Captain Beyond - Selftitled (Great and Legendary Hardrock Album US 1972)

Size: 75 MB
Bitrate: 256
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Ripped by: ChrisGoesRock
Artwork Included
Source: Japan SHM-CD Remaster

Captain Beyond, the first album by Captain Beyond, was released in 1972, and featured former members of Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple, Johnny Winter, and Rick Derringer. The album cover for the U.S. release included 3-D artwork (using lenticular printing). The album was dedicated to the memory of Duane Allman, as indicated on the back cover.

Captain Beyond is unique among predominately guitar driven hard rock albums in the fact that it contains a wide range of rock, heavy metal, and jazz influences often with various time signatures and broad range of dynamics (music) within the same song. The first five songs are composed in a fairly straight forward manner but the remainder of the album consists of two "suites" of tightly arranged interconnected songs; the first starting with "Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Intro)" and ending with "Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Time Since Come and Gone)" The second starts with "I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 1)" and finishes the album Songs flow directly into each other without benefit of any lag time between selections, a feature that is shared with other more progressive bands of the era such as Moody Blues, and Jethro Tull.

Captain Beyond was an American/British rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1971.

The original line-up for Captain Beyond were singer Rod Evans (ex-Deep Purple), drummer Bobby Caldwell (ex-Johnny Winter), guitarist Larry "Rhino" Reinhardt (ex-Iron Butterfly), bassist Lee Dorman (ex-Iron Butterfly) and keyboardist Lewie Gold. Gold left due to personal reasons before the first album was recorded. The remaining line-up recorded the self-titled debut album, released in 1972. Following this album Caldwell left the band to join Derringer and was replaced by drummer Brian Glascock. Also joining the band around this time were Reese Wynans on keyboards and Guille Garcia on congas. The record company's chosen producer, Giorgio Gomelsky, did not like Glascock's drumming and requested a new drummer. Glascock was released and Marty Rodriguez was brought in on drums on the recommendation of Garcia. This six man lineup recorded the group's second album, Sufficiently Breathless. Tension during the recording led to Evans quitting. The original lineup reformed later in 1973 for a US tour but the band split up at the end of the year.

Lee Dorman in Chmelnice club in Prague, in 2010
The band reformed in 1976 with Willy Daffern on vocals, and Bobby Caldwell, Rhino and Lee Dorman completing the line-up. They recorded the band's third album Dawn Explosion on Warner Bros., but broke up in 1978.
Reinhardt and Caldwell reformed Captain Beyond in 1998 with Jimi Interval on vocals, Dan Frye on keyboards, and Jeff Artabasy on bass.

Since then they have been performing at shows and have released a four track EP.

In 1999, Swedish record label Record Heaven released a tribute to Captain Beyond entitled Thousand Days of Yesterday. The album features fellow 1970s rockers Pentagram playing Dancing Madly Backwards.
Captain Beyond once again disbanded in 2003 when lead guitarist Larry Reinhardt developed cancer. Following treatment, Reinhardt continued to perform music until late 2011, when he again fell ill. He died on January 2, 2012. Bassist Lee Dorman died on December 21, 2012.[Wikipedia]

Captain Beyond is a one-of-a-kind progressive album with rock, heavy metal, and jazz influences with a "space rock" lyrical bend. Formed by former members of Deep Purple (Rod Evans, vocals), Iron Butterfly (Rhino, lead guitar, and Lee Dorman, bass), and Johnny Winter (Bobby Caldwell, drums) Captain Beyond is an album that flows from riff to riff, drumbeat to drumbeat, often with various time signatures within the same song. Taking a tip from the Moody Blues, songs flow directly into each other without benefit of any lag time between selections. Taken as a whole, the album is kind of a rush, as quick, riff-laden guitar lines predominate for a few songs before slowing down temporarily into a lull until the next takeoff. 

Lyrically, the album differentiates itself by exploring themes of the outer world and meanings of existence, often with references to the moon, sea, sun, and so on. Listeners may get the feeling of taking a journey to space in a rocket ship headed for destination unknown. Musically, the album is superior in all aspects. Rod Evans has a strong rock voice, Rhino plays an enormous amount of hook-laden guitar lines, and Lee Dorman plays complex basslines (for example, at the end of "As the Moon Speaks-Return") that lead to typically rhythmic, nimble Bobby Caldwell drumming. The tightness between musicians is enormous, never lets up for long, and leaves the listener feeling like the ride should continue for the indefinite future. [AMG]

Personnel:
♣ Rod Evans – vocals
♣ Larry "Rhino" Reinhardt – guitars
♣ Lee Dorman – bass guitar, piano, Hammond organ, vocals
♣ Bobby Caldwell – drums, percussion, Hammond organ, bells, vibraphone, vocals

01. "Dancing Madly Backwards (On a Sea of Air)" – 4:08
02. "Armworth" – 2:50
03. "Myopic Void" – 3:37
04. "Mesmerization Eclipse" – 3:45
05. "Raging River of Fear" – 3:48
06. "Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Intro)" – 1:30
07. "Frozen Over" – 3:55
08. "Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Time Since Come and Gone)" – 4:05
09. "I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 1)" – 3:07
10. "As the Moon Speaks (To the Waves of the Sea)" – 2:30
11. "Astral Lady" – 1:15
12. "As the Moon Speaks (Return) – 2:16
13. "I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 2)" – 1:11

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One more Reed: Lou Reed - Live at The Roxy LA December 1 1976 (Bootleg)

Lou Reed - France Single 1973

Size: 201 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
Found in DC++ World
Some Artwork Included

The career of Lou Reed defies capsule summarization. Like David Bowie (whom Reed directly inspired in many ways), he has made over his image many times, mutating from theatrical glam rocker to strung-out junkie to avant-garde noiseman to straight rock & roller to your average guy. Few would deny Reed's immense importance and considerable achievements. As has often been written, he expanded the vocabulary of rock & roll lyrics into the previously forbidden territory of kinky sex, drug use (and abuse), decadence, transvestites, homosexuality, and suicidal depression. As has been pointed out less often, he remained (and remains) committed to using rock & roll as a forum for literary, mature expression well into middle age, without growing lyrically soft or musically complacent. By and large, he's taken on these challenging duties with uncompromising honesty and a high degree of realism. For these reasons, he's often cited as punk's most important ancestor. It's often overlooked, though, that he's equally skilled at celebrating romantic joy, and rock & roll itself, as he is at depicting harrowing urban realities. With the exception of Neil Young, no other star who rose to fame in the '60s continued to push himself so diligently into creating work that is meaningful and contemporary.

