4 posts from September 2009

This has always been one of my many, many favorite Jughead Jones stories, simply because of the free-form FUN and zaniness of it’s script! I’ve always thought that most of my fave Jughead stories seemed like could have been skits on The Carol Burnett Show, and JUGHEAD story “Oceans of Love” surely fits that bill!

 

When I first began researching information about the people behind the scenes at Archie Comics (in an attempt to figure out who drew the stories I loves so much), one writer whose name kept popping up in association with fun, zany stories was writer Frank Doyle. Descibing his stories and witty, fast paced and sharp, my IMMEDIATE reaction was, “Why, that sounds EXACTLY like those Jughead Jones comics!”

 

And just as Harry Lucey will always be THE Betty Cooper artist, Artist Schwartz is, my MY EYES, the perennial Jughead Jones illustrator, and it was his depicitions that I grew up with and always recognized as “the REAL Jughead”. It seemed like almost every Jughead story I loved and constantly re-read was drawn my this fantastic artist.

 

Now, though I’m fairly certain Schwartz drew this one, I’m still not sure if this one is written by Frank Doyle, (and If anyone out there knows for sure, PLEASE let me know!) but knowing that he was a regular writer of Jughead and was usually teamed up with Schwartz, I think there is a very good chance that it is! But WHATEVER the case, its one of my fave stories and an absolute JOY to read!

 

  The story at first seems like nothing more than a Jughead take on the “Pet Rock” fad, but once the supporting characters begin interacting with him and his pet clam, the funnier it gets!  And I love how everybody gets into it except grouchy old Veronica, who becomes more and more incensed the more the crowd encourages Jughead’s eccentric actions!

 

 Going to the beach they meet up with other regulars, and it’s clear that everybody likes Jughead, for they ALL go along with the gag, truly treating this clam like it’s Jug’s beloved pet. Things get more and more hilariously melodramatic when  Jug’s clam finds a mate, and  as the crowd dramatically comforts brokenhearted Jug, Ronnie sums it up nicely with “Weirdness must be contagious! They’ve ALL got it!”

 

While I patiently awaiting my CoCo DVD Box Set, I’m happy to announce the arrival of ANOTHER Box Set that has been a LONG LONG time coming, and that would be the glorious BEATLES REMASTERED CD COLLECTION, a beautiful box set that features all 13 albums and singles from England’s premiere band!

Besides a digital remastering that FAR surpasses the original mid-eighties releases, each album comes in a glossy gatefold digipak and a slick color booklet full of pictures from each album's corrosponding timeframe. Plus, they’ve included these short little quicktime movie documentaries on each disc featuring the words of the Beatles themselves and (of course) George Martin, talking about each specific album voiced over video performances of songs from the album!  They even  collected them onto a single bonus DVD for those who want to just sit down and watch all the movies at once!

I first found out about this wonderful box set through Japanese site CD JAPAN of all places, and at the time, figured it to be a japan-only release. I really wanted it, but that 300 dollar price tag gave me pause, I must say! So I breathed a sigh of relief when I found out that they’d be releasing the Box Set in the states as well, and with a decent  price of $179.00 at Amazon, IMMEDIATELY sent in my order, this time without hesistation!

   I remember back when the Beatles first four albums (Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night and Beatles For Sale) were to come out on CD, the big argument was why release an album on CD if you’re gonna release it in Mono. But since that’s how the albums were originally presented, that’s how they were done on CD.

 Though I understood this logic, it really bummed me out because I grew up listening to the stereo mixes of most of these songs from the Capitol records, especially THE BEATLES SECOND ALBUM and the awesome SOMETHING NEW, and though I bought all the mono CDs and enjoyed them dearly, in the back of my mind I always missed the kick that the stereo version had, especially in songs like the thundering drumroll at the end of “Tell Me Why” !

 But now we’ve come full circle, and each and every album has been given the remastered treatment, and though I’ve only listened to about half of them so far, what I’ve been blastin’ out over my stereo speakers has just been heaven!! From Rubber Soul to Revolver on down through the White Album and Abbey Road, the songs have just sounded stupendous!

I know my next few days will be filled with serious Beatles-listening, and it's exciting to know I've still got so many albums to check out and hear all over again as if for the first time! I can't WAIT to hear how som eof these other songs will sound, especially the upcoming MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR CD with I AM THE WALRUS , STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER and PENNY LANE! Ah, nostalgic days are here again! If anyone needs me, I'll be holed up in my room with my headphones on!

 

Around Mid- 1983, I was insanely in love with singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks, and was voraciously devouring anything and everything to do with her. Though I’d always loved her Fleetwood Mac songs and was even a fan of her Bella Donna solo album (especially the rocking Edge Of Seventeen), it wasn’t until her second album The Wild Heart came out that I totally flipped for her and began worshipping her as the rock-goddess she was!

 Back then, out video station of choice was Night Tracks on WTBS, and me and my friends tuned in every weekend to check out the latest videos before heading out for the night’s activities. At that time, my favorite videos were Stevie’s "If Anyone Falls" as well as "Stand Back", but I was curious about another Stevie video that Night Tracks routinely played, and that was the dreamy and mystical Gypsy, which credits told me was off of Fleetwood Mac’s latest album Mirage, which had just come out a few months earlier.

 Mirage? What was that album? I’d heard of Rumours, of course, as well as the big (at that time) album Tusk, but didn’t know anything about this one, nor did I know anyone who’d picked it up. But I really wanted the Gypsy Track, and when my friend Herb informed me that it also had the fun song “Hold Me” on it, I was convinced!

