Love in 1966, Part 2: Da Capo
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With "Da capo," meaning "back to the beginning," Love reintroduced themselves on their 2nd LP of 1966.
Arthur Lee: vocals, harmonica, percussion
Johnny Echols: guitar
Bryan Maclean: guitar
Kenny Forssi: bass
Tjay Cantrelli: flute, saxophone
Alban “Snoopy” Pfisterer: harpsichord, keys, drums on “7 And 7 Is”
Michael Stuart: drums
produced by Paul Rothchild, engineered by Dave Hassinger, except for “7 And 7 Is;” produced by Jac Holzman and Bruce Botnik
art by Bill Harvey
This is part two of a two-part Love in 1966 retrospective. To read part one, click here.
Many factors can be blamed for the stalling of Love’s career trajectory; all of which we’ll dig into here. But I’m surprised more sources haven’t laid blame at the feet of Da Capo’s crummy, low-effort cover art. love da capo
I subscribe to the wise words of, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it," but Da Capo is just a step too far. Bill Harvey photographed Love at the very same chimney stack in Laurel Canyon as the first album. To add insult to injury, the same variation of the same Love logo appears in the very same spot, to the left of the chimney. Even the weather on photo shoot day was the same as last time! The only efforts made to differentiate the two covers are a hastily slapped-on black border, an imposing gold picture frame, a little costume change by the guys, and seating Arthur in the chimney as he rips a joint. (Gotta love the latter point, I must admit.) But why did we have to repeat this cover? There’s a perfectly good Guy Webster collage on the verso!
Heinous cover art aside, Love were a breath of fresh air in the pop music sphere. Their self-titled debut peaked at number 52, selling about 150,000 copies. The record performed even better in LA. Where the Byrds began to miss out on the top ten post-“Eight Miles High,” Love were treated like royalty in the summer of 1966. They got the best tables at restaurants and bought fancy cars. They drove those fancy cars up to San Fransisco, where they played the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore. They even landed a coveted residency at the Whiskey A-Go-Go. About their time on top, guitarist Johnny Echols said,
“We were living in fantasy land. We went from playing the Brave New World and Bido Lito’s to dating Playboy bunnies. It started to go to our heads. The five simple guys who loved playing music were beginning to change.”
quoted from: Jon Einarson, Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and The Book of Love (2010.)
The new kings of the Sunset Strip had to have their castle. In April of 1966, Love moved into “the Castle” at 4320 Cedarhurst Drive. Thinking it’d be good for the group’s creativity, Arthur wanted to try out communal living. Manager Ronnie Haran’s realtor friend tipped her off to the property. Once owned by a film director and named for a silent film star, the 1920s Spanish revival mansion was in a state of disrepair. It was in the weeds, the bathtubs were green, the toilets wouldn’t flush. Best of all, it was cheap! Rent was only $600 a month, making each guy’s share just $100! All of Love moved into the Castle except for Snoopy – sensing he was on the outs, he opted to stay away.
Since Arthur was such a homebody, the party came to him. The Castle was the perfect place for classic rock-and-roll debauchery: drugs, girls, roller skating up and down the halls. Though they only lived there for about a year, Love certainly made the most of the Castle! Arthur wrote most of what would become Da Capo there, including...“The Castle.” Wouldn’t you know it!
The first song completed for Da Capo was “7 And 7 Is.” It started out as Dylanesque love song about Arthur’s high school girlfriend (the same girl “A Message To Pretty” is about;) “7 And 7” refers to their shared birthday of March 7th. But as they worked out the arrangement, Arthur rewrote the lyrics, and Love snagged an endorsement by Vox, “7 And 7” became something entirely different.
Much has been said about this June 17th session. It took anywhere between thirty and fifty takes to get it down! The guys intentionally overloaded their Super Beatle amps to create feedback. Kenny had a fuzz box gifted by Vox that he cranked all the way up, while Johnny cranked his reverb and tremolo all the way up.