Loaded Although Reed achieved his greatest success as a solo artist, his most enduring accomplishments were as the leader of the Velvet Underground in the '60s. If Reed had never made any solo records, his work as the principal lead singer and songwriter for the Velvets would have still ensured his stature as one of the greatest rock visionaries of all time. the Velvet Underground are discussed at great length in many other sources, but it's sufficient to note that the four studio albums they recorded with Reed at the helm are essential listening, as is much of their live and extraneous material. 

"Heroin," "Sister Ray," "Sweet Jane," "Rock and Roll," "Venus in Furs," "All Tomorrow's Parties," "What Goes On," and "Lisa Says" are just the most famous classics that Reed wrote and sang for the group. As innovative as the Velvets were at breaking lyrical and instrumental taboos with their crunching experimental rock, they were unappreciated in their lifetime. Five years of little commercial success was undoubtedly a factor in Reed leaving the group he had founded in August 1970, just before the release of their most accessible effort, Loaded. Although Reed's songs and streetwise, sing-speak vocals dominated the Velvets, he was perhaps more reliant upon his talented collaborators than he realized, or is even willing to admit to this day. The most talented of these associates was John Cale, who was apparently fired by Reed in 1968 after the Velvets' second album (although the pair have worked together on various other projects since then).

Lou Reed - US Promo Only August 1974

Lou ReedReed has a reputation of being a difficult man to work with for an extended period, and that has made it difficult for his extensive solo oeuvre to compete with the standards of brilliance set by the Velvets. Nowhere was this more apparent than on his self-titled solo debut from 1971, recorded after he'd taken an extended hiatus from music, moving back to his parents' suburban Long Island home at one point. Lou Reed mostly consisted of flaccid versions of songs dating back to the Velvet days, and he could have really used the group to punch them up, as proved by the many outtake versions of these tunes that he actually recorded with the Velvet Underground (some of which didn't surface until about 25 years later).

TransformerReed got a shot in the arm (no distasteful pun intended) when David Bowie and Mick Ronson produced his second album, Transformer. A more energetic set that betrayed the influence of glam rock, it also included his sole Top 20 hit, "Walk on the Wild Side," and other good songs like "Vicious" and "Satellite of Love." It also made him a star in Britain, which was quick to appreciate the influence Reed had exerted on Bowie and other glam rockers. Reed went into more serious territory on Berlin (1973), its sweet orchestral production coating lyrical messages of despair and suicide. In some ways Reed's most ambitious and impressive solo effort, it was accorded a vituperative reception by critics in no mood for a nonstop bummer (however elegantly executed). Unbelievably, in retrospect, it made the Top Ten in Britain, though it flopped stateside.

Sally Can't Dance Having been given a cold shoulder for some of his most serious (if chilling) work, Reed apparently decided he was going to give the public what it wanted. He had guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner give his music more of a pop-metal, radio-friendly sheen. More disturbingly, he decided to play up to the cartoon junkie role that some in his audience seemed eager to assign to him. Onstage, that meant shocking bleached hair, painted fingernails, and simulated drug injections. On record, it led to some of his most careless performances. One of these, the 1974 album Sally Can't Dance, was also his most commercially successful, reaching the Top Ten, thus confirming both Reed's and the audience's worst instincts. As if to prove he could still be as uncompromising as anyone, he unleashed the double album Metal Machine Music, a nonstop assault of electronic noise. Opinions remain divided as to whether it was an artistic statement, a contract quota-filler, or a slap in the face to the public.

Lou Reed - US Promo Only May 1973

Coney Island Baby While Reed has never behaved as outrageously (in public and in the studio) as he did in the mid-'70s, there was plenty of excitement in the decades that followed. When he decided to play it relatively straight, sincere, and hard-nosed, he could produce affecting work in the spirit of his best vintage material (parts of Coney Island Baby and Street Hassle). At other points, he seemed not to be putting too much effort into any aspect of his songs ("Rock and Roll Heart"). With 1978's Take No Prisoners, he delivered one of the weirdest concert albums of all time, more of a comedy monologue (which not too many people laughed hard at) than a musical document. Reed had always been an enigma, but no one questioned the serious intent of his work with the Velvet Underground. As a soloist, it was getting impossible to tell when he was serious, or whether he even wished to be taken seriously anymore.

The Bells At the end of the '70s, The Bells set the tone for most of his future work. Reed would settle down; he would play it straight; he would address serious, adult concerns, including heterosexual romance, with sincerity. Not a bad idea, but though the albums that followed were much more consistent in tone, they remained erratic in quality and, worse, could occasionally be quite boring. The recruitment of Robert Quine as lead guitarist helped, and The Blue Mask (1982) and New Sensations (1984) were fairly successful, although in retrospect they didn't deserve the raves they received from some critics at the time. Quine, however, would also find Reed too difficult to work with for an extended period. New York (1989) heralded both a commercial and critical renaissance for Reed, and in truth it was his best work in quite some time, although it didn't break any major stylistic ground. Reed works best when faced with a challenge, which arrived when he collaborated with former partner John Cale in 1990 on a song cycle for the recently deceased Andy Warhol. In both its recorded and stage incarnations, this was the most experimental work that Reed had devised in quite some time.

