Back in late 1975
two folk scene stalwarts, Michael Hurley and Peter Stampfel (on hiatus from the
Holy Modal Rounders at this point), got together with younger singer-songwriter
Jeffery Frederick to make an album that ended up being more consistently
entertaining - and more consistently goofy - than anything I’ve ever heard by
any of them separately. This is why the record is, clumsily but accurately,
credited to "Michael Hurley, the Unholy Modal Rounders, Jeffery Frederick
& the Clamtones" - though that gives the impression that three bands
got together to put out a compilation, rather than the sympathetic communal
wackiness that's actually on display here.
The three main
(vocal) personalities at play here are as follows:
1. Peter
Stampfel, 37 year-old co-founder of Greenwich Village folk scene regulars The
Holy Modal Rounders (who you may know from "If You Want To Be A Bird"
on the Easy Rider soundtrack). He's a
weirdo and a seeker of music who digs into deep Americana to find songs to
cover, rip off, or sometimes just inform his own writing. And he sings with a
wild enthusiasm that's hard to match (or resist), even if that enthusiasm does
not often translate to any kind of musical accuracy.
2. Michael
Hurley, the easy-going 34 year-old "outsider folk" prodigy who began writing
and recording in his early teens, but didn't get a career rolling until his 20s
due to illness, and then began a slow outpouring of his laid-back, almost
soulful folky ease. Only by having Stampfel next to him does he seem like a
normal musician.
3. Jeffery
Frederick, at 25, the baby of the bunch, an East Coaster relocated to Oregon, who
approaches the musical side of things somewhat more professionally - relatively
speaking - but his words are every bit as wacko as his confreres.
Lyrically, Stampfel will sing
about bidets, Paris, wine, young people in love, dancing, and the freak party
on the edge of town; Hurley tells us about spaghetti, dirty dishes in the sink,
heartbreak, the blues, and oral sex; Frederick tells us about robbing banks,
hamburgers, the blues (also), and a heart attack. Among other things. Musically,
it flows beginning to end, from the Parisian wine at the beginning to the Thunderbird
wine (and a pound of hash) that closes things, with members of each leader's
band performing alongside each other throughout the album creating the kind of
musical consistency that's rare in any collaborative project like this. Special
kudos go to the fiddler and mandolin player credited solely as Robin here,
though the fine work of the understated but supportive drummer known as Frog
should also be mentioned.
The album passes singing and songwriting duties around
from track to track like the joints they no doubt shared during the record's
creation, and the result is a melodic, good-natured, hilarious exploration of
what happened to "The Scene" of the late-60s by the time we got to
the mid-70s. Rather than becoming wistful for the past, as many of the older
guys' contemporaries were already doing by then, they found their joy in
smaller pleasures like those detailed above. It kicks off with "Midnight
In Paris," a 1935 pop tune turned all banjo-and-mandolin bluegrass style here,
where Stampfel (credited as "Pierre" instead of Peter for this track)
gets the ball rolling in his best American-ese "You wear my bee-ray/and
I'll use your bee-day/I'll be clean and you'll be free." And then they
take off from there, straight into Frederick's "Robbin' Banks," a song
about exactly what it says, supposedly inspired by his bank robbing
grandfather, but just to prove his freak bona fides, he throws in lines like “If you get scared and run you bastard, I’ll break your arm.”
Up next is Hurley, with "Slurf Song," where he envisions a feast for all
his pals, but laments the cleaning up afterward, and follows the feast right
through to its (bio)logical end.
And so it goes. Other highlights include
Stampfel's "Griselda," written by the Greenwich village folk scene
musician Antonia who introduced him and the other Holy Modal rounder founder
Steve Weber back in the 60s, Jeffery Frederick's "What Made My Hamburger
Disappear?" which sounds silly (and was supposedly performed on Sesame Street) but is written from the
point of view of a burger eater having a heart attack, Hurley's slyly naughty
"Driving Wheel," and the killer Antonia-penned capper "Hoodoo
Bash," which may as well be describing the freak party that is this album.
Of course, if you can't attenuate
Stampfel's vocals into something your ear can easily digest, if you want your
folk music all serious and stately instead of lively and of-the-people, if you
like your freaks a little more toned-down than these guys, maybe this record
isn't for you. For anyone who's in it for the fun though, dig in. You won't
regret it.
- Patrick Brown
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