I'd Love to Turn You On #213 - Wolfmoon – Wolfmoon

          I discovered the Wolfmoon record years ago while working in a small record shop in Iowa. As a vinyl-obsessed collector, I was immediately drawn to the cover art. Who was this purple cloaked cosmic warrior, palming the planet Earth like a basketball? Prince before there even was a Prince? Was he some long-lost fuzz-funk disciple of Funkadelic? Perhaps a forgotten psychedelic soul singer that I could brag about discovering? I had to know. To my surprise, Wolfmoon was all of these things and none of these things. The music on the record was a beautiful combination of gospel and Southern soul with occasional brilliant flourishes of funk, rock and even country. Upon further research, I discovered that he was associated with the legendary producer and songwriter, Swamp Dogg, of whom I was a big fan. I bought it sight unseen and it’s been in heavy rotation at my house ever since.

The story of how the Wolfmoon record came about is almost as interesting as the music itself. In the early 1960s, Tyrone Thomas began a successful career as an R&B singer in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia. A teenager at the time, Thomas, who was calling himself Lil Tommy (pre-Soundcloud rapper days), quickly established himself as a talented performer with his various backing groups, including the Teenagers, the Parakeets and the Out of Sights, and securing opening slots for such international acts as Fats Domino and Sam Cooke. It was around this time that Thomas decided that it was time for him to go solo. This decision led him to his first national tour at age 14. However, it was a hometown gig with fellow Richmond artist Brooks O’Dell that perhaps changed the trajectory of Thomas’ career for the better.

O’Dell was immediately impressed with the young Thomas and decided to introduce him to his friend Jerry Williams Jr., aka Swamp Dogg. If you’re a fan of southern soul music at all, no doubt you’re familiar with Swamp Dogg, whose first three albums are considered classics of the genre and solidified Swamp as a cult figure and legendary performer. But the Swamp Dogg persona would not come to be until a few years later. Williams began writing and recording songs for Tyrone Thomas starting as early as 1964. The relationship was tumultuous almost immediately. Williams invited Thomas to live in his house for a while and, according to Williams, he wore out his welcome very quickly. The first two songs they recorded together were “I’m Hurt” and its B-side “Lov’h,” which Thomas immediately took back to Richmond and submitted to local record producer Mr. Wiggles and, according to Williams, tried to pass them off as his own. Still, Williams believed in Thomas’ talents enough to work with him again.

In 1969, Williams, who was just starting to cultivate the Swamp Dogg sound and image that he would become notorious for, signed a deal with Canyon Records and was looking to pad his new label with like-minded artists, of which Thomas was to be the newest. Swamp Dogg re-dubbed Thomas as Wolfmoon and the pair recorded the ten tracks that would become the first and only Wolfmoon record; seven original Swamp Dogg compositions and three cover versions. However, the album would not see the light of day for another four years, as the Canyon Records deal fell through and the two were left without a label. Finally, in 1973, the small Fungus Records imprint released the Wolfmoon record.

Still not much is known about the actual man, Tyrone Thomas himself, apart from what Swamp Dogg has said in interviews and in print which generally tends to paint him in an unfavorable light. In one recent interview, Swamp said of Thomas “this motherfucker has no integrity… It’s all about him” and citing multiple occasions of feeling taken advantage of by Thomas. Personal animosity aside, the two managed to put out an incredible piece of R&B history. The songs range from the spiritual (“God Bless,” “If He Walked Today”) to the funky (“My Kinda People”) and many other styles in between. An epic 8+ minute sendup of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” showcases the multi-instrumental talents of Swamp Dogg while the piano ballad “Treasures That I Found” allows Wolfmoon to demonstrate his incredible vocal range.

Unfortunately, the record went almost completely unnoticed and it remained an obscure gem among record collectors for decades. Original copies were being sold for high sums of money for quite some time. That is, until 2013, when garage pop label Alive Natural Sound out of Los Angeles gave the album (and a handful of other Swamp Dogg releases) a proper CD and vinyl reissue, thus reintroducing the world to Wolfmoon. And let me tell you, this reissue sounds amazing. The only digital copies that I was able to find prior to the re-release were clearly vinyl rips that sounded kind of terrible. Alive presents the record with fully cleaned-up audio plus new detailed liner notes written by Swamp Dogg which alone is well worth the price.

