Bad Rice - Ron Nagle

Bad Rice

Ron Nagle

Warner Bros. WS 1902

1970

My obsession with the San Francisco Sound led me to Ron Nagle's mid-1960s group the Mystery Trend.  For many years they were a mystery to me, a trippy name I encountered on old concert posters or histories of the San Francisco rock scene.  Eventually I heard their excellent 1967 single "Johnny Was a Good Boy" which whetted my appetite to hear more.  Finally I got the Big Beat CD compilation of their unreleased recordings and was enormously impressed.  Their music was of astonishingly high quality and deserved an actual album back when they were still active.  Unfortunately they were totally out of touch with the hippie zeitgeist of that era with their commitment to well-crafted songs and chamber pop along with their total disdain for the psychedelic scene.  I figured I had satisfied my curiosity about the Mystery Trend but then several years ago I came across this album while flipping through a record bin.  I had no idea what it was, I was just struck by how weird and ugly it was.  As I examined it I remembered who Nagle was and eagerly bought it.  It sounds nothing like the Mystery Trend but I was not disappointed I bought it.  The album gets off to an exciting start with "61 Clay" which is a Chuck Berry style rocker that reminds me that Nagle was an rhythm and blues/rock and roll fanatic when he first got into music.  There is a smoking guitar solo from Ry Cooder that kicks out the jams and puts the song over the top.  The lyrics are pure teen rebellion with a little matricide thrown in.  It is easily my favorite track on the album.  The record's momentum continues with the rollicking boogie "Marijuana Hell" which Nagle co-wrote with John Blakeley.  The song outlines the evils of marijuana with all the fervor of "Reefer Madness."  I assume it is a joke although Nagle's drug of choice was alcohol and he never hid his contempt for hippie culture so who knows.  The album abruptly shifts direction with the melancholy "Frank's Store" which is driven by Nagle on piano and a poignant string arrangement by the album's producer Jack Nitzsche.  Nagle's vocal is full of emotion and puts across the sadness in the lyrics very effectively.  The album returns to boogie with "Party in L.A." although this is not an ode to partying down with some Angelenos.  The party of the title is the Communist Party (or some like-minded variant) and the song describes a child custody dispute between a leftist activist mom and a centrist father.  Just your typical pop song.  Side one concludes with "That's What Friends Are For" which returns to singer-songwriter melancholy.  Nagle croons the lyrics about the nature of a relationship while accompanying himself on piano.  Side two starts with "Dolores" which is lushly orchestrated by Nitzsche.  It sounds like something by Nagle's idol Burt Bacharach until I listen to the lyrics which I interpret as an older woman teaching a boy the ways of love.  "Capricorn Queen" is a  raucous rocker about Nagle's addiction to alcohol.   It features a frenetic rockabilly style vocal from Nagle and is another one of my favorite tracks.  "Sister Cora" is a wonderful riff-driven banger about the title character's ability to cure folks' ills and solve their problems.  The album settles down with "Somethin's Gotta Give Now" which has a country feel to it and displays some of the pop craftsmanship Nagle exhibited with the Mystery Trend.  The country sound continues with the lumbering "Family Style" which features mildly vulgar and humorous lyrics about a disorderly family.  The record concludes with "House of Mandia" which manages to combine the two musical directions on the album.  The verses are powered by a heavy riff over which Nagle bellows about a working class man's misery while the choruses are silky smooth pop with Nagle crooning a description of a tropical paradise supported by Nitzsche's sugary string arrangement.  Normally I would have a problem with such a schizophrenic record.  The abrupt shifts between rock and singer/songwriter pop are definitely jarring to me, but the consistency of tone and overall intelligence of the record smooth it over somewhat.  I definitely prefer the rock side though.  Nagle's career was primarily teaching art and creating ceramic art with a lot more success than he had as a musician.  However he was no dilettante, he had genuine chops and great integrity as a musical artist and certainly deserved a better fate.  He is often compared to Randy Newman because they both value musical craftsmanship and display a dark sense of humor.  Nagle is far less cynical than Newman though and he likes rock a lot more than him as well.  He is also a better singer.  This album is well worth seeking out.  You rarely find such a stimulating combination of intelligence and sincere love of rock and roll.  Recommended to people who think it would be cool if Randy Newman jammed with Creedence Clearwater Revival.

How Do You Do? - Mouth and MacNeal

How Do You Do?

