let's discuss how ace merry go round and emmit rhodes are/is/etc

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just got it in the post. rhodes is pretty much a genius isnt he?

― doomie x, Tuesday, 7 June 2005 12:45 (twenty years ago)

He was good, very good

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 12:48 (twenty years ago)

could have been as big as the byrds. i only knew of his solo work. this reissue is sublime beauty. ringing guitars and mccartney looping basslines and summery harmonies.

― doomie x, Tuesday, 7 June 2005 12:51 (twenty years ago)

I don't have his last album, whatever it was called, but I've got the other three, like 'em all, the s/t one is the most consistently good but "Mirror" probably has my favourite songs of his on it

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 12:52 (twenty years ago)

i prefer the american dreamer album ... the production is cool. understated yet orchestrated.

― doomie x, Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:03 (twenty years ago)

... that's an odd album that, wasn't it supposed to be a Merry Go Round album? A lot of it sounds like Harry Nilsson, VERY like Harry Nilsson!

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:05 (twenty years ago)

it does, doesnt it??? i've been getting into harry nilsson lately. the early albums are the shit.

― doomie x, Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

See numerous threads for evidence of my Harry fetish

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:14 (twenty years ago)

FUCK YEAH! Later ones're great too tho SEXPOST

― A Viking of Some Note (Andrew Thames), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:15 (twenty years ago)

you should check out some aidan smith stuff. he's a manchester singer-songwriter who has the freak-on about nilsson.

― doomie x, Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:16 (twenty years ago)

He's kind of "in" now - I saw Rufus Wainwright on TV last week and he was pure Harry

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:18 (twenty years ago)

One of the first to do the whole one man band in the studio thing. Curt Boettcher and Keith Olsen mixed the s/t record and it's brilliant. Dimishing returns after this though I've just been listening to Love Will Stone You from one of the later records and it's great. My Dad, not one for being into obscure artists or really buying that many records, heard Emitt on the Peel show and bought the album when it came out which I always thought was pretty cool though I didn't really appreciate the record when I first heard it as a teenager. Oddly I have Mirror and Farewell To Paradise on second hand vinyl and both of them I picked up on different trips to Denmark yet I've never seen them here.

i had heard that the Merry-Go-Round stuff was being rereleased and I'm really eager to hear it. And yes I think that the American Band album was meant to be a MGR album or maybe it was just that it was released without Rhodes being consulted.

― mms (mms), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:19 (twenty years ago)

"Really Wanted You" from "Mirror" is fucking ace

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:21 (twenty years ago)

Adding to the love for Harry Nilsson. I don't think there's been an artist I've discoverd ever that had such a brilliant career and had so many records and yet I was totally unaware of their output or of any critical regard for their talent. He never seemed to be mentioned in all the endless greatest records/artists of all time lists and I certainly never saw any mag features on him. Then about 4 years ago I bought the first couple of albums and I was hooked. Wonderful stuff and what a voice. And to think I just knew that he covered Without You and got drunk with Ringo and Lennon.

― mms (mms), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:23 (twenty years ago)

Harry Nilsson singing with George Tipton arranging is one of my favourite things ever, he lost a lot when he stopped working with George Tipton and started making his records in England

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:27 (twenty years ago)

There's something to be said for that though I do still like his 'rock' records. I suppose more for their warped humour -'I'd rather be dead than wet the bed' sung by an old folks home for example. The most tragic thing though is to hear his voice on 'Pussy Cats' and how ravaged it sounds. Although his voice improved on subsequent records it was never the same again.

― mms (mms), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:48 (twenty years ago)

I'm putting in my two cents on Rhodes. I had that Varese Sarabande comp from the mid-90s which did a great job of anthologizing his solo work and a couple of Merry Go Round singles. Sigh. I no longer have it. Have the self-titled on semi-ravaged vinyl.

I get the impression that some of his stuff has been reissued from this thread? Tell me more!

As for Nilsson, I've only heard the really early albums (the ones the Beatles went crazy for). They were exceptionally well arranged. If I were to dig for some Nilsson, which ones should I get?

― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

All of them up until and including "Nilsson Schmilsson" - except "Skidoo". "Nilsson Schmilsson" isn't as good as the early albums, "Son of Schmilsson" isn't as good as "Nilsson Schmilsson". "A Little Schmilsson in the Night" I like. The other albums are hideously patchy and often just plain hideous until you get to "Knnillsson" which is good again.

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:56 (twenty years ago)

"Schmilsson"! Also um I like "Sandman" a lot, "Knnillssonn" (prob wrong title slightly but I'd think you'd spot it off that)'s good too. Oh and "Pussy Cats", pretty obv. xxxxxxxx "Sandman" isn't all that patchy, a lot of it's more or less comedy but so's "Take No Prisoners" and millions of other recs

― A Viking of Some Note (Andrew Thames), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:57 (twenty years ago)

"Sandman" has some of the worst things I've ever heard in my life on it - "How to Write a Song", "The Flying Saucer Song" - hideous coke-addled brainrot but then it also has "Something True", which is heart-breakingly lovely

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

Oops, I forgot about "Pussy Cats", that's pretty good too!

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

See, I quite like cokeaddled brainrot. My fav David Bowie rec's "Station to Station", after all.

― A Viking of Some Note (Andrew Thames), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

Yes but there's good coke-addled brainrot and bad coke-addled brainrot...

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 14:14 (twenty years ago)

Course, but the quality of those two tracks aside we can agree "Sandman"'s worthwhile I think (pity such divisive numbers happen to be the longest, from memory)

― A Viking of Some Note (Andrew Thames), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 14:16 (twenty years ago)

Has it got "The Ivy Covered Walls" on it? That always makes me giggle even tho it's coke-addled nonsense too.

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 14:20 (twenty years ago)

Yup it does (I like it better than those aforementioned songs btw)

― A Viking of Some Note (Andrew Thames), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 14:22 (twenty years ago)

revola has done the reissues ... www.revola.co.uk its a seriously hot reissue.

― doomie x, Tuesday, 7 June 2005 14:33 (twenty years ago)

That looks really good, I bet you got it for nothing too, ya journalistic bastid

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 14:35 (twenty years ago)

I've just noticed that half of that CD is actually "American Dream" by Emitt Rhodes!

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 14:37 (twenty years ago)

hahaha..it is. american dream and merry go round, good two for one bargain! and its neat to see how the band progressed.. i did get it for nothing. but i pay for loads of cds. actually, i sell all the rubbish i get sent to pay for loads of cds.

just listening to josephine foster. WOW OH WOW!

― doomie x, Tuesday, 7 June 2005 15:09 (twenty years ago)

ten years pass...

So Emmit has a new record out – his first released recordings in, like, 35 years: http://www.uncut.co.uk/reviews/album/emitt-rhodes-rainbow-ends

Apparently most or at least many of these songs date from various fits and spurts of activity over the years – including a band with Richard Thompson(!). First few songs sound a bit like Ron Sexsmith. I would have preferred a bit more of Emmit on the upright as opposed to guitar but it's a welcome—and rather unexpected—return nonetheless.

― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, 13 March 2016 14:05 (nine years ago)

Cool. He just showed up in my DW playlist, was wondering what he had been up to recently.

― SIGSALY Can't Dance (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 13 March 2016 15:16 (nine years ago)

ten months pass...

just heard about this, listening now. Apparently, some of the old Jellyfish dudes are on this, which is a great match

― Dominique, Monday, 30 January 2017 22:36 (eight years ago)

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