-         Jonathan Eagle

Fables of the Reconstruction: Low-Hanging Fruit, Pt. 1

For the past couple of months I’ve been feeding on low-hanging fruit -- stuff that’s plentiful in the used vinyl bins, and cheap. I like to go to the record store with a hundred bucks or so and come home with more records than I can hold in my arms. The trick is to like music that other people have liked enough to buy but not enough to keep. Lots of other people. Big-label stuff from the halcyon days of the record business, the 70s and 80s. Records that sold by the thousands and hundreds of thousands but never became universally accepted as must-haves. There are a lot of wonderful things to be found within these broad parameters. Here are a few of my recent favorites.

Gentle Giant – Free Hand and Interview

These records came out near the end of the band’s life, when they were at the peak of their creativity and skill, and they’re unlike any records made by any artists before or after. They weren’t the big breakout hits the band hoped they’d be, but they sold better than anything else they’d done, though they’re less sought after today than their earlier records. They’re less like collections of rock tunes than compositions of abstract aural patterns. Which is not to say they’re muddy mélanges of free-form psychedelia and noise; weird as the arrangements are, they’re always accessible and often infectious. The same can be said of Gentle Giant’s earlier records, with their mix of hard-rock edginess and the complexities of classical music, but what makes these stand out in my collection (besides their cheap price) is how far they lean forward, especially Interview, which weaves strands of as-yet undefined new wave into the pastiche, particularly on track two, “Give It Back,” with its odd electrified and heavily layered polyrhythmic reggae vibe. I’ve listened to this record many times and every time it surprises me. It’s just some of the most unusual and unusually well done music in my collection.

Kinks – Soap Opera and Schoolboys in Disgrace

If you put any stock in the ratings on AllMusic, you’re bound to think the Kinks hit a low in the mid-1970s, at the tail end of their run of concept records. Don’t believe them. Reading the reviews for Soap Opera and its immediate predecessor Schoolboys in Disgrace (which earned one and two stars respectively) I expected a couple of pretentious, sprawling, incoherent, prog-rock wannabe pieces of crap. Nothing could be further from the truth. They’re both tight collections jam-packed with high-quality, hard-rocking pop songs – relentlessly fun, catchy and danceable. And funny. Especially Soap Opera, a tale of a rock star who changes places with an everyday bloke and gets trapped in his boring, miserable life. The poor chap has to drink to get some relief from the relentless monotony of it all and, in one of the funniest rock songs of all time, “Ducks on the Wall,” he falls into sexual frustration because of his new wife’s turn-off taste in interior design (“I love you baby, but I just can’t ball with those ducks on the wall!”). Great stuff to crank when you’re cleaning the house or drunk.

Fleetwood Mac – Tusk

With the possible exception of Son of Schmilsson, this is the weirdest high-budget, major-studio, top-40 album of all time. It came on the heels of the band’s biggest success, Rumours, and it was said to have cost a million dollars to produce. For most of the record it sounds like they spent that much: flawless late-70s pop, densely layered with lovely sounds from all kinds of different instruments, and dreamy harmony vocals, every note tucked into one another so perfectly that it’s endlessly airy and light. But some of the songs are strangely lo-fi, with fuzzed-out bass lines and guitar solos and spastic beats that sound like they were made with electrified rubber and a bunch of shiny new metal trash cans. And the title track is perhaps the strangest song ever to hit the Billboard top ten, with its marching band core shrouded in echoing crowd sounds and overlays of jungle sounds (“ooga agga ooga”). Back and forth this album goes from the lovely lovelorn dream pop of Christine McVie to the Wiccan crystal melodies of Stevie Nicks to the frantic break-all-the-rules genius of Lindsey Buckingham. Two LPs packed in double inner sleeves made from thick, shiny paper, covered with elaborate and dreamy art inspired by coke, Colombian weed and Cutty Sark. It’s a peerless artifact of a gloriously decadent time. It’s been reissued on heavy audiophile vinyl, but if you’re lucky, like I was, you might just find a pristine copy for six bucks – or less.

