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The Complete Recordings
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Barnes and Noble
The Complete Recordings
Current price: $18.99
Barnes and Noble
The Complete Recordings
Current price: $18.99
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'
is a legendary album, at least among hardcore record collectors. It's the kind of record that is heard of more than heard -- the kind of record rumored about in collectors' circles, as evidenced by
. guitarist
impressing author
in his ode to record collectors, Vinyl Junkies, the kind of record that fetches absurd prices when actually found in specialty shops or record conventions.
gathered such attention for a few reasons. First of all, it was genuinely rare, released briefly on
in 1970, but it received little attention and sold only a handful of copies. Second, the album was produced by Texas cult hero
, whose dedicated following collects anything he recorded. Third, the band simply has a great story: they were a teenage Mexican-American garage band, inspired greatly by
and, to a lesser extent,
, and were still in high school and playing sets of all-original material when they gained the attention of
and
, leading to this one album. Finally, the music is really, really good, a fresh and unpredictable blend of
jangle and psychedelia,
-styled choogling boogie, Texas blues, Mexican tradition, old-fashioned teen-beat rock & roll,and a sense of popcraft learned from
.
It's easy to see why
went crazy for this band -- they share a similar pan-cultural sensibility, blurring lines between different musical styles not just over the course of an album, but within a song, and it's done out of a natural love, not a self-conscious exercise in genre-hopping. Not that
sounds much like the
; they arrive at a similar place by reinterpreting shared influences and following a similarly big-hearted, relaxed, and rocking vision. In many places,
does sound more dated than any
project outside of
due to its mild trippiness (largely borrowed from
, in both harmonies and ringing guitars), but that element is offset by the group's supple musicality -- you would never guess they were teenagers -- and the uniformly strong songwriting of leader
, who pens memorable songs in a variety of styles from the rolling, countryish
and the surging title track, to the roadhouse boogie of
and the backwoods stomp of
These are songs that sound both fresh and familiar upon first listen and become more impressive with each spin -- precisely the kind of music that becomes a legend among fanatical record collectors.
Trumping
's 2003 reissue of
,
released
in 2009, containing the entirety of the LP plus two of the bonus tracks that appeared on the
disc -- the group's last
single,
/
(the
-related single by
was on the
issue, but not here) -- and unearths a whopping 13 unreleased tracks. Although there are a couple of cuts that don't quite seem finished, and the cover of
is a little ragged, all this unheard material maintains the staggeringly high quality of
' LP, with the rollicking
breezy
and horn-spiked
calling special notice to themselves. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine