V05-T05 Scumbag

.....This track has two giants and I'm not going to shed much light on them that you couldn't find from a hundred other sources, so I'll just give the posting then go right into my old liner notes.

Volume 5: DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL (YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT'S BEEN), track 5

• 06:00 "SCUMBAG" (John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Frank Zappa)
• performed by John & Yoko and The Plastic Ono Band with Frank Zappa and The Mothers
• original source: 2LP SOMETIME IN NEW YORK CITY Apple/Capitol SVBB3392 (US) 06/12/72
• and my source: 2CD SOMETIME IN NEW YORK CITY Capitol/EMI 07777 93850 2 7 (US) 05/90
• NOTE: the disc surfaces on the CD's have the same catalogue numbers as the 1987 CD release, CDP 7 46782 2 and CDP 7 46783 2

.....From 1994: "Speaking of not getting on the radio...

....."Lennon and Zappa used to be college radio staples and mainstream pariahs. Lennon became some kind of weird martyr to people after his murder, but the hypocrites never bought his records while he was alive. Ringo was the Beatle with the most solo hits until about 1974, when Wings took off. John's records hardly sold at all. And how often do you hear "POWER TO THE PEOPLE" or "TIGHT A$$" on 'classic rock' stations, as opposed to "INSTANT KARMA" and "IMAGINE"? Hell, when was the last time any Frank Zappa was played on those stations? Rhetorical questions, I know.

....."Think of it as the first safe sex anthem (a scumbag, after all, is literally a condom). And sing along. It's easy-- there's only two words."

.....The only thing I could add to that would be the full credits. Although the first LP of the set was mostly recorded with Elephant's Memory, the second LP was mostly recorded live at Fillmore East in New York on June 6th, 1971 with The Mothers (and not, as the packaging says, The Mothers Of Invention, which was Zappa's band in the sixties). Other recordings from that night and the previous one formed The Mothers' album LP FILLMORE EAST-- JUNE 1971, which had been released the previous fall. The tracks on the Lennon/Ono set have the same personnel plus John on guitar and vocals, Yoko on vocals and studio overdubs of Klaus Voorman on bass. The Mothers personnel were:

• Frank Zappa on guitar and vocals
• Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan on vocals (these are the former Turtles I mentioned in the post for "SKEET SURFING"; after this they worked with T. Rex and formed Flo and Eddie)
• Ian Underwood on woodwinds and keyboard, plus vocals (a longtime Zappa collaborator)
• Aynsley Dunbar on drums (who's kind of the Forrest Gump of rock drummers)
• Jim Pons on bass and vocals (another ex-Turtle)
• Bob Harris on 2nd keyboard and vocals (a Turtles associate)
• Don Preston on mini moog (a prolific session player)

.....The manic nature of this track demanded that it be followed by a change of pace (literally), a palate cleanser. I'll be back in a few days.

V05-T04b Radio One Theme

.....

.....At the time that The Who released LP THE WHO SELL OUT Jimi Hendrix was recording a jingle of his own.

Volume 5: DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL (YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT'S BEEN), track 4b

• 01:19 "RADIO ONE THEME" (Jimi Hendrix)
• performed by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
• original source: BBC radio broadcast, "Top Gear", December 24th, 1967
• and my source: CD RADIO ONE RYKOdisc RCD20078 (Canada) 1988

.....After this cassette was compiled a superior sounding copy was made commercially available on 2CD BBC SESSIONS Experience Hendrix/MCA MCAD 2-11742 (US) 06/02/98.

.....This track was recorded December 15th, 1967, the same day that the stereo copy of LP THE WHO SELL OUT was released. (The mono copy could have been out as early as November 17th in the U.S., the originally scheduled British date; the release was postponed because the anticipated clearances for using the product names were late coming back. The official U.S. release date was the first week of January 1968 but lines of communication overseas then were not what they are today and not every retailer reads every telegram in a timely fashion.) The BBC session was recorded at their Playhouse Theatre on Northumberland Avenue in London, according to the excellent Chrome Oxide website. These sessions were necessary due to a BBC policy strictly limiting airtime use of commercial prerecorded music. The way for musicians to promote themselves (and for producers to retain the attention of the younger post-war public) was to make new recordings of their current material for exclusive use by the BBC. The more creative and adventurous musicians (well, that would certainly include Hendrix) were known to 'go off the farm' a bit and take advantage of the government run network's absence of commercial concerns to record things that they thought were interesting or funny but which they didn't expect would sell as a record. The purpose of Hendrix' appearance must have been to promote his then current album LP AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE, out two weeks earlier. However, out of the five songs recorded only two ("SPANISH CASTLE MAGIC" and "WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW") were from the album. the others were a cover of the Beatles' "DAY TRIPPER", two takes of an original called "HEAR MY TRAIN A'COMING" (which never made it onto his next album; a later recording was badly overdubbed for release years after he died but a more honest mix came out on CD VALLEYS OF NEPTUNE in 2010) and this song.

.....From my 1994 notes: "...one of rock's most persistent experimenters had the power of radio very much on his mind. During Woodstock's anniversary a huge amount of the hyperbole concerning Hendrix was dredged up again. Unlike most performers, Hendrix deserves his or the better part of it, but it still pains me to know that people considered to be journalists are in fact prattling off meaningless abstractions as an excuse for not sitting down and listening to his records. If they had, you would have heard them mention the one obvious thing that I kept listening for and never heard [them say]. In addition to being 'a guitar god' and a 'cultural icon' he was a loving fan of pop music. In interviews he would shamelessly gush over other musicians when he should have been promoting his own latest release. His reworking of other people's material ("ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER", "HEY JOE", "WILD THING", various Cream and Beatles covers, etc.) were so heartfelt, people often mistake them for Hendrix originals. In live performance (at least on most of the video footage I've seen) he made a point of introducing the songs by noting the original artists.

....."By the end of '67, after THE WHO SELL OUT, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND ... and the Monterey Pop Festival, Dylan's long awaited comeback album, JOHN WESLEY HARDING, was released containing "ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER". Hendrix must have been in pop music heaven, even though he had yet to go Top 40 in his own country. Teenagers in the U.S. were growing up fast and took the choice of albums over singles as a signifier of their newly attenuated attention spans (and convenient if you happen to be stoned because you don't have to get up and change an LP as frequently). In the U.K., however, singles still ruled and Jimi wasn't doing too badly either. He knew that the difference was non-formatted radio, oblivious to the never-do-anything-untested mentality that was keeping him off the air and off the charts in the U.S. The reason for raising this point is that at the beginning of this track his introduction degenerates into a barely suppressed giggle that could easily be taken to mean that the song was intended as a joke. (In fact, when these sessions were reissued in this country on RYKOdisc's CD RADIO ONE, I seem to remember a reviewer saying exactly that.) It's possible, but more likely that he meant every word and was giggling from giddiness, exchanging Christmas gifts with a new friend."

.....Tomorrow one guitar legend leads to another. Or two.