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The Waterboys — 48, 47

ALBUM: A Pagan Place (1984); This is the Sea (1985)

MVC Rating: Pagan’s 4.5/$$$$$; Sea 4.5/$$$$$

I think of this band as one that never quite achieved the success it deserved. Their sound was dubbed ‘big music’ after one of the songs on ‘A Pagan’s Place.’ Implying: The Next Big Thing.

Which creates a lot of expectations.

Mike Scott, the band’s leader, was (very obviously) influenced by Bob Dylan. He counts Joe Strummer of the Clash as an influence as well.

With the debut ‘A Pagan Place,’ followed by ‘This is the Sea’ and then ‘Fisherman’s Blues,’ the band snared me immediately as a fan. I have Fisherman’s Blues on CD so I’m not reviewing it here but I say ‘buy it,’ — it’s probably their best. Although the others are awesome. ‘Sea’ had their biggest ‘hit,’ if you can call it a hit, called ‘Whole of the Moon.’

The critique I’ve read and/or heard about the Waterboys is that they sounded overwrought with big subject matter (religion/Christianity), big singing, big music, leading to big pretensions.

OK, perhaps true. This tea is not for everybody.

But in my collection they each earn 4.5 points (out of 5). There is some real musical and songwriting craft going on here.

After ‘This is the Sea,’ Karl Wallinger, a keyboardist for the band left to form his own band, World Party, reviewed later. Mike Scott had some solo endeavors, some like ‘Bring Em All In,’ which touched on spiritual issues.

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Vanilla Fudge — 49

ALBUM: Vanilla Fudge (1967)

MVC Rating: 2.5/$$$$

Wow, this one is so bad it’s good. Almost.

Their cover of the Temptations’ ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’ was a high charting single and is a successful use of turning an original song inside-out, making it something new and good.

With it’s heavy organ sound and over-the-top rock vocals, it turns the song into something else. It sounds like Deep Purple before Deep Purple.

Unfortunately that formula didn’t work well on the other songs. In fact, some of the album sounds like laughable parody: Eleanor Rigby, Ticket to Ride, People Get Ready, She’s Not There — all covers of music that were current at the time. They were all great songs by the original artists but not by Vanilla Fudge except for ‘You Keep Me Hanging On.’

And therein lies Mike’s 2-pronged better and/or different theorem for a cover song to work.

No. 1: The cover takes a faithful route and blows the doors of the original. Janis Joplin’s Me and Bobby ‘McGee’ cover of the Kris Kristofferson song fits that bill. Michael Bolton’s cover of Otis Redding’s ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay’ fails.

No. 2: The cover has to be so different that it reinterprets the original song. I think Creedence Clearwater Revival’s cover of ‘I Heard it through the Grapevine’ does that with Marvin Gaye’s version. I’m not saying the CCR song is better or worse, they are just different kinds of great with Gaye’s soul strong vocals and CCR’s swamp thing chug.

Now that you got my theorem, back to Vanilla Fudge. Between the cover songs, there are some strange psychedelic interludes (Illusions of my Childhood Pts. 1,2,3) which I won’t describe here but you get the picture.

This isn’t something I threw on my turntable much because there is so much gooey goo to get through to the good stuff.

It would make a great study as part of a look at the origins of psych-rock and heavy metal. Oh, by the way, either the bass player is very good or my speakers are very good — or both.

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Phone call from myself

NOTE: This is the result of one of my brain exercises. Think of pushups for my cerebellum. I think of these ‘exercises’ sometimes mostly to amuse myself.

*****

I called myself today on my cell phone. I knew it was me right away. But I wondered how I got my unlisted number?

‘Hey, how am I doing, I asked.

Not so hot, a little slow this morning, I replied.

Really? Me too, I said.

I was thinking of going to a record store or a thrift store, I said.

I was thinking the same thing but I remembered I went last week.

Wait, I didn’t see me there?

Yes I did. Remember looking in that full length mirror in the clothing area?

That was me.

Oh yeah, that was me, wasn’t it.

I am me.

Duh. Please don’t call me again, these conversations are useless.

Wait a minute, you called me, remember.

You? Who is you?