Time Machine 1970 #5

7-7-10

Time Machine 1970 #5

Strange Days magazine in Japan is keeping up with it’s “Time Machine” series, which I find quite interesting.

Strange Days 2010.07 lists “May 1970 Albums” as: The Beatles – Let It Be (Apple UK LP PCS 7096); King Crimson – In The Wake Of Poseidon (Island UK LP ILPS 9127); The Who – Live At Leeds (Track Record UK LP 2406 001); The Bee Gees – Cucumber Castle (Polydor UK LP 2383 010); Liverpool Scene – St. Adrian Co. Broadway and 3^rd (RCA UK LP SF 8100); Medicine Head – New Battles Old Medicine (Dandelion UK LP S 63757); The Can – Monster Movie (United Artists UK LP UAS 29094 – in Germany, this LP was Liberty LBS 83342 I); Love – Out Here (Harvest UK 2LP SHDW ¾ - on Blue Thumb Records in the US); and Carole King – Writer: Carole King (Ode US LP SP 77006).

I wish I owned the Liverpool Scene LP – I’ve never seen a copy!

But I do own The Beatles LP, in a boxed set version with a large booklet which insists the LP is called “Get Back”. I got the King Crimson LP almost as soon as it was released in the US on Atlantic Records – and an Island UK LP of it shortly thereafter. Also got a UK Polydor Bee Gees LP right after getting an Atco US LP of it. I do not own the aforementioned Liverpool Scene LP or Medicine Head LP (or anything else by Medicine Head). I have a German Can LP, not a UK one. I got a US pressing of the double LP by Love on Blue Thumb – and was not impressed with it – so off it went. I think I went back and got this Carole King LP after being charmed by “Tapestry” – though it took me nearly 40 years to find an A&M copy of it.

By May of 1970 – I was 100% paying attention to record collecting and the music business, as represented in Billboard, Melody Maker etc. I was seeing LP’s advertised, and the advertising made me curious.

There was a lot of interest in The Beatles at that time – the boxed set of “Let It Be” from England was $9 or $10 (when a regular new LP in the US was $3 at a hippie record store). And we had already bought a bootleg LP version of “Let It Be”: “Homogenized Beatles” as well as another version called “Get Back”. I think only “For You Blue” was new to us at that point. I also remember taking a cassette recorder into a movie theatre, trying to record the audio track from the “Let It Be” movie.

I had noticed the cover of the first King Crimson album at Wallach’s Music City, probably early in 1970 – my 12-year-old ears enthralled with “21^st Century schizoid Man”. When “In The Wake Of Poseidon” first appeared, I spent my allowance on it immediately – and was mightily amused with “Pictures Of A City” and “Cat Food”. And have been ever since. “Live At Leeds” was also very important – it being the first Who LP released after “Tommy” – all those great inserts and that poster! Took a while for me to get around to Can (maybe ’74 or so?)…