I was lucky enough to catch an album release show by the band Wyrdoz, fronted of course by the Smokestack’s own BILLMAN, down at the Manchester Pub last week (as of this writing). He graciously mentioned, when I bought one of their new Lego My Ego albums, that if I didn’t like it, I could always trade it in to a local record store, and then maybe someday it could provide inspiration and work to a future bargain-crate browser. It’s a kind thought, but – and I’m not just saying this cause he’s the benevolent Charles Foster Kane of this periodical – I’ll be keeping it. Way too good to leave my collection anytime soon. But plenty of musicians over the decades have of course released beloved personal masterworks which, in time, for whatever reason, do find themselves buried amongst $10-and-under listening pleasures. And exhuming, dusting off, and maybe breathing some life into those forgotten or overlooked – sometimes decaying and moldy – treasures is a big part of what this little column’s all about.
On the warm, sunny Fall day I went digging for said treasures at Port Townsend’s Quimper Sound Records and Guitars, they had their $2 bins out on the sidewalk. A fine browsing experience. Maybe it was the weather, the light, or my love of trains, but this one called out to me. I had not heard of the artist – and in keeping with our self-imposed restriction of keeping the research for this piece based only on what I see from the album itself – I still know very little about him. But by the album’s release year – 1977 – he had enough songs under his (probably wide, white) belt to have a Best Of compilation. One of the songs had “jazz” in the title, so I assumed it might be a little of that. And it is. A little. It Ain’t No Disco, and it also ain’t really jazz, or maybe it’s jazz fusion, very produced, multi-instrument heavy complex compositions, kinda White Boy Soul in places. Reminiscent of one of those larger horn-heavy bands from the same time – the Commodores, Earth Wind & Fire, for example. The songs themselves were good enough, longer than most radio-airplay at 5 minutes average, but I kept thinking of how samplable pieces of them would be, or maybe have been. Great and complex lines throughout from the many, many instruments used.
The cover – as magical as it is – didn’t lead me to believe this was the music I’d be listening to, or even that the gentleman’s face on the locomotive would have a voice like the one I heard featured most prominently. Maybe that face isn’t Brian Auger, or maybe it is, and Brian Auger isn’t the lead vocalist. I don’t know. I learned from the notes that his band is known as the Oblivion Express, so that partially explains the train. Which made me think about how Port Townsend never got its once-promised train line, and thus stayed a little out of the path of the literal and figurative machines of “progress,” keeping much of its mid-1800s charm, and mid-1880s buildings. Overlooked for a while, but always great for the unfamiliar to discover in their own way. Like a wonderful local band you just heard live for the first time, a bargain crate find, or so much other Stuff That’s Happening in Your Town.
All aboard the Oblivion Express. // J. OVERTON
