to scott seward and gareth... buy AMERICAN SPRING and the BILL FAY reissues.

american spring is just perfect pop!

i dont know american spring at all. tell more?

gareth do you think you could do a copy of terry durham or send me mp3s to doompatrol@gmail.com i'm biddig on a copy at the moment but am afraid that i'm going to lose out!

Inner Dialogue! Are they or aren't they the great lost Sagittarius/Free Design style outfit?

i'll put them all up tonite/tomorrow. actually, if its on my mp3 player, i could start now, let me go look

Also I note that that Terry Durham LP is due a CD reissue any day now, so you may not want to go too far with bidding for the vinyl (unless you want the original and that, but I'm not sure that's your thing).

tim who is doing the reissuing of terry durham?

scott, magna carter is sublime. i actually found a 7" from the 70s about them and bought it on the strength of our ilxor.com chat. so err..thanks!

no one is doing the american spring reissue i just got my copy off of ebay. very nice stuff. heavily orchestrated wilson-pop! joe foster from revola, i told him about it and he was going to reissue it before the collaspe of creation records as he knows brian and his wife really well. he's going to have a go at reissuing it!

phew! that was a practical post!

am putting one up next week that is more obscure psych-orientated.

ah, and yes..forgot to listen to the downloaded set yesterday..and fmu is currently makingme feel tired..bring on the heavy

how have i never heard of marilyn doing a record? its good?! im salivating over this concept

Although, it was mostly produced by David Sandler, from all the 1st hand accounts I've heard.

http://www.spectropop.com/archive/digest/d802.htm

Message: 9
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 18:45:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Watson Macblue
Subject: Re: Brian Wilson Productions / American Spring

Stratton Bearhart writes:
> The one shining difference for me is Brian's involvement in
> 'American Spring', and I wonder how much of Brian's quality input
> to that particular production project was due to its nature as a
> family affair, with wife Marilyn as vocalist.

If engineer Steve Desper is to be believed (and I suspect he is), the
awful truth is that Brian's contribution to this album was - Steve's
word - tiny. Steve said that the strongest memory he had of the
sessions (other than Brian's infrequent and unproductive visits to the
studio) was amazement at David Sandler's skill in imitating Brian's
production style. The album was made when Brian was in his first
really bad coke-and-heroin phase, from which some of us would argue he
has never really recovered; his main function for the Spring album was
simply brand recognition by the customers. Marilyn Wilson herself has
grudgingly admitted as much. (There was also the problem, at the time,
of Brian's growing obsession with her sister - hence "My Diane" on the
MIU album. As always with the Beach Boys, "family" is a multi-edged
weapon.)

Anyone who doubts Sandler's ability at forging the Brian sound should
listen to Snowflakes, which has never been touted as a Brian production,
but is as Brian-ish as all Hell. It can be done; elsewhere, we've been
reading how Bill Medley managed to produce an astonishingly convincing
knock-off of Spectorsound for "Soul and Inspiration".

Watson

Not the 1971 album, also self-titled, by Spring, a progressive rock group with the same name (that band featured Pat Moran and was produced by Gus Dudgeon), this particular Spring is an excellent artifact from the world of the Beach Boys, and is highly entertaining with much historical value. The album features Marilyn Wilson-Rovell and Diane Rovell, who Creem magazine managing editor Ben Edmonds explains in his trippy liner notes were the Rovell Sisters and the Honeys, and is produced by Marilyn's husband, Brian Wilson. The gals stare out of the gatefold in a blurry blue hue -- an appropriate image for a disc that never got the notice it deserved. The album begins with "Tennessee Waltz," a two-minute version that puts the vocals front and center in a fusion that might be called "girl group folk music." Not as orchestrated as the Beach Boys' thick harmonies and the all-pervasive carbon-copy wall of Spector-ized sound, this is more like Brian Wilson emulating Spector's work with the Teddy Bears, light and airy with the ladies' voices very present and in control. The major find here is track two, "Thinkin' 'Bout You Baby," written by Wilson and Mike Love. It is the song "Darlin'" in different form, and it is lovely hearing that melody with other lyrics and in this unique setting. The band excels on this title, which may be what Wilson was working on with a group known as Redwood, the singers who became Three Dog Night and were denied this song because the Beach Boys thought it was too good to give to someone else. Renditions of the Shirelles' "Mama Said" and Bonnie Bramlett's "Superstar" don't fare as well as the originals and more obscure tunes here. On the popular covers they come off as a forced girl group, abandoning the folksy charm of the first two songs. They overdo a song that Rita Coolidge made a name with, and if Bramlett didn't like what Karen Carpenter did to her song, she might take solace in the fact that at least this album stayed underground and was a tip of the hat to Bramlett's songwriting genius. Tommy Roe's "Everybody" gets a similar treatment to the group's version of "Mama Said," and at least the cover tunes give insight to what the group was attempting to do.

They do it much better when Wilson gives them material, or uncovers music like "Now That Everything's Been Said," the title track to Carole King's lost classic, the City album. It is one of Spring's best moments, but the tonal quality remarkably favors King. Who at United Artists dropped the ball on this great cut when Tapestry catapulted to the top of the charts? The addition of Carole King and Gerry Goffin's song covered by Ricky Nelson and Ben E. King in the mid-'60s, "Down Home," is also a treat. What you get with the Spring album is Wilson lovingly creating music with his significant other, and unearthing some gems in the process. The best tracks, along with the early version of "Darlin'" and the two Carole King covers, are the Wilson co-writes "Sweet Mountain" (penned along with co-producer and co-arranger David Sandler), "Good Time," which Wilson put together with Alan Jardine, Dennis Wilson and Greg Jacobson's "Forever," and Floyd Tucker's "Awake." The album just misses being a grand slam, perhaps because the production doesn't hit you over the head the way Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe" or the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" exploded off the turntable. Despite a few flaws, this is as essential a recording as the City's 1969 debut, Now That Everything's Been Said, and really should have made some serious noise. The LP was re-released on Rhino as well as a 1994 issue on See for Miles that listed the group as American Spring, probably to keep the confusion down regarding the aforementioned Pat Moran ensemble. The original album art on the United Artists vinyl is a bluish/sea-green head of a statue with stars in its eyes on the front cover and hearts in its eyes on the back. That artwork was kind of prophetic, as this album is a true artifact in every sense of the word, and one with some great moments that are truly important, not just because they are obscure.

Was all excited about American Spring, now I'm disappointed. Aw.

http://www.protest-records.com/mp3/index.html

That was my introduction to Bill Fay, and I'm psyched about the new reissues, though I haven't picked one up yet.

'going to love the life i live and am going to live the life i love with my baby'

thanks on the terry durham tip! i just ordered it. the original vinyl prices will fall sharply i reckon now on ebay!

wouldn't surprise me if it went up to £30.00

the price its at now is ok, its not really any more expensive than a cd reissue, but, as you say, it wont stay at that price

do you like nick garrie, or steve & stevie, doomie? the nick garrie lp got reissued in korea, the steve&stevie has never been reissued i think, i got mine in king bee, chorlton, which makes me think, oops, have we already had this conversation? i honestly cant remember!