Jimi Hendrix "Band Of Gypsys"

 

 

 

 

Jimi Hendrix has always been known for his on stage antics such as playing the electric guitar in various positions, smashing his guitars, and also setting them on fire. But one thing Jimi never really was acknowled for was his actual virtuousity he held over the instrument. "Band Of Gypsys" really shows Hendrix's talent without any of his famous antics getting in the way.

 

Standing in at 6 songs, Jimi Hendrix show cases his talent with old military buddies Billy Cox and Buddy Miles, different then the "Jimi Hendrix Experience" which was Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding. The album holds nearly 15 minute long jam songs such as Machine Gun, and Who Knows, something Hendrix really hadn't experimented with too much in previous concerts.

 

The first song "Who Knows" starts at with an announcer introducing the Band Of Gypsys, and Hendrix quickly rolling into the slow guitar riff. The song is shared vocal wise with drummer Buddy Miles, who really shows his gospel singing influences on this album. Half way through the song, Jimi slowly fades his guitar out with the thunderous drums keep roaring while the heavy bass keeps thumping, and a very un-expected vocal solo happens. Buddy Miles literally sings the guitar solo out loud with his voice, and in his own very unique style.

 

"Machine gun" starts out with Jimi dedicating the song to soldiers all around, and also the "Black Soldiers" fighting in Chicago for their own cival rights. Soon after the song rips into a machine gun sounding guitar riff, absolutely dripping in vintage univibe. The song, even though called machine gun, emphasizes peace, and how all people are really only families apart. The song is similiar to a Frank Zappa tune, that really creates a movie for the ears, with screeching war sounds, and machine gun style beats lasting just over 12 minutes.

 

After Machine Gun, the show takes a light turn once again for Buddy Miles to take another swing at singing with an original song he wrote called "Them Changes." The song has a nice funky style groove to it that really gets your feet thumping along to the song, even when drummer Buddy Miles chimes in with his soaring vocals. The song eventually has a slight drum break in the middle where Buddy gets the whole audience involved and clapping their hands together to the beat of the drums, which was a very nostalgic point for me being a musician.

 

The next song "Power To Love" starts out with an intense Cream style jam with the whole band shredding away at their instruments. After the intense jam goes on for a brief minute, Jimi starts a funky blues esque rythm, that was mixing a few genres together. The whole song lyrically is my favorite with the mantra "With the power of soul anything is possible" and that really made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

 

"Message to love" was a song Jimi Hendrix wrote while with the Experience, and it was also his opening song he played at the very famous "Woodstock Music Festival" a few months earlier. Another long jam song, except with something Hendrix really hadn't done before, vocal harmonies. The song has another mantra in it that gave me tingles down my spine which was "Everybody come together, everybody love together, everybody come alive" another song emphasizing peace.

 

The very last song "We gotta live together" was written by Buddy Miles, and is yet another song that succesfully includes the audience clapping along to the beat, and singing along with the band one last time before they closed their stint at the Fillmore East. Another very groovy beat lead by Jimi, the whole audience sings along saying "Home Sweet Home" which I'm sure is what Buddy Miles was thinking after playing 2 shows a day for a straight  week.

 

Overall, Band of Gypsys is a phenominal album, and my favorite Hendrix album to this date, provided they don't release anything more from before he died. From the gospel influenced vocals, to the shredding guitar solo's, I can't find a single flaw with any part of this record. This record alone inspired so many guitar players from Kirk Hammett of Metallica, to Robert Cray, and is the shining diamond out of Hendrix's very long discography.

 

Frank Zappa "Joe's Garage Acts I, II, & III"

 

 

 