“7 And 7” made Love producer Jac Holzman cry uncle! “It was difficult to record, it was difficult to listen to in the studio, it was blessedly short.” Jac and Bruce kept stopping the guys, saying they were peaking the monitors. They couldn’t understand it was how the song was supposed to sound! After this bout of “mayhem,” he refused to sit in on a Love session ever again! It was also the song that made drummer Mike Stuart want to join the band. He was playing in the Sons of Adam at the time, they shared bills with Love often. Conveniently for Mike, this session was when Love realized that “Snoopy” Pfisterer had to go. His inability to keep up was part of why “7 And 7” took so long to capture.
One has to wonder why Love kept Snoopy around so long if he wasn’t up to par and none of the guys particularly liked having him around. The answer begins and ends with Arthur. When Mike came around to play the drums full-time, Arthur made sure Snoopy still had a role in the band. Moving him to keys proved to be a much better solution for everyone involved.
While recording “7 And 7,” Love appeared on American Bandstand to promote their previous single, “My Little Red Book.” The group’s standoffish attitude towards the press had already earned them the ire of KRLA; their publication ran the headline “Is Love Lost?” that summer. That poor attitude – and knocking over a set piece backstage – ensured Love wouldn’t get a return invite from Dick Clark.
Given their dominance in LA and good following in San Fransisco, management urged Love to tour. Ronnie Haran put together a small batch of Southwest dates, beginning with an extravaganza in Dallas; a photo op at Love Field, an album signing, the mayor giving them keys to the city. Having a city in the South receive an integrated band so warmly should’ve made a big impression. But Arthur wouldn’t do budge.
There were a lot of reasons Arthur was reluctant to venture outside California. He wasn’t a fan of traveling to begin with. There’s this oft-cited quote, “Why should I go on the road and have to eat shit for no money?” that’s been continually misinterpreted as Arthur thinking himself “too good” for touring, even by the best sources on Love. While Arthur did have standards for how he and Love should be treated, I just don’t think he was speaking literally there. Arthur had grown accustomed to his California comfort zone. He had a good relationship with venue owners and promoters in LA. They had decent sound systems at clubs they played, and they’d always get top billing. Arthur just didn’t want to travel all the way to some place and play his ass off, only to get ripped off by some sketchy promoter in an unfamiliar city. He clarifies, “I didn’t like going on the road and playing for pennies. We were earning a decent living, playing in Southern California. It was hard enough getting along with the guys in the band in one place, let alone going on the road with them.”
There’s also that. There were pretty complicated interpersonal relationships to navigate in Love – and Arthur was the center of all of them.
Before Love, Elektra had little experience with rock groups. Since they were still such a small label, no one from artist relations could meet them in the city they were going to. No one could make connections with new markets. Sure, Love could play the East Coast, but could their records even be distributed there?
I’m also reminded of Sly Stone’s faltering in the spotlight in 1970. Arthur was self-conscious. There was a lot of pressure on him as a young Black man who was also a public figure. You can be good, but everyone expects you to be great. California could be hip to an integrated pop band, but what about the rest of the country? It was difficult for Love to find a niche outside LA. Johnny explained,
“Being an integrated group made it difficult for us to play in some places. A black group could play the chitlin’ circuit and places like that, in the South, and a white group could go anywhere in the South. But it was different for an integrated group. We could play the West or East Coasts but the Midwest and the South were never big markets for us.”
quoted from: Jon Einarson, Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and The Book of Love (2010.)
Instead of taking their chances, Love stayed home. They played their same club circuit as competition came up around them, and worked on their second album.
The original vision for Da Capo a return to their Grass Roots sound. It was more Booker T and The MG’s thing, hence the title “da capo,” “return to beginning.” But instead of going back to the beginning, Love went farther out. Adding Tjay Cantrelli on flute and saxophone incorporated jazzy elements into their sound. Arthur was listening to Gary McFarland and Wes Montgomery at the time. Flamenco crept in to the mix as well. Bryan Maclean’s mother had a large-body acoustic made for him when he was younger and enrolled him in classical guitar lessons as a kid. Though Elektra’s bread-and-butter in the Sixties was folk, their sweet jam was flamenco! Juan Serrano and Sabicas both had American distribution deals through the label. Mike also notes the band listened to Charles Lloyd together. They likely would’ve been familiar with him through his gigs at the Fillmore; his Love-In live record was a surprise crossover hit the next year. Through Charles, Johnny met one of his greatest inspirations: Hungarian jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo.
