Thursday, August 31, 2006

The Cake - A Slice Of Cake (1968)

UPDATE: I received notice from Eleanor Barooshian (aka Chelsea Lee) that The remaining 2 members of The Cake will be performing in NY City at the B.B. KING LOUNGE on 11/27/06 as part of a tribute concert for Jimi Hendrix.


Here's another group that should be better known than they are. The Cake put out two remarkable records that stretched the concept of the "girl group" sound into the realms of baroque pop and psychedelia. Their 1st effort, Cake, was already posted at the Palestinian Light Orchestra blog. I presented here their second and I believe better outing. I say better because I find it a more consistent release. The 1st album has some excellent songs but as some reviewers have noted it sounds like it was recorded by three different groups. On A Slice Of Cake, the Cake composed almost all the songs themselves (with the exception of the opening track, a nice r&b medley & a trippy Dr. John number) and the music is more consistently original in its arrangements and delivery.

The three members of the Cake (Jeanette Jacobs, Barbara Morillo and Eleanor Barooshian--the order they appear in the photo above) formed in NYC in 1966. After the band's break-up, Eleanor Barooshian (now Chelsea Lee) and Jeanette Jacobs sang back-up for Dr. John in his Nightripper period and Ginger Baker's Airforce. Ms. Jacobs also appeared on Hendrix's Electric Ladyland album. Barbara Morillo continued to perform in a number of rock and jazz groups and released a CD as Barbara Morillo & Shrine in 2004. Eleanor Barooshian aka Chelsea Lee also has some music projects in the works (see her blog) and started a Cake Web site--it doesn't contain much info on the group but she does seem open to emailed questions. Sadly, Jeanette Jacobs passed away in 1982.

Here's a tracklist:

  1. Have You Heard the News About Miss Molly? 2:44
  2. P.T. 280 2:15
  3. Sadie 2:26
  4. Tides of Time 2:09
  5. Walkin' the Dog/Something's Got a Hold on Me/Big Boy Pete 4:08
  6. Extroverted Introvert 2:26
  7. Under the Tree of Love and Laughter 1:15
  8. Annabelle Clark 3:10
  9. Who Will Wear the Crown 2:00
  10. Island of Plenty 2:45

Both the Cake albums are now available on CD from Rev-Ola and so are no lonver available on this blog.

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sad, I can't open the rar file...
I was really looking forward to hear this lp!
Anyway, nice blog with clever descriptions, keep the nice work!

tba, could you open the file?

Max said...
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Max said...
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Max said...

I'm dling & will test the file--if there's a problem I can try reposting with a different name (the _ characters may be a problem).

Max said...

Hi Bass,
It worked for me using WinRAR. Are you using a Mac? If so, you might want to try a different program for unpacking it.

Anonymous said...

Hi Guys,
yes I'm using a mac and I just found the solution, I had to change the name of the RAR file after I had downloaded it and then it worked! Perhaps there was a problem because of the brackets in the name of the RAR, I am not sure of that but I think you should avoid strange signs in the name of the files...
Anyway, thanks for everything!

whiteray said...

Very nice stuff -- thanks a lot!

Anonymous said...

Max, your blog is just marvelous. There are lots of excellent stuff here. I was looking for some of these rarities for years! And thanks for include my two blogs on the links session.

Anonymous said...

This looks and sounds really cool, so I'll give it a shot.

I discovered your site from StatCounter on my blog. While looking at the stats, I noticed that someone had visited my blog from yours. I appreciate the link on your page and I've returned the favor!

litlgrey said...

That black and white photo with the Jerry Mahoney doll... was that the album cover?

Max said...

No, the photo is just a picture of the band circa the time of the lp's release. I had a cover shot up on the blog but it was a very low-res shot and didn't look good so I took it down. It's a drawing of the 3 also in black and white. A google search should turn it up but I can also send it if you contact me.

DJ Diddy Wah said...

This, Serfs and Africa (who's Paint It Black I had heard on a comp of the same name) have all totally blown my mind this morning. I'm now going to go for a walk in a park where I can think about getting a external harddrive. Keep it up and thanks.

Anonymous said...

Really enjoyed all of your well-chosen LPs, but Cake's LP was fantastic. Many thanks.

Anonymous said...

I've always loved this album & will also buy a CD if it gets released, but I just couldn't get the download to work. I tried in Firefox, Opera & IE, but every time I filled in the number code, & clicked the download lonk, it just took me back to the countdown again.

Anonymous said...

Many,many thanks for this - 'The Cake' had a track on the 'one kiss lead to another' girl group compilation & I've been looking allover for some more stuff..I hope the rev-ola deal comes through.

Anonymous said...

Cathaven,
The link is still good (I checked) but I have had a similar problem with this dl site & won't be using it again. ON occassion I've had to enter the code 3 or 4 times before the dl started. Also, if you have Spyware Doctor or another program that blocks suspicious dls you may need to turn it off temporarily as it can stop the dl before it starts.

Max said...

That last comment was from me--must have selected the wrong identity option.

Anonymous said...

Thank you! Once upon a time, I bought this LP on ebay, but it never made it to me from a far away land. I am thrilled to finally get to hear it. "Max"-imum appreciation from dis cat here!

Anonymous said...

Thank you! Once upon a time, I bought this LP on ebay, but it never made it to me from a far away land. I am thrilled to finally get to hear it. "Max"-imum appreciation from dis cat here!

