#pete kleinow

[thegroovywitch]

The Flying Burrito Brothers, 1969

[longliverockback]

Frank Zappa Waka / Jawaka 1972 Bizarre ————————————————— Tracks: 1. Big Swifty 2. Your Mouth 3. It Just Might Be a One-Shot Deal 4. Waka / Jawaka —————————————————

Mike Altschul 

Billy Byers

George Duke

Alex Dmochowski

Aynsley Dunbar

Tony Durán

Pete Kleinow

Sal Márquez

Joel Peskin

Don Preston

Ken Shroyer 

Jeff Simmons

Frank Zappa

* Long Live Rock Archive

[mychameleondays]

John Lennon: Mind Games

Music For Pleasure 1A022-58136, 1980

Originally released: 29 October 1973

[joegramoe]

I would give everything I own

[balladofsallyrose]

The Flying Burrito Brothers (1969) photographed by Jim McCrary

[jt1674]

[spilladabalia]

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burrito #1

[oldshowbiz]

Steel Guitarist: Full or Part Time.

[dearyallfrommatt]

“Big Bayou“

Swampwater.

This band was fronted by a Cajun fiddler named Gib Guilbeau, He was a name in the ‘70s West Coast country rock and played with all the names. Swampwater formed in 1969 to back Linda Ronstadt whose backing band, the Stone Ponys, had split up. This is a pretty good indication of their overall sound, Cajun-flavored country rock, and it’s worth a listen. Guilbeau also played with a reborn Flying Burrito Brothers, The band had broken up in ‘73 but after Gram Parsons's death, their manager pulled together a new band with Chris Ethridge and “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow. All I’m going to say about that is I hope everyone got paid.

[thefugitivesaint]

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983) A film that was almost instantly forgotten when it was released just days before ‘Return of the Jedi’ hit theaters. It was the one of the last movies to use 3D as a marketing gimmick to get audiences into seats. I was 9 years old when I saw it and I loved it. Adult me? *shrugs shoulders* It’s ok.  The stills I took (from a digitized VHS copy) where meant to give you a flavor of what the movie is like. The plot is as bare bones at a plot can get and the world building is severely undercooked. It all goes something like this: a luxury space ship suffers from some catastrophic space event that forces passengers to abandon ship. Three of those passengers land on Terra XI, a planet that was devastated by some kind of virulent plague and has become a kind of post-apocalyptic hellscape. Bounty hunter/mercenary Wolff (Peter Strauss) receives a “broadcast” about the stranded passengers and sets out to retrieve them and collect the reward of “3,000 Mega Credits.” Soon after arriving on Terra XI, while trying to rescue the three passengers, they are abducted by agents working for the local tyrant Overdog (Michael Ironside). Wolff decides to head off to free the women from Overdog and, along the way, runs into Niki (Molly Ringwald) and Wolff’s former colleague Washington (Ernie Hudson).  The story is a loose narrative of episodic action sequences involving strange creatures and weird people that are given almost no clarification as to who they are or why they do what they do. It is briefly mentioned that Overdog was once a scientist named McNabb who was sent to Terra XI to combat the plague (with two other scientists) but no explanation is given as to why they became tyrants or why they started experimenting on the Terra XI’s population. I guess that’s all the narrative the creators thought was necessary (this movie did come out in the wake of ‘Mad Max II: The Road Warrior’ and that movie is almost purely action with hardly a plot to drive it so..) This was Molly Ringwald’s second film and the score was composed by Elmer Bernstein (who also composed the music for ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘The Magnificent Seven’ to name two). The 3D-effects are as clunky as one might suspect. The overall effects (some of the miniature work is by legendary ‘Terminator’ animator Pete Kleinow) and production design (which is doing most of the heavy lifting here) are a mixed bag of competent execution and outright jankiness. Overall, it’s one of those modestly budgeted science fiction films from the 80s that didn’t hit it big, barely raked in a profit, and quickly faded into obscurity. It’s worth one watch if you’ve never seen it.  And, should you have any desire to put this movie into your brain, you can do so here (this might be a better quality copy than my digital VHS transfer). Oh, what folk have gabbed about the movie over at letterboxd. 

