After 45 years, Billy Gibbons and the Moving Sidewalks reunited to play a set in New York City on March 30, 2013. You can find several audience videos on YouTube, including this one of their best-known tune, “99th Floor”:
Also check out the reissue of their complete catalog!
ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons and his pre-ZZ Top bandmates from the Moving Sidewalks will reunite for a show on March 30th – the first time the original quartet has played live in 45 years! Performing as part of the Cavestomp garage rock festacular, the Moving Sidewalks will play B.B. King’s Blues Club & Grill in New York City. Advanced tickets are already on sale. Also check out the recently released complete anthology of the Moving Sidewalks’ recordings.
The Moving Sidewalks’ Facebook Page
Reissued two-disc anthology of San Francisco legends
Legacy’s two-disc Essential collection is actually a re-branded reissue of the 1998 Hits release, reiterating the same 35-track lineup and including Ben Fong-Torres original liner notes. If you pop these discs in your computer’s CD drive, you’re even likely to have the cover image of Hits pulled up by your media player. The set remains a good overview of “the band that transformed with the times,” from Jefferson Airplane’s scene-leading San Francisco Sound recordings of the mid-to-late ‘60s, through Jefferson Starship’s inheritance and evolution, and the Kantner-less Starship’s full-face turn to radio-friendly pop. The musical, social and commercial distance traveled from the Airplane’s earthy psychedelic jams to the Starship’s synth-laden ballads is itself a monument to adaptability.
The seventeen Airplane selections cover all seven of the band’s first run albums (nothing from their 1989 self-titled reunion is included), along with the single-only “Have You Seen the Saucers.” A few of their lower charting singles are absent, but other than “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit,” the Airplane was never a Top 40 success, and so the additional album tracks are more telling. Missing are tracks with early Airplane vocalist Signe Anderson singing lead, and even more noticeable is the lack of live material. Performance was an essential element of the San Francisco scene, and no telling of the Airplane’s story is truly complete without the stage interplay of vocalists and instrumentalists. Follow-on purchases of 30 Seconds Over Winterland, Bless Its Pointed Little Head or the more recent 6-CD anthology of vintage tapes can fill that gap.
Though the Jefferson Starship name was employed for Kantner’s 1970 sci-fi concept album, Blows Against the Empire, a steady band wasn’t formed until four years later for 1974’s Dragon Fly. This set skips the former album and picks up with two songs (“Caroline” and “Ride the Tiger”) from the latter. Though Dragon Fly went gold (and hit #11 on the album chart), it was the group’s next release, Red Octopus, that marked their real commercial breakthrough. Topping the album chart, the album spun off the Top 5 single “Miracles” and introduced a band who would have a ten year run in the Top 40. Most of Jefferson Starship’s biggest hits are included here, missing only their Top 20 “Winds of Change.” All eight of the group’s first run studio albums are sampled here; their two reunion releases (1998’s Windows of Heaven and 2008’s Jefferson’s Tree of Liberty) are skipped.
The group transformed yet again in 1984, into Starship, and found even greater success on the singles chart with three #1s: “We Built This City,” “Sara” and the Albert Hammond & Diane Warren-penned theme to the film Mannequin, “Nothing’s Going to Stop Us Now.” Starship landed two more in the Top 10, the latter of which, 1989’s “It’s Not Enough,” closes this set. Two more minor chart entries and a greatest hits album were released before the band morphed into a touring unit for vocalist Mickey Thomas. The six Starship tracks here cover all three of the band’s original albums, but omit a handful of lesser charting singles. This thirty-three track anthology provides a compelling picture of a San Francisco underground legend’s metamorphosis into a 1980s commercial juggernaut. [©2013 Hyperbolium] 
Deluxe reissue of infamous 1960s Texas psych-blues
The Moving Sidewalks first came to wide attention outside of Texas with the inclusion of their incendiary 1967 single “99th Floor” on the second volume of the garage rock anthology, Pebbles. Tantalized by a liner note reference to “Bill” Gibbons and ZZ Top, fans tracked down the group’s album, Flash, and found – no doubt disappointingly to some – that the bulk of the band’s oeuvre favored heavy psychedelic blues-rock, rather than the organ, guitar and harmonica punk of “99th Floor.” Though part of the Texas scene, the Sidewalks leaned more to the electric blues of Jimi Hendrix (to which “Pluto – Sept 31st” clearly tips its cap) and Savoy Brown, than to the punk rock or Mouse and the Traps or the psychedelia of the 13th Floor Elevators.
