, but i don't know what Palle was thinking when composing it. This album is nice and easy jazz, but sorry to say too saxophone driven for me.

Blonde On Blonde - Reflections On A Life (1971 Ember)

This was in my friend's record shelf. We made some exchange and soon BoB found itself a new shelf. BoB's album like the band itself is very interesting. First they took there name after Dylan's album and moreover they adapted Dylan's lyrics.

Bob Dylan / "Like a Rolling Stone"

how does it feel
to be on your own
with no direction home
like a complete unknown
just like a rolling stone

BoB / "Bargain"

i guess it had to be
i'm all alone
i ain't got no home
a complete unknown
just like a rolling stone

As a whole BoB's album is like a riddle. I have heard it about ten times till now and its enigmatic atmosphere concerning the trinity of songs, lyrics and sounds keeps hold on me. I can not compare "Reflections of a Life" to any other obscure record album i happen to own or have ever heard. I'm afraid i have to work with this a lot to get it enough.

The album is an extract from real and sometimes absurd too life, but how they manifest it, is i hope, outsiders objective, narrative and external. Have to say some lyrics are hard to ingest, but when disregarding some uglier parts and focusing on the music instead, you can still hear something ingenious. And by some odd way even the extraordinary outspoken lyrics may create some extra tension to the music.

Maybe BoB wanted to take out speaking singer songwriter music like Dylan's on the next, even rougher level. That is...They took the semi-mournful "real life" descriptions like Dylan's, to another, very real disgust-realistic level. "Gene Machine" for example sounds like early Dylan but the lyrics are more bare and undressed and "Happy Families" aren't very happy happy either. "I don't care" is like a harmless rockabilly teenage love song, if you don't listen to it carefully.

Maybe BoB were frustrated with poor sale of their two previous albums and they so decided to make one more album with the attitude that okay..., it has come clear that our records don't sell, so what the f..., we can make one more, blonde on blonde, to tell what to do with it. Bob sells, so he has to be careful, but BoB don't, so let's have some fun...

And let's not forget that most of the songs on the record are top stuff accompanied by top musicianship. Beautiful ballads, a "choral", good blues with hendrixian and fuzzy guitar playing, psychedelic sound scenes.

All i say above is probably pure speculation, but nevertheless that or just because of it, this hard record is light, fun, exciting and crazy too. What the truth with this record is, is not the point. The point is how you imagine/reflect it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zfevudl_zI