Tag Archives: 1972

678. the slider

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“It seems that Motron and I are still arguing T-Rex . Electric Warrior (me) versus The Slider (him). And he’s not exactly losing with the title track, which, as with pretty much all T-Rexian gems, doesn’t make much sense lyrically until you decide it’s like those warnings you used to get on porn-films: completely concerned with sex. In other words, it was miles over my head when it was new. And so was I for that matter, glam being a strange and necessary thing to find lurking in the pubertal suburbs of the early 70s.” (Philip Random)

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701. wheels of confusion

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“The official Black Sabbath history lesson regarding Vol.4 seems to go something like this: after three albums inventing and defining what would eventually come to be the core of heavy metal, it was time for the band to expand their sound, roll with the progressive changes of the moment, get even bigger. But for me, thirteen when Vol.4 hit, catching random pieces on late night radio, it was just this deeply heavy stuff that seemed to capture everything that was weird and wrong with the world, but also kind of cool. Wheels of Confusion indeed, crushing anything that got in their way.” (Philip Random)

702. Buick MacKane

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“We were arguing recently. Motron and myself. What’s the essential T-Rex album? I was on the side of 1971’s Electric Warrior. He wasn’t budging from the next one, 1972’s Slider. My argument was simple enough. NOTHING could ever top Bang A Gong, heard by these ears a million times and they’re still not tired. He countered with Buick MacKane. ‘Heavy and wild, and a girl named Buick!?!  Did her parents call her that? Or was it a nick-name? And if so, where did it come from? I don’t want to know the real answer. The song is answer enough.’ We stopped arguing, drank more Scotch.” (Philip Random)

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769. in a broken dream

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“The band is called Python Lee Jackson, but yes that is Rod Stewart singing lead. Who knows what the story is? I’m guessing it was a session Mr. Stewart did back before he was uber-famous. And it just sat on a shelf until he was suddenly too big to ignore, and cool. That’s the hard part. To realize that Rod Stewart was once genuinely cool, hard drinking, hard rocking, always smiling, incapable of contributing to the cause of bad music.  But then something horrible happened.” (Philip Random)

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778. frozen smiles

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The truly astonishing thing is just how many albums Crosby Stills Nash (and sometimes Young) released between 1969 and the end of the 1970s. And bland and self-indulgent and cocaine beleaguered and ultimately forgettable as way too many of them were (particularly when Neil Young was nowhere to be seen), there was usually at least one nugget where the harmonies would hook up, the melody would soar, you couldn’t help but smile. In the case of 1972’s imaginatively titled Graham Nash and David Crosby, that would’ve been Frozen Smiles.

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812. as the moon speaks

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“True, the cover of Captain Beyond‘s self-titled first (and most necessary) album is at least a little silly (featuring as it does some mystical rock GOD entity standing on asteroid out in space), but everything else is pretty much rock solid, with an emphasis on the rawk (which makes sense given the Iron Butterfly and Deep Purple blood deep in the band’s veins) even as the songs have the audacity to shift tempo and time signature, and lyrically wax poetic upon the speaking of the moon. You really must listen when the moon speaks. What was it about 1972?” (Philip Random)