Moonscape Hotel is
the first album by Devoured by Flowers.
The 90’s are alive
in this album. Perhaps it’s fitting that this band is from Portland Oregon,
where it is often said that the lifestyle of the 90s still exists.
There were many
ages of music that I enjoy. The 20s, 60s, 70s and 90s are some high periods for
me. So the 90s vibe is a great thing.
Swooning speedy,
dream pop with a lush undercurrent of goth is a thick part of the tapestry of
the tunes on this record.
Dorian Campbell is
the lead vocalist along with playing guitar and other cool duties. I don’t know
much about Campbell’s background or other projects, but he sounds very polished
here. Clearly he has a vision of how he wants to sing, which he pulls off quite
well.
Driving the
instrumentation along is the ever-astounding tune titan, Ashkelon Sain. Friends
of mine have often heard me gush like a river about the incredibly talented Mr.
Sain. Ash was the Lovecraftian musical architect behind Trance to the Sun, one
of my favorite bands that I love to name-drop whenever possible.
Of all the tunes
here in, Faire Creatures and the last track, A Seaside Ballad are the standouts
to my ears. The wonder in Dorian’s voice in Faire Creatures is super earworm
haunting. A Seaside Ballad gets a grand boost with some wonderful female vocals
running along with Dorian’s voice.
The guitar playing
throughout the proceedings is beautifully pristine.
One
of the great joys of music is variety. There are so many wonderful styles of
tunes, why not dive into the buffet?
When
you want old school, kick butt, party on down, stomp your stereo good time rock
and f’ing roll, Alright by the Gypsy Moths is a classic.
Putting
this album on is putting a sweat soaked, dance filled, juke joint, rock and
roll dive bar awesome good time into your stereo.
I
like this record so much I have it as both a CD and vinyl record. Which do I
prefer? Well in this instance it’s very much the vinyl album. While the CD is
great for the car, the grooves of this collection of songs cry out for the
action of a needle driven sound system. Plus there’s a great photo inside the
album with fun pictures of the band boozing it up as they rip up the stage of
every bar they play at!
The
production on the album is smooth enough to not lose its much need rock grit.
All the instruments and vocals are well positioned in the mix with nothing
drowning anything else out. This is no small feet given the rich sound that the
band has going on.
What
more can I say about this awesome slice of classic rock and roll tunes? Well
here’s a personal bit, I have been fortunate enough to follow the musical
career of Chris Conway and Steve O’Brien for many years, and this band is the
best I have ever seen either of them perform in. Great job guys!
Ok this isn’t a
cut from the album, but it will give you a taste of the fabulous tunes waiting
for you if you dive in:
So
what you’ve got here is a write up of a mini vinyl album. Sugar Trip is a
beautifully colored 33⅓mini LP
with two songs on each side.
The
title track starts us with a bouncy toy piano intro that takes us on a
wonderfully bizarre trip of sounds from a dimension of psychedelic splashed
bunnies. There is a sly undercurrent here that reminds me of the tinkle of old
school amusement parks as filtered through a grand wizard of a 90’s DJ.
Mike
Langlie is the amazing dude behind Twink. He performs his crafty music on toys
and electronics. With that simple credit, Twink creates a wall of inner child
fun music.
The
whimsy on display here is so kooky it’s impossible not to dig it. The second
track on side A, “Uh Uh Oh” goes in as many directions as a day glow bouncy
ball. Just when you think you have that song nailed down, it jumps off in some
other charming direction.
Side
B takes off with Fruitbat. A fun flight of fancy. Very beat driven and brief as
a hopping bunny playing synths.
Finally
we have The Return of Doctor Eelsleeves. The title of this song alone is
awesome. It could have easily been the title to a track on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band. This one is a wobbly cacophonic spritely mish mash of a tune
that re-invents itself in seconds. At a little over four minitues this is the
longest track. Twink Prog?
This
download/vinyl album is another grand addition to the amazing collection of
Twink recordings.
There’s
so much to say about this album. Perhaps I should chart it out, or I could just
write endlessly that Driven is one of my all time favorite Rush songs. From the
stunning lyrics to the killer molten jams, to Geddy’s dead on perfect vocal
delivery. This tune is pure Rush.
It’s
my turn to drive.
Neil’s
lyrics on this album take on urban violence, the Internet in its pre-antisocial
media haze, and time.
Some
of the most playful set of lyrics Neil has ever delivered are sung on this
collection of tunes.
This
album is the most recent in the list. I took this whole FB challenge thing to
mean albums that had an impact or influence at a young age. When this album
came out, I felt as young as I do most of the time when I want to do so.
I
could write a much longer piece than this, but I don’t want to make an overlong
blog.
On
the Test for Echo tour I managed to see Rush four times. They were incredible
on that tour, playing better than I had ever seen them before. One of the shows
I went to was in Montreal. The only time I saw them on their Canadian turf. Part
of the official live album from the tour, Different Stages was recorded at the
Not So Great Woods show which some friends and I attended. So yes, I recorded
with Rush. If you call screaming like an idiot recording with, then yes, Rush
and I jammed along with a huge crowd.
The
best thing about all these stories, is that it ties in with a story about the
love of my life. DNA Girl and I attended a cast BBQ, we used to kill people on
stage for money, and stories about our murderous past will be saved for another
time. We talked about how I ran to Montreal to see Rush. She was impressed with
my concert cult level devotion. Trading concert stories brought us closer as
friends.