[1264doghouse]

The Flying Burrito Brothers: Jon Corneal, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Chris Hillman, Juanita Hyde, Gram Parsons & Chris Ethridge

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Altamont Speedway, Tracy, California, December 6, 1969

Something very special to wrap up the first work week of 2023 — a rare soundboard recording of the Flying Burrito Brothers at Altamont! Thanks to the anonymous donor who passed this along to me. The Burritos were only allotted a half-hour onstage on this fateful day, sandwiched between the Jefferson Airplane and CSNY, but they make the most of it. The hottest Burritos? Maybe! After a quick intro from the familiar rasp of Sam Cutler, Gram Parsons, Chris Hillman, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Bernie Leadon and Michael Clarke take flight over the Speedway.

"It was the ultimate nightmare," Hillman fondly remembered many years later. "It was the other end of the scale of what happened at Woodstock and at Monterey Pop—the dark side of the experience. There wasn’t anything redeeming about it, and it should never have happened. I was scared to death the whole time I was there. It was a wet, gray morning, and I’ll never forget thinking, ‘This feels like a weird day.' We got into a car accident on the way over. Then we had to park a mile away from the stage and carry our instruments through the crowd, which was scary. When we finally got backstage it was total chaos. No order at all. You’d always hear hectic talk backstage at any big show or festival, but this was nonstop horror stories."

And yet ... what this recording suggests is that for about 30 minutes there ... Altamont was a gas gas gas! There's definitely a go-for-broke energy here that is a bit lacking in other Gram Parsons-era live recordings from the band. Maybe it was the sports bra (?) that Gram was sporting for the gig. (If you want a closer look, this footage showed up in the Library of Congress a little while back.) This upload is a limited time thing — get it while you can!

[mywifeleftme]

224: Hedge & Donna Capers // Special Circumstances

Special Circumstances Hedge & Donna Capers 1970, Capitol

I recently found this record on the street in Portland, Maine and I have to admit to rescuing it purely because I’d never seen a mixed-race ‘60s folk duo before. Special Circumstances is a lot better than I’d expected from a discarded folk-pop record—one mafia-related disappearance or Glenn Frey connection away from a Light in the Attic reissue, say. (We do get Bernie Leadon playing a bit of dobro, which is in the vicinity.) The husband-and-wife duo of Keene Hedges Capers and Donna Capers (née Carson) harmonize as smoothly as you could wish, and the instrumental credits are littered with session studs, including Flying Burrito Brother and pedal steel legend Sneaky Pete Kleinow and Carole Kaye on bass. Janis Ian also drops in to lend piano to Hedge & Donna’s rendition of her treacly number “He’s a Rainbow.”

The pop-leaning tunes (like “Rainbow” and “Sunshine”) aren’t the best use of anyone’s talents but they’re not especially grating,  and the album’s late pivot to gospel is more pleasant than enervating, but Special Circumstances punches its ticket with a run of sublime ballads on the a-side. Most of these songs are Capers originals, but their quality is really a testament to the pros who can make even pedestrian songwriting sound like the relieving warmth that radiates from a good stretch. On “Becoming” the players cup Hedge and Donna’s close harmonies and spiritual sweet nothings like a flower holding a pair of drowsing field mice. The soul jazz-tinted medley that follows (“Higher Country / Uhuru / Adunde”) is more ambitious, Donna’s lead vocal landing somewhere between Sandy Denny and Miriam Makeba as the mystical, minor key “Higher Country” dissolves into a series of African chants. The lazy stream from the title track to “Strawberry Malt” features some of the prettiest country-folk backing you’ll hear on any record from 1970. I’d happily stick these four songs up against nearly anything I’ve heard from the recent glut of b- and c-tier folk reissues.

Overall, Special Circumstances gets a pass from me for its becoming lack of overt commercial ambitions, and the easy craftsmanship nearly every part of it displays. It’s not perfect, but to my surprise it’s managed to grab my ear despite coming home amid a pile of records I actually paid for, even if I’ll probably seldom play the second side again.

224/365

[mychameleondays]

The Lemonheads: Come On Feel The Lemonheads

Atlantic 7567-82537-1

Released: October 12, 1993

[joegramoe]

The Fabulous Flying Burrito Brothers by McCrary

[balladofsallyrose]

THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS (1969) playing poker in Laurel Canyon