Da Capo was recorded in September of 1966 at RCA Studio B. Since Bruce was contracted to work at Sunset Sound and Paul Rothchild was out of fucking jail, the project went to him. Once the Sons of Adam folded, Mike Stuart joined Love full-time. According to his memoir (take a hefty grain of salt with everything he says in it, he embellishes stories to the point where I found it borderline unreadable) he was roped into some classic Arthur and Johnny hijinks on his first day. The two marched right into Elektra headquarters with Mike in tow, stating they wanted to be released from their contract. They were unsatisfied with first record’s distribution, and that’s valid. It was only a modest hit.
But as the guys made Da Capo and played the Whiskey with a whopping seven-piece lineup, Elektra uncovered some contractual fuckery. And for what feels like the first time in rock-and-roll history, that fuckery was on the band’s part!
In hopes of taking Love’s talents elsewhere, Arthur spilled the beans that he was only 20 years old when he signed the contract with Elektra. Remember, they signed on January 4th, 1966, and his birthday was on March 7th. Why would this be an issue? He’s not a minor in the eyes of the law. But back then, you couldn’t sign a contract unaccompanied until you were 21. This voided the record deal, and Jac Holzman was pissed. Elektra had to redraw the whole contract, which Snoopy still wasn’t included on. No wonder he had an axe to grind with these guys! Love got another $2,500 advance out of it, but Elektra retaliated; upping Love’s required original songs per year from fourteen to 20. Arthur had to provide his drivers’ license so a photo copy could be stapled to the contract. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes!
This little stunt made future sessions pretty awkward with the guys at the label. Love were fortunate to have an extremely tight turn-around time on Da Capo. According to Mike, they had just five days to cut whole thing.
“7 And 7 Is” was released as a single in July. It peaked at number 33 the week of September 24th. As Love’s highest-charting single, it felt promising for the album to follow. Unfortunately, Da Capo sales failed to meet expectations. Released in November, it peaked at just number 80 on the Billboard charts. Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and The Book of Love author Jon Einarson repeatedly asserts the sound Love had on Da Capo had no other context. There was no equivalent in rock-and-roll to date, it was totally groundbreaking. He seems to have forgotten one major piece of the puzzle; the single that made Da Capo’s sound possible in the first place. The Byrds, you fool!! “Eight Miles High” massaged the situation for Love and “7 And 7 Is.” Not to mention the Yardbirds had a contemporaneous moment across the pond with “Shapes Of Things.” The Stones’ “Paint It Black” helped out as well. “96 Tears” by ? And the Mysterians was on the chart at the same time as “7 And 7.” Also in fall of 1966, the 13th Floor Elevators’ genre-defining “You’re Gonna Miss Me” metastasized into a local hit in several cities. So no, Einarson, Love weren’t alone in the arms’ race to psychedelic rock. They weren’t even at the forefront.
"7 And 7"'s follow-up single was “She Comes In Colors,” backed with Bryan’s “Orange Skies.” Anyone with ears knows it should’ve been “Stephanie Knows Who” backed with “Que Vida!” Why Love wouldn’t race to capitalize on the jazz/raga rock/“free rock” thing happening in the summer of ’66, I have no idea.
Jac Holzman said that, when signing a group, he never expected them to be a hit with the first album. He viewed bands as a three-album investment. The first two long-playing records were for the purpose of building an audience and ironing the musical kinks out. The third would be the one that stuck.
It seems the same went for Elektra and their rock groups. They needed the time to build the audience and iron the kinks out. The third band was the charm. First was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, then Love. Love themselves handed Elektra their third. Love naively thought that, if they put in a good word for their peers and got them a record deal, Elektra would be more willing to release them from their own contract. No one could have predicted how Love’s “little-brother band” would drag the Sunset Strip under the hot lights of the mainstream. They blew the freaking lid off the Laurel Canyon thing – or, rather, kicked the doors in.
