Hootch – You Can’t Come In
Hootch – Blue Bird
Hootch – Eyes Of The Raven

For the first album to be shared here in this 15^th year of Melting Pot, we have this rather obscure album from a quintet of teenagers (at least, likely teenagers) from Wisconsin.  I’m not sure if I’ve ever posted a record literally on the same day it arrived to me, but this is one that had been on my mind for months.  I first came into contact with Hootch at February’s Rappcats pop-up featuring records from the collection of Joe Benson, and titled, “Records From Big Red,” I imagine in reference to Benson’s Nebraska origins…This record was one of the first that drew my attention, both in the initial announcement and when I arrived at the spot.  I took a long long hard look at the album as it sat on the wall, and for reasons that are beyond me, I just left it there. 

Well, roughly an hour later, as I’m sorting out which records I’m going to add to my collection, the first notes of lead track, “You Can’t Come In,” begin, all pensive and light guitar with a shade of percussion and then only 17 seconds in, comes one of the most hypnotic psych grooves I’ve ever heard.  Dumbfounded, I make my way to the house turntable to see what is playing and run into that distinctive cover and that face on it, which at the time felt like it was mocking me for not adding it to my own pile when I had the chance.  Turned out head honcho Egon had dropped the needle on it and had claimed it, much to my dismay and disappointment.  I also lost out on a OG copy of Billy Brooks’ Windmills Of The Mind that day, but felt good nonetheless to go home with a handful of records I didn’t know previously and a Townes Van Zandt album that I had long coveted. But that hypnotic groove remained with me, haunting me repeatedly over these past five months…At a period of time here during the summer when I was dealing with a little minor heartbreak, I finally made the decision to engage in a little record therapy, got the album from a dealer in Athens, Greece and here it is.

There’s very little info on Hootch, all the information for the record is there on the front cover, with nothing but blank space on the back.  The band had five members, Thomas S. Henry, Bob Maloney, Doug Lemirande, Henry Erkelenz & Laura Schaefer, and being on the private press looking label of Pro-gress Records, it looked like they likely hailed from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area.  But that is all we have.  The album was released in 1974, but to my ears sounds more like 1968 or 1970.  Of the six songs on the album, four are instrumentals.  It’s an album, like a lot of psych albums, is likely an acquired taste (on Discogs someone, rather humorously, derided the rare nature of this album by scoffing, ‘I laugh while scratching my old balls,” Ha!), there doesn’t seem to be anything else that any of those people recorded, but for reasons that remain slightly mystifying to me, the sound of the record has burrowed deeply inside my mind.  It’s something about when the band does get locked into a groove, and the stereo separation with tambourine and maracas (or magic egg) split between the two sides along with guitar, bass & drums, that just fucking does it to me.  Same goes for the other two songs I’ve shared here, “Blue Bird,” and the ominous vocal track “Eyes Of The Raven.”  I can’t always explain why some music has a stronger hold over me than others, but at this stage in the game, I know enough to pay attention to that feeling and rectify mistakes whenever I can. 

Happy hunting y’all, and make sure to listen to your intuition when you run into those rare, rare records on in the wild,

Michael

Ness Harding – Parting Of Man
Ness Harding – Lissa’s Rose
Ness Harding – Your Colorado Way

Been meaning to post this one up for a solid year-plus, but, better late than never is clearly a motto I subscribe to and this final day of our 14^th year as a blog seemed like the perfect time to post it. “The Perfect time,” is an interesting way to describe things. “Perfect,” is a word that I’ve been thinking about a lot of late, what defines perfection, in a song, in a relationship, in a moment.  We often think of “perfect,” as being flawless, but I don’t know if I’ve ever subscribed to that idea.  For me “perfect,” is about a feeling…a feeling that a thing, a person, a song, is so good, you don’t want anything about it to change.  The beauty of performances once they are set to record is that, aside from whatever may happen to the specific piece of wax over the years, the recording remains the same.  So when you discover a “perfect” song, it remains perfect every time you hear it or you play it for someone else.  Of course, what one person views as “perfect,” may be some thing else entirely to different ears.  But differences of opinion don’t change how perfect that thing may be.