The album’s been reissued before [1 2], including a few of the bonus tracks heard on this set’s second disc. What sets this reissue apart, aside from the crisp audio (mono on 1, 3 and 5 of Flash) and the involvement of Billy Gibbons, are non-LP singles, demos and alternate takes that provide the bridge from “99th Floor” to Flash. The three singles include “99th Floor” (also heard twice more in earlier form by the Moving Sidewalks’ predecessor, The Coachmen) and its B-side “What Are You Going To Do.” The band continued to flirt with garage even as it turned more heavily to the blues with the guitar-and-organ instrumental “Headin’ Out,” and their single for Wand (the bluesy “Need Me”) features the punkier “Every Night a New Surprise” on the flip. Their last single, a cover of the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” is either magnificent or Spinal Tapian, depending on your perspective.
The earlier tracks from the Coachmen (featuring future Moving Sidewalks Gibbons, drummer Dan Mitchell and organist Kelly Parker) include two earlier takes of “99th Floor” and three (including one instrumental backing) of the otherwise unrecorded “Stay Away.” The strummed guitar of the early “99th Floor” take gives it a hint of folk-revival, though the harmonica solo still has the sting of the garage. “Stay Away” is a tidy rocker with a surf influence, particularly in Gibbons’ tasty guitar breaks. The set’s packaging is top-notch, with mini-LP sleeves, disc graphics that reproduce the Tantara and Wand labels, and a thick 52-page booklet that’s stuffed with photos ephemera and liner notes. It’s all housed in a heavy cardboard box fronted by a period photo, wrapping a colorful bow around a real gift to fans of the Moving Sidewalks and Billy Gibbons. [©2012 Hyperbolium]
Mono mixes of the Electric Prunes’ singles 1966-69
For those who weren’t there in ’66 and ’67, the oldies radio shorthand for the Electric Prunes has been their one big hit, “I Had to Much to Dream (Last Night),” as anthologized (as the lead off track, no less) on Lenny Kaye’s legendary Nuggets compilation. The few strokes of shading inclues their chart follow-up, “Get Me to the World on Time,” and an oft-anthologized ad for Vox Wah-Wah pedals. It’s an abbreviation that shortchanges the band’s recorded legacy. Reissues of their albums along with single- and double-disc compilations (including Birdman’s Lost Dreams and Rhino’s Too Much to Dream) expanded the group’s posthumous reputation, and are now joined by this collection of twenty-four mono single mixes. As a group whose tenure spanned across AM Top 40 and the birth of underground FM radio, their singles are just as interesting as the stereo album tracks.
Like several other groups of their era, including the Chocolate Watchband and Grass Roots, the Electric Prunes name was applied to several wholly different aggregations of musicians. The original lineup shifted subtly through the group’s first two albums (I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) and Underground), but with their third, the David Axelrod-produced orchestral Mass in F Major, the original band essentially broke up. The album was completed with studio musicians, and its follow-up, Release of an Oath, was produced similarly by Axelrod. The final album released under the Electric Prunes name, Just Good Old Rock and Roll, was recorded by a newly recruited group of musicians, wholly unrelated to the original lineup.
The singles gathered here span all three eras of the Electric Prunes – variations of the original lineup on the first two albums (1-12, 15 and 24), the Axelrod years (13-17), and the “new and improved” lineup (18-23). Original members James Lowe and Mark Tulin appeared on two of Axelrod’s productions (“Sanctus” and “Credo”), but the compositions and productions are so far divorced from the group’s earlier garage psych as to be nearly unidentifiable as the same band. The new lineup held on to only hints of the original group’s roots, bringing hard rock, boogie, funk and soul sounds to the Electric Prunes name.
