Headband, "The Laws Must Change" (1971) - EDIT

Okay well I guess I missed NZ Music Month 2011 (AKA "May") by about a hundred and thirty years, but I've had this one waiting in the wings for a while so I figured I better just fire it out there before New Zealand itself finally succumbs to entropy.

Headband were an Auckland-based group that basically started out as a John Mayall tribute band playing in a club down on Durham Lane where I think there is a noodle house now. Like many bands in the '70s, on their first album they found themselves trying to spread twenty minutes worth of songs over forty minutes worth of plastic. To their credit, rather than throwing a perfunctory ten minute drum solo into their least favourite song, they went back to their roots and jammed out a cover of John Mayall's ode to politely-achieved marijuana reform: "The Laws Must Change"

As a live recording, this has a lot more slap to it than everything else on the album and is considerably more energetic than the original (albeit sloppier I'll confess). I've edited out eleven minutes of soloing to get it down to just the "song part" and Dick Hopp's incredible flute solo. Enjoy.



Headband - The Laws Must Change (edit) by doggziller

Song Chang Sik, S/T (1976)

I'm always wide open to foreign-language LPs, possibly because the capability to understand the lyrics of most songs often reveals how silly they are. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a couple of heaters on this suspiciously weepy looking album from South Korea.

The "sad clown" outfit was nearly a deal-breaker.

Production and mixing is a bit ropey but the bass at least sounds thick and that first moment after the "Slow Jam" intro when your boy's voice floats in is just haunting. Some nice progressive elements pop out of left field on these tunes also with unexpected synthesizer chirps, fuzz guitar and flute soloing all thrown into the mix.

Song Chang Sik by doggziller

I have no idea what the real names of these tracks are I'm afraid nor any clue to the content, but given that South Korea was under military rule at this time I like to imagine these songs circumspectly criticise the regime  through allegorical ballads about the shy, pretty girl-next-door being curb-stomped by riot police.

The Zodiac, "Cosmic Sounds" (1967)

From the 1970s through to the mid '80s, Zodiac signs were mainly referenced in music in order to help you decide whether you were sexually compatible with the featured musicians.  For a time it was rife, but ultimately the death knell rang for astrology in 1986 when Prince announced that he didn't care about it.  These days, astrology is half-remembered only as an antique barbarism, alongside such questionable practices as horse-riding, phrenology, and suicide by asp.

This album, conversely, dates from the glory days of hippiedom and celebrates the Zodiac purely for its own sake. It consists of 12 tracks dedicated to each star sign, each with overblown poetry spookily intoned over a psychedelic arrangement. Each of the poems is careful to reference a significant planet, number, colour and gemstone for the sign in question, e.g. 

nine times the colour red explodes like heated blood
the battle is on!
Mars, the master matchmaker, sulphurizes the sky
incendiary diamonds scorch the earth 

Probably a bit embarassing in hindsight, and not much help in picking your lottery numbers either. But the creative and varied arrangements do stand up well, being performed by talented sessioners and featuring excellent use of the Moog synthesizer (which in 1967 was about the size of a two or three large wardrobes). I have linked to my two favorite tracks from the album below, and as a monument to my immaturity, I include as a bonus "Aquarius, the Lover of Life" since it includes the passage:

in the friendly opal light of Uranus,
all men can blend
yet still be what they are 

(stifled giggles)

The Zodiac - Aries, the Firefighter
The Zodiac - Taurus, the Voluptuary
The Zodaic - Aquarius, the Lover of Life

I expect full compliance with the instructions on the back of the sleeve - "MUST BE PLAYED IN THE DARK"

Sandie Shaw "Reviewing the Situation" (1969)

Sandie Shaw was pretty famous in the mid-60s for recording songs that your Auntie likes such as "Always Something There To Remind Me" - and in fact she even performed the barely excusable feat of winning Eurovision in 1967 with this oompah joint that presumably won over the German judges in the first four seconds.

(To clarify, I have a fairly watertight theory about Eurovision: EVERYTHING THAT HAS EVER WON IS SHIT)

Sandie first showed signs of a lurch towards grooviness in 1968 when she appeared on the cover "The Sandie Shaw Supplement" in what appears to be a crocheted bikini. Since, as we all know, the UK has no beaches, the photo was apparently taken at low-tide on a salt marsh in Dartmouth, probably at sub-zero temperatures. The album also included a pretty worthy stab at "Route 66", a whiff of the good things to follow.

She looks like she should be holding a barbarian's leg.

In 1969, at the age of only 22, she released the self-produced "Reviewing the Situation", an LP of superbly arranged covers of significant artists of the day, covering ground as diverse as The Beatles, Dr. John, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, and Rufus Thomas. Yet bizzarrely enough the storming title track is actually one of Fagin's songs from "Oliver!"

I include three selections here - unlike some of the stuff I've posted so far, this album is available commercially via iTunes and maybe elsewhere, so hit that mess up for more songs at better quality if you're feeling it.

Sandie Shaw - Reviewing the Situation
Sandie Shaw - Love Me Do
Sandie Shaw - Coconut Grove

(I'll be screaming "PROMO USE ONLY" even as they drag me off to jail, you'll see)