Several Species Of Small Furry Thoughts - The Great Beatles Vinyl Experiment

When the new batch of Beatles vinyl came out a few weeks ago I took home Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour to check them out. My first impression was sort of ho-hum. I played my American Apple pressings and by comparison they seemed better, but just sort of. Then I started seeing various reports in the press about how either good or bad they were. There seemed to be no consensus about how these highly anticipated reissues really fared compared to other issues on vinyl. So, Twist and Shout’s vinyl guru Ben Sumner and myself decided to subject the reissues to some clinical testing and determine what we really thought. We went over to my house to avail ourselves of a decent stereo and then I subjected Ben to a blind listening of five different Peppers and four Mystery Tours. To avoid fatigue, we chose to listen to just a limited amount of music from each album. We played “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “With A little Help From My Friends” from the former and “Strawberry Fields Forever” from the latter. We fortified ourselves with pizza and some red wine and then dove in.

With Pepper, we played two different American Apple pressings, the new version, Ben’s first pressing British Parlophone version and finally the CD from the ’09 box set. We found that we agreed across the board with each other and the results were interesting and a bit unexpected. Both of the American Apples had a louder, more compressed and more radio-ready, exciting sound. When we played the original British copy it is safe to say it was a revelation comparatively. The field of sound broadened, there was more space between the instruments and the lows seemed lower. It was subtler and showed the album to be the avant-garde masterpiece it was. In my notes abut the American versions I wrote “No wonder America fell in love with the Beatles.” Those louder, slightly more compressed versions somehow took your attention away from the nuances and pushed these great songs to the front of the sonic field sounding like instant hits. When we played the new version in direct comparison, it fell squarely in between these two experiences. It lacked the beautiful delicacy of the original British and it also toned down some of the over-amped excitement of the American mixes. The down side was some of the vocals and drums sounded a bit muffled, but the positive side was we both agreed that these were actually pretty good versions that the average consumer could comfortably buy knowing they are getting a very respectable version of this classic material.

The Mystery Tours were an original American Capitol version, the new version, the highly coveted German, Apple (Horzu) version and again the CD to finish it off. By choosing “Strawberry Fields Forever,” which has always been in true stereo, we sidestepped the whole stereo vs. duo phonic debate. Our results were similar to the Pepper experiment. The original Capitol jumped out of the speakers, again tamping down the subtlety and pumping up the excitement. The real revelation of the entire evening was the German version, which offered this psychedelic masterpiece in the most detailed and gorgeous presentation I’ve ever heard. It captured that ineffable quality that vinyl buyers crave. Some call it warmth, Ben says it is just a heightened space between the instruments, but it is the thing that lovers of the medium crave and seek out. It is also the thing that many digitally produced modern albums lack. Once again the new version fared pretty well also. It lacked the jaw dropping delicacy of the German, but it was a better sounding record than my original Capitol.

In both cases the new versions were nice pressings that obviously had the least surface noise and offered the least distracting vinyl listen. We both felt totally comfortable recommending these new pressings as a great way to get into the repertoire, knowing that there are still some collecting holy grails out there that can lead the diligent searcher to even more rarified listening experiences. Another affirmation was, that no matter what Neil Young says about CDs being an inferior listening experience, the ’09 CD versions are superb sounding and are a completely wonderful way to enjoy the Beatles. In addition to the expected loudness and clarity, they offered subtlety and nuance as well. The CDs will continue to be my go-to for the majority of my Beatles listening. One last thing that may seem obvious after all these years, but still mystifies me is how definitively great The Beatles were: as songwriters, performers and capturers of lightning in a bottle. The 60’s gestalt is encapsulated in these songs better than any other physical manifestation I can think of. If history favors any music from the rock era, The Beatles are sure to be on the top of the heap.
-Paul Epstein 

Several Species OF Small Furry Thoughts - 2010

I’d like to say this year was somehow different from the other previous 21 years here at Twist and Shout, but honestly, it still feels about like it did in the beginning. Things have definitely changed but the basic feeling of being in a record store, turning people on to music, and validating their identities is still pretty much the same.