Part of what made this record perfect, perfect to share on this blog, for sure, is that it came from DJ Shadow’s collection.  It was one of a number of records Shadow was selling at one of his Rappcats storage sales.  The record hung on the wall just behind Josh as he chatted with people through the day.  Without much information on the front (Shadow often makes helpful notes on the records he sells, such as  “Breaks B-4” on the Fred Cancio LP that also came from his collection), but intrigued by the cover and its placement on the wall, I just asked “what’s up with that one?” to which Shadow said something to the effect of, “it’s a private press record from the 70s, see if you can figure out which song I dig the most on there.”  Challenge accepted!

From what I can tell, Ness Harding only recorded this album, an album where she plays virtually all of the instruments (except the “Syndrums,” that seem to make some distinctive sounds on “Parting Of Man” and “Your Colorado Way”), and an album that is clearly a labor of love, with virtually every song dedicated to someone from Harding’s life, even including her horse Cappy.  But it’s the songs that are connected to specifically to someone named Melissa Rogers that I felt most drawn to.  All three of the songs I’ve chosen to share here have “Lissa” in mind, “Lissa’s Rose” and “Your Colorado Way,” are Harding’s reflections about this person, described as a “past friend,” which gives me the impression (especially if you take the lyrics of “Colorado Way” literally) that the two women had a serious falling out, and perhaps these songs were Harding’s way of trying to make amends to this person who they very clearly cared deeply for and made an impact on them.  Lissa shows up again on the final track of the first side, this time as the credited song writer for “Parting Of Man.”

What was clear to me from its opening notes was that “Parting Of Man,” was the song that Shadow had to have been talking about, something that I confirmed with him when I bought this album.  It’s one of those songs that when someone has a defined sound about them, you hear it and just think, “oh yeah, I could see Shadow doing something with this.” It just has the vibe. It’s always wild to me, especially when listening to private press records, how much a good song will just literally jump out of the speakers when you hear it.  With a number of these kinds of records you hear a lot of sincere and earnest, but largely mediocre playing, but every so often, the needle drops on something that comes close to perfection.  With the sound of rolling waves and seagulls, before a pensively strummed guitar comes in, and then these rising waves of sound from a synthesizer hits…it’s a vibe for sure.  The song’s single verse also just hits perfectly, before the instrumental elements take over for a bit.  It’s a strikingly simple song, but once it gets going, it’s one that definitely hits you, gets the head nodding and compels you to run it back again and again. 

“Parting Of Man,” is one of those imperfect perfect songs that seem to only be found on private press albums, made even more perfect, not only because it originally came from Shadow’s collection, but also because it was recorded at a place called Perfection Sound in Smyrna, GA, not too far from where I grew up.  And all of the above is why it felt like, finally, the perfect time to share this album with you…Peace & Bright Moments.

Lotus – Tye
Lotus – Second Impression (Excerpt)
Lotus – Third Impression (Excerpt)

With almost exactly one month before the unveiling of a very special 14^th anniversary mix, it’s perhaps the best time to finally post something about this album, one that’s been very close to my turntable since first coming across it at the end of July in 2022.  I’d come up to the Bay Area on a weekend trip with my dog (our first trip together ever), the most time I’d spent there since moving to LA. As is always the case whenever I’m in the Bay Area, part of the trip included a trip to Groove Merchant in Frisco.  This particular time I had brought a couple of rare Sun Ra records on the Saturn label to trade with Cool Chris, without any idea what might be at the store at that moment.  There were some nice things, a few of which will likely find their way here eventually, but Chris mentioned that he did have something special, something he rarely came across.  This album from the band Lotus.

All Chris knew about it was what was evident from the cover, this was an album on the Reynolds Records label,  which had a few records folks such as we are often looking for, from Quinn Harris & Masterminds (or just the Masterminds themselves), and from a pair of Steve’s, Steve Marshall & Steve Parks.  Not one of the players on the record sounded familiar, and none of them seemed to be listed on any other records from the time period, at least none that are listed online.  Bob Okamoto on keys, Charles Peacock on bass & synths, Joel Cohen on guitar and Gregory Taylor on some mighty drums. 

