(1)C.T.A. - 102 (2)Renaissance Fair (Mono Version) (3)Everybody's Been Burned (Mono Version) are standout tracks found on 1967 Columbia THE BYRDS Younger Than Yesterday .Renaissance Fair and Everybody's Been Burned should be stereo versions,too.
Chris Hillman provides a taste of the country-rock the Byrds would be doing a few years later on some pretty tunes, but it's not quite enough to fill Gene Clark's songwriting shoes. What's left is a couple of big hits and a few gorgeous samples of the sound they'd already realized perfectly on "Eight Miles High": jangle of McGuinn's 12-string leads against Crosby's thunderous rhythm, all with perfect condensations of Dylan tunes and sweet California harmonies--Crosby again. And speaking of Crosby, "Renaissance Fair," "Everybody's Been Burned," and the not-on-the-original "Lady Friend" are three of his very best (though even one version of "Mind Gardens" is one version too many).
Still smellin' the incense.
If you download one song today, make it Lady Friend, a David Crosby classic that should have been a radio hit. The song was buried as a b-side or something. Thank God it's here. The rest of the album is up to the Byrds' usual standards.
C'mon admit it... These guys were IT. Starting with McGuinn's 12 string, their popularization of Dylan, those harmonies, country rock, spaceman songs, the Coltrane psych guitar starting on "Eight Miles High", whew, it's all there. The impact has been felt daily ever since. The only problem is that they produced only two consistently great albums from beginning to end, "Notorious" and this one. (Also note: The titles of the bonus tracks 12-18 are mostly wrong, most notably the 5 minute version of "Mind Gardens" which has "Old John Robertson" grafted on the front of the fantastic original non-backwards "Mind Gardens" backing tracks without Crosby's pretentious but still great vocals. Download them all and edit the titles yourself.)
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
Whither country music - or will it wither? Most of the c&w on strut at the recent CMA awards had more to do with 80's power-rock and 00's teen-pop than the morning farm report. In recent years, an alt-country movement in such Willy-billy suburbs as Brooklyn's Williamsburg has waved a country flag, along with a taste for trucker's caps and Pabst Blue Ribbon. This isn't a sudden outcropping on the range; ever since Gram Parsons… more »
One night a few years ago I was zipping through the traffic maze of Los Angeles, on my way to meet the producer Nobody on the occasion of his just-released debut album, Soulmates. He had given me very vague directions, and so the signal strength of KXLU, where he was doing his weekly radio show, helped guide my path. As the static cleared, I grew more confused: what was he playing? Rather than the Project… more »
I don't know if the Y in Robyn Hitchcock's name was there on his birth certificate, but I can't imagine it spelled "Robin." That Y is the same slightly odd Y that's present in the Byrds, in Syd Barrett and in Bob Dylan - arguably the three biggest historical presences behind his music. He's got an enormous, three-decade-long discography, but the early solo albums that have just come to eMusic include some of the sweetest… more »
No, it's not a great name: "shoegazing." Very few artists who've actually played in that style like the term; Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai has called it "a dumb term made up by clueless... idiots... if someone called us shoegazers, I'd be pretty unhappy." The other leading candidate seems to be "dreampop," which is also not quite satisfactory. But we're stuck with those words, because it's undeniable that there's a certain tendency in rock music, especially British… more »
