Lotti Golden - Motor-Cycle (1969)
Unfortunately I'm very busy this week and so have fallen back on someone else's rip (thanks to the anonymous News Group poster who put this one out there in the ether). Also, it looks like I'll be travelling next week so don't expect another post for 2 weeks.
This is a fine soul record with some psychedelic touches and some weird Satan-biker references. It was released on Atalantic records in '69 and produced by Bob Crewe. Robert Christgau didn't like it, which is usually a good sign--he compares her to Laura Nyro (who he also doesn't like) & I can definitely hear some similarities (at least with Nyro's earlier work) but Golden has an oddness that puts her in a class by herself. Christgau liked her '71 self-titled album better but I haven't heard that one.
After that 2nd lp she appears to have gone on to work as a back-up singer (for Carly Simon among others) and record producer.
There's a poem about Motor-Cycle Michael on the back of the record (images included in link below) that starts with, "Michael was a siren and a street god...and he said chicks called him Lucifer, beacuse when he got wasted one eye would nod out in the corner...and when I wasn't riding his truth machine, anabell and johnny and me...would go down to the eastside docks and watch the jive sun do the boogaloo on the water..." That should give you as good idea as anything about what the record is like. Perhaps the song titles will help too:
(1) Gonna Fay's, (2) A Lot Like Lucifer (Celia Said Long Time Loser), (3) The Space Queens (Silky Is Sad), (4) Who Are Your Friends, (5) Get Together (With Yourself), (6) You Can Find Him
Enjoy the music here
posted by Max at 8:59 AM
15 Comments:
hello!
there is a sugestion...
www.myspace.com/joaoninguem
tell me about it...
ioda82@hotmail.com
thanks
see you
Fernando Costa
hello -
scott from crud crud here. thought you might wanna check out my new one
http://gibblegabble.blogspot.com/
Hi Scott,
Gibble Gabble is already on my list of links to add.
& Fernando,
Not sure if your comment constitutes spam but I'll leave--you should allow downloads of your songs if you want more people to listen.
Hi!
It will be nice to see you here :
.:|SilveRaiN|:.
Hi Max,
You've got some truly bizarre stuff. Thanks for doing all the grunt work so we web thieves can enjoy the fruits. Love those 60s/70s oddities.
MANY MANY thanks again.
Cash
fucking odd coincidence! i was going to post this exact record next.thanks for the comments.looks like i'll have to cop a few of your post.
I think you're dealing with something more "Helter Skelter" portentous than you realize--'way back in September of 2001, it was appropriated as a 9/11 metaphor.
http://www.omnitecturalforum.com/wtc/tdatt.html
"...and yet, self-consciously affirmed art's no match for the shellshockingly lurid... I'm left thinking, instead, of the 1969 Lotti Golden album "Motor-Cycle" which, in the name of some kind of perverse Midnight Cowboy-era Piaf-of-Gotham schtick, takes Laura Nyro a step or two further than really necessary, and then sends her hurtling pointblank into the Velvet Underground, exploding in one huge fireball --a musical Ground Zero if ever there was one..."
Also note the subheading in the "Post-Transcendence" chapter: "She's A Lot Like Lucifer".
Adma,
When you refer to "Helter Skelter" I assume you're talking about the Manson family's interpretation of the song & the subsequent events. While this is an interesting quote about the Golden album, I think it would be beyond bizarre if the terrorists on 9/11 were listening to Lotti Golden. Thanks though for the quote.
Max
Obviously they wouldn't--in fact, it may more properly be an inversion of the "Helter Skelter" metaphor. That is, not the album's influence on the event, but the event's invocation of the album, as if the rather flabbergasting WTFness of the latter somehow foretold the former.
By that measure, it's definitely a disc that deserves more of a cult following than it's had--or, under the circumstances, maybe not.
Well it seems to have had more downloads than any previous post (in part thanks to the links from the WFMU blogs) so perhaps its cult following is growing & maybe it even touches on some subconscious recognition of 9/11 trauma. Or maybe it's just a really cool record.
Given the nature of the series of pieces where that quote came from, it may be less a matter of 9/11 trauma than of 9/11 Dada, so to speak. (IOW if, as WFMU suggests, the music tosses in everything including the kitchen sink, then said kitchen sink must be signed R. Mutt. "Really cool record" truly understates the case--everyone I've played the album for seems to go away wondering what hit them. And that includes your garden-variety Scott Walker & Syd Barrett afficionados.)
A web search indicates that "Motor-Cycle" was a formative influence on Cree Summer, of all people...
Apropos to all, this was just described to me as the intersection of Andy Kim + Lotti Golden
http://idolator.com/tunes/mp3/our-last-sip-from-the-pussycats-saucer-we-promise-253073.php
And, I agree. Really.
I'm sorry but she has a really, really irritating voice. Annoys me way too much for me to appreciate her music.
Peace!
I have been listening to this off and on since it came out. 'Silky is Sad' is my favorite track for what it is worth. What struck me when I first heard it was what an honest set of songs this is. They seem to tell about her life and friends with a direct intimate voice. In this sense she is more like Lady Day or Piaf than she is like most of her contemporaries. What she might occasionally lack in pop appeal, she makes up for with strength and honesty.
--VinylMitch
I found your site when I happened upon http://hillaryclintonarmy.blogspot.com/ where Lotti Golden's LP "Motor-Cycle" was recently posted and received lots of comments--some very informative. One of the posters referred to Play It Again Max, so I thought many of you (including Max!) might enjoy reading the comments on hillaryclintonarmy.
As a fan of Golden's work-- (the lyrics read like poetry) I'd really like Atlantic to reissue the album on CD.
Post a Comment
<< Home