Juggular's Balls! (1980)

A happy group of artists by the looks of it, aren't they?  Amused by their non-joke, perhaps?

As you can see, the band's name is Juggular (jugular vein + juggler, presumably) and the title of their sole LP is Balls! with an exclamation mark, like when you're texting and you're a teenager but without the dumb emoticons.  Doesn't happen to readers of this blog I'm sure.  Anyways, the whole is a little silly, but typical of the times, as we all know.  And my wife's comment is probably apposite: 'because they were all stoned in those days.'

What the music is, which is what we're interested in, is smooth fusion, all instrumental, maybe a little like Auracle, with slight progessiveness here and there.  For sure it's good and enjoyable if the style appeals to you, not over the top in commercialese.  A positive point is there's NO song with a hispanic title using those simple 3-chord progressions typical of Cuban or Spanish music.  I'd go so far as to say what the hell is wrong with these people? They didn't include a "Viva Cariba!" song with those out of tune steel drums or a bossa nova song with women shouting "tititi! ariba!"??

In terms of progressive fusion the clear standout is Dragonseed:

With many or a handful of other songs (if you have lost a few fingers) that resemble it in odd originality, making this a clear category 4 (mostly ordinary fusion with one track or a few tracks progressive-ish-- whatever that means.)

Quasar Light - Experience This! 1981

If you pay attention closely to this blog (about as likely as Hillary running again in the primaries), you might have noticed that Tom Hayes made some comments for the Rantz post referencing this album as similar with the odd mix of all-out progressive outlandish music and commercial songs some of which are sung by a female vocalist (like the first 2 tracks, throwaways for me).  For those who don't know, Tom has been in suspended animation for the last few years after being ordered to  shut down the cd reissue wishlist in preparation for a top-secret government mission to alpha centauri for a large multinational mining company.  It's expected that if all goes well he'll be in the same suspended animation for more than a hundred years for that trip powered by light sails and an ion drive to close to the speed of light.  When he's revived every few years, he reviews a few prog albums.  For this reason I thought it was appropriate to post this album with its multiple references to space travel.  Unfortunately these crazies only made this one album.  Another commenter pointed out that a band member remastered the record and posted it for everyone to download on archive, in one big file.  Thanks to my wonderful friends we chopped this into digestible tracks, found some decent scans online and reassembled this frankenstein robot for your enjoyment.  Note that the LP is not cheap, in the hundred dollar range usually.

Illusion Confusion always shocked me with its tritonal riff and the way they build it throughout the song--it takes real guts to make a rock song this bizarre:

In some ways it foreshadows the glorious death metal days of the later 1990s with bands like Pantera, Cannibal Corpse, who often used bizarre riffs to heighten the anger, the energy, and let's be honest the repulsiveness (to ordinary people) of their music.  In my younger days I really fell for those bands.  I'm not gonna make my usual comments about how appropriate the song is to today's world with social media and their self-created fake news phenomenon.  (Well, it was created by people with their own motives, so I guess it's more a sad indictment of how the high hopes (in the 90s) of a democratic internet have fallen to the bottom of a garbage dump pit.)

I'll quote Tom's review from 2011 (but not in full):

Quasar Light are from Red Lion, Pennsylvania, which sits in the southeast part of the state, in and around Amish country. This isolation in the middle of farm country may explain a few things, as these guys were tapped into something that has yet to be followed up with anywhere else.
...
The first 4 songs on the album sound like some kind of alien pop with nimble hard rock guitar picking and disembodied female vocals. There is no mistaking its 1980's heritage here. 'Don't Ever Leave Me' seems to be heading down a somewhat normal path, to the point of discouragement. Starting with 'Secret of  the Stars', Quasar Light begins to go completely off the rails. This sounds like a off-kilter version of this list Post psychedelic, proto progressive with female vocals. Then Side 2 all bets are off. They were in their own world. Not that it's avant noise or anything so overt as that. No, they're still going strong with actual composed songs. But they're strange, twisted, distorted, and downright complex at times. It's progressive rock from the 6th dimension. There is absolutely no reference here. Based on their location, one begins to wonder if they're Amish on a Rumspringa binge. The only reference I could find on this album was a stream of consciousness rant from the Quasar Light founder. Yea, a surprise that. Underground America at its weirdest right here. A must.

