Don't gob on me!

For the third time this summer, I've seen someone's posted an album on a blog or forum, accompanied by my AMG (All Music Guide) review of it. Well, glad someone's getting some use out of them. The latest, WASP by Shawn Cassidy.

Seeing as I have only a prerecorded cassette version of this, my guess is that I saw said tape in a cut-out bin and snatched it up, as I used to do. Either that or reading a CREEM review, one or the other, had to be my first exposure to this unlikely pairing of the teen idol and Todd Rundgren/Utopia.

Hearing it again, I'm still unsure whether Todd was trying to humiliate SC with the idiosyncratic Todd-isms like the chipmunk voice and novelty synth sounds, or if it was Rundgren's sincere attempt to make Shawn sound hip. When the production gimmicks don't overwhelm him, this album shows that Cassidy could've been a viable rocker in the 80's. Apart from those dated Todd-touches, the album has aged well . . . it still rocks!

I am more convinced that ever, though, that it's Rundgren himself -- rather than him making SC sound uncannily like him -- on the title track. C'mon, listen to the way he says: "Looking for somebody to gob on? Well, don't gob on me!"

Until it's issued on CD, if ever, you'll have to blog-crawl to find WASP, which I recommend you do. It's gob-worthy!

Crimp a carrot with the Cowsills

"Crimp a carrot" has something to do with Susan Dey's overbite . . . was it one of Bonaduce's lines on The Partridge Family?

More importantly, does Susan Cowsill have the requisite orthodonture for crimping?

Doesn't matter, nor does the fact that I just realized that the person who inspired Laurie Partridge has the same first name as the actress who played her! What next? We'll discover that Bud Cowsill's real name was Reuben?
One of the liberating aspects of the 21st century (perhaps the only proof that irony is actually dead?) is that the ascendancy of The Nerd has had numerous spin-off benefits. Such as that formerly-leprously dorky music is now officially OK!
Unlike some other acts I could mention (*cough* The Osmonds *cough*), though, I never hid my Cowsills torch under a bushel basket. Their records were not among those I tossed under the couch when company came a'callin.'
And among those non-tossed Cowsills albums, their live one is a particular favorite.

In what strikes me as a bit of duh-speak, the CD liner notes for The Cowsills in Concert is like a microcosm of what made sixties' rock and roll unique.

Although the Cowsills inspired the Partridge Family, the actual family band's story was about as believable as Danny Bonaduce actually playing those Joe Osborn bass parts. In 1965, there was nothing unusual about a bunch of guys getting a band together to play frat parties. What could be more far-out, though, than a rock band made up of five brothers, their sister, and their mother? And Dad retiring from the Navy to manage the band!

Rock and roll was supposed to be about rebellion, about rejecting the older generation's "plastic trip," not cutting loose on some Cream jams with your mom. And certainly not about the very embodiment of the Establishment—Bud Cowsill, a retired military man—calling the shots on your career.

But what could be more representative of this most egalitarian era of rock than a bunch of kids who go from playing Beatles and Everly Brothers songs at school dances, to multiple gold records and immortality on TV Land?

The Concert album is certainly a product of its time. In those days, a major act like the Cowsills could put out an album of cover songs—the same set list as every garage bands in America—without it seeming too much like a contractual fulfillment. Or a joke.

Just how close the Cowsills still were to their rec-room/frat-party band roots, even with a couple of hits under their big wide belts, is evident in their set list.
Their versions of the Left Banke’s “Walk Away Renee,” the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” are all credible, with vocal harmonies that rival the originals. Even the complexity of “Good Vibrations” doesn’t trip them up, although the lyrics seem to. Some of the lead vocal performances are especially choice, like John’s “high lonesome” sound on “Act Naturally” and Barry’s “Please Mr. Postman” sounding almost like Larry Collins tearing up “Whistle Bait.”

They don't hit every one outta the park, of course. Their take on “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” proves they were no Funk Brothers, and Mitch Ryder probably owes them an ass-kicking for what they do to his Detroit medley.
Nothing like faux-vaudeville to bring things to a grinding halt, and Susan's spotlight song, “Hello Hello,” truly grinds. (Sorry, Susan. On the OTOH, get her solo work, the Continental Drifters, and the Twilley albums she sings on. All terrif.)
And while “Sunshine of Your Love” isn't an embarrassment, it does demonstrate that poor John was no Ginger Baker.