The changes seem like they are going on around, or in spite of us. More and more people download music. Unbelievably there has been a massive shift in the way our world consumes music. In the blink of an eye, entire generations of people have turned their backs on the advances made in sound replication in favor of storage ease. (Wow, Steve Jobs paid attention when he heard the axiom about never going broke by underestimating the gullibility of the American public.) Along with that, the social aspects so integral to listening to the music we so revered in the 60’s and 70’s have just disappeared overnight. Young people don’t listen to music together the way they used to. They can’t. The Ipod has created a self-sufficient bubble for each individual. There are devices for listening over crappy little speakers but from what I can tell, it is only adults who use these, and then wish they had never gotten rid of their turntable. For the most part, the social dynamic associated with popular music has shifted.  Does this mean that people have stopped loving music? No, it does not. In fact, I am seeing those kids who do take it seriously start to poke their heads in here again. As they become enamored of certain artists, they want to see what this “collecting” thing is all about. The artwork, feel, texture, smell and “life-force” of the actual object (CD, LP, 45 or DVD) brings an artist to life in ways that a download simply never will. To hold an LP by Muddy Waters is quite something special compared to downloading ten Muddy Waters songs.  I don’t labor under the false hope that downloads are going away - they are the future - but, as I had hoped, there is still a place for the real stuff. It is the final step in the life of a collector, no matter their age. If you love The Beatles, eventually some physical form of The Beatles is going to make its way into your life. So, the downloading of music has become a stepping-stone to collecting - as once the transistor radio was. Get a taste for it cheap or even free, then when you are ready to get serious, we’re here for you.

So what physical stuff did we sell this year? Vinyl Vinyl Vinyl. It is not a flash in the pan! It is back in a significant way. We have seen tremendous and sustained growth in the most physical of all formats. Across the board, artists and labels are starting to see the real value in offering their fans records. It illustrates my earlier point; once you have fallen for, say Godspeed You Black Emperor the reality of your love for that band can only be consummated in the soft flesh of a record. Once you hold something close and dear, it becomes so much more real. Over and over this year, I saw kids with that libidinous glow of pride as they approached the register with an LP or 7” by their favorite band. The smart bands truly get it. I would not expect Gaslight Anthem or The Black Angels or Animal Collective to ever release another album without a vinyl version. Their fans will demand it at this point. Of course, the limited nature of most vinyl issues insures that they will go up in value. Some of our biggest successes on Ebay this year have been with records that are less than five years old.

And let us not forget our old friend the CD. While it has been battered and insulted, proclaimed dead every year for the last decade and a half, it still is our biggest seller. Don’t believe the hype; the music industry still turns on the sales of the CD - period. Anyone who tells you differently is either a fool or a liar. It is still the format of choice for the vast majority of serious music listeners. It is over 60% of our sales and it still represents billions of dollars of sales to the industry. CD-wise, there was a difference this year; the biggest sellers were almost all newer acts. Sure, Eric Clapton and Neil Young both have new records that we are selling quite well, and the Elton/Leon album is something of a phenomenon, but the real winners this year at Twist are The Black Keys, Mumford and Sons, Arcade Fire, Cee-Lo Green, Ray Lamontagne, Bruno Mars, Kanye West, The National and countless other bands that have made their mark since the third Woodstock festival. In other words, that first and second graduating class of rock royalty no longer sits on the sales throne. Those artists still matter, but the young bloods matter just as much. And that is a good thing. If we are going to stay valid then the new artists need the same love and honor we give Elvis, Mick and Jimi. We have, we do, and we always shall stay excited about new music at Twist and Shout.

And then there is all the other stuff. A number of years ago when I paraphrased our friends at the great California store Salzers by saying “when people in Colorado think gift, I want them to think Twist and Shout” I didn’t know how real this idea would become. Sales of what we call our boutique regularly hover between 15-20% and this Christmas they were even bigger. I saw plenty of people who were shopping here just for the gifts - no music or movies at all. That’s just fine with us. There is a thin line between a new album and the shirt you wear while listening to it. It all adds up to who we are as individuals.

Like every recent year, people will come up to me in the coming weeks and hesitatingly ask how it went. I will be able to tell from their downturned eyes that they expect the worst answer possible. But, just like all the other years I am filled with optimism and fully believe in the mission - still and always. 

See you in the aisles,

Paul Epstein