Vinyl Stocker has my review of West Coast Bound from the Blues Magoos up on eBay. God Bless him! Re-exploring my thoughts on albums from long ago here on the Esoteric Diary
Blues Magoos Gulf Coast Bound Vinyl LP – ABC ABCS-710 (1970)Condition: VG Vinyl and Cover. Original gatefold cover with original inner sleeve. Cover has light to moderate ringwear but no splits.
AllMusic Review by Joe Viglione As original member Peppy Thielhelm and original producer Bob Wyld expanded the Blues Magoos’ foray into Latin music meets mainstream blues, these May 1970 recordings take the previous years’ Never Going Back a step further. Gulf Coast Bound is an improvement, retaining John Liello’s vibes and percussion and pianist Eric Justin Kas, who is the major songwriting contributor here (strangely enough, he is listed as “Kas” on the album jacket and “Kaz” on the songwriting credits). “Slow Down Sundown” could be the band Chicago vamping without their horn section, some strange imitation monkey-sound vocals making their way onto the platter mixed in with Daddy Ya Ya’s out-of-place tambourine as the song fades. Erik Kas does the lead vocal on the 12-minute-plus opus “Can’t Get Enough of You,” which sounds like a strange marriage between Steely Dan and Traffic.
Of the pyschedelic/garage rock bands which changed over to another format — the Electric Prunes, H.P. Lovecraft, etc. — in what seemed like gambles to become “respectable,” this is the best of the lot.
TracklistGulf Coast Bound 3:51Slow Down Sundown 6:09Can’t Get Enough Of You 12:21Magoo’s Blues 7:54Tonight The Sky’s About To Cry 4:14Sea Breeze Express 4:13
PersonnelEmil “Peppy” Thielhelm – guitar, vocalsRoger Eaton – bassEric Kaz – keyboardsRichie Dickon – drums & percussionJohn Leillo – percussion
Perry Mason on S1 Ep13 The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink is on 9:43 am
Commercials are SO annoying, the mute button is my best friend. Got my Vanilla coffee next to me; nice to write these things down for future reference…like what I had for coffee five weeks ago,right? So much to do, got my 351 list handy of “writings for the future” or “writings of the future.” Our index of possibilities, thank you Weird Scenes inside the Goldmine (Doors)…index of past achievements, all for fun for the future generations. I cannot remember any details of this morning’s dreams. Will have to keep a notepad and work on it.
A very interesting double LP retrospective two years after Jim Morrison’s version of the Doors had officially closed. Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine contained the first album release of two B-sides, Willie Dixon’s “(You Need Meat) Don’t Go No Further,” sung by Ray Manzarek, originally on the flip side of the 1971 45 “Love Her Madly,” and the beautiful “Who Scared You,” “Wishful Sinful”‘s flip with Jim Morrison on vocals from a session in 1969. Both are worthwhile additions not found on their first “greatest hits” collection, 13. This compilation is a strange amalgam of their music, the LP title taken from a line in the song “The End,” which concludes side two. Five of the 22 songs are from the L.A. Woman sessions, including the title track of that album and the full length “Riders on the Storm,” both clocking in at seven-plus minutes. With “The End” and “When the Music’s Over” at 11:35 and 11:00 respectively, that’s 38 minutes and 38 seconds between four titles, more than a third of the 99-plus minutes of music on this collection. Nothing from Absolutely Live is included, and surprisingly, the classic “Waiting for the Sun” is not here, though that Morrison Hotel number would fit the mood perfectly. “Love Street,” the flip of “Hello I Love You,” is here, but pertinent singles like “Wishful Sinful” or “Do It” and its flip, “Runnin’ Blue,” from The Soft Parade, are all missing in action. The cover art pastiche by Bill Hoffman is worth the price of admission if you already have all this material, while the inside gatefold picture looks like an outtake from the first album. Bruce Harris’ liner notes are truly the ’60s merging with the ’70s; he calls Jim Morrison “merely the index of our possibilities” and states that Morrison didn’t want to be an idol “because he believed all idols were hollow.” The essay is all the more silly when you realize it isn’t tongue-in-cheek in the way Lou Reed’s incoherent ramblings inside Metal Machine Music are more enjoyable than the disc. Harris seems to actually believe what he pontificates. But the music is awesome, so put it on and read the Metal Machine Music scribblings instead. Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine is a work of art in the first order, the way the Beatles #1 album is wonderfully redundant, and it should see the light of day again. This time they could add “Tree Trunk,” the flip of the “Get Up and Dance” 45 RPM from 1972’s Full Circle album.
by Joe Viglione
All Music Guide
Track Listing
Side 1
Break On Through
Strange Days
Shaman’s Blues
Love Street
Peace Frog / Blue Sunday
The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)
End of the Night
Side 2
Love Her Madly
Spanish Caravan
Ship of Fools
The Spy
The End
Side 3
Take It As It Comes
Running Blue
L.A. Woman
Five to One
Who Scared You
(You Need Meat) Don’t Go No Further
Joe ViglioneWe should be BUILDING DOWN, DEEP DOWN INTO THE EARTH, plenty of housing for the homeless, build shopping malls under the sea along the coastline…and build out deep under the ocean. We have the technology, see Porter Sq Subway station and Fort Point Channel with the two subway trains AND the tunnel to Logan Airport. The Government takes all the top of the spectrum for communications and they take the underground bunkers; but with climate change and tornadoes we need to build down and the buildings above ground can’t be all this tinderbox cheap condos….it’s insane…and it is all about money; this could have been a Paradise 50 years ago with some sanity
Joe Viglioneimagine the trillions spent on wars instead being spent to build firm housing under the surface, let the animals frolic and have more space…mankind is so stupid and people in positions of power, especially thug Republicans, want people to remain stupid. Jim Jordan as pied piper…ugggh