For fan-pandering (or just baiting), MGM slapped the studio version of “Hair”—the Cowsill's biggest-ever hit—onto the l.p. It doesn't sound terribly out of place, with an extremely basic arrangement that sounds similar to the rest of the album. If Concert was a studio-produced cheat, there are no strings, no horns, no theremin (or tannerin, even) to give it away.

On the Cowsill.com site, Bob explains that the album was recorded on two nights in Cleveland, and cops to "some vocal augmentation" and says they "rounded out the rough edges," but never allowed that it was not, substantially, the document of a live performance.)
Three years after this album was recorded, I saw them perform. “Mini-Mom” Barb and Bill had left the band, they'd been dumped by MGM Records, and they were playing a county fair. For all that, they brought their “A” show — they could play. Whether or not the playing on Concert is all Cowsills—and it likely was not—it could have been. They were a legitimate rock and roll band.

The Cowsills in Concert is a souvenir of an age when a big-time act could release an album of covers like this without being ironic about it, and when anyone could get a record deal, have a hit, and be a rock star. Even a wholesome-looking group of kids. And their mom.

The Razor & Tie CD adds the four studio tracks that were known as "The Milk E.P.," which was apparently a highly desirable collector's item. It's a nice little set of psychedelic-lite and Merseybeatley ballads, along with the breezy, “The Fun Song,” that sounds like it could have come off the Beach Boys' Friends album.
Four more reasons you should own this CD!

[This column appeared in slightly different form, with some mistakes, on blogcritics.org.]

Addendumb: After posting this last night, I heard "Indian Lake" on the radio this morning! Which prompts me to recommend that Cowsills neophytes start their listening with the greatest hits disc, rather than the concert one. Because the only hit on the concert one is the one I dislike!

The House of Cash parks here

I just got back from vacation and is my credit card sore!

Rather than my hoped-for Route 66 trip, or even just the hoped-for culmination at Saltair, and maybe re-enact some scenes from Carnival of Souls, we had to scale waaaaay back on our vacation plans, once again, due to the J-O-B.
So instead of visiting a haunted pavilion full of dancing ghosts, we spent a day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Which, come to think of it, has some haunting sights of its own.
The one that stuck in my mind from our first visit to the RnR HOF, over ten years ago, was the one artifact I could barely stand to look at again, a piece of wreckage from Otis Redding's plane. There is an eloquent, moving point to be made about how emblematic that scrap of aluminum, with "Otis" in cool script, by someone with a talent for that. All I will say is that I accidently saw a photo of this wreckage on the RnR HOF site and choked up.
But although many of those represented have gone on to the great gig in the sky, the RnR HOF is not a grim place. Despite the admission price coming in around a hundred bucks for a family of four, which is a little grim. (And although I refer to it as the Hall of Fame, the HOF is secondary to the museum, in my IMO.)
There is so much to see that carping about the price to see it seems petty, even for me. And it is "eyes only," as photography is prohibited, which is my only other beef.
When I start to recommend visiting the HOF, it's difficult to say "if only to see" and chose a reasonable number of things to mention. For starters, there's:

• don't-miss exhibits on the Beach Boys, Doors, and Clash
• the 1963-or-so 'Vette Roy Orbison drove during the Mystery Girl sessions
• John CIppolina's mutant guitar amp
• stage costumes (and a "keytar" Moog!) from soul acts like the Isleys
• a history of the Warped Tour
• Hendrix wardrobe items: unlike so much of the Munchkin-scale clothing there,
  Jimi's clothes look life-sized, and like real clothes, albeit stuff that only a thoroughly
  unique, self-assured rock deity could wear!

Speaking of looking real, not that I'm a deep thinker, but the concepts of "reality" and image are impossible to ignore at the HOF. Like, I know Prince is not a towering human being, but is Bowie also five-foot-nothin'? As his costumes would make him appear? How about George Clinton? Was Freddy Mercury Billy Barty-sized?
So much of the stage-wear also looks so chintzy. Take a close-up gander at Jagger's Voodoo Lounge togs, with little plastic-looking gris-gris dangling at random off it, like something I'd rig up for Halloween.
Some of the gear-- such as the ass-ugly ZZ Top "terminator" guitars -- was clearly not designed to stand up to close examination.
I can only imagine how those who have never played in a rock and roll band (is there anyone left who hasn't?) must react to some of the instruments on display.

According to the HOF site, Johnny Cash's bus closes for the season, October 1, so y'all hustle on up!