Magic and LossMagic and Loss (1992) returned him to the more familiar straight rock territory of New York, again to critical raves. The re-formation of the Velvet Underground for a 1993 European live tour could not be considered an unqualified success, however. European audiences were thrilled to see the legends in person, but critical reaction to the shows was mixed, and critical reaction to the live record was tepid. More distressingly, old conflicts reared their head within the band once again, and the reunion ended before it had a chance to get to America. Cale and Reed at this point seem determined never to work with each other again (the death of Velvet Underground guitarist Sterling Morrison in 1995 seemed to permanently ice prospects of more VU projects). 

The Velvet Underground - US Promo Only Mach 1971

In 1996, the surviving Velvet Underground members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, performing a newly penned song for their fallen comrade, Morrison. Reed closed the '90s with an album that saw him explore relationships, 1996's Set the Twilight Reeling (many speculated that the album was biographical and focused on his union with performance artist Laurie Anderson), which didn't turned out to be one of Reed's more critically acclaimed releases. He also found time to compose music for the Robert Wilson opera Timerocker, and in 1998, released the "unplugged" album Perfect Night: Live in London. The same year, Reed was the subject of a superb installment of the PBS American Masters series that chronicled his entire career (eventually released as a DVD, titled Rock and Roll Heart).
Ecstasy 2000 saw Reed's first release for Reprise Records, Ecstasy, a glorious return to raw and straightforward rock, a tour de force that many agreed was his finest work since New York. 

Another collaboration with Robert Wilson, POE-try, followed in 2001 and continued its worldwide stage run through the year. Including new music by Reed and words adapted from the macabre texts of Edgar Allan Poe, POE-try led to Reed's highly ambitious next album, The Raven. Animal Serenade, a double-disc set recorded at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles during his 2003 world tour, was issued in spring 2004. The live effort is Reed's tribute of sorts to his celebrated Rock N Roll Animal concert album, which was released 30 years before. In 2007, Reed released Hudson River Wind Meditations, a four-song experimental sound collage that celebrated both the best and worst aspects of Metal Machine Music. In 2011, he joined forces with heavy metal legends Metallica to create Lulu, an album of fresh studio material. Written by Reed, with James Hetfield et al providing input on arrangements and dynamics, Lulu blended Lou Reed's trademark monotone vocals with the power and ferocity of Metallica's musicianship.[Source AMG]


About this Recording:
This torrent is a straight transfer of some of the CD tracks, with some minor tweaks on the rougher ones, 
and Coney Island Baby from the Super Golden Radio Shows CD of this gig, while not quite as pristine as the 
Claim to Fame CD I used for the rest, still nice quality. 

The stereo tracks (1-5 in particular) on the Claim to Fame CD, to my ears, have a lovely warm and vibrant 
sound that need no tweaking or adjusting so they are a straight transfer, bar a reduction in gain to try 
to get the match to close to the levels of tracks 6-8.

The mono tracks 6,7,8 were also from the Claim to Fame but I did various things in Audacity. I'll point 
out now that I don't always keep precise notes on tweaks, as trial and error is involved and it takes 
enough time doing the work let alone documenting something that I am doing for myself and simply choosing 
to share. The bottom line is I have carried out tweaks that sound better on the slightly rougher tracks 
to my ears, maybe they will to yours too, maybe not. :)

Track 9, You Wear it So Well is in beautiful stereo, but a little tuning was done to reduce the sound of 
some radio interference.

I have left the fade outs between tracks as I know from bitter experience that conversion to FLAC sometimes
cuts a second out here and there, even if I have done track splitting in CD Wave (ie ensuring sector 
boundaries are maintained)...so shortening the already reasonably tight gap between the songs did not 
seem worth the risk. 

Lou Reed Roxy Theatre,  Los Angeles
1st December, 1976 FM recording 
Mostly Stereo 

Personnel
♦ Marty Fogel-Sax
♦ Michael Fonfara-Keyboards
♦ Michael Sikorsky-Drums
♦ Bruce Yaw-Bass
♦ Don Cherry-Trumpet
♦ Lou Reed-Gitar,Vocals & Foul Language

CD 1
01. Jam 
02. Sweet Jane
03. I Believe In Love 
04. Lisa Says
05. Kicks
06. She´s My Best Friend
07. I'm Waiting For The Man
08. Sheltered life

CD 2
01. You Wear It So Well
02. Claim To Fame
03. Walk On The Wild Side
04. Coney Island Baby 

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Lou Reed - Palace Theatre, Dayton 1974-10-27 (Bootleg)

Size: 201 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
Found in my BluesMobile
Some Artwork

Biography From The Beginning to The 70´s:
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed (March 2, 1942 – October 27, 2013) was an American rock musician and songwriter. After being guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Velvet Underground, his solo career spanned several decades. The Velvet Underground were a commercial failure in the late 1960s, but the group has gained a considerable cult following in the years since its demise and has gone on to become one of the most widely cited and influential bands of the era – hence Brian Eno's famous quote that while the Velvet Underground's debut album only sold 30,000 copies, "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band."

Lou Reed - Spain Single 1973

After his departure from the group, Reed began a solo career in 1972. He had a hit the following year with "Walk on the Wild Side", but subsequently lacked the mainstream commercial success its chart status seemed to indicate. In 1975, Reed released a double album of feedback loops, Metal Machine Music, upon which he later commented, "No one is supposed to be able to do a thing like that and survive." Reed was known for his distinctive deadpan voice, poetic lyrics and for pioneering and coining the term ostrich guitar tuning.

Early life:
Reed was born at Beth El Hospital (now Brookdale) in Brooklyn and grew up in Freeport, Long Island. Contrary to some sources, his birth name was Lewis Allan Reed, not Louis Firbanks, a name that was coined as a joke by Lester Bangs in Creem magazine. Reed is the son of Toby (née Futterman) and Sidney Joseph Reed, an accountant. His family was Jewish, and although he said that he was Jewish, he added, "My God is rock’n’roll. It’s an obscure power that can change your life. The most important part of my religion is to play guitar."