The usually spot-on Apps was not impressed though:

Uneven mix of plain Rock and high-gear Heavy Rock/Punk and Prog from this unknown quintet of double guitars, bass, drums and vocals out of the States.Things are pretty simple to my ears.Side A is the weakest of the two, reminds me of a poor man's Syn: lots of energy in Pop Rock arrangements with some sophisitication but no further surprising moments.Side B offers better conditions for a more enjoyable listening.Guitars offer some great rhythmic breaks, energy is the key factor here with dual leads and attacking vocals in an aggressive style with progressive values and some Crimson-ian extensions.Some sort of demanding Punk if you know what I mean.Approach with caution.

Back in high school when we were all so obsessed with our classic rock albums (at the time they were not called that) we argued forever over certain LPs; some people absolutely hated them and some people absolutely loved them.  I guess Genesis belonged to that category in those days, and I admit I hated them when I was a teenager.  Couldn't stand the pretentiousness, in those days.  Clearly this record belongs to that category.  At least give them credit for being so utterly original and uncommercial.

So thanks to everyone for bringing this one to us: Tom who reminded me, the commenter who found it online, remastered by the band, and my friends for reorganizing it for safe consumption... and as we used to say in high school, I don't give a sh** if you hate it, I love this record.  And see you all on the 'cybernetic killing floor' one day:

US Gryphon, 1975

These guys made one hard rock/basic rock album in 1975 and then disappeared.  Obviously they shouldn't be confused with the British (dragon) invasion of the same name.  Overall, the sound reminds me a lot of my favourite Ambush with a kind of highly competent DIY vibe and all the trappings of AOR and arena rock without the productionary excesses on the part of a gleeful producer or more likely stoned producer (cf. Phil Spector, Beatles' Let it Be).
Nothing progressive to see here, move on if that's what you want, maybe the oddball song called Controller:





Nonetheless very enjoyable for those who love this late seventies style of US hard rock (like me and Tom Hayes).

Back to Nothin' Sirius with the 'tax scam album' Atomic Cafe

Well, pretty cool cover and verso art  Downing a beer in the middle of the deep space intergalactic for a round of poker couldn't be bad.

These fusioneer pranksters were featured earlier here, a follow-up with more improvisation and much looser is described as a Baby Grand label tax scam album.  I went over that business here, and here & still find it odd.  Perhaps instead we should ask POTUS about it.  He can probably clarify the whole mystery for us? In a few lawsuits from now that is.  Anyways, the discogs page for the label provides a wonderfully concise summary of the scam, which apparently was very short-lived, not surprisingly:

Baby Grand Records was in full swing releasing scores of eclectic recordings, all designed primarily for one purpose…not to turn a profit! The premise behind the label headed by Ron Fair, an ambitious 20 something pianist, composer/arranger and most of all aspiring record executive who would later go on to become the President of A&M Records and Geffen Records Records...had at its foundation a curious loophole in the U.S. tax laws that allowed wealthy investors to realise a tax credit far in excess of their investment. It was really quite simple; an investor would put up a few thousand dollars to cover the production and manufacturing costs. The album would have a minimal number of pressings issued and an accountant would value the recording at 10’s of thousands of dollars above the costs based on what the investor would have realised, had the record been a commercial success. In this manner, someone could invest say $5,000 and receive a tax credit of anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 as a loss on what he “expected” to generate from his initial investment. In the 1970’s the economy in the States was slamming and there was no shortage of investors in search of tax credits. It is considered that some of the investors actually fancied the notion that this was their entrée into the music business, and others perhaps just liked the idea of supporting the arts.

What is most surprising is that some of these tax scam records were so good (e.g. Ilian).  This one, though, is mostly average.  The fusion is competent but a little led astray by the excess extempore and meandering ideas, with a general lack of good concepts underpinning the music.  In overall texture and sound I think it's most like the Natural Life LPs, but as I said, the actual compositions are missing in action here and there and Rambo hasn't shot his way through to release 'em yet.