The Doors’ self-titled debut hit the shelves on January 4th, 1967 – one year to the day after Love were signed to Elektra.
Why did Love’s trajectory stall? It’s a complex issue. Once again, multiple things can be true at once. There’s the guys’ poor reputation to consider. Fame got to their heads. They got to being little shits at times; acting cliquey and unwilling to play along with the press. Some accounts say Arthur resented the Doors for stealing Love’s thunder and Elektra’s resources away. He did feel some type of way about the Doors’ debut getting a billboard on the Strip before Love.
Did Elektra take the money Love made them to fund the Doors? There might be a grain of truth in this. When Arthur lied about his age on their contract, Love trashed their good will with their label. From there out, Elektra were less willing to put up with everything. No more lengthy sessions, no double album. Love heard a lot more “no” than “yes” after that one big lie.
Though Jac swore up and down that Love didn’t make it because they wouldn’t go on tours or take part in press, he all but admits to removing eggs from Love’s basket and placing them in the Doors’ in the Love Story documentary:
“The fact that he (Paul Rothchild) couldn’t make the next album (Da Capo) had to do strictly with me telling him that we’d been touched by the good fairy, and we have this smash act beginning to shape up, the Doors.”
quoted from: Love Story (dir. Chris Hall and Mike Kerry, 2006.)
It wasn’t all bad blood, though. Elektra was still so new on the scene. They had no idea what to do with a rock band. And while Love’s California bubble were more interested in the qualities of their music than the color of their skin, the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the nation. Trying to put things delicately, Johnny articulated, “The sensibilities of the American record buyer (were) more easily assuaged by the melanin content of that particular group (the Doors) than the ones that we were. So it was easier to sell them, in other words, than it was to sell us.” Remember, it’s only 1966. We’re not that far removed from Pat Boone and his stupid recording of “Tutti Fruitti.” (If Pat Boone has no haters, I’m dead!) Arthur’s fears did come from somewhere, but his fear ultimately did Love in. “I’m sorry we didn’t tour more, and a lot of that was down to me.”
His reluctance to tour had consequences. Around the time Da Capo hit shelves, the Sunset Strip scene started its decline. Unhappy with new hippie-dippie crowd, Los Angeles put a 10 PM curfew in place for minors. This effectively cut off the clubs’ air supplies. They’d lost their clientele. Kids organized a demonstration in front of Pandora’s Box, a club set to be demolished that month. When police came to bust it up, the protest became the “Riot on Sunset Strip” that Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” is about. The city rolled back the curfew, but the damage was done. No club crowds meant no gigs for Love. Unable to fund a seven-piece lineup, Snoopy was finally sacked for good. Tjay was also given the pink slip, which I’ve always found odd considering the direction Love’s music would go in ’67. The band’s fading star had Arthur feeling shakey. Drug use made him paranoid. When they left the Castle, he secluded himself to “the Trip House.”
Love’s self-titled debut is a true mixed bag. The great stuff, like the showstopping “My Little Red Book,” infectious pop-rocker “You I’ll Be Following,” and strikingly mature “Signed D.C.” and “Mushroom Clouds” will stick with you for decades. The rest? Utterly forgettable.
Da Capo, on the other hand. Wow! I’m stunned by this album’s potency and the successes of its stylistic shift, while still retaining Love’s core sound. You can hear how the guys were like little sponges, soaking up all manners of influences. It’s clear these guys had jazz in their ears. All the cool kids on the Strip did. The Byrds were getting stoned and listening to Africa/Brass, the Doors liked bossa nova.
Stephanie Knows Who is surprisingly agile in its shifts between keys and time signatures. You can tell the scene was into baroque sounds, too. Da Capo opens with Snoopy’s harpsichord part, setting 3/4 time. I believe Bryan plays the jangly guitar part? He favored a folksier style. It gets hard to decipher which guitarist plays what on these early records; Johnny and Bryan were practically indistinguishable on the first. Their styles begin to pull apart in certain moments on Da Capo.