Reed as a high school senior, 1959
Having learned to play the guitar from the radio, he developed an early interest in rock and roll and rhythm and blues, and during high school played in several bands. His first recording was as a member of a doo wop-style group called The Jades. In 1956, Reed, who was bisexual, received electroconvulsive therapy as a teenager, which was intended to cure his bisexuality; he wrote about the experience in his 1974 song, "Kill Your Sons". In an interview, Reed said of the experience:

"They put the thing down your throat so you don't swallow your tongue, and they put electrodes on your head. That's what was recommended in Rockland State Hospital to discourage homosexual feelings. The effect is that you lose your memory and become a vegetable. You can't read a book because you get to page 17 and have to go right back to page one again."
—Lou Reed quoted in Please Kill Me (1996)

Reed began attending Syracuse University in 1960, studying journalism, film directing, and creative writing. He was a platoon leader in ROTC and later booted from the program for holding an unloaded gun to his superior's head. In 1961 he began hosting a late-night radio program on WAER called "Excursions On A Wobbly Rail". Named after a song by pianist Cecil Taylor, the program typically featured doo wop, rhythm and blues and jazz, particularly the free jazz developed in the mid-1950s.[19] Many of Reed's guitar techniques, such as the guitar-drum roll, were inspired by jazz saxophonists, such as Ornette Coleman. Reed graduated with honors from Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences with a B.A. in June 1964.

While enrolled at Syracuse University, he studied under poet Delmore Schwartz, who he said was "the first great person I ever met", and they would become friends. He credited Schwartz with showing him how "with the simplest language imaginable, and very short, you can accomplish the most astonishing heights." Reed dedicated the song "European Son", from the Velvet Underground's debut album, to Schwartz. In 1982, Reed also recorded "My House" as a tribute to his late mentor. He later said that his goals as a writer were "to bring the sensitivities of the novel to rock music" or to write the Great American Novel in a record album.

Songwriter at Pickwick Records:
In 1964, Reed moved to New York City and began working as an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records. In 1964, he scored a minor hit with the single "The Ostrich", a parody of popular dance songs of the time, which included lines such as "put your head on the floor and have somebody step on it". His employers felt that the song had hit potential, and arranged for a band to be assembled around Reed to promote the recording. The ad hoc group, called "The Primitives", included Welsh musician John Cale, who had recently moved to New York to study music and was playing viola in composer La Monte Young's Theater of Eternal Music, along with Tony Conrad. Cale and Conrad were both surprised to find that for "The Ostrich", Reed tuned each string of his guitar to the same note, which they began to call his "ostrich guitar" tuning. This technique created a drone effect similar to their experimentation in Young's avant-garde ensemble. Disappointed with Reed's performance, Cale was nevertheless impressed by Reed's early repertoire (including "Heroin"), and a partnership began to evolve.

The Velvet Underground:
Reed and Cale lived together on the Lower East Side, and after inviting Reed's college acquaintances, guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen Tucker, to join the group, they formed the Velvet Underground. Though internally unstable (Cale left in 1968, Reed in 1970), and without commercial success, the band has a long-standing reputation as one of the most influential in rock history.

The group soon caught the attention of artist Andy Warhol. One of Warhol's first contributions was to integrate them into the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Warhol's associates inspired many of Reed's songs as he fell into a thriving, multifaceted artistic scene. Reed rarely gave an interview without paying homage to Warhol as a mentor. Conflict emerged when Warhol had the idea for the group to take on a chanteuse, the European former model and singer Nico. Reed and the others registered their objection by titling their debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico to imply that Nico was not accepted as a member of the group. Despite his initial resistance, Reed wrote several songs for Nico to sing, and the two were briefly lovers (as were Nico and Cale later). The Velvet Underground & Nico reached No. 171 on the charts.

The album is now widely considered one of the most influential rock albums ever recorded. Rolling Stone has it listed as the 13th most influential album of all time. Brian Eno once famously stated that although few people bought the album, most of those who did were inspired to form their own band. Vaclav Havel credited this album, which he bought while visiting the U.S., with inspiring him to become president of Czechoslovakia.

By the time the band recorded White Light/White Heat, Nico had quit and Warhol was fired, both against Cale's wishes.

Warhol's replacement as manager, Steve Sesnick, convinced Reed to drive Cale out of the band. Morrison and Tucker were discomfited by Reed's tactics but continued with the group.

Cale's replacement was Doug Yule, whom Reed would often facetiously introduce as his younger brother.
The group now took on a more pop-oriented sound and acted more as a vehicle for Reed to develop his songwriting craft.

The group released two albums with this line up: 1969's The Velvet Underground and 1970's Loaded. The latter included two of the group's most commercially successful songs, "Rock and Roll" and "Sweet Jane". Reed left the Velvet Underground in August 1970; the band disintegrated as core members Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker departed in 1971 and 1972, respectively. Yule continued until early 1973, and the band released one more studio album, Squeeze, under the Velvet Underground name.

After the band's move to Atlantic Records' Cotillion label, their new manager pushed Reed to change the subject matter of his songs to lighter topics in hopes of commercial success. The band's album Loaded had taken more time to record than the previous three albums together, but had not broken the band through to a wider audience. Reed briefly retired to his parents' home on Long Island.

1970s:
After quitting the Velvet Underground in August 1970, Reed took a job at his father's tax accounting firm as a typist, by his own account earning $40 a week. In 1971, he signed a recording contract with RCA Records and recorded his first solo album in London with top session musicians including Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman, members of the progressive rock group Yes. The album, Lou Reed, contained smoothly produced, re-recorded versions of unreleased Velvet Underground songs, some of which were originally recorded by the Velvets for Loaded but shelved (see the Peel Slowly and See box set). This first solo album was overlooked by most pop music critics and it did not sell well, although music critic Stephen Holden, in Rolling Stone, called it an "almost perfect album. . . . which embodied the spirit of the Velvets." Holden describes Reed's unique qualities, in both his voice and lyrics, in the album:

The Velvet Underground And Nico - US Single 1966

Reed's voice hasn't changed much since the early days. Outrageously unmusical, it combines the sass of Jagger and the mockery of early Dylan, but is lower-pitched than either. It is a voice so incapable of bullshit that it makes even an artsy arrangement work by turning the whole thing into a joyous travesty. Just as arresting as Reed's voice are his lyrics, which combine a New York street punk sensibility and rock song cliches with a powerful poetic gift.

