Thursday, February 21, 2008

Listen Party!!!

Thursday Listen Party!!!

Blues Magoos'

Electric Comic Book


An electrical storm… Made in, brought to you in Do it yourself lightning… Transistorized come-as-you-are minds in the hot-head history of Current Events: the shotgun marriage of Pop Art and Looney Tunes. The Underground cottage of plastic defenses, the clinging hysteria in BLUE MAGOO heaven… Tomorrow’s conversation trying to be heard Now! Ray Fox, a man whom I have no real knowledge of wrote those words and threw em’ on the back of the LP Electric Comic Book by Blues Magoos. His words really do sum up the ten songs plus intermission and That’s all Folks! that was printed on vinyl oh so many years ago. At first listen you try to get your ears through the mess of noise the Blues jammed into each song, but you get that tingle you get when you know you found yourself a special record. The first track Pipe Dream is a whimsical few minutes of storybook psychadelica, but has the slight twinge of fuzz and dirty blues that differentiates it from your run of the mill yellow submarine song. There’s a Chance We Can Make It follows up with the same twinge that makes you wonder if you really like this album, or you love it. The sense of humor that makes Blues Magoos so wonderful comes out in full force on the song Life is Just a Cher O’Bowlies. I didn’t care for the song at first, but started to like it after another listen. The sing song chorus makes it a memorable field day in your drugged out alter ego. Now the next track on this album still blows my mind. It’s a true garage jam. The only way to get through the song is a drink during and a cigarette “how was that for you?” after. The Blues rock their way through a 6:00 minute version of Gloria that makes you want to scream louder than you did the first time you heard the song. They show their actual talent by ripping through a sonic version of the song that could have easily gone on another six without you caring. It’s a true gem on the album. One of my favorite parts of the album is the intermission. I love it because I love goofy little things like that on albums. It shows the band can actually have fun while creating some jams. In fact the intermission itself is a pretty rocking organ free for all with whoops and hollers from the Blues along with a catchy jingle. Can’t really go wrong with this. Once you finally get up and flip the album, the next track Albert Common is Dead pounds into the ear with considerable force, after the brit invasion beginning you get a pretty rocking mess of knee slapping guitar. It twists and turns around that rocking breakdown until you get an almost out of place abrupt ending. Summer is the Man is a song on the album that starts off pretty nice. No shrieking guitars, a pretty organ dances it’s way up to some equally sing-songy lyrics and vocals. The jam that calms you down, you get up to take a leak when it comes on. I wish it picked up, but every band has their slow jams. Remember how you wanted Summer is the Man to pick up? Well part of you wants Baby, I Want You to do the same when it first starts, but it goes into a pretty rocking title laced chorus that makes you want to put it on your special someone’s mix cd. Or at least the baby you want’s mix cd. It’s even a good song to pump out the windows when you get rejected, I mean, if you ever are. I don’t know how cool you are. Let’s Get Together is a fun bar room grab your buddy or grab somebody romp in and out of blues riffs and dirty vocals. I love it and want to grab a harmonica and sing along, loud and obnoxiously. Right after that comes Take My Love. It starts out with a toe tapping, dance floor, hand clapping organ riff that makes you wish the song started the side off. I dare you not to bob your head and replay this song twice. Double dog even. The rest of the album stomps it’s way until the end; complete with “that’s all folks” and everything. For a sophmore effort, I really think the Blue’s hit it out of the park. There’s a sense of humor I really enjoy about it. It’s a good listen. I wouldn’t bring it out at every party, but I’d recommend listening to it on a Tuesday night.

enjoy. discuss



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