The title track gets the ball rolling to break the ice and mix the metaphors:





The punning Nothin' Atoll, presumably referencing the Bikini Atoll (given the overall atomic theme):





A nice addition to our collection I think.  The back credits claim the album was produced by keyboardist Marcus Duke and guitarist Lindsay Gillis along with Bill Dashiell.  Seems awfully sad that all their hard work just went to give a few grand to an idiot investor led by a guy who went on to such (sexual) success later.

A blurb by Lindsay states the following:

"It's like, in the midst of the many vessels exploring the coastline of the mother country, a few set out to link the old world with the new, discover Americas, walk on moons... big deal.  It may not be valid to the mass daytime serial, but at certain times, when no one is listening, who else is there to play to but the moon and the stars." 

Well maybe it's fitting if the moon and the stars are the crooked investors.

Jim Zuzow... Just Around the Corner, USA 1982

Now here's an album so rare I can almost guarantee no one has heard (of) it before.  It might be there's a reason for that, maybe not.  Certainly I could be like other vinyl collectors out there and give it a rave review, blog madly about its merits and then demand something valuable be traded with me alone, for the privilege of a listen.  But of course on this blog we long ago went the other way.  As a result I can guarantee the assessments are brutally honest, for the most part, with a lot of records turning out to be trash, often the most expensive ones.  Conversely, tons of 10 dollar LPs wind up having the most absolutely magnificent contents (I think especially of the recent Austrian Peter Wolf).   And this one if you google it could have been found on ebay for a price under ten bucks, once.  Presumably the same guitarist appears on a more recent CD (on the usually comprehensive discogs) but not this earlier privately pressed LP.

Anyways, moving on to the music, we have some light guitar-based fusion and compositions, all instrumental, highly proficiently played I might add, the best track perhaps is Summer is a Lady's Song:





At least to give you an idea of what we're dealing with here.  I guess it's somehow similar in lightness to the late Ratzer material I've posted here.

Chakra (1979)

One of many bands of the same name, obviously. they released only one album in 1978.  You may already be familiar with it, hopefully I might add, but if not it should be a real surprise.  It hits all the right notes so to speak when it comes to the US prog department, with the usual symphonic, spacey sounds, the dissonances, the varied atmospheres and the overall concept-like feeling.  I'll just borrow the review from progarchive, it being Friday night and all:

Chakra biography
Chakra are an American Symphonic Prog band hailing from Orange County, Southern California in the late 70s. Their sole album was a self-titled album released in 1979, consisting of 8 tracks that were dominated by instrumental passages and atmospheric keyboards. The 5 piece band consists of keyboardist, Nigel Redmon, drummer, Tom Maxwell, bassist, John Ugarte, guitarist, Mark Blumenfeld, and vocalist David Lamb. The overall sound is similar to early Genesis or especially Yes and Emerson Lake & Palmer. The distinct classical quality in the music is virtuosic especially the grand piano flourishes of Redmon. The lyrics are based on Christian themes and are overall uplifiting and majestic in tone. The band should appeal to fans of Lift, Pentwater, ELP, and Yes.

What's actually not referenced above is the darker atmosphere that permeates overall, as evidenced by the last track called Finally:

Especially unique is the use of chopped or staccatolike chords with the keyboards strings, completely at odds with the usual sustained chords strings are employed for.  Here the digital percussion, at least in my opinion if not Tom Hayes', really adds to the song  by giving it that robotic feel.

Loose Ends features the all-out proggishness that makes this record clearly a category one 'area 51' thriller;

Mark Smoot's The Attic from 1988

This is the only release under his name, as is the case for most albums in this little 3-month US road trip, though note that he was a member of multiple subsequent bands.  Odd too is the late year for this style of progressive rock, though I would have to lump into the category III division, with mostly rock.  So some passages resemble the previous Artificial Intelligence, for sure some songs are throwaway (in the commercial direction that is, for the record industry, they are the exact opposite of thrown away), on the whole, a very odd vibe permeates, perhaps due to the fact that he was full of youthful energy and went in too many directions.  And that he was a little crazy too, maybe.  Consider the fourth track, After Hours:




I guess relatively disappointing is the way he doesn't develop that track following the initial dissonances.

Rare, perhaps not essential in Tom Hayes' priorities, but nonetheless a missing piece of the late 80s American style prog puzzle, as mutant sounds would've said, and repeated.