In December 1972, Reed released Transformer. David Bowie and Mick Ronson co-produced the album and introduced Reed to a wider popular audience (specifically in the UK). The hit single "Walk on the Wild Side" was an ironic yet affectionate salute to the misfits, hustlers, and transvestites who once surrounded Andy Warhol. When he was first introduced to Reed's music, Bowie stated, "I had never heard anything quite like it. It was a revelation to me."

Each of the song's five verses poignantly describes a person who had been a fixture at The Factory during the mid-to-late 1960s: (1) Holly Woodlawn, (2) Candy Darling, (3) "Little Joe" Dallesandro, (4) "Sugar Plum Fairy" Joe Campbell and (5) Jackie Curtis. The song's transgressive lyrics evaded radio censorship. Though the jazzy arrangement (courtesy of bassist Herbie Flowers and saxophonist Ronnie Ross) was musically somewhat atypical for Reed, it eventually became his signature song. The song came about as a result of his commission to compose a soundtrack to a theatrical adaptation of Nelson Algren's novel of the same name, though the play failed to materialize. Ronson's arrangements brought out new aspects of Reed's songs. "Perfect Day," for example, features delicate strings and soaring dynamics. It was rediscovered in the 1990s and allowed Reed to drop "Walk on the Wild Side" from his concerts.

Transformer was Reed's commercial and critical pinnacle, and he resented the shadow the record cast over the rest of his career. An argument between Bowie and Reed ended their working relationship for several years, though its subject is not known. The two reconciled some years later, and Reed performed with Bowie at the latter's 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden in 1997.

 They did not formally collaborate again until 2003's The Raven. Touring in support of Transformer posed the challenge of forming a band for the first time since joining the Velvets. Reed hired an inexperienced bar band, the Tots. Reed spent much of 1972 and early 1973 on the road with them. Though they improved over the months, criticism of their still-basic abilities ultimately led Reed to fire them mid-tour. He chose keyboardist Moogy Klingman to come up with a new five-member backing band on barely a week's notice. Thus the tour continued with a denser, bluesier and tighter sound that presaged the very successful live albums Reed would record with all different musicians in December.

Reed followed Transformer with the darker Berlin, a concept album about two junkies in love in the city. The songs variously concern domestic abuse ("Caroline Says I," "Caroline Says II"), drug addiction ("How Do You Think It Feels"), adultery and prostitution ("The Kids"), and suicide ("The Bed"). Reed's late-1973 European tour, featuring dual lead guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, mixed his Berlin material with older numbers.

The Velvet Underground And Nico
US Picture Skeeve Single 1966

After Berlin came two albums in 1974, Sally Can't Dance, and a live record Rock 'n' Roll Animal, which contained performances of the Velvet Underground songs "Sweet Jane" and "Heroin" became his biggest selling album. Rock 'n' Roll Animal, and its follow-up released in early 1975 Lou Reed Live, primarily featuring live Transformer material, were both recorded at the same show (Academy Of Music, NYC December 21, 1973), and kept Reed in the public eye with strong sales. The later expanded CD version of Rock 'n' Roll Animal taken together with Lou Reed Live are the entirety of the show that night, although not in the running order it was performed.

As he had done with Berlin after Transformer, in 1975 Reed responded to commercial success with a commercial failure, a double album of electronically generated audio feedback, Metal Machine Music. Critics interpreted it as a gesture of contempt, an attempt to break his contract with RCA or to alienate his less sophisticated fans. Reed claimed that the album was a genuine artistic effort, even suggesting that quotations of classical music could be found buried in the feedback. Lester Bangs declared it "genius," though also as psychologically disturbing. The album was reportedly returned to stores by the thousands after a few weeks. Though later admitting that the liner notes' list of instruments is fictitious and intended as parody, Reed maintains that MMM was and is a serious album. He has since stated though that at the time he had taken it seriously, he was also "very stoned". In the 2000s it was adapted for orchestral performance by the German ensemble Zeitkratzer.

By contrast, 1975's Coney Island Baby was mainly a warm and mellow album, though for its characters Reed still drew on the underbelly of city life. At this time his lover was a transgender woman, Rachel, mentioned in the dedication of "Coney Island Baby" and appearing in the photos on the cover of Reed's 1977 "best of" album, Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed. While Rock and Roll Heart, his 1976 debut for his new record label Arista, fell short of expectations, Street Hassle (1978) was a return to form in the midst of the punk scene he had helped to inspire. Reed was dismissive of punk, and rejected any affiliation with it. "I'm too literate to be into punk rock . . . The whole CBGB's, new Max's thing that everyone's into and what's going on in London—you don't seriously think I'm responsible for what's mostly rubbish?"

In 1978 Reed released his third live album, Live: Take No Prisoners, which some critics thought was his "bravest work yet," while others considered it his "silliest." Rolling Stone described it as "one of the funniest live albums ever recorded [with] Lou's dark-humored, Lenny Bruce-like monologues. Reed felt it was his best album:

You may find this funny, but I think of it as a contemporary urban-blues album. After all, that's what I write—tales of the city. And if I dropped dead tomorrow, this is the record I'd choose for posterity. It's not only the smartest thing I've done, it's also as close to Lou Reed as you're probably going to get, for better or for worse.

