love

...released towards the end of '69 as the long strange decade collapsed through sheer weight of the madness that had been leaking hither and thither, this wax sees arthurly looking back slightly while the main sight is on the coming years...a more hard rocking approach pervades as a new band is working its way into a cohesive unit, with some light touches to vary the mood...it caused a lot of cats to give up with digging this combo as it was seen as selling out but the only reality of the situation was just love/arthur changing with the times, afterall what was the last biscuit called...also with this new group of cats gathered, arthur thought it might actually be time to venture forth from the city of angels and take the sound outernational, this disk was the passport arthur needed to travel on, to go to europe to receive his just deserts...the last 3 tracks are early versions laid down in summer '68...a tip top slice from a great artist...

...the way to approach this wax and indeed foursail is to divorce earlier arthur disks from them completely, they cannot be allowed to cloud any judgement otherwise proper appraisal is tempered somewhat by times and circumstances that no longer existed in 1970, such had the times moved, way different ideas and social disciplines had come into play, both in the recording studio and on the streets...arthurly being no stranger to styles and experimentation went full on with this double wax and threw a whole slew of grooves into the pot and cooked and simmered until a funky banquet was fit for consumption...hard rock/country rock/goodtime hokey were only the tip of the rainbowed iceberg...jimi style acidrock blast/CSN harmonies vie for attention with social commentary lyrics that now are not so hazed up in poetics, the meaning' is clear for all who listen and think their own thoughts...cats with aversion to late '60s drum solos may wish for stimulants during track 8 which lasts for over 5 years but to keep things in order and the universal yinyang flowing in peaceful serenity track 10 comes on with fx-pedal-string-bending-monster-fuzz-out...some folky sounds like '64/5 dylan crop up at the end which is kind of strange given this late date(maybe easy rider influence creeping in) and theres some nice cali-sunshine pop (track13) happening (dino desi &billy?) but ends in free hippy invocations as if the drugs had just kicked in... to be fair to arthurs art and continuity some vibes/rhythm/lyric patterns from forever changes do crop up but theres a looseness that wasn't present on that LP...this is so much better than the self appointed rock critics on rolling stone/fusion would have the college student/hippy beleive, they had it down as arthur had to prove himself all over again, much more than lesser talents would have to...over in euroland the new love were received as some kind of west coast conquering acid heads who virtually could do no wrong, but theres always been a refuge for free thinking artisans on that part of the globe where amerikkkanism was slowly losing power and influence...this remaster sounds real good and shows the combo off to good effect...

...early 70s and this version of love are still doing time at blue thumb recs. and this wax was slightly treading water in the fact thats its a kind of short on the running time(30mins) and some live tracks mix in plus theres some funky speedfreak edits in a couple of places...the most famous thing about false start is the fact jimi was in the studio and knocked off a couple of licks for fun but the whole LP is a way cool groove, its more groove based than normal '70s hard rock which after the acid jamming gimmicks had worn off a lot of combos got into a thuddy/sluggish kind of rock which just went nowhere, it was lost before it started, and of course it became popular with the great unwashed for most of that decade...theres some great hope from arthur on this wax with it all ending 'riding that vibration', right-on realistic lyrics like a more out there curtis mayfield...unfortunately this would be the start of the end of a realistic future for arthur as the music business and society conspired to keep him from speaking the truth to the wage slaves who keep the machine ever grinding on...

...now this is nice late night album if there ever was one, bluesy acoustic strum and warble from arthur and some hard rocking acid ballads with full love coming on a treat at the midnight hour, the witching hour has always been a time when arthurs groove seems right, even that old warhorse 'forever changes' always hung nice and loose when heard in the small hours...these tracks supposedly were recorded during a short tenure at columbia records and that episode was certainly kept from love maniacs, who knew arthur and co. were working at the home of bob zimmerman and ray conniff for a few months?, not too many is a safe wager (columbia obviously got cold feet when arthur most likely had to tell them what time it was when they undoubtedly tried to cross him on some part of the deal, arthur not being a cat that had much time for squares trying to mess with him)...anyone hip to arthur around the turn of the seventies will know what to expect, the hard/mellow vibe he was laying down, hitting the funk button whilst giving out with some screeching acid rock blare, then turning around with some folky rock strum and socio-political wordage (scaring the straights was easy for arthur back in the day, and later unfortunately too easy) all rolling along at a steady pace kept in check with some potent marijuana strain...the tracks laid down by this love show that any long playing record album would certainly be up to the standards of the last elektra/blue thumb disks (coolest of wax) and that would have been a good thing indeed as arthur was surely onto a nice 'original' post hendrix hard acid sound that would have been more than welcome during the mid seventies when rock in general was undergoing a bad case of the blahs!...the acoustic numbers show arthur could more than still hold his own in the lyrics department, outstriping pretty much everyone when he put his mind to writing properly and this is one reason he didn't get approached by asylum records as he would have rode jackson brown and tom waits out of town from the get go...for a basically no more than exploitation we have some really decent sounding material and it would be extra groovy if some of the boots from that period could be cleaned up a notch or two (gethsemane sessions would be a good place to start) so we could have some good rocking tonight...

5 comments:

  1. where are the links? especially to Love Lost?

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  2. hello,i cant see the links,sorry ,where are?

    ReplyDelete
  3. run the cursor over the supplied text and the gateway will be revealed...

    ReplyDelete
  4. try the word tracks in the sixth line from the top...

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