“Stephanie Knows Who” is an insidious, not very danceable waltz. The buzzing, descending riff could’ve been played by Tjay on saxophone as easily as Johnny on electric guitar. As we’ll hear, the two meshed fabulously. Bryan and Kenny pull a lot more weight on “Stephanie” than people give them credit for. The intricacy of the guitars lends to the song’s unsettling feeling. Kenny sticking to the descending riff gives it an anchor point.
Arthur howls, yelps, and almost screams his lyrics about the girl who left him for Bryan; surrendering himself to destructive anxiety. Like the narrator of “My Little Red Book,” Arthur is angry this girl inspires so much. He sounds bitter and exhausted as he slings out otherwise-sweet lines.
“What can I say, dear Stephanie?
Who shall I next inform
Of love and poetry that you bring?
Your eyes, your hair, your everything?”
This girl is Arthur’s muse, she chose his friend over him, and he’s not trying to hide that he hates both of those things! The riff anxiously rocks back and forth, and there might be something...off...about this girl. “Aches and pains they clawed your side/A tiger did, you said it did” revolves around a frankly bizarre lie the real Stephanie told Arthur. She said she was attacked by a tiger to explain her stretch marks. It sounds like being with this girl was a head trip, and she gets under his skin. “What am I now, dear Stephanie? Am I you in disguise?”
The tempo kicks up and the time to 4/4 for a short, groovy instrumental break. Then "Stephanie" breaks into jazzy 5/4 time for an exiting Johnny and Tjay duel. You can tell Tjay is more comfortable in the jazz format; his solo is harmonic and confident. Mike is confident too, his drumming can actually keep up with the time changes! Johnny’s stretching his legs out. His note choices mimick stuff he’d have heard from trumpet players and jazz guitarists. He plays tight knots of notes.
Next is Orange Skies, the only solo Bryan composition on Da Capo. The song was based on the Byrds’ rearrangement of Pete Seeger’s arrangement of “The Bells of Rhymney” – a Russian nesting doll kind of deal. I think placing “Orange Skies” after “Stephanie Knows Who” choice was deliberate, and very smart, sequencing choice. Where “Stephanie” was love with too many strings attached, “Orange Skies” is love with too few. It’s too good, it’s too sweet. “You make me happy,” everything comes naturally. It’s totally the honeymoon phase. This choice makes both songs feel more potent; exalting both their respective strengths.
Where “Stephanie” is rock that flirts with jazz, “Orange Skies” is total baroque pop. The melody is so delicately crafted; handled by pretty finger-picked electric guitar and flute. It lends itself heavily to sunshine pop. Arthur taps into the delicate side of his voice to sing another confection-themed set of lyrics by Bryan. “Orange skies, carnivals and cotton candy and you...” Dude must have had a crazy sweet tooth!
Love deals another pop confection with Que Vida!; complete with a cartoony pop from Elektra’s sound effects. “Que Vida!” glides along on its organ, with a gently-strummed rhythm guitar highlighting inquisitive chords. Mike piques the ear with textured drumming that focuses on the cymbals. Tjay’s flute might be too twee for some, but I like it.
As I listened to “Orange Skies” and “Que Vida!,” I noticed that Arthur didn’t have much vibrato in his voice anymore. He sings pretty clean and straight on these, like a teen idol from earlier in the decade might. We also start to hear Arthur slipping things in to shatter the illusion of the straight-forward pop song. “Yes, my heart was beating/Or was it just repeating?” Arthur the poet has arrived! What a wonderful turn of phrase. He wonders, “Am I making my own way in life and following the beat of my own drum” (literally, the muscle drumming away in his chest,) “or is this the path every man goes down?” The Sixties were a hyper-individualist decade, and the boomers were a hyper-individualist generation. The Seventies shattered this image. Arthur starts to write from outside himself on “Que Vida!” This one of his strongest qualities as a writer.
“I once had a girl, she told me I was funny.
She said ‘In your world, you needed lots of money
And things to kill your brother.’
But death just starts another.”