 We went down to Tower Records, and as I waited in line looking over the George Hurell-shot cover, I remember the first thing that shocked me was getting used to Lindsey Buckingham without his trademark afro and goatee! The cover was kind of a wraparound thing, with Lindsey and the girls on the front, and the Fleetwood and Mac group namesakes on the back, looking very much like the wards of the ‘Mac Estate!

We took the album home and immediately dove in. While my friend Herb showed only passing interest in the tracks, I was immediately smitten and would go on to not only repeatedly play that album over and over, but make all my FRIENDS listen to it, too!

 One great thing about having three prolific songwriters in the group is a LOT of diversity, and Mirage is another great showcase of the members’ talents. Christine, Lindsey and Stevie each take turns with their compositions, giving the album a decidedly “White Album” feel to it as they build up a musical “quilt” of song genres!

 With Lindsey Buckingham, It’s funny, that in the first two ‘Mac albums he and Stevie were in, his songs were carefully crafted pop/rock tunes, but by the time TUSK came out, his songwriting (to ME at least) started to sound like that Dana Carvey songwriting character who makes up songs as he goes along, and songs like “Not That Funny!” and “What Makes you think You’re The One” sounded more like jam sessions with nonsensical lyrics than actual singles. The songs he penned for Mirage still have this loose free-form feel to them (as in songs like "Book of Love", "Diane" and "Can’t Go Back”, but they are fun and catchy as hell! There’s this one goofy song called “Eyes of the World”, and with its refrain of “eyes…eyes…eyes” as its chorus, my friend James once exclaimed “What the heck is this crap?!” before dancing around, pointing at his eyes in tune with the song. AHAHAHA! But the one masterpiece Lindsey DID lay down for this album was the cool, rocking song EMPIRE STATE, about his experiences in the Big Apple (as opposed to Sunny California). MAN, I love to blast this one!

  Stevie is the one who’s experimented the most with her songwriting, and though “Gypsy” sounds most like her previous work (almost like a sequel of sorts to “Rhiannon”), her other two songs sound more like the stuff she was writing for her solo albums. “That’s Alright” is a country-tinged kicker that almost seems like a precursor for her later “Enchanted” song, but it’s her third track “Straight Back!” that sounds the most like the “solo” Stevie Nicks songs, a slow rocker driven by some awesome keyboards by Christine. The song fades out too soon; I really wish this song could have been a bit longer for how good it is!

 Of the three, Christine McVie is the most reliable here, and she exudes the same romantic pop stylings that gave us songs like “You Make Loving Fun”, “Warm Ways” and “Songbird”. Opening the album with the awesome toe-tapping sunshine-y song “Love In Store”, she runs the gamut through tunes like “Out Of My Mind” and the fun aforementioned song “Hold Me” before closing the album with the beautifully melancholy “Wish You Were Here”, one of her BEST ballads, ever!

 High on the album, that Christmas I was THRILLED to find that they’d released a Videodisc concert of their MIRAGE tour, and after I bought it (at the local RCA dealership), it quickly became the most played movie that season! Songs form Mirage like Love In Store”, “Gypsy” and “Eyes Of The World”(!) were all featured here, and the show even had one of the coolest openings ever with “The Chain”, and one of the sweetest closing songs with “Songbird”!

 

Although I know that albums like Rumours and the eponymous titled Fleetwood Mac albums are probably greater albums overall, I’ve really come to embrace MIRAGE as my own, because while most Fleetwood Mac fans either love the “Bare Trees” era, the Rumours era, or the “Tango in The Night” comeback era, I have never, NEVER met another fan who owns, much less loves MIRAGE as much as me. Which is strange, because it was a bestseller when it came out…where did all those purchasers get to?

Check out some of my favorite tunes from MIRAGE!

 

While hunting online for some of the more obscure Joni Mitchell tracks that seem to be floating all over the internet, I came across an interesting little curio- an unauthorized “Companion” to Joni’s incredible (and one of my very, very favorite) 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns.

 

This collection, humorously entitled The Seeding of Summer Lawns, (and featuring a decidedly autumn-themed variation of the real cover) consisted of demoes and work-in-progress versions of songs that would eventually make it onto the actual album, and it was quite a thrill to experience the bare bones takes of songs like In France They Kiss on Main Street, Shades of Scarlett Conquering, and The Boho Dance, all before they would get transformed into the wonderful lite-jazz masterpieces that we know and love.

Songs like In France They Kiss on Main Street are interesting in how "textbook" the demos sound, where Joni is clearly mapping out harmonies and chords, a far cry from the cheery and bouncy completed version that she would record with the full band behind her! 

 

One thing thing that I thought was pretty neat was that in these original demoes, Joni sings parts that would eventually be played by horns, and there’s no place more evident than in the demo of Edith and The Kingpin, where each verse is punctuated by an echo-ey chorus harmonizing to simulate the horns to come!

 

One song that was prepared and demoed for this album was a song called Dreamland, and while the song didn’t make it to the final stages of Hissing, a polished and very world-beat influenced version would later appear on the epic Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter.

 

Now, I’ve always liked Dreamland (though I was never a big fan of the percussion laden Tenth World track that was connected to it)  and I was excited to hear how this tune sounded in its original state… but WOW! NOTHING could have prepared me for what I heard upon clicking on that track- Just the most FUN, swingin’ and shufflin’ tune all set to the VERY “George of the Jungle”-esque bopping beat!

 

The collection concludes with a cool piano-and-guitar take of the pretty “Sweet Bird”, a song that would have fit perfectly with most of Joni’s earlier folk catalog (especially Court and Spark!) , and a version of “Shadows and Light” that sounds just about identical to the album version (at least to MY unprofessional ears), a perfect little sampling of a GREAT album in progress!