Home from a long day of work and a
good guitar lesson, and ready to review this next album no matter how spooky
things might get. Get it? Get it?
Man, I crack myself up.
Disc 488 is… Best of Spooky Tooth
Year of Release: 1975, but with
music from 1968-1973
What’s up with the Cover? A lot of Spooky Tooth album covers were pretty wild,
but this best of compilation just has half a tiger’s head. I’m not sure it makes the tiger’s teeth seem
‘spooky’ but I like it. This cover also reminds
me I need to find myself a copy of Tygers of Pan Tang’s “Wild Cat.”
How I Came To Know It: My friend Spence made me a compilation album he
titled “Rare Evil” with some old school rock and roll by lesser known seventies
bands. Spooky Tooth’s “Evil Woman” was
on there, and I liked it, so I sought them out.
How It Stacks Up: I only have this one Spooky Tooth album, but even if
that weren’t true, ‘best of’ albums are compilation, and so don’t stack up.
Rating: no ratings assigned to “best of” albums or
compilations, monkey!
Imagine
if you could cross Black Sabbath with hippies.
I’m not saying you should do that, I’m just saying imagine that you
could. The result would be a lot like
Spooky Tooth.
Spooky
Tooth is a late sixties/early seventies band that were pretty much
contemporaries with the Carpenters (reviewed only two albums ago, at Disc 486). However they weren’t terribly
interested in making pop singles or if they were, they went about it in a funny
way. Instead, they infused flower power
sensibilities into what would otherwise be hard rock. I think I’ll call it Flower Pot Rock, for
lack of a better expression.
The
results are uneven, but worth a listen.
Sometimes they sound like Led Zeppelin, like on their remake of the
early sixties folk song, “Tobacco Road”
or on the song that introduced me to them, “Evil
Woman.” Both are inspired mixes of
blues and rock, particularly “Evil Woman”
(which should not be confused with the Black Sabbath song of the same
name). Lead singer Mike Harrison really
shows off his vocal chops on this song, going from a rock growl to a
ridiculously powerful falsetto. The effect
is to effectively capture the mix of the singer’s conflicting opinion of the
song’s subject. On the surface, he is
angrily rejecting her charms, but there’s a clear magnetism for her underneath that rejection that is undeniably unhealthy. “Evil
Woman” is nine minutes long, but never seems to drag, and when it ends in a
bit of confusing noodling it seems wholly appropriate.
The
album also features the original version of “Better By You, Better Than Me” which is written by organ player
Gary Wright (who would later go on to write the much more famous “Dream Weaver” as a solo artist). I like this version, but “Better By You, Better Than Me” is also later
covered by Judas Priest on their “Stained Class” album (reviewed back at Disc 195). Priest improved the song a fair
bit, infusing it with an energy that Spooky Tooth can’t deliver.
It is
worth noting that this is supposedly Spooky Tooth’s “best of” compilation, yet
of the thirteen tracks, at least three are remakes. Unlike Judas Priest, their remakes don’t make
the song better either. Their version of
The Band’s “The Weight” sounds like a
thin carbon copy and their attempt at the Beatles' “I Am the Walrus” takes an interesting and complicated song and
makes it plodding and dull.
When
they do their own thing, it is generally better, such as on the anthemic
guitar-rock track “Waitin’ For the Wind”
which with its organs and wall of sound, is ten years ahead of its time.
Harrison’s vocals ground the track in the seventies, as do the southern-rock
unison singing for the chorus, and along with “Evil Woman” this is Spooky Tooth at their best.
When they
try to soften their sound it comes off a bit too flower power for my
tastes. Songs like “Self Seeking Man” are supposed to be deep, but just sound indulgent,
even for a time when indulgence was generally applauded. Spooky Tooth is better when they just rock
out and trust to their tight playing and powerful vocalist to see them
through. That said, great vocals and
tight playing can only take you so far when you don’t know where you’re going.
Best tracks: Tobacco Road, Better By You, Better Than Me, Waitin’
For The Wind, Evil Woman.
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