Artificial Intelligence EP, 1984

These guys, who made only this release, remind me a lot of US progmasters Babylon with their basis in Genesis-inspired symphonic later prog with electronics and synths galore, so also a bit of crazy Mars Everywhere.  All with chords and melodies that are really, really whacked-out.  What a shame they didn't make any more for us to hear.

It's true, "You'd better sit down" to listen to this track:






As for the title of the band, I've spoken endlessly about the current unthinking scientific attitude that 'one day robots will take over the world,'  much of that amplified by extreme overhype on the part of silicon valley dorks and geeks.  And it may be true that one day we won't have to scour the past for great prog rock, a computer program will generate endless amounts of it for the purposes of our drug-like perpetual satisfaction.  An infinity of it on demand, much like the current situation with regards to video-game-addicted people.  Add to the threat of robots, the allure of said games, social media addiction, loss of jobs to automation, modern-day voluntary slavery with the 'gig economy,' and the future sure looks bright, doesn't it?  Except for the people designing those AI programs, right?  It's so similar to the hard work of nuclear scientists (so much hard, hard work), to bring us the atomic bomb and then the thermonuclear devices of which there are still thousands lying around the world, with more to be built.  Progress so often feels like driving at a hundred miles an hour on a road towards a cliff and being unable to steer.  At any rate, as others have pointed out before me, it should really be called "artifical stupidity."
Not so stupid is the craftsmanship behind these songs though.  In fact, it makes my jaw drop to hear it again.

Tony Dupuis's Night Visions 1978

Another in the long line of US-styled fusion albums with progressive elements, the never-ending category IV, this is very similar to the Tony Palkovic 2: Deep Water and Every Moment.  I guess while I'm at it, I could also call up resemblances to Mike Santiago, Don Mock, and Mike Warren with the relentlessly electric guitar-based energetic fusionary explorations.  Having said that, this album may be slightly deficient in the intense creativity dept. compared to those aforementioned but for those like me who can never get enough of this stuff, it sure is satisfying to hear.

So the album starts with the lovely synthesizer composition called Morning Song:





before proceeding posthaste into the smooth fusion section of the record store, like a teenaged shoplifter, for In Flight:





That one sounds a lot like the recent Tyzik stuff actually.  Btw thanks for drawing my attention to him, I have never heard his material.

Larry Groupe's With an Accent from 1975

Analogously to the situation with Doug Lofstrom, who made the fabulous "Music" album then went on to produce a huge body of work as a serious composer, Larry Groupe made this one very early progressive album in the mid seventies before scoring (in both senses) a huge number of presumably commissioned soundtracks and other works for TV, documentaries, and movies.  Note as well that this album is not included in that particular listing though it appears in the more progressive-oriented rateyourmusic.  I would also assume he's not too proud of his earlier venture into progressive, DIY music, the way we are here in a kind of inverted pyramid of desirability or contrarian personality: the more oddball and bizarre the music the more appealing to us here, the more generic and popular, the less.

The album is made of 4 longish pieces all of which I'm going to guess are wholly performed by the artist, the overall sound is similar to the progressive pieces from Evergreen State artists, with a lot of Yes influence, composed passages using only guitar and piano, slightly odd singing.  There is nothing complex about the arrangements which usually use just the standard rock quartet.  On the other hand highly nonstandard are the melodies, chords, and ideas, nothing at all like the typical Rolling Stone-reviewed album.

As sample I'll use root 2 which is just the shortest of the 4 pieces:





Rare as hell too, right?

I don't know about you but I can never, ever get enough of this stuff.
And the fact that my wife will just never understand that.

Air Craft - So Near, So Far

A beautiful cover for a truly beautiful album full of peace, harmony, and good licks like wholesome vanilla ice cream.
Simple database info here.  Note that it's labelled as new age and was released in 1985 but still has enough of the progressive element to entertain us thoroughly.  The song titles: Pentacle, Wilderland, Spirit of the Waterfall, Valley of the Lord, pretty much tell the tale here.  It reminds me a little of the work of Lenny Mac Dowell whom I love dearly  especially in the album Balance of Power.
As is consistent with the New Age genre there is never any hint of a dissonance or tritone to upset the birkenstock-wearing 'crunchies' and their neurotic coloured hair dyes.  The track called So Near, So Far is what really reminded me of Lenny:






On the other hand the classical musical education shines through on a track (and only on the track) given the title of the ancient seventies term "Thingamajig:"




A good album, which I will presume to be totally unknown out there.