I’ve
got a pantheon of animals in a pagan soul.
Nail
biting hood boys in borrowed ties and jackets.
Emerson,
Lake, and Powell was what I first thought I knew about Keith Emerson and Greg
Lake. Years later I would learn that I had been hearing those two many years
earlier, but… that’s a story for another time.
My
discovery for this incarnation of ELP was via MTV back in their music video
playing phase. The wall of synths that Keith played mesmerized me. Before then
I never saw such a massive wall of synths. How does he play them all? Does he
play them all? Is he an octopus? I didn’t know. Cozy Powell’s heavy attack on
the drums really got me. The catchy lyrics worked their hook as well.
It
wasn’t long before I bought this cassette.
Later
the CD which I still listen to quite often.
This
album has stuck with me because it was unashamedly prog in the mid 80s. The
first song, the Score goes on for over two minutes before the vocals begin. Who
did that in the 80s? No one I knew of at that point in time.
Yes,
it’s sad to think that all three of these musicians are gone, but like Freddie
Mercury they live on through their fantastic music.
“Hey!
Have you seen the preview for that new movie Highlander? Queen does the
soundtrack!” That might have been how it started. Or maybe it was with
Entertainment tonight discussing Highlander and showing a clip from a video
with Freddie Mercury andChristopher Lambert.
I
was already a bit of a Queen fan, but this album is the first one I bought. I
had it on cassette first then CD. That’s a big part of the reason it makes the
list.
The
album rips and roars. Brian May builds, builds, and builds his guitar sound
until it explodes all over the songs.
One
night my friends and I were driving around aimlessly listening to a tape of the
audio of the Highlander movie that George Barnes had recorded. Not only was the
highlight yelling along with the quotes, but also hearing that music. That
amazing music.
The
night I got a phone call telling me that Freddie Mercury was dead the first
thing I thought of was this album. He was gone. Freddie wasn’t immortal in
flesh, but he is in music.
Long
live the princes of the universe.
Speaking
of the princes of the universe, here they are:
Those
who live in Mass might remember a record store in Cambridge called, Second
Coming (insert your own teenaged depraved variant of the name here, I sure did
back then as I was the right age). Most Saturdays some friends and I would hop
the train to Cambridge so we could record shop. Why did we go there so much
when so many other closer stores were around back in those daze? Two words:
concert bootlegs. Second Coming was a temple for bootlegs both on vinyl and
cassette. They had so many boots that when word would somehow come to the store
that they were due to be raided, the store would have almost nothing left in
it. More than once we were in there to find only maybe a fistful of albums and
tapes were on the shelves. Normally there would be thousands. How did they know
in advance the cops were going to come? Who knows?
So
into this store I walked one Saturday. Flipping through the bins I stumbled
across Hawkwind (they had their own small section). I knew the name of the band
so it wasn’t a stunner. Music writer/critic Jim Sullivan had name-dropped them
in a write up about Motorhead in one of his articles in the Boston Globe. I
knew who Motorhead was and who Lemmy was and that he had once been in Hawkwind.
Hawkwind were also
mentioned in a few episodes of the English comedy show, the Young Ones, which
once also featured Motorhead. What fan of the Young One’s can forget Neal
whining, “Play some Hawkwind or Marillion!” and in the credit sequence Hawkwind
was written on a chalkboard. So yes, I knew the name.
Still
that day, I think my jaw might have dropped. Not because I found a section of
their albums, but because I was staring at an album called The Chronicle of the
Black Sword.
Why
was that a big deal? Well, because I had read the Elric books by Micheal
Moorcock. A wild trippy fantasy series about the weakling, non-human, sorcerer,
Elric and his living, soul eating, black sword, called Stormbringer and here I
was, staring at an album that was devoted to that series.
The
cover was a beautiful macabre painting that outdid all of the Elric book
covers.
So
yes, I bought it without listening to it, or any hesitation at all. As I told
my friends, “I don’t care if the music stinks, at least the cover is great.”
Later
that day when I got home that album was what I put on the turntable. When the
pulsing opening synth barrage hit me in the face I was floored. This album is a
fantasy metal psych attack. My brain wasn’t ready, but it rolled along. After
listening to it once through, I called my friend Paul Armstrong and told him he
had to hear it. I put the album on and held the phone towards it.
Yes
my mind was blown. I will always treasure this album. The Chronicle of the
Black Sword was my stepping-stone into a different world.
If
I hadn’t bought this album, I may never have discovered Aural Innovations the
space rock internet radio show, which led to me writing words for the great
Atlanta band Spaceseed, some of which were performed by Harvey Bainbridge who
played keyboards on The Chronicle of the Black Sword album. Most likely I never
would have wound up recording with the amazing Harts Horn, or recording with
the mighty Tim Mungenast, and even contributing to a birthday song for Michael
Moorcock himself. I certainly never would have gone to Alabama to perform at
Carlo Robet Deshouten’s SpaceRock Con if the Black Sword hadn’t been added to
my collection.
Yeah,
this album changed my life in a profound way.
And
just for the record, the music is still amazing. I could write a lot more about
this album and one day I just might.
