🎵 AotW AOTW: EARTHQUAKE (A&M SP 4308)

[LPJim]

EARTHQUAKE
Earthquake
A&M SP4308

Time was not so long ago, when ecstatic magic evenings took place in San Francisco and Berkeley, when the people came out of the hills and the woodwork of the area and danced themselves into another consciousness beneath strange lights. Now those people have fled in terror from the energy they created but could not channel, leaving behind them a bunch of diverse elements which don't always mix.

In the current confusion, musical and otherwise, a new point of focus is appearing. One aspect of it takes the form of small gritty little night clubs scattered around the Bay Area, where a 'new generation' of dancers come down to act as midwives for a struggling renaissance. EARTH QUAKE - Robbie Dunbar, Stan Miller, John Doukas and Steve Nelson - are children of the earlier magic and adults of the second San Francisco generation. They play IBM (involuntary body movement) music to guide the parades along.

With beginnings in 1966, Earth Quake are more firmly rooted than most of the Northern California based bands. Drawing inspiration from staples such as the Kinks, Mayall, Pickett, Muddy Waters and the Yardbirds (recent rock 'roots' figures whose music few seem to be honestly able to call upon for help). Earth Quake have grown up on the Dues Circuit of the Bay Area - the free concerts, the demonstations, the clubs and the preciously rare occasional ballrooms. But Robbie's guitar, Stan's bass, John's vocals and Steve's percussion have learned their lessons well.

IBM with substance as motivation is the music of Earth Quake. They play for and with people to make the positivity tangible once again, to focus the energy so that it can be used. Earth Quake play to shake, rattle and roll us down to the sea to watch the sun rise. And it's a good morning.
(liner notes by) Jim Bickhart

SIDE ONE
Tumbleweed (Stan Miller- J. Robert Dunbar) 2:59/ Distance Between (Greg Boykin- J. Robert Dunbar) 2:57/ Summer Song (Dunbar) 3:11/ Things (Boykin-Dunbar) 9:20.

SIDE TWO
Guarding You (Miller-Steve Nelson) 4:06/ Wind Keeps Blowing (Dunbar) 2:56/ Look Out Your Window (John Doukas-Dunbar-Boykin-Miller) 3:02/ Blurry Eyes (Doukas-Dunbar) 4:06/ Tickler (Dunbar) 4:40.

All selections published by Almo Music Corp/ Red Setter Music Inc. ASCAP

John Doukas- vocals/ Robbie Dunbar - guitars, electric piano, vocals/ Stan Miller - bass & vocals/ Steve Nelson- percussion & vocals/ Robert Appere -engineer/ Bernie Grundman - mastering engineer/ Chris Lovett & Glen Franzen- technical exportation/ produced and arranged by Eath Quake and Allan Mason/ executive producer - Matthew King Kaufman/ art direction - Roland Young/ design - Louis Danziger/ photography - Jim McCrary

CD reissue: EARTH QUAKE PURPLE: THE A&M RECORDINGS on Acadia, a label of Evangeline Recorded Works LTD of England, contains EARTH QUAKE plus WHY DON'T YOU TRY ME? (A&M SP 4337) in their entirety, 17 tracks on one disc.

After two albums on A&M Earthquake founded its own independent "Beserkely" label with financial assistance from Jerry Moss, who believed in the band even though it had not achieved instant chart success.
JB

PS: The vocal harmonies on "Wind Keeps Blowing" are incredible

www.evangeline.co.uk

 

[Dave]

SIDE ONE
Tumbleweed (Stan Miller- J. Robert Dunbar) 2:59/ Distance Between (Greg Boykin- J. Robert Dunbar) 2:57/ Summer Song (Dunbar) 3:11/ Things (Boykin-Dunbar) 9:20.

SIDE TWO
Guarding You (Miller-Steve Nelson) 4:06/ Wind Keeps Blowing (Dunbar) 2:56/ Look Out Your Window (John Doukas-Dunbar-Boykin-Miller) 3:02/ Blurry Eyes (Doukas-Dunbar) 4:06/ Tickler (Dunbar) 4:40.

All selections published by Almo Music Corp/ Red Setter Music Inc. ASCAP

John Doukas- vocals/ Robbie Dunbar - guitars, electric piano, vocals/ Stan Miller - bass & vocals/ Steve Nelson- percussion & vocals/ Robert Appere -engineer/ Bernie Grundman - mastering engineer/ Chris Lovett & Glen Franzen- technical exportation/ produced and arranged by Eath Quake and Allan Mason/ executive producer - Matthew King Kaufman/ art direction - Roland Young/ design - Louis Danziger/ photography - Jim McCrary

JB

This is one album, which has been absent from my collection for quite some time.

Remember some of the songs, such as the "hit single" quality of "Tumbleweed", which is in no way relevant to The Sons Of (The) Pioneer's "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds". Or anything Country-Western, for that matter. "Distance Between" seems to have a commercial resonance, as well. As for "Summer Song", you can hear the group's resemblence to Steely Dan. Not just vocal-wise, but by now, it's evidence in the lyrics, how Becker and Fagan-influenced this group is starting to be. Especially in the 9-minute "Things", projecting themselves as a "Steely Dan with an ATTITUDE". A much more sophisticated level of their presumed influences, combined with their still "Angry Young Man" sensibilities (sample lyrics on "Things": They'll be slashin' your tires...and Stealin' Your Guitar...Make you feel uptight...Until you wanna fight...), make this group very much THE forerunner of Punk.

But that is more likely to be more chronicled in the Beserkley releases, done after this brief, "Two A&M album-period". As this album, recorded at Robert Appere's Clover Recorders in L.A., and their second A&M release, WHY DON'T YOU TRY ME still stick to a pop-friendly format.

Pop-Friendly, Side Two is showing this group to be.

Kicking off with the (Walkin' through some clouds, an angel said to me, "Son, when you grow up, what do you want to be?"...Guarding You, your angel's always right; GUARDING YOU...Your Angel's Always Right...) of "Guarding You", is evidence of a formula this group has worked itsself into, without being repetitious, as "a formula" can sometimes make you become.

Yes, the harmonies on "Wind Keeps Blowin'" are very incredible! An acoustic guitar is heard and the lyrics show how "life goes on" in the midst of the song's "doomed" plot. Another dimension is revealed, though the group still hasn't shook up your room or caused the speakers on your stereo to bounce off the shelf. And don't listen for your town's disaster siren to go off, as "Look Out Your Window" is a bit more of an optomistic sequel to "Wind"; at least some insight to some relief, is to at least "look outside and see some light and life", or at least the Going's On of the world outside. "Blurry Eyes" is at least some of the haze and daze of the former psychedelic period that this San Francisco Bay-area goup is influenced by, though delivered in the "nice, but naughty" way the earlier proceedings were. While "Tickler" (which you heard on the Double-Album Multi-Artist Sampler), closes off the album with another piece of light-hearted balladry, acting as sort of a(n) "IM-moral of the story", in this case. Kinda like listening to Steely Dan's first album, hearing the last number, "Turn That Heartbeat Over Again", and leaving it at that.

Earthquake's successor to this debut, WHY DON'T YOU TRY ME would up the pop radio friendly commercial quality and hint at even more "forrunner of Punk" sensibilities that the Beserkley Period would convey. A bit of a Cheap Trick of its time, Earthquake was a good, novel Rock Act. And one of the A&M-stable's unique offerings, compared to its contemporaries like Mott The Hoople. "There Will Be More..."

Dave