Nothin' Sirius's Monkey Business

Another nice category IV 'fusion with progressive moments' album, dipping its toes quite a bit into the lofty category II (pure progressive throughout), there are zappaesque elements here and there, especially in the last track called Bolshoi Blues Waltz, available here on this page.
Information (sparse) here.

Trumpeter / Conductor Jeff Tyzik from 1980 to 1985

As mentioned by a commenter, these albums resemble the two from Serry-- at least, superficially.  They are very much cutting edge fusion as you would have expected in the year 1980, very light, approachable, commercial, lacking the muscle of electric guitars and the dual-instrument riffs of the past and completely without the emotional depth of Euro-fusion.  Not a lot of progressive either, we're not talking James Vincent here.  On the other hand the first album features quite a few good tracks and interesting compositions, with a couple more (i.e. fewer than the first) on the second, and then virtually nothing listenable as we move farther into the eighties approaching the decade's halfway point just past the Orwellian non-starter, though he didn't give up on making music past that point as you can see from his discography.

There is an oddly complete bio, almost bookish and nonwikipedian on discogs, which begins as follows:

Born in Hyde Park, New York, Jeff Tyzik first fell in love with music at the age of eight when he saw a drum and bugle corps march by in a local parade. "For my ninth birthday, I said, 'I want a bugle!'" recalled Tyzik. But when he opened the case, he was crushed. "It wasn't a bugle. It was a cornet!" 

He quickly forgot his initial disappointment, however, and began studying cornet with a teacher who had performed in the Goldman Memorial Band in the 20's. He immediately excelled. "I was always extremely serious about music, even at a young age. I was frustrated with the other kids when they didn't take it as seriously as I did." recalled Tyzik, adding, "I've always given all of my energy to anything I'm passionate about." 

Tyzik's teachers and friends began pushing him to audition for the Eastman School of Music. Tyzik recalls, "Eastman was a pivotal place in my development because I was exposed to legends there, like Ray Wright. When I was a kid, once in a while my mom would take me to Radio City Music Hall where Ray was the conductor of the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra. I met Ray years later when he was a professor of jazz studies at the Eastman School and I was a student. He became a mentor to me. He knew volumes about music and the music business. He treated all of his students as professionals. What I do today, I directly link to my studies with him." 

Moving on to the music, from the first album the standout track is The Farthest Corner of my Mind, which also served as the title of a compilation later in 1986 (after only 4 official records!), which you can hear here:




From the 2nd, Circe, here.

Games - Stargazer (1977)

As discogs so succintly says, 

California Rock Band, Released one album in 1977 before disbanding after the death of their bassist, David Miller.

It amazes me how many US albums we will post in the next 2-3 months, perhaps longer if the supply doesn't run out, all from the period 1974 to 1984, basically either prog rock, prog fusion, or straight pop or rock, jazz or fusion with progressive moves (the four categories).  Most of them you will never have known existed.  In fact I didn't either until friends introduced me to these many lost artists.

