A Donkey that Brays a Sweet Vermouth

As interesting as the Swing Revival of the 90's seemed (and relatively long-lived for fads, lasting the whole decade and dripping into the 21st century), it's had little long-term impact on pop culture at large, aside from fastening fedoras to the heads of awful young men the nation over.  Oh, sure, a tiny handful of bands gained impressive fan bases and piles of cash, the two big ones being the Cherry Poppin' Daddies (of "Zoot Suit Riot" fame) and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, but even mentioning Royal Crown Revue will bring most music fans to a screeching "Huh?".  That being said, for somebody like me who isn't an expert on Swing Revival bands, encountering a band like Donkey, who were most likely tangential to the movement  but could have only seen widespread success within its confines (not that they did), is an interesting moment.  Formed in Athens, GA, Donkey was the house band for The Point, a nightclub in Atlanta that is now a clothing store, and they released two albums in the mid-90's (or three if you believe Amazon lumping in the '97 album Stroke My Wings Gently by an unrelated indie rock band).  They crafted a unique mixture of Swing Revival, the Fine Young Cannibals, and Steely Dan-esque lounge rock in their brief time in the sun, and came to my attention primarily as a dollar CD at In Your Ear in Boston.  The value of their album Slick Night Out is inversely proportional to the amount of information about them online, and considering their Allmusic entry is only two sentences long you can take my word for it that it's a dang good time.

Donkey was never really meant to be seen on a national stage, and in that spirit Slick Night Out is a live album, capturing a typical, yet gleaming, night at The Point with everybody's favorite music boys.  As much as we all adore Thad Jones's big band from the 70's it's easy to forget that they were the Monday night house band at the Village Vanguard, and their songs could be heard any given Monday simply by walking there.  What gives Donkey their beauty is that they seem free to explore many different avenues, maintaining a healthy allergy to pigeonholing.  "Phantasmo del Gato" seems almost Tom Waitsian in its bar-music synthesis, with the guitar solo at 1:00 ripped from whatever glorious universe Progressive Rockabilly exists in.  This quality is kind of hard to detect on a song-by-song basis, but maybe a song from their second album, Ten Cent Freaks, will help:

Many of their songs possess a rock intensity and focused songwriting that jazz is so very good at eschewing.  Jazz's most individual quality is improvisation, and Donkey never much bothered with extended solos, instead finding its drive from the vocals of founder T. B. Ferster, a voice more akin to Barenaked Ladies frontman Steven Page than a stereotypical crooner, the latter of which was a prized possession among Swing Revival bands.  As is the case with obscure groups the most interesting songs of theirs never make it to YouTube, so I can't play you one of their rockiest and most musically interesting songs, "Sweet Vermouth".  The one that immediately follows it, "Baby Mae", is of course fully available-

-and Ferster has slipped so much into Steven Page's singing voice I thought I was hearing "Brian Wilson" all over again.  The song also illuminates how well a horn section fits into a rock context, a lesson you'd think we already learned from Blood Sweat & Tears but we apparently forgot.  While every member of the band does click Donkey never really raised their voice, perhaps because of their nightclub gig but also due to a wisely laid-back persona reminiscent of the Grand Saturday Night.  This is probably the biggest factor that kept them from the big time - as well as the fact Slick Night Out was released on Georgia-based Steam Records, though I have no evidence they released anything other than this album.  The live recording lacks the booming presence and polish of a bells-and-whistles studio recording, and "Zoot Suit Riot" will always sound better on your car stereo because of equalized, overcranked levels.  Donkey seemed masters of the club stage, and while I'm glad their stuff was captured on disc ripping them from their small pond may have done more damage than good.  I also like that they weren't going for an artificial gloss like the other Swing Revival groups, rather stretching out into their own little groove - and that freedom ensures its relative timelessness, while Swing Revival may seem more and more embarrassing in the future.  Slick Night Out won't become your favorite album or change the way you look at rock, but it's a great CD for your next party and is a welcome alternative to the more dated 90's music that gained more fame in its time.  Take Donkey in slow and deep, like a fine single malt, and you'll do just fine.  And hey, what bar band do you know that got their own music video (before YouTube, of course)?

~PNK

Drop in the Bucket - Mogul Thrash

Drop in the Bucket is a new series, created for the exploration of groups that only released one album before disbanding.  These lonely discs, often riveting and sometimes mysterious, are the sole eternal output of an enormous range of artists that are more often than not left in the dustbin of history (dollar CD racks).  Drop in the Bucket aims to investigate as many as possible, taking the good with the less than good, and giving these artists the consideration they deserve, because even getting one album out there is quite a feat.  And who better to start with than one of the best-named: Mogul Thrash.