Mouth and MacNeal

Philips PHS 700-000

1971

As I get older my memories of my youth are getting fuzzier which I am not happy about although there is plenty of stuff from back then I wish I could forget.  For some reason I still remember 1972 quite well.  That was the year that I consider my first year as a fan of pop music.  I have liked music as long as I can remember but that was the year it became important to me.  It began that summer when my family rented a vacation cabin at Lake Tahoe that had no television.  It did have a radio that was tuned to a top 40 station all day long.  In retrospect the summer of 1972 was not a particularly good year for music, but back then I loved what I heard.  I remember singing along to Sammy Davis Jr.'s "Candy Man,"  Gallery's "Nice to Be with You," Elton John's "Rocket Man," Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again (Naturally)," Bill Withers' "Lean On Me," and my two favorites "Brandy" by Looking Glass and "How Do You Do?" by this band.  When we came back home I convinced my mom to give me an old clock radio she was not using much and with access to my own radio I was hooked.  My tastes rapidly evolved once I discovered the oldies stations (and later AOR when I got a radio with FM) and soon I did not listen much to top 40 radio at all.  The Beatles obliterated any interest I had in collecting popular music from the 1970s on vinyl although I did eventually come to like and buy Elton John and Bill Withers albums.  I also bought the Looking Glass album many years ago.  This record I bought last year online mostly out of nostalgia.  As usual with childhood memories, "How Do You Do?" is not as good as I remembered but I am not sorry about the album which is better than I expected.  This is the 1972 American release of this Dutch duo's 1971 debut album which features an identical track selection and running order but different cover art.  The duo consisted of a male singer named Willem Duyn who performed under the apt pseudonym Big Mouth shortened to Mouth here.  He has the kind of loud gravelly voice that people seemed to dig back then.  He sounds like a cross between John Fogerty and David Clayton-Thomas.  His partner was Sjoukje van't Spijker who performed under the name Maggie MacNeal.  She has a smoother, sweeter voice that acts as a refined counterpoint to Mouth's growling.  The album opens with "A.B.C" which was written by Andreas Holten and the album's producer Hans van Hemert.  The song has a spoken (or shouted in Mouth's case) intro before it gets down to its pounding riff.  The dynamic between Mouth's bellowing and MacNeal's silky crooning is displayed to impressive effect.  It gives the record a strong start that is largely dissipated by a lumbering and lethargic cover of Ivory Joe Hunter's "I Almost Lost My Mind." "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" was lifted from MacNeal's 1971 solo debut single.  It follows the familiar arrangement of the Marvin Gaye classic and MacNeal delivers a robust vocal which with her heavily accented English reminds me of Mariska Veres of Shocking Blue.  This cover is pointless but I enjoy it.  "Hey, You Love" was written by van Hemert and the album's arranger Harry van Hoof.  Much of the tune is stolen from "Rule Britannia" and is largely pedestrian although I like the interplay between MacNeal and Mouth.  "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" was taken from the debut Big Mouth single from 1971.  Somehow the song is even more melodramatic than the Shangri-Las' classic original with Mouth's histrionic yowling suggesting he's auditioning for a Joe Cocker cover band.  Side one closes with "Rosianna" which was written by the Manhattan Transfer's Gene Pistilli along with Terry Cashman and Tommy West and was featured on the Transfer's debut album.  It is a rollicking country style song that does not play to the duo's strengths but it is still engaging.  Side two opens with van Hemert's "Why Did You, Why?" which is a slow soulful song beautifully sung by MacNeal supplemented by some subdued roars from Mouth.  "How Do You Do?" was written by van Hemert and van Hoof.  When I bought this album I don't think I had heard the song for at least 40 years.  I remembered it as a boisterous rocker which it definitely is not, although I was so naïve back then maybe it really did sound rocking to me.  Once I got over my initial disappointment that it was not like I remembered, I started to like the song again.  It is charming with a touch of bubblegum and to my great surprise an appealing string arrangement.  I like the shifts in tone and the contrast between the rowdy sections featuring Mouth and the softer sections with MacNeal although she cuts loose in a few places to show off her own ability to bring the noise.  The song is extremely catchy and sticks in my head all day whenever I play it just like it did when I was kid.  "Land of Milk and Honey" is another Holten/van Hemert collaboration.  It sounds very Europop with a bit of a Mediterranean flavor.  Mouth reins in his vocal and listening to him I can easily imagine someone like Tom Jones performing it.  Jones could also cover van Hemert and van Hoof's "Tell Me World" which is more bouncy Europop that reminds me of ABBA.  "It Happened Long Ago" was written by Leo Bennink and Rudy Bennett and was the b-side of the first Big Mouth single.  It has a dramatic arrangement that almost achieves the impossible task of overwhelming Mouth's emoting.  The album ends with John Lennon's "Isolation" which was the b-side of MacNeal's debut single.  It lacks the intensity of Lennon's version but MacNeal sings it with feeling and I am grateful that Mouth is not around to muck it up.  This is definitely a minor record, but I find it mostly entertaining.  Mouth and MacNeal work well together.  On his own I would find Mouth hard to listen to since he is so intense and overbearing and the material is not strong enough to contain him.  MacNeal is more my style and I think she is a good singer, but she isn't good enough to stand out with such ordinary material.  Mouth brings the energy and intensity that she lacks.  This is exemplified by "How Do You Do?" which probably would have been a hit for anyone, but is made more memorable by their chemistry.  I expect some of my fondness for this record is nostalgia and objectively I can't deny that most of the songs are mediocre, so I am hesitant to fully endorse it.  I enjoy it but I know I am not going to play it much.  Nonetheless if you like the music of this era (I have mixed feelings about it) you will likely find stuff on here that will appeal to you.  You could definitely do worse.  Recommended to Sonny and Cher fans who dig ABBA.