This very very obscure band's one-off LP starts off with a kinda circus type chromatic pattern with quite gorgeous female vocals from that very beautiful blonde on the verso scan.  Usual comments about how each of the male musicians must have had a hand in opening that shirt down to her innie belly button and even further on down.  She is the only vocalist, so the whole reminds me a bit of the Canadian Sky High posted earlier.  For those old enough, I'll just mention that circuses were very popular back in the seventies, countless songs reference taking the kids to those circular tents.  Luckily, they are truly a thing of the past today except in Las Vegas where you can go to the grand old 19th c. antique hotel Circus Circus for an idea of what used to transpire back then: terrifying, almost nightmarish clowns-- no kid wouldn' t have been afraid of them, especially when equipped with a huge knife wherewith to stab people-- mangy bears being tortured to stand, elephants with spindly wrinkly legs who performed tricks like picking up sticks with their trunks, roaring tigers beaten to a pulp in order to get them to jump through hoops, magicians performing tricks like pulling money out of your wallet, the all-homosexual trapeze troupes, the Mussolini-like bald ringmaster with that whip that reminded you of your parents when they took off their belt to beat you for not eating spinach-- those wonderful memories will remain with us even as the experience has faded into oblivion, with few to miss it.  But behind the scenes of course was the most terrifying aspect of the circuses (which rivalled the Roman amphitheatres for cruelty and sadism): the carnies.  These were 'professionals' who traveled from one city to another, setting up the tents, working for the 'entertainment', all the while stoned on stimulants such as meth or more cheaply and more likely household intoxicants such as model airplane glue or vapours from open gasoline tanks, or DEET insect repellant, having unlimited promiscuous sex with each other and each other's children thereby creating new species of deformed humans who then grew up to perform in the freak shows (bearded ladies, midgets, etc.) that were a 'sideshow' of the whole spectacle.  In this respect they were as a closed-in world unto themselves, like Biosphere 2, but far more interesting.  And productive.
It's amazing how much we've lost from the seventies.

Anyways back to the matter at hand.  Here's the aforementioned circus track to give you an idea of the music-- not necessarily the best one:

John Serry's two 'solo' albums Exhibition (1979) and Jazziz (1980)

That beautiful photo of a narrow street in presumably New York City is just priceless: portrait of the artist as a young man in bell bottom slacks.  So here's the keyboardist of Auracle's 1st LP, viz., John Serry, Jr., setting out on his own solo journey with plenty of fresh ideas and energy and invention.
I love how finding one good album will often lead to discovering more material from related artists that is worth hearing.  This sentence unfortunately fails to apply to a majority of posts on this blog but thankfully is fully applicable to today's.  In fact these two nicely complement the Auracle two making a pretty package of quite accessible, yet often brilliant, late-day fusion in that typical US style that has been demonstrated endlessly on these pages: the so-called categories 2 and 4, to use the now universal throughout the world category description.  Of course there is a basis of commercial jazz-rock to appeal to the masses, but you will see that John manages to make almost every track or composition unusual or unique in some way or another, either with odd chords or unexpected riffing that takes it beyond just about anything I'd expect to hear in the ordinary metropolitan summertime jazz festivals you'll see throughout the world full of senior citizens and cheap families looking for free concerts.

From the 1979 album, a track called Sabotage uses a relatively trite intro of C minor arpeggios then adds on a polytonal bass line and then flies into the stratosphere with a completely out of key soprano sax / guitar riff. If you listen carefully, note the interesting musical instruments used in the arrangement throughout the song:





From the second 1980 album, Song for You recalls so much the sweet Simon and Bard albums I've so cherished over the years, also may be Tim Eyermann's work in the later releases, like my favourite tune "The One that got Away."





The melody keeps on going through such odd changes and permutations from its relatively simple major beginning, it almost hypnotizes me to listen to this song.  The pattern itself reminds me of a track from that masterpiece of category 2 fusion Skywhale -World at Mind's End an album that I pray everyone already knows well.

Auracle's City Slicker (1979)

For this follow up to Glider the keyboardist (John Serry, who set out on his own) was replaced by Biff Hannon.  Most of the remainder perform songwriting duties on various tracks.

The first side b track is shockingly beautiful, reminiscent to me of the best of our old British fusion discovery Simon and Bard.  The combination of fusion excitement and speed, classical education for interest and the warmth of the instruments (with the flugelhorn lead and synth soloing in the middle passage) is just killer for me:

More music like this please everyone.  A category 2 on its own there.  It's called City of Penetrating Light.  Note that it's the drummer Ron Wagner who wrote this, with his only other entry on discogs for a VA FM radio rock album from 1976.  Odd?  The next track, also his, is equally interesting but more jazzy.  Those two, well worth the price of admission (a few dollars).

Category IV, jazz-rock with some progressive moves, but overall, a strong album, perhaps due to the democratic engagement of all the musicians.  I mean, even the Samba track which closes out the album is way beyond the standard Brazilian garbage we are used to from so many useless conventional jazz records.

Desperately trying to be both listenable and creative, these guys acknowledged the popularity of fuzak while at the same time trying to appeal to the intelligent listener looking for original thinking.