Mogul Thrash was a British progressive funk rock supergroup, formed in 1970 from members of such bands I've never heard of as Electron, Colosseum, Splinter and Brotherhood.  The most recognizable name is John Wetton who would go on to found such groups as Wishbone Ash, Roxy Music and Asia*.  I'll save you some search time and point you to the best information on the group I could find, an interview with member James Litherland (who as in Colosseum).  The name apparently comes from a spoof of a British TV show called the Michael Miles Show by Spike Milligan, where he would wear a fake nose and be called Mogul Thrash.  I think this band should be less spoken about and more listened to, so on with the songs.  Soon after forming they dropped this single:

Miles Davis fans should spot at least a passing similarity to "Freedom Jazz Dance" there.  Damn, that's a hard beat drop, and the horns just sell it.  Why horn sections don't show up in rock more will forever be a mystery to me.  Anybody who insists that every group in the early 70's was on drugs needs to shut up for a second, because you can't possibly be sub-sober and pull this off.  They actually released this after the album had come out, flying in the face of most debut paths.  There other tracks included saxophones to great effect, another indicator that Pink Floyd had the right idea with Wish You Were Here:

There's a fine art to minute-long noodle, and Roger Ball here has it down.  The soprano saxophone is an unusual sound in rock music, and the groove it drops in to is unparalleled.  All the tracks are groovy as all heck, bringing early 70's prog to the front steps of the hard groovers with ease.  It's a fantastic album, one for all seasons and moods, and it invites repeat listens with memorable hooks and digressions both distinctive and nicely concise.  As far as single albums go this is the one to do - hard-hitting and sumptuous.  As the CD's get a bit pricey used, somebody was kind enough to put up the whole thing on YouTube so you to can thrash mogully.  More entries are to come, so hold on to your socks - they will be blown off.

~PNK

*One particularly funny bio I found said that Mogul Thrash was primarily of interest to Asia fans.  Just think about that for a second.

A Voyage to Distant Lounges with Caldera

I’ll be the first to admit that the avalanche you just witnessed is a bit more “70′s” than we’ve done on DOTE. Perhaps it was just in the ash-encrusted air. I know I got black lung just looking at that cover (as stretched it is on YouTube), but enough with the zingers. Caldera was an excellent group that fell victim to that all-too-unfortunate planned obsolescence of distribution: an art object that’s owned by a major label (in this case Capitol Records) and didn’t sell. As a result, their work is pretty hard to find on CD (at least legitimately or for reasonable prices), but thankfully the piracy juggernaut that is YouTube has helped out a great deal. Let’s hear it for team work.

Founded in 1976, Caldera was a multi-American effort to combine the then thriving jazz fusion scene (their primary influences being Return to Forever and Weather Report) with Pan-Latin influences. Pan-Latin may seem like something I just made up (as I did), but it fits what Caldera considered to be Latin music, which encompassed everything from Afro-Cuban to Flamenco to Salsa and anything else written in Spanich. The mind runs wild. Pulsing rhythms. Synths. Bongos. Keytars. The best-yet-found precursor to Earth Wind & Fire (who would be supplanted by a former member of this group). Perhaps we should just take another listen.

After floating off on a Tomita carpet ride, we hit Heavy Weather and all is right in the world. It’s almost too lovely to behold, swooping from acid to sitcom opener to soul-enriching sax in the blink of an eye. And yet it all works. This track isn’t as Latin heavy as the previous one (aside from a surging auxilary percussion drive), but I’m not one to pigeonhole. I’ll let this track make up for that:

This kind of brilliance lasted them four albums (1976-1979) but they just refused to sell. I can’t even begin to tell you how much of a Sam Hill shame that is, and everybody on YouTube, AllMusic, and Discogs agrees. They broke up after their fourth album The Dreamer and split into other projects, such as the aforementioned Earth Wind & Fire participation. A discussion on why they didn’t get the Big Break could shoot all over the place, with tangents on the public’s willingness to cross-breed genre tropes, to speculation on Capitol’s marketing, to the general direction of Jazz Fusion at the time and what people were expecting to hear if the words “Latin Flanger” are uttered. My first question is to whether or not record company executives actually listen to their product before making decisions (Answer = ? and 1/2). A lone track on the suspicious looking Capitol Rare, Volume 1 compilation isn’t doing it for me.

I’ll leave you with this last portal to a mythical land, with keyboards by Larry Dunn (hey, didn’t he co-found EW&F?)

~PNK