As latter-day prune Richard Whetstone notes, the group’s identity remains anchored to the garage psych of their hit single and first two albums; the follow-on material remains more curious footnotes than integral parts of the legend. The collection’s rarest find, the one-sided single “Shadows” (from the film The Name of the Game is Kill) turned up on Rhino’s earlier compilation (along with mono mixes of the band’s early A-sides), but here proves itself the last gasp of the original Electric Prunes sound. Getting the group’s entire legacy of mono singles (including the bleeped-for-airplay version of “You’ve Never Had it Better”) is a great find for collectors, but those new to the group’s catalog should start with the first two albums. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]
The embryonic Radio Moscow
Recorded in Parker Griggs’ basement in 2003, these twelve tracks prove to be parts that would be more smoothly assembled on the band’s official 2007 debut. The ‘60s punk vocals, blues riffs, fuzz guitars and psychedelic overlays are all here, but they feel disjointed – like ingredients that have yet to jell into a final dish. On the other hand, the ferocious first press of a musician’s discovery is something special, and even the lack of longer jams (nothing over 3’30) or actual band interplay (Griggs plays everything here, though quite convincingly) can’t take away from the burst of energy that is the raw capture of a small town punk-rock teenager’s world. This was released in very limited and local quantities in 2004, and finds its first national distribution with this reissue. Fans will enjoy this peek at the group’s embryonic start, but those looking for the heart of their catalog are recommended to Brain Cycles and later releases. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]
Organ trio riffs on ‘60s and ‘70s Italian soundtracks
Given the obscurity of the titles, all but the most devoted Italian cineastes will have to take this trio’s word that these organ-jazz arrangements are based on movie soundtracks. Their best-known inspirations, Ennio Morricone and Piero Umiliani, are augmented by Gianni Ferrio, Piero Piccioni, Luis Bacalov and others. The selections mix breezy sounds of mid-60s la dolce vita with a good measure of early-70s exploitation cinema. Vince Abbracciante’s Hammond, Farfisa and Rhodes range from jazz cool to psych-soul heat, and the rhythm section plays with sharp, percussive force. Wordless vocals add an Esquivelian touch to several tracks, and guest players add flute, sax, flugelhorn, guitar and a duet vocal on Armando Trovajoli’s “L’amore Dice Ciao.” This is a nice spin for Italian cinephiles and lovers of hot organ jazz and cool easy listening. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]
‘70s-styled power-trio monster riffage
Parker Griggs and his band take it to the next level of power-trio psychedelic blues-rock with their third album. Griggs is possessed by the metal, blues-rock, boogie and prog-rock greats of the early ‘70s as he unleashes monster guitar riffage astride the slugfest of his rhythm section. One can only dream that Radio Moscow could be sent back in time to tread the stage of Winterland on a bill with Hendrix, Sabbath, Crimson, Ten Years After or Humble Pie. The album opens in full hypersonic stride, with the bass and drums threatening to run away from the ear-clearing wails of Parker’s fuzzed guitar, and the bombast doesn’t let up until disc’s end. There are a few production touches – stereo pans, phase effects and feedback – but the bulk of the album is straightforward, take-no-prisoners hard rock. Drop the needle on your Thorens turntable, turn up the volume on your Marantz receiver and let your Advent loudspeakers sing. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]
A bewitching album of rock, soul, glam, psych and more
Brian Olive’s second album continues to showcase the multi-instrumentalist’s musical breadth. Singing, writing and playing piano, guitar, and woodwinds, his music is based in rock and soul, but stretches out with superb touches of psych, glam, jazz, blues, R&B, exotica and even a hint of the musical stage. As on his debut release, Olive interweaves his influences, evoking an Eastern feel with a guitar and tone generator solo on the funky “Left Side Rocking,” layering brooding woodwinds on the thick drum backing of “Traveling,” threading his flute into the deep bass soul of “Go on Easy,” and evoking Detroit-era Motown with the title track’s melody. The instrumental reprise of “Two of Everything” sounds like something from Edgar Winter’s glam period, and the tone generator on “Strange Attractor” hangs niftily between the backwards riff of the Beatles’ “Baby You’re a Rich Man” and a bagpipe. The lyrics are poetic and image-heavy, but rather than trying to decipher the sentences, listeners will groove on the ease with which the words express the melodies; more extemporaneous thought than composed character and story. Recorded in Cincinnati and Nashville, and co-produced by the Black Key’s Dan Auerbach, this is an album you don’t just listen to, you feel it. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]
Driving Detroit rock spiked with punk and psych
Detroit may have taken a body blow from the recession, but it only seems to have intensified the city’s music. This Motor City quartet has the aggressiveness of a ‘70s punk band weaned on the Stooges, Amboy Dukes and MC5 and the range of a band that’s listened through the transitions from garage to psychedelia and punk to post-punk. Things fall apart, Velvet Underground-style, on “Ideas to Use,” but snap back together for the driving bass-guitar-drums riff of “Safe Effect.” Touches of organ and a low-key lead on “River Perspective” down shift momentarily, as does the experimental “Poems,” but it’s the mid-tempo, hard-strummed numbers that will move you and make you move. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]
