Albums I Want to Be Reissued
Last year I complained about The Individuals’ sole album never having been issued on CD (#1 on this Top Ten list). Needless to say, there’s a lot of great and/or fascinating stuff that’s unavailable. What follows is hardly a definitive list – in fact it’s kind of quirky, and in no particular order. But I guarantee that everything on it is worth tracking down.
One of my top 10 live rock albums. This New York group (1983-90; drummer James Lo went on to Chavez) was inspired by the No Wave scene but sorta played grunge before it had been named, and this aptly titled album (recorded at CBGB in 1986, before Thalia Zedek joined) sounds nasty in the best way, an explosion of angst punctuated by the most chilling version of Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusherman” ever.
Usually if an album is unavailable, it’s the record company that’s to blame, but not in this case. For some reason Neil Young just doesn’t want this 1973 concert album to come out on CD. He eventually changed his mind about On the Beach, so there’s still hope. Maybe it will appear in his new concert archives series. It was a gamble when it first appeared, since unlike most “live” albums it had nothing but new material. Most of the songs here can stand proudly among Neil’s best accomplishments, so it’s a mystery why he feels the way he does.
In the 1980s, Prince could do no wrong when it came to making music, but the erratic behavior that would dog him in the following decade may have been presaged by the strange treatment of this 1987 album which was withdrawn after being listed as a release. It’s been said that Warner Brothers execs were spooked by the profanity (among other things, the artist calls himself a “skinny motherf**ker with the high voice”), but they’d issued Prince albums featuring blowjobs, incest, and public masturbation, so why suddenly stop? The other theory is that Prince got cold feet. He ended up having it both ways: he released the vastly more commercial Lovesexy instead, but The Black Album was leaked to bootleggers almost immediately and became an underground hit. Warner Brothers eventually gave it a limited-edition CD release in 1994, but Prince’s funkiest album ever deserves better treatment.
Hemphill, one of the great avant-jazz saxophonists and composers, created magic in February 1972 when he convened a quartet with trumpeter Baikida Carroll, bassist Abdul Wadud, and drummer Philip Wilson. There are legal problems with this debut being reissued; it’s not that people haven’t tried (in frustration, Tim Berne’s label made it available for downloading for one day only a few years back). The LP was licensed in the mid-’70s by Freedom (which for awhile had U.S. distribution through A&M), but it’s never been legally released on CD, though a downtown New York music shop digitized it for surreptitious sales. If you can’t find it, you can hear a superb twenty-minute track from the same session, “The Hard Blues,” on the 1975 release Coon Bidness.
One of many casualties from the messy situation with Hendrix’s estate, this red-hot live album (issued in 1987) was produced by Alan Douglas from three October 1968 Experience concerts. Highlights include an epic 11-minute “Red House,” a cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor” (with Jefferson Airplane’s Jack Casady on bass) that traces Hendrix’s blues style back to one of its sources, and relative concert rarities in “Spanish Castle Magic” and “Manic Depression.”
Greg Bartalos listed this in his underrated-albums article, and I concur. Bursting with inventive, catchy guitar riffs in a very distinctive sound, this Florida group was not obviously derivative of any particular band. The combination of slightly Perry Farrell-ish vocals, twitchy acoustic guitar strumming, jagged electric guitar lines, and meaty basslines benefits from Jack Endino’s production, rich and clear without being thin or dry. Though this is out of print, it’s easily found used at low prices.
I don’t know whether to call this 1995 release paranoid dance music (some of it verges on Industrial, which you’d expect from this label) or anti-social jazz (no jazz club would ever book this group). The main force in the group seems to be Bob Green, though it’s hard to say what he does since his credit is “all other instruments, loops, & samples.” The fractured alto and bass clarinet lines, muted trumpet, and tight wah-wah guitar riffs bring to mind Bitches Brew, but the musical structures and brutal saxophone are definitely non-jazz, as are the low, droning synthesizer tones and inexorable beats. It all combines in a sinister sound that’s gorgeous yet threatening, and totally unlike anything else of its time.
Weston is one of the two or three greatest active jazz pianists, but since Verve dropped him he’s been largely neglected. Marrakech is a solo piano recital recorded in the ballroom of a Moroccan hotel in 1992. In some ways it’s an unusual program. The cover material (on a 14-track album) is Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz,” Nat “King” Cole’s “In the Cool of the Evening,” a Dizzy Gillespie medley, and Billy Strayhorn’s “Lotus Blossom.” Weston’s choice of originals here emphasize blues and ballads; his piano style is rich, often modal, and hypnotic. The sound’s a bit distant but quite listenable.
Just Blake’s third album – he was only getting to record about every four years in the ‘60s – this 1969 release is one of the finest solo piano albums you’ll ever hear, yet it’s never been on CD. His style is usually introspective, but that just makes his emotional outbursts all the more penetrating. The program has a political undercurrent even when standards are interpreted: “God Bless the Child,” “Never on a Sunday,” “Stars Fell on Alabama,” and more. Mesmerizing.
My candidate for the most underrated post-punk band. Poet Ted Milton named his band aptly; “blurt” describes his singing and saxophone styles. These early albums (1981 and ‘84 respectively) have the original trio lineup with guitarist Pete Creese and drummer Jake Milton; the sound is raw, abrasive, and herky-jerky, a European cousin to No Wave. The lyrics are provocative and witty. A few tracks from these LPs have made it to the Salamander import compilation The Fish Needs a Bike, but otherwise this stuff is untouched by lasers.