This could be a line about resurrection. “Que vida” means “what a life.” These lines could also express the dog-eat-dog world of the music industry; in which money is accrued and “killing” your colleagues robustly encouraged. “Death just starts another.” Rock-and-roll will always dispose of its previous messiah for the next.
7 And 7 Is plays to all my tastes: raucous, rough-and-ready garage-y proto-punk. I might be more willing to call this proto-punk than “My Little Red Book,” now that I think of it. Flashbulb bursts of heavily-reverbed guitar light up “7 And 7 Is.” Kenny’s slides up the bass on the octave act as takeoff ramps; sending each wave of sound up to the sky. This was the best Snoopy ever played on a Love record; I’m glad the guys recognized such in retrospect. His drums rumble and burst under guitars slashing away. What once was a lyric about a girl became a surrealist telling of Arthur’s childhood. The opening lines capture all the excitement of being little and letting your imagination wander.
“When I was a boy, I thought about the times I’d be a man.
I’d sit inside a bottle and pretend that I was in a can.”
I’ve always interpreted this scene as little Arthur pretending he was a cosmonaut or a bomber pilot; the “can” being his spaceship or plane. “7 And 7”’s barrage of sound certainly invokes aviation and air warfare to me. When he triumphantly cries, “Boop-beep-beep boop-beep-beep, YEAH!” he invokes pressing buttons on an imaginary console.
Arthur imagines himself a hero to escape his reality. “In my lonely room I’d sit my mind in an ice cream cone”references the cone-shaped hat Arthur’s mom would make him wear when he misbehaved. (A dunce cap at home is crazy work.) It’s a lonely reality, whether you’re the “weird kid” or simply an only child at home like Arthur. “If I don’t start cryin’ it’s because that I have got no eyes/My father’s in the fireplace and my dog lies hypnotized.” When Arthur’s dad was around, he’d get home from work and watch the fireplace every night with the family dog.
“7 And 7” was cut at Sunset Sound, explaining Bruce Botnik’s presence. He cut the H-bomb explosion sound effect (made by slowing down a stock gunshot noise) in after the final rave-up. Johnny plays us out; his gentle return to reality was inspired by Santo and Johnny’s “Sleepwalking.” And yes, his feedback is in tune!
Love busted their asses to put as much energy, life force, and maybe a little violence into “7 And 7 Is.” The thrill is like no other. It easily makes my short-list of favorite singles of the decade.
Part of The Castle’s very sparse lyric is once again inspired by Stephanie. What sticks with me is how much Love did with “The Castle” in just three minutes. There’s harpsichord. There’s multiple clashing time signatures. We’ve got busy bass playing, at least one leitmotif, fancy classical guitar, and two false endings. And the true ending never resolves the chord! This feels like about six songs stitched into one. It captures what I think living in the Castle would’ve felt like; popping into different rooms decorated in totally different styles to see who’s doing what.
She Comes In Colors is about another of Arthur’s girlfriends and her brightly-colored outfits. I’ve always thought this song went on just one minute longer than it should have – wait, what do you mean this is only 2:46?
There’s only so many times I can hear, “Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoah! My love she comes in colors/You can tell her by the clothes she wears,” followed by the same little flute ditty, in one song. Mike’s performance is varied, that’s interesting to listen to at least. I quite like the motif the harpsichord and flute play together.
All of side two of Da Capo is taken up by Revelation. This was one of those jams they’d play live to pad out hours-long sets. It was supposed to be a riff on a John Lee Hooker thing; a horny jam, taking after the Stones’ “Going Home.”
But if you asked Arthur? Nooo, the Stones stole the song from Love after seeing them at the Whiskey! They totally stole this idea from a record that came out in November of 1966 for their own album that came out in April...of 1966! (“She Comes In Colors,” though? Arthur had legitimate grounds to call the Stones out on that.)
While the story that a side-long song was a stunt to withhold songs from Elektra certainly plays to Arthur’s prickly personality, “Revelation” was simply an ill-advised venture in reality; in keeping with a burgeoning trend of the day. Love regretted devoting a whole side of Da Capo to “Revelation.” No one liked it. Arthur said the version on the album was the worst they ever did. Snoopy called it “a piece of shit!” But according to Johnny, “Revelation” was actually bad because of the creative liberties Paul Rothchild took.