Frank Zappa has always been known for his more than unusual lyrics, his abstract interpretation of instrumentalization, and for pushing the political boundaries. All of the above statements hold true in "Joe's Garage Acts I, II, & III" where Frank tells the fictional story of an adolescent by the name of Joe who forms a band just as the government begins to outlaw music because of it leads to unusual sexual practice and drug usage. A little background on the record is, Zappa created the story for this album around the time where congress was considering censoring music, and 6 years before the Parents Music Resource Center was founded. In the fictional world of Joe's Garage, Zappa shows what "The Mothers of Prevention" could do to music if they had their way with music. Joes Garage is more or less a movie for the ears rather than an actual album to sit and listen to. With all acts totaling roughly an hour and a half, it is most definitely a play for your ears to enjoy. The first song "The Central Scrutinizer" introduces the government employee known as "The Central Scrutinizer" who is the narrator and tells you the tale of Joe whose life is ruined by playing music. The next song "Joes Garage" is the title name of the album, but tells the beginning of the story and how Joe starts out simply playing in a band, and playing every night to his mothers detest, practicing night after night to get as good as the people he idolizes. The band Joe plays in dreams of playing in "A go-go bar" and playing the same repetitive music that is played on the pop radio stations of the late 70's and early 80's. Eventually, the story progresses to where Joe's band starts to get some local recognition and he begins to date a "Catholic Girl" by the name of Mary, who he meets at the local church. Joe is out playing a show, but little does he know that his girlfriend Mary is cheating on him backstage at a seperate show so she can get a backstage pass to see a famous rock band, and The Central Scrutinizer uses this opportunity how music is causing more trouble. Once Joe catches wind of Mary and her dirty adventures, he falls in with the fast crowd, and starts to fool around with a girl named Lucille, who gives him an un-pronounceable STD, which leads Joe to sing the song "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?” But even more unfortunate for Joe, he fell in love with Lucille, and we all know that sad teenage story about how a member of the opposite sex will break your heart, and this leads Joe to sing "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up". After Joe is left in a mental daze, the Central Scrutinizer uses this opportunity to interject by saying "Joe says Lucille has messed his mind up, but, was it the girl or was it the music?" and tells how Joe tries to make himself feel better by joining a church to retain some values he lost playing music. And that is the close of Act I of Joe's Garage. Act II starts out with Joe joining a very strange church, and his mind is still so messed up from Lucille, that he just goes along with all the craziness the church has. The church leads Joe to believe, that to make himself feel better he must join a club where you dress up as a house wife, speak german, and have sexual intercourse with robots, which is the last thing Joe needed. Joe finds a particular robot at a place called "The Closet" that he takes home to have relations with, and ends up breaking it. After Joe breaks the "Sy Borg" the Central Scrutinizer appears to tell Joe he has to pay for it, to which he replies "The church took all my money two songs ago!" and he is left to "Come out of the closet" with the Central Scrutinizer. When Joe does "Come out of the closet" he is sent to a prison particularly for people from the music industry, where he meets a former recording executive who tells him the story of "Bald headed John" who runs the prison showers. Joe spends a great deal of time in prison, where some real bad stereotypical things happen to him. The end of Act II leaves Joe saying he want to be "Outside now" where he slowly begins to lose his sanity even further than it was gone before, and you can clearly visualize as he bawls up in the corner and just repeats to himself "I can't wait to see what it's like on the outside now" Act III starts off with Joe finally being released from prison after his run in with Sy Borg, and breaking the music laws. His mental state is almost entirely deteriated after spending hard time in solitary confinement, and he never had the chance to recover from his broken heart after Mary left him and Lucille messed up his mind. Joe encounters an old lady that he used to cut the grass for when he was in his youth to get enough money to pay for his music addiction. He is just mindlessly walking around, his mental state entirely gone, imagining guitar solos, and vocal tracks to his songs, and imagining that the critics love his songs and praise him all the time, but sadly none of this is happening. The very old woman looks at Joe and is absolutely shocked after seeing the state that he is left in after his music addiction, and the only words she can really seem to get out is "He used to cut the grass, he was a very nice boy". As she is saying that Joe begins to have flashbacks of playing in his garage and her yelling "Turn it down! I'm calling the police" but he just simply keeps on moving. A very mentally disturbed Joe is walking down the street moving his lips and talking to himself about his music, as "Watermelon in Easter Hay" comes on, which takes you inside the mind of Joe and the music he is creating. At this point, the Central Scrutinizer states that this is Joe's very last song he will ever think of or play for the rest of his life before he gives up music forever. After Joe gives up music, he gets a job at the UMRK (Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, a reference to the song Muffin Man off of another Zappa album Bongo Fury) where he decorates muffins for a living and becomes a pretty happy guy after giving up music. After this the Central Scrutinizer doesn't hesitate to interject one last and final time to tell you of the evils of music. Joe's Garage is a phenomenal album and should most definitely be turned into a play or movie of some sort, with the great story that is told. The story of Joe is definitely an interesting one, and most definitely a bold one considering the politics surrounding music at the time. If this album is at least anything, it’s a giant middle finger to the Parents Music Resource Center, who if got their way, would have hundreds of Central Scrutinizers policing music every single day.