Nuclear Rays From My Halogen Haze

The day I met my girlfriend, I didn’t know yet quite how rad she was.  So when we got in the car and I realized the Yellow Balloon was in the CD player, I tried to change it–most hip young thangs don’t think it’s too groovy to bop around in the car to sunshine jangle pop with five part harmonies–but she said she really liked it.  And two years later, we’re still together.

Anyway, this album is one that keeps winding up in my car and staying there for weeks.  It’s really good for the summer, but I’m also enjoying it on rainy nights this winter.  Perhaps it’s because of the lyrics to their title song:

I never liked the rain before
It always made me stay inside
There’s one thing that I know for sure
I’ve got a reason to like it
Since you took me for a rainbow ride

I don’t give a fuck if the lyrics are cheesy.  Love is cheesy, and you can capture more of its essence in carnivals and cotton candy than you can in watching Tom Cruise snog some bitch in a movie.  Technically, “Silly Love Songs” is the most romantic song of all time!

As for this band, their sound takes the “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” yearning of Brian Wilson’s production on Pet Sounds and brings it full-swing to satiation and glee on the tracks of this CD.  All the familiar tools of the Pet Sounds trade are here: harpsichords, concertina/accordions, banjos, virtually everything but the theremin.  But the tone is brighter, sunnier, more infantile yet more knowing.  It’s basically the child of Pet Sounds, or maybe the nephew or niece, the lost Beach Boys sunshine pop sound that Brian Wilson took just too much acid to ever find. 

My favorite tune off here is “Stained Glass,” a beautifully arranged song with brisk strings and that evokes the Left Banke as much as the Beach Boys.  It’s about standing at the threshold of love with someone special, and it’s always a joy to listen to.

There’s also a killer bubblegum/garage tune called “The Junkmaker Shoppe,” with odd rebellious lyrics about taking a girl and hiding with her in a shelf in the back, and a very “Try It” harmonica throughout.  Here we see the punk-gum head of Gary Zekley’s writing really emerge, in the way it would soon do for the Clique’s “Superman.” 

The whole thing is good, and like I said, this one will grow on you more and more with repeated listenings.  There are also solo songs by Don Grady (yeah, the dude from My Three Sons) who was in the band (disguised with a wig, so his television fame wouldn’t dictate the band’s fame!).  It’s a little bit of sunshine on such a winter’s day.

P.S. It came out on Canterbury Records originally.  I wonder if that has any connection to the store Canturbury Records in Pasadena?

I got a copy of the 1910 Fruitgum Company’s first album, Simon Says, over the winter break.  Despite my obsession with all things bubblegum, specifically Kasenetz-Katz, I’d always been more of an Ohio Express guy.  Joey Levine’s got such a great, smarmy voice, and the Fruitgum boys just don’t have any singers of that caliber.  But after listening to this album all the way through, I’m willing to give these guys the credit they deserve for being a great hybrid (and not just because they shared the same session dudes) of the Lemon Pipers’ rock-band-playing-pop-rock approach and the Ohio Express’s gum-punk.  There’s lots of Beatlesy trumpet around some of these songs, an often Sam the Sham approach to keyboards and song structure, and even a tune about Flipper (the dolphin, not the band) that sounds like America sang it.

One of my favorite songs on this, that’s not on the greatest hit comps I’ve had for years, is “Magic Windmill.”  It’s about a windmill at the foot of this guy’s bed that has the power of forgiveness, is all about love, and which protects him even though his friends say it’s just a thing made out of wood.  Sounds to me a whole lot that this “windmill” is actually a cross, and that the song is addressing a child’s view of Christianity!  If the Fruitgum Company’s crossed eyes in one of their rare television appearances is a sign, these guys had a cynical view about their music and their place in rock, and would be just the types to try to warp young minds into doubting Jesus icons.

Actually, the B-Side of Simon Says, “Reflections From the Looking Glass,” should have let me know well in advance that these guys had the power of psychedelia on their side.  And it looks like the state fair version of this band can still dose it out when they want to.