“What Paul did was record 45 minutes of this jam, but instead of leaving it alone and just cutting the end off, he hacked the song up into this mishmash, so you can’t get the feeling for what we were trying to do. If it had been done the way we performed it live, it would have been a whole different song, a whole different feel...he just spliced everything to bits and changed us all around.”
quoted from: Jon Einarson, Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and The Book of Love (2010.)
“Revelation” would’ve had to be “hacked up,” not only to fit on one side of a disc (we have the physical limitations of this format to account for, mind you,) but to be interesting enough to warrant that space. Paul picking out a solo here or a time change there was his attempt to make this eighteen-minute slog interesting. Snoopy opens and closes piece with fugue from a Bach Partita; that was cut and pasted around to give this thing a somewhat-sensical beginning and end. If it doesn’t sound like Mike wants to do this drum solo, it’s because he didn’t want to do that drum solo!
“The Bible says, ‘It’s harder for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle,’ or something like that. Same analogy could be drawn with drum solos. The ones worth listening to are really rare. I honestly don’t think God planned for drums to be a solo instrument.”
quoted from: Michael Stuart-Ware, Pegasus Continuum: The Story of the Legendary Rock Group LOVE (2019 ed.)
I usually love when bands go on lengthy excursions that feature many players. There are certain places on “Revelation” where the guys get into it; notably when Arthur goes on his blues-man howling thing and pulls out his harmonica. But overall, “Revelation” lacks chemistry, continuity, and direction. The most exciting thing that happens is the time change with Tjay’s saxophone solo, but that’s several minutes in!
Love’s first two LPs are interesting to look at side-by-side. Love is an artifact of lots of gigging. Da Capo is reflective of a slow withdrawal. They became more of a studio group; more comfortable with extra instrumentation and effects in post. Some numbers inch towards baroque pop, hinting at where they’d go with Forever Changes. But evaluating Da Capo in full is tough. Side one is a huge leap forward from Love. When I sit back and pair these albums side-by-side, these highs are higher and the lows not as low. For six tracks in a row, Da Capo has a high ceiling and floor. They built this fantastic momentum, then kill it when they hit us with “Revelation.” It keeps what would otherwise be a stellar album from achieving such.
Such are the pains of Love. They possessed immense talent, and skills rarely seen in the pop sphere at the time. But they couldn’t get out of their own way.
The energies Love put out into the world with their first two albums loosened the brick on the bottom of a massive shift in rock-and-roll. First came a jangly, but still ragged pop record; one of the first signals sent from LA to show that California was way more than surfing, cars, and girls. The individual songwriting powers of Arthur and Bryan, a brooding poet-to-be and refined flower child, produced an interesting and varied combination of lush pop tunes, rockers, and moody ballads.
Then you have Da Capo; one of the first mainstream rock records to smash together jazz, flamenco, and baroque sounds. That certain darkness starts to push through the surface. Where else do we hear the “dark side” of the Strip? The Doors. Granted, they went a much more academic route. They were collegiates who read Huxley, Kerouac, and Sophocles. When Love did dark, it was more accessible but no less intriguing. Both albums have an adventurous spirit and an inspired sound, both of which Love’s peers and all the groups they influenced would eagerly gobble up. There’s a seed planted on Love, nurtured on Da Capo, about to burst into rare and delicate bloom.
Personal favorites: “Stephanie Knows Who,” “Orange Skies,” “Que Vida!,” “7 And 7 Is,” “The Castle”
– AD ☆
End of Part Two
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Einarson, Jon. Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and the Book of Love. London: Jawbone Press, 2010.
Hall, Chris, and Mike Kerry, dirs. Love Story. Start Productions, 2006. YouTube: Psound Lyte, 9/4/2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4p68AiIlF4&t=389s
Savage, Jon. 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded. London: Faber & Faber, 2016 ed.
Stuart-Ware, Michael. Pegasus Continuum: The Story of the Legendary Rock Group LOVE. eBook: Kindle edition, 2019.
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