No credits for any of them elsewhere that I could find. It’s as if four total unknowns just went into the studio to record on some fair day in 1975, and then created a low-key masterpiece. And, it is the masterful playing that keeps me coming back, especially on the first side, a 19 minute tour-de-force, broken down into first, second & third impressions (due to my long standing policy of not posting the majority of an album, given that there are only three total tracks, I’ve posted excerpts from that track)…The musicianship on this record is so good that it almost leads me to believe that the names listed are assumed names, and the actual players were bigger names that just wanted to put to wax a session they were proud of, but couldn’t do it on any of the labels they were signed to.  I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to this record at this point, but every time I’m struck by how exceptional the playing is on it.  At times it reminds me a little of Pi-R Square & Lonnie Hewitt’s recordings from the 1970s, or a quick moment will remind me of Roy Ayers’ Ubiquity in the early part of the decade (doesn’t the slow down 4:30 into “Tye“ remind you of “We Live In Brooklyn Baby?”) but there’s also something about the playing that just sounds so unique.

I truly hope one day I discover the enigma that is Lotus, what the story of this recording was, and more about these players, but for now, I’m just thankful for the serendipity of the day that allowed me to come in at the right moment and have the chance to come across this exceptional record…

{Update – 4-21-23} Y’all…it’s been an extra long minute since these were promised, for the second year in a row! But the wait will soon be over and I’ll have them all up very very very soon! 100% promise this time!

{Update – 4-21-23} Y’all…it’s been an extra long minute since these were promised, for the second year in a row! But the wait will soon be over and I’ll have them all up very very very soon! 1000% promise this time!

Kathy McCord – Rainbow Ride
Kathy McCord – Take Away This Pain
Kathy McCord – Candle Waxing
Kathy McCord – Velvet Smile

2022 has been a bit of wild ride, certainly haven’t posted here as much as I would have wanted, but I am a sucker for tradition, and one of the remaining traditions we have here at Melting Pot is to post up the last record I added to my collection for the year.  As has often been the case, my last trip to a record store this year was to Burbank’s Atomic. In past years, I’d dig through the whole of the store and spend hours looking through all of the bins for something I’ve never heard.  But that was not the mood I was in to close out 2022.  A lot of this year has been about going for things that I really want.  As a consequence of that, while I’ve had years where I bought more total records, I’m fairly confident that I’ve never spent as much on records as I have this year.  2023 is gonna be about being considerably more frugal, but to close out this year, I had my mind solely focused on the legendary wall at Atomic and perusing the rarest of rares up there.

I’d been in Atomic two weeks before, but without my phone, and so I didn’t get info on a few wall records that I’d never seen before.  Two weeks later, of course, those records I was eyeing were all gone, along with 30-40% of the other records that were there.  But, as this post attests, clearly there were some things up there that I was able to bring home, including the very first record on CTI, the debut & sole album of Kathy McCord.

As is the case with that Flow record that I posted about a couple years ago, these earliest records on CTI sound NOTHING like the Jazz fusion sounds the label became known for throughout the 1970s. They all have a bit of mystery about them because they so rarely turn up in the wild, and when they do, even seasoned record nerds don’t recognize them. McCord is hyped as a “new contemporary folk artist,” on the cover, but “folk” is not how I would describe the best songs on this album. There’s a bit of country twangy, some soulful horns, snappy drums, psychedelic guitar licks, and the extraordinary instrument that is McCord’s voice bringing it all together. The comparison isn’t entirely apt (except perhaps on “Candle Waxing” which features the flute of CTI stalwart Hubert Laws), but there are times where this album reminds me of Linda Perhacs’ Parallelograms, another album from the same period that people by and large really couldn’t fully get with, but has found a following here in the 21st century. That album is sometimes described as “psychedelic folk,” and I suppose that could be apt for this album to, but it also feels a bit limiting when listening to these songs…There’s more I want to say about this record, but it’s still super new to my ears and it’s NYE, so right now I’m gonna get some grub, and get cozy, and give this one many spins into the night…