Max said...

I got an email from Eleanor Barooshian aka Chelsea Lee from The Cake. She wanted to point out that that is not a Jerry Mahoney doll (the doll's name was Oliver) and that she wasn't really wearing a black shirt in the photo. The shirt, which was given to her by Skip Spence, had something "taboo" printed on it so they blacked it out.

R. said...

The Cake share suffers from the same problem as the St George & Tana album. I think the mishap is one easily made. Yet comments made here and elsewhere leave me with the question: did these folks actually listen to this and St George & Tana's album?

I risk sounding very sour here. Not my intention. If I'd have ripped these albums I'd have hated to have found out afterwards that it sounded like this. And that nobody had commented on it. Which is why I give you this feedback.

Take care :)

R. said...

Okay! Since you have a comment section on shares and since I left polite feedback and a question with regards to the Tana & George share as well as this one (Cake) - and since I get no reply in return, I figured the rips had been fixed. So I actually ventured new downloads...

Such a waste of time!

If you put up poor audio and disregard polite feedback on that, expect irritation from visitors. Because as it is you're spamming.

Suggestion: please answer! If you say bugger it (obviously your prefered choice after asking me exactly what was wrong with these rips, upon which I explained it to you) and can't actually hear what's the matter with these rips, then steer your unmusical self away from music blogging!

And don't give me that blogger's nonsense that one can share whatever one chooses to. Because you're not sharing that which you tell the visitor you're sharing. Get the picture?

Max said...

Hey Bof,
Sorry I have better things to do than spend every day looking through comments on old posts for gems of wisdom from impatient, rude trolls whose idea of contributing to the blogging community consists of ripping off other peoples posts. In the future, please stay away--it breaks my heart that you won't be downloading from me any more. Sorry but both sides of the those records were ripped with the same equipement, on the same day, using the same software and I'm certainly not going to bother reripping them for you.

R. said...

First, spare me that Hanzun-and-crowd troll nonsense (it ain't good company!). Second, you did answer my comment on St George & Tana response. I also specified in my comment on the Cake share which album it pertained to. So when you read your email (I assume that's how you got your notice) you got which albums my repsonse applied to. You even bothered asking me what was the matter. And I explained it to you.

Further, a blog is a public space. Nothing you or I say will change that. As site manager it gives you the opportunity to control information flow on this blog - and visitors will form their opinion with regards to the quality and truthfulness of it accordingly.

I applaud the fact that you made the Cake album in question available. I also concidered it respectful to give honest feedback on that. What I resent is you not following up on it with as much as a reply to my feedback (of which you took notice - otherwise you wouldn't have answered my comment on the St George & Tana share, nor would you have taken notice of my previous comment here). You're not obliged to make a new rip, nobody is - but when a problem is known to you, please make that public. But you obviously don't think that's necessary. So you present something that in actual fact and to your knowledge is this: distorted audio. You know it, but you won't let visitors in on it.

Do you see my resentment? If you want further info on what a blog is look it up at wikipedia. It's not a private space that requires a key or a password. And it exists by way of visitation.

D'accord is a blog that reups shares that have been discontinued as well as personal rips. Reupping is a strategy applied by many blogs, several of which you've linked on your blog.

Bottom line: if you present something that's not the genuine article and you get polite response on that - don't lie in a reply, don't ignore feedback. Just fix what's broken or remove it. Problem solved. Misguidance stopped. Further, if you can't handle polite and honest response, disable the comment section.

That's what ticked me off here. Not your poorly ventured sarcasm, which to me is irrelevant (it just puts an effective stop to dialogue). Important thing is if this blog continues with audio-quality shares I'll go on downloading. If not I and other visitors have better things to do.

In a nutshell that's the key issue for all parts involved. With or without communication between you and visitors of this blog.

Now why did I take time to write all this? Your blog has some good shares and I'd prefer to see it continued. But not in distorted audio. About the rest I don't give a toss.

Anonymous said...

Bof! dude, your meds are not working today. Chippy

Anonymous said...

In spite of the negative comments, I'd still like to hear this album, but I've attempted to dl at least ten times, and all I ever get is 1%, then the dl says "complete." Could you possibly reup it, or is this a problem with the fileshare service? Thanks!

Max said...

It may be that Deposit Files doesn't work in certain parts of the world or at least for certain computers--I've also posted it here if you want to try it:
http://upload.ohshare.com/v/1920480/Cake2.rar.html

Anonymous said...

Thanks Max! It downloaded fine from OhShare; that site seems to work well with everyone that uses it.

R. said...

The Cake album presented here isn't playable. Tried both links offered.

Max said...

R,

Not sure if you tried the OShare link listed in the comments above but it works fine for me.

Max

Anonymous said...

I have a copy of the first CAKE LP. It's still in great shape. I love their music. I also copied the LP to my hard drive, cleaned it, and made a CD that I can play in my car.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know what happened to Elanor Barooshian (aka Chelsea Lee)?? Photos current activities etc.

Max said...

As far as I know Chelsea is still around and occassionally involved in Cake-related projects. See the group's Myspace page:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=123072366

high-flying-baby said...

http://www.hollywoodagogo.com/Hollywood%20a%20Go%20Go/Thumbnails/A%20Slice%20of%20The%20Cake%20Decca%20Records%201968.jpg

I have this on vinyl, any idea what it's worth, if anything? Not for sale, just curious.