Album Club Selection #7: String Driven Thing - Self-Titled

So, starting a catch up....

I confess this album didn't float my boat.

Too "of its time" and a bit of a mish mash for my taste.

It has its moments but not one that'll send me hunting for more.

Finally found time to play catch-up on previous recommendations. I’ll put my cards on the table here, anything that might be construed as prog usually gets the bums rush from me. I put this down to a mid-seventies attempt to get into Yes which has left indelible musical scars. Saved by the Clash.

Listened to this via Tidal, which has it as a studio recording with some live tracks tacked on to the end - In The Studio 72. More of this anon.

I vaguely knew the name but never given them a listen until now. Bear in mind these are my rough notes from a couple of listens - does anyone else make notes, or am I taking this too seriously?

A real curates egg for me: some songs I really like, others I felt needed a proper rhythm section to anchor them and give them momentum. A few I actively disliked……

By track number:

1. Pass, bar the wig-out outro.

2. Fav track by a country mile. Loved it. Swooning fiddle great & female vocallist spot on. Unfortunate she doesn’t feature elsewhere. If I was a playlist sort of a guy this would be on one.

3. Scratchy RnB that needs that drummer to fulfil potential.

4. Fey prog-folk. Yuk! 5. Rustic Haight Asbury. OK, but again felt would benefit from a full rhythm section.

6. Another goody, thanks to the dirty riff and the obvious Beatles/Lennon pastiche.

7. Nice folk Byrds vibe for me.

8. Irritatingly catchy!

9. A 2nd highlight. Love the woozy feel that reminds me of something/one, but I just can’t place it at the moment. Another one for that playlist.

10. While I liked the retro feel I have to be honest and say the violin ended up annoying the shit out of me.

I think this completes the album but in the live extras there was a song called To See You, which I thought a stand-out in a very Dylan sort of a way. So I’d be adding it to this playlist that will never be.

Am I going to revisit? Tbh I doubt it, but certainly an interesting couple of hours.

Thanks Bill.

Now back to #6.

This is a band that I discovered through a local band a friend of mine played in called Folkenstein. They played the same kind of eclectic progressive folk and were clearly inspired by String Driven Thing. They played a lot of covers from String Driven Thing's catalog, but I did not know that at the time. I bought Folkenstein's home-recorded cassette at one of their gigs and then found out about STT through the hand-written liner notes of that cassette. Next trip to the record store I bought this album and over the years I've gotten most of their other stuff. I don't listen to it as much as I should, but I'm that way with a lot of my music library, just because there's so many artists and I tend to gravitate around my favorites.

I've enjoyed playing this a few times the last two days and will have to remind myself to break it out once in a while.

I've kept myself a bit too busy to comment on this thread much, but I will post on it tomorrow. I'm not overly familiar with the album, but have heard it at least a dozen times over the years. I'll give it a few fresh listens tomorrow and make time to post.

This is one of the most perplexing, disorienting albums I can remember ever listening to. I'd never even heard of it before, much less heard it, and had no idea what to expect, and yet it somehow managed to confound expectations all the same, by setting up new ones over and over, just to know them right the hell down. Fantastic. 1. Circus — this first song opens in a disorienting way, with the downbeat not being where you expected. Somehow feels like a cross between kind of heartland blooze rock and yet with a punk vibe due to the mixing. Little doubt that this vocalist MEANS it. Also, the clarinet tootling towards the end made me literally laugh out loud.

2. Fairground — and after that cockrockish bloozy opening what do we get? Why, a female-sung folk tune from decades past, of course. DUH. God, what a lovely voice. Solo violin can be a bit screechy at times, but this was just delightful. 3. Hooked on the Road — then we get another raveup, but this time redolent of Highway 61 or even Bringing It All Back Home Again, sonically. Little to no drums audible, which is a strange but ultimately, I guess, effective choice? Then we get what I thought was a wah wah solo but is it actually violin through a wah? Or even just violin? 4. Easy to Be Free — and then we get a sort of Cat Stevens-like modern folk ballad—only, to my ears, more pleasant, but then I don't care for Stevens—and props to what I guess is the same singer as the leather-lunged belter? This should 100% be used in a film or TV show, where it would be crazy effective and drive the internet crazy trying to figure out what the hell it is. 5. Jack Diamond — surprisingly--to me--the next tune feels at first like early (Charisma labelmates) Genesis, circz Nursery Cryme or even Trepass. The chorus, though, is nothing like them but feels more like an early 70s minor Top 40 hit. (Actually, melodically, it kinda reminds me a bit of "In the Year 2525.") 6. Let Me Down — another rocker, with another tasty yet rockin' violin solo, and for the first time ever, I think the violin may indeed have been seriously underutilized in rock and roll. Despite Dylan and Springsteen being two of my very top all time favorite artists--with the Beatles and Neil Young and Peter Gabriel and the Replacements way up there too--I've never actually cared much about lyrics. If they're great, that's awesome. But generally speaking, as long as they don't really jump out as terrible, passible is perfectly fine. These jump out as maybe not stellar. But, again, the music makes up for it. But why so little drums? Is it just that they were mixed into oblivion? It does kinda have a Velvet Underground vibe, so that would make sense. 7. The Last Blue Yodel —​ and we're back to the sensitive singer-songwriter vibe. This ​definitely has the Cat Stevens thing going again, although it also feels a bit Richard Thompson, albeit with a much more approachable vocal style. 8. My Real Hero​ — time for a more aggressive​ track? Of course it is! I like that this one doesn't really rip off "Come Together" but it definitely has hangs out more than a bit in that 'hood, but with lovely female vocals added. Speaking of, why on earth has she only gotten one lead so far? She's fabulous! Again, with the very Vu-like instrumental mix. And absolutely love the chicken scratch guitar. Also, for the record, God may not play in a rock and roll band, but I think it's indisputable that She's absolutely a huge, huge fan. ​ 9. Regent Street Incident — and sensitive! This time we've got a "Helpless" thing going on. And how much higher praise can one give? Man, I'm baffled as to why this band didn't hit it much bigger, given what great songs the guy could write, and how likable a voice he had. (And flexible--if I didn't know better...and maybe I'm wrong...I'd have thought there were at least two and maybe three different male vocalists.) The fickleness of fame and fate, I guess. What a shame. ​1​0. There You Are​ — ​speaking of vocal stylings, here he's got a less whispery Nick Drake thing, in a decidedly non-Drake setting. The pseudo-country clip-clop is a great way to end a confounding and fascinating album. ​Man, this was quite the discovery and quite the musical journey. I'll be adding the quieter songs to some reflective playlist, without question. Great choice, Bill.

So, we have a 50 year old album, originally on the Charisma label. The recording itself is excellent and reminded me of various other albums and artists I've heard over the years.

I'm always intrigued by bands with different vocalists. Sometimes that really works, like with Fleetwood Mac, other times not as well, to my ears. (I love Alison Krauss & Union Station but only like the tracks Alison sings on, sorry gents...)

This actually reminded me of an album by a band my dad had, from a similar time period. Silver Sails by Steeleye Span, although that was a slightly more traditional band layout and sound.