The Bells (1979) featured jazz musician Don Cherry, and was followed the next year by Growing Up in Public with guitarist Chuck Hammer. Around this period he also appeared as a sleazy record producer in Paul Simon's film One Trick Pony. Reed also played several unannounced one-off concerts in tiny downtown Manhattan clubs with the likes of Cale, Patti Smith, and David Byrne during this period. Reed and Patti Smith both worked at Record Plant in 1977 at the same time, each trying to complete albums. Bruce Springsteen was also at the studio working on finishing his Darkness on the Edge of Town album. [Source Wikipedia]


ABOUT THIS RECORDING:
The late 1974 US tour to promote "Sally Can't Dance" was Lou's amphetamine and alcohol - fuelled assault on the unsuspecting youth of North America. The RCA publicity machine had moved into top gear, but Lou was speeding way, way ahead of them. While they were pushing him as a user-friendly glam-rock/white soul superstar, he was dying iron crosses in his hair, living with a half-Mexican transsexual called Rachel and (simulating) shooting up on stage. The new LP and 45 were being being heavily promoted via nationwide TV ads featuring our man in trademark leather jacket, blonde hair and shades (...follow the bouncing ball and sing along with Lou.....). Whatever RCA were doing, it worked, and "Sally" was in the US top 10 LP chart. Lou was later quoted as saying "....I slept through that LP - whatever they suggested I said yes....". It seemed that the further Lou descended into self-parody, the more records he sold, and the more pressure RCA put on him to produce even more "product". This would ultimately backfire in mid 1975, when he vomited up "Metal Machine Music" and then had a very public breakdown during the Australian leg of the '75 world tour. Lou wouldn't perform in public again until late 1976.

I think this is a simply outstanding show. Lou may be out of it, but the band most certainly are not. I love the way you can hear Lou slapping the mic stand at the end of "Vicious". The vocals alternate between detached and manic throughout this set, but are particularly expressive during "Kill Your Sons" (surely the best EVER live version of this song). It's as if he's standing on the edge of a cliff and he's just about to jump off because he KNOWS he can fly. This tour was the only outing for "NY Stars" and "Animal Language" - these live renditions sound better than the studio versions to me. You can hear him sneering as he spits out the words to "NY Stars". It sounds as if someone broke a string during "Animal Language": the band start a loose jam while it's being replaced. Lou starts vamping the words to "Waiting" during the jam, and just continues singing it when the band move on to the "Sally Can't Dance" riff. The end result is a unique medley of "Waiting" and "Sally" (you have to wonder how long it took Lou to realise he was singing the wrong song - he did pretty much the same at the Chalmette show in November, singing "Vicious" while the band played "Sweet Jane"). "White Light White Heat" is a heavy metal prototype for every late 1970s punk band. "Goodnight Ladies" is a gas, with the whole band gathering round the microphone - you can (just) hear someone in the background asking where the "Jacks" (Jack Daniels) is.....they were having a good time. "Rock And Roll" is simply sublime.

The stereo recording made at Dayton was missing "Intro/Sweet Jane" and part of "Vicious" and there was a tape break during "Wild Side": mono soundboard recordings from the New York concert have been used to replace those songs.

LOU REED 
Palace Theatre
Dayton
27 October 1974

Personnel:
♣ Lou Reed: vocals. amphetamines, foul language
♣ Danny Weiss: guitar
♣ Prakash John: bass (definitely tracks D101, D102, D103, D104, D204 and possibly all the others)
♣ Peter Hodgeson (?): bass (possibly the tracks recorded at Dayton)
♣ Michael Fonfara: keyboards
♣ Peter "Mouse" Johnson: drums

Disc 1
01. Tuning* 1.26
02. Intro* 2.38
03. Sweet Jane* 5.21
04. Vicious* 6.26
05. Ride Sally Ride 4.24
06. Heroin 11.13
07. Kill Your Sons 7.35
08. NY Stars 5.00

Disc 2
01. Animal Language 3.08
02. Waiting For The Man/Sally Can't Dance 9.38
03. Bass Solo 3.46
04. Walk On The Wild Side* 4.26
05. White Light White Heat 5.40
06. NY Telephone Conversation/Goodnight Ladies 1.44
07. Rock And Roll 12.38

*Tracks D101, D102, D103, D104 and D204 are MONO soundboard recordings from the Felt Forum, New York, 09 October 1974

The remaining tracks are STEREO soundboard recordings from the Palace Theatre, Dayton, 27 October 1974

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Poster 1968, click n picture for bigger size

Stephen Stills - Stephen Stills 2 (2nd Album US 1971)

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Stephen Stills 2 is the second solo album by Stephen Stills and was released in 1971. He had already performed "Bluebird Revisited" on tour with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young in 1969.

The album was not as well received as its predecessor peaking at #8 on the Billboard album chart and with most reviews labeling it as indulgent, or as Rolling Stone put it, "fifth-rate self-indulgence". About the only thing the reviewers complimented were the songs "Change Partners" and "Marianne", which were the album's singles but only hit #43 and #42, respectively, on the Billboard singles chart.

Flushed with the success of his first solo effort and the continuing adulation from his role in the supergroup CSNY, Stephen Stills must have felt like he could do no wrong, and in many instances, his second solo disc proves him right. The superb "Marianne" and "Change Partners" more than satisfy the listener, while the dark and brooding "Know You Got to Run" and the prophetic "Fishes and Scorpions" are prime examples of his power as a singer and a songwriter. But when he misses the mark, as on "Ecology Song," he misses it by a mile and then some. Besides that cut, "Bluebird Revisited" is pure self-indulgence that someone of his craft and technique should have known better than to include here -- or anywhere. But with CD players, one can omit anything offending and concentrate on what's good about Stephen Stills 2. Cut the disc in half, and you have a very enjoyable listening experience. As for the rest, well, let's just say you've been warned.

Stephen Stills - Jukebox EP US 1971

Biography: 
Famed for his work in Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash, two of pop music's most successful and enduring groups, Stephen Stills was born in Dallas, Texas, on January 3, 1945. He became fascinated by music at a young age, and by the age of 15 was playing professionally. He eventually dropped out of college to move to New York City to try his hand as a folk performer before signing on as a guitar player with the Au Go-Go Singers, where he befriended a fellow bandmate named Richie Furay.

Last Time Around After a tour of Canada (during which they headlined a bill with the Squires, which featured guitarist Neil Young), Stills left the Au Go-Gos in 1965 for Los Angeles, where he became enmeshed in the city's burgeoning folk-rock community. After a series of session gigs and auditions (including one for the TV series The Monkees), in the spring of 1966 Stills enlisted Young, Furay, bassist Bruce Palmer, and drummer Dewey Martin to form the Herd, later dubbed the Buffalo Springfield. A year later, the group issued their eponymous debut; its Stills-penned single "For What It's Worth," made them stars. Internal problems, ego clashes, and drugs were already tearing the band apart, however, and by the release of 1968's Last Time Around, the Springfield had already dissolved.

Stephen Stills - Jukebox Strip EP US 1971

Super SessionStills quickly resurfaced with 1968's Super Session, recorded with fellow guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper. A jam session with ex-Byrd David Crosby and former Hollies member Graham Nash led to the formation of the vocal harmony supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash; released in 1969, their self-titled debut was hugely successful, propelled by the single "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," written by Stills for folksinger Judy Collins. Later that year, Neil Young joined the loose-knit group, and in 1970, as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, they issued Déjà Vu, another major hit.

Stephen Stills 2 From its inception, CSNY was designed to allow the individual performers great latitude for their solo work, and following the recording of the group's live LP Four Way Street, in late 1970 Stills released his self-titled solo debut. Sparked by the success of the hit single "Love the One You're With," the album, which featured cameos from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, was another smash, as was his 1971 follow-up Stephen Stills 2. In 1972, Stills began performing with a new backing unit, Manassas, which featured ex-Byrd and Flying Burrito Brother Chris Hillman; both their eponymous debut and 1973's Down the Road continued Stills' long string of chart successes.

Stills In 1975, he celebrated his signing to Columbia with Stills, followed a year later by Illegal Stills. In the summer of 1976, he planned to tour with Neil Young; however, Young was hampered with throat problems, so Stills took to the road alone, although he and Young did team for the LP Long May You Run. In 1977, Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash for CSN, which sold over four million copies; the following summer, the trio mounted an acoustic tour, and Stills issued the solo record Thoroughfare Gap. CSN continued their reunion throughout the early years of the next decade, teaming in 1980 for Replay and in 1982 for Daylight Again, which featured the hits "Southern Cross" and "Wasted on the Way."

Allies Following 1983's live CSN effort Allies, Stills again went solo for 1984's Right by You. In 1985, Crosby was sent to prison on drug possession charges, and Stills spent much of the late '80s out of the public eye. Following Crosby's release, in 1988 the reconstituted Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recorded American Dream, followed in 1990 by the CSN release Live It Up. In 1991, Stills issued the solo LP Stills Alone, while CSN's After the Storm appeared in 1994. Stills, Young, and Furay finally reunited as Buffalo Springfield for a pair of shows at Young's annual Bridge School Benefit in the fall of 2010. It wasn't a complete reunion, since bassist Bruce Palmer had died in 2004 and drummer Dewey Martin passed in 2009, but the three singers used drummer Joe Vitale and bassist Rick Rosas to fill in. The same configuration played six concerts in the spring of 2011 but reportedly did no studio work.

The lyrics for this album were printed on the inside of the gatefold cover in red, on a background photograph of Stephen Stills in a mountainous outdoor setting pointing into the distance. There were numerous errors in the original printing of the lyrics, which necessitated that Atlantic issue the album with a large sticker affixed to the shrink wrap of the back cover with the corrections to the lyrics. Later editions of the album had corrected lyrics inside the gatefold and thus did not include a correction sticker on the album. [Wikipedia + AMG]

Personnel:
♦ Bass - Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuels, Stephen Stills
♦ Congas - Gaspar Lawrawal, Rocky Dijon
♦ Drums - Conrad Isidore, Dallas Taylor, "English Richie" (Ringo Starr)
♦ Engineer - Bill Halverson
♦ Guitar - Eric Clapton (on "Fishes And Scorpions"), Nils Lofgren, Stephen Stills
♦ Keyboards - Billy Preston, Mac Rebennack, Nils Lofgren, Paul Harris, Stephen Stills
♦ Producer - Bill Halverson, Stephen Stills
♦ Saxophone [Baritone] - Floyd Newman, James Mitchell
♦ Saxophone [Tenor] - Andrew Love, Ed Logan, Sidney George
♦ Trombone - Jack Helm
♦ Trumpet - Roger Hopps, Wayne Jackson
♦ Vocals - David Crosby, Fearless Freddy, Henry Diltz, Nils Lofgren, Stephen Stills
♦ Pedal steel guitar (on "Change Partners") - Jerry Garcia

01. "Change Partners" – 3:13
02. "Nothin' To Do But Today" – 2:40
03. "Fishes and Scorpions" – 3:13
04. "Sugar Babe" – 4:04
05. "Know You Got to Run" (Stills, John Hopkins) – 3:50
06. "Open Secret" – 5:00
07. "Relaxing Town" – 2:20
08. "Singin' Call" – 3:01
09. "Ecology Song" – 3:22
10. "Word Game" – 4:13
11. "Marianne" – 2:27
12. "Bluebird Revisited" – 5:23

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Stephen Stills - Netherland Single 1971

Marc Bolan & T. Rex - Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow (UK 1974)

Size: 107 MB
Bitrate: 256
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Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow – A Creamed Cage in August is the ninth studio album and a UK-only release by Marc Bolan & T. Rex, released in February 1974. When originally released the initial pressings were a multi-layered triple gatefold sleeve, a latticework image of the current cover featuring singer Marc Bolan's face in a pale gold surround. Japanese manufacturer Teichiku reinstated this as an elaborate limited edition paper sleeve in 2001.

At the time, Marc Bolan's success in the UK was beginning to slip, as a result of two factors: his constant desire to "crack" the US market (which resulted in a lessened effort on the UK charts) and his desire to expand T. Rex's sound. This can be seen on 1973's Tanx, which included new guitar effects, chord changes, string arrangements and other studio "tricks" Bolan had not employed before. Because of this, Bolan decided not to release the album in the USA, but instead released Light of Love in its place.

