ladyislingering

1973 brought us "A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing", and there's an excellent fact that make this album dear to my icy little heart.

Todd Rundgren also produced this gem - alongside the Electric Prunes' (a psychedelic rock group that's got a hold on my soul) Thaddeus James Lowe.

Let's have some Prunes in the undercut, because everyone should be familiar with them if they're familiar with 1960s psychedelic rock. The Electric Prunes were weavers of delicate doilies of tunes dressed with gorgeous lyrical imagery.




Larry DuPont took the boys down to the basement of the UCLA Ethnic Arts Museum for the album cover. Drummer and hooligan Harley Feinstein tipped Ron Mael's chair the second this shot was taken. In true Sparks style, it remained.



Track listing!

Side A

Girl From Germany
Beaver O'Lindy
Nothing is Sacred
Here Comes Bob
Moon Over Kentucky

Side B

Do Re Mi
Angus Desire
Underground
The Louvre
Batteries Not Included
Whippings and Apologies

Sparks' delightful second album opens with a real head-ripper ... well, actually, it'll just make you shake your head with a dumb smile on your face, all the while thinking "oh my god, did you really go there with this song?"

"Girl From Germany" is precisely what it sounds like - on the surface. Our protagonist is about to take his German girlfriend to meet his Jewish parents, who are still quite sore at Germany some 30 years after the war.



I feel as if I should mention, in good faith, that this might actually offend some people - and if you're one of those people, maybe Sparks aren't the right band for you to wrap your head around. Maybe you should listen to Air Supply instead. Or Barry Manilow.

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ladyislingering

I'm gonna come right out and say it: who doesn't like a cleverly-worded, hand-clapping, chanting song about masturbation and dark, filthy thoughts?


At this point you ought to be used to the peculiar quiver in Russell's voice, but just in case you're not, now's as good of a time as any to acquaint yourself with it.

"Beaver O'Lindy"





"Beaver O'Lindy" is almost like a warm-up to prepare you for the falsetto in "Nothing is Sacred" - both tunes are of similar tempo, but of slightly different lyrical matter, almost as if the next song is an afterthought.





I adore the next track. It's one of those songs that make Weird Al's allegiance to Sparks highly understandable because it's just that clever. I also used this song to gently tease my significant other (who could very well be a "Bob" if it suited him) when he was learning to drive.

This isn't the first time you've heard strings in a Sparks song and it certainly won't be the last.

"Here Comes Bob"

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Oriphiel

Ahahaha! I love it!

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ladyislingering

I'm always cracking up when I'm listening to Sparks. Loads of high-brow humor packed into just a few minutes of utter ridiculousness.

"Moon Over Kentucky" took me a while to get my head around, personally, but I had adored the biting edge of Russell's vocals on the track, as well as the haunting organ throughout (particularly at the end). Highly bass-heavy; a great rocker of a song.



With gorgeous lyrics, written by Ron after having seen the film "Death in Venice".



I absolutely love the intro to side B of this album. You won't see an awful lot of covers in Sparks' catalogue, but they always get it right.

Here's their rendition of the Sound of Music's "Do Re Mi".



I don't think it's necessary to post the lyrics to this song, as most living humans already know this song by heart as it is.

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ladyislingering

Our next selection is a song about seeing nude models or figures in art class at school and being rather conflicted about the feelings that ultimately erupt from such an experience. A nice, cool jam.

"Angus Desire"





For some reason I couldn't find an actual video of the next song, "Underground", but here's a full version of "Woofer", fast-forwarded to the track in question, for your absolute pleasure:

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Chula Vista

Hey Lil, I think I may have been a bit over the top in plug last night. Sorry if I offended in any way. (I seriously don't remember any details)

Or maybe I wasn't. Damn, haven't had a blackout like that in ages.

Loving Sparks BTW. Can definitely see why you dig them with their T-Rex, Sweet, early Bowie-ish kinda vibe.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Key

^Yeah, Sparks are great. It took me a little while to get used to Russell's use of the higher vocals, but once you get used to it, you realize how talented they truly are.

ladyislingering

I don't actually remember. I've been so drunk, day and night, for the past few days that I can hardly remember how my week went, let alone a plug session. You're ok.

When Sparks moved overseas, they were actually compared to Bowie and Roxy Music quite often (I think Ron and Russell actually brushed shoulders with the boys of Roxy in an airport during that time and nobody said a word to one another - but I could be mistaken) for their theatrical, quirky value alone.

One of my favorite things about Sparks is that the Mael brothers didn't actually set out to be musicians in their youth. It was just something they thought they'd try (I think both of them were actually set for art school after they finished high school but I'd have to refresh my memory yet again to be absolutely certain) and it turned into a lifetime career. They'd had no special training whatsoever before they started their journey.

Speaking of which, at the time "The Louvre" was recorded, Russell Mael didn't know how to speak French (later in his life this would improve substantially - Russell is now fluent in the language) and the song had been originally written in English. Being the Anglophiles they were, they felt it necessary to have Josée Becker (whose musical career began and ended just there) translate the lyrics into French.

It's just a song about a statue that's bored with being a statue and would very much like to leave the museum.

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Josef K

Nice journal, will be following. Hopefully you stick with it long enough to get to Lil Beethoven - that's pretty solidly their best IMO.

ladyislingering

It'll come.

L'il Beethoven was a bizarre, incredible album - yet another sharp turn for Sparks' musical style, but they managed to pull it all together as if it wasn't anything new to them. We'll get there, man.

I think we'll wrap up Woofer tonight.

Here's a sweet bundle deal:

"Batteries Not Included/Whippings and Apologies"



"Batteries Not Included" is a brief reflection of childhood rage.



Then follows "Whippings and Apologies" - a blunt nod to nutso Christian parents and child abuse, daughter in question perhaps pursuing a boy her parents didn't think was holy enough.



Both Halfnelson/Sparks and A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing were, to put it gently, unsuccessful in the united states. Ron and Russell would soon part ways with the Mankey brothers and Harley Feinstein in order to relocate to London - their mother's homeland. Having grown up especially amorous of the English way, it seemed the perfect plan.

By the way, Ron and Russell actually did visit the Louvre a couple years later.

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