Gimmick Foldout

He had been listening to a sizeable amount of US soul and R&B, no doubt influenced by his new affair with a backup singer and clavinet player he had hired for his 1973 US tour – Gloria Jones. These new sounds, in retrospect, were a year and a half before David Bowie's pioneering Young Americans album, often credited with making the most successful transition from UK glam rock (which was losing popularity) to radio-friendly, soul-influenced pop/rock. However, as successful as Bolan was in combining his new influences, the boogie/rockabilly sound at the core of the classic T. Rex sound can still be heard in the guitar work and the harmonies, in particular on the track "Nameless Wildness".

The songs reflect a darker mood than on Bolan's earlier releases, with lead track "Venus Loon" having quite grotesque subject matter. This was surely refective of Bolan's inner uncertainty about his status in the rock world now that he was no longer a teen idol. Other songs such as "Galaxy" and "Change" contain similar forebodings and dark imagery. The music, too, is ambitious and complex, containing some of Marc's most inventive extended guitar solos.

The album divided fans and critics into the two camps – a schizophrenic critical reaction that would remain with him until his death – some derided him as a washed-up teen idol, and others believed he would eventually make a resurgence in popularity. At that moment, however, Zinc Alloy marked a downturn in his fortunes – the contemporaneous album single, "Teenage Dream", made it only to No. 13 in the UK charts. While that would be a success for most groups, Bolan had spent all of 1971–1973 enjoying constant Top Ten and Top Five UK hits, including four #1's.

Bolan had said in the late 1960s that at the peak of his career, he would change his stage name to "Zinc Alloy", which is what he was going to address himself as with this album. However, the band name "Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow" sounded a bit like "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars", Bowie's band name 2 years earlier, so Bolan decided to put the name "Marc Bolan & T. Rex" on the cover. The album itself was going to be called "A Creamed Cage in August", hence why it is on the back cover. [Wikipedia]

Gimmick Foldout

By late 1973, Marc Bolan's star was waning fast. No longer gunning out those effortless classics which established him as the most important figure of the decade so far, he embarked instead on a voyage of musical discovery, which cast him so far adrift from the commercial pop mainstream that when his critics said he'd blown it, he didn't even bother answering them back. Or that's the way it appeared at the time, and today, too, it must be acknowledged that 1974's Zinc Alloy & the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow is not classic Bolan, even if one overlooks the transparency of its title. After all, hadn't Bowie already done the Fictional Someone & the Somethings from Somewhere routine? Indeed he had, as his fans kept remarking at the time, and when the knives began slashing Zinc Alloy to shreds, that was one of the fiercest wounds. Time, however, has healed almost all of them. Indeed, hindsight proves that, far from losing his muse, Bolan's biggest sin was losing his once-impeccable sense of occasion. 

The world wasn't ready for this latest T. Rex, and the fact that it wasn't interested in the old T. Rex either is just another object lesson in the fabled fickleness of pop fans. How faulty was Bolan's timing, though? As it transpired, he was out by no more than a year, maybe less than six months. The era of disco was coming, and with it the wholesale transformation of a wealth of rocking talents. But while David Bowie was barely dreaming of young Americans' fame, and Bryan Ferry was still road testing the pharmaceutical properties of l'amour, Bolan was up to his neck in American radio, pulling out an album which exceeded his assumed capabilities no less than it shot right over the heads of the kids who once bought all his hits.

"The Groover," the spring 1973 single which many regarded as the first sign of Bolan's fall from grace, marked the birth of this new fascination, a simple but solid slab of funk-inflected rock which did, indeed, groove. (The track is one of five bonus tracks appended to the album's Edsel reissue). The yearning, heavily orchestrated hit "Teenage Dream" hit notwithstanding, the heart of Zinc Alloy, then, simply followed in "The Groover"'s footsteps, an abandoned romp through the R&B influences which Bolan had always acknowledged, but never truly explored -- the solid James Brown drive of "The Avengers (Superbad)," "Interstellar Soul," "Liquid Gang," and the implausibly slight, but impressively groove-ridden "You've Got to Jive to Stay Alive." 

Into the same bag, one can also throw the period b-sides "Satisfaction Pony" and "Sitting Here" -- both of which have also been added to the album. Deeply soul-soaked songs like these aren't simply a new direction. They are the very signposts which would soon be guiding so many other English rock talents down some very unfamiliar alleyways. Zinc Alloy was released in March, 1974. Bowie began rehearsing his Philly Dogs tour in July. Yet, even with such credentials to uphold it, this isn't quite Bolan's soul album. Those demons would be exorcised on a second record cut with singer Sister Pat Hall and elsewhere in his collaborations with girlfriend Gloria Jones. Besides, the production here was just a little too cautious to truly convince the wary listener. Neither can it be neatly categorized in the same fashion as, say, Bowie's Young Americans -- Bolan looked across the spectrum for his influences, but he never once went to Philadelphia. Rather, it straddles that same pop/rock, funky R&B landscape as early Funkadelic, Sly Stone and Co., neither fish nor fowl, dead fish nor foul, but something somewhere in between. Approach it with caution. But get in there regardless. [AMG]

01. "Venus Loon" – 3:01
02. "Sound Pit" – 2:50
03. "Explosive Mouth" – 2:26
04. "Galaxy" – 1:48
05. "Change" – 2:47
06. "Nameless Wildness" – 3:06
07. "Teenage Dream" – 5:45
08. "Liquid Gang" – 3:17
09. "Carsmile Smith & the Old One" – 3:16
10. "You've Got to Jive to Stay Alive – Spanish Midnight" – 2:35
11. "Interstellar Soul" – 3:26
12. "Painless Persuasion v. the Meathawk Immaculate" – 3:26
13. "The Avengers (Superbad)" – 4:28
14. "The Leopards Featuring Gardenia and the Mighty Slug" – 3:36

Bonus Tracks
15. "Truck On (Tyke)" – 3:09
16. "Sitting Here" – 2:21

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