An early expedition into fractured fickle completism on my part ended here—as I recall, I bought
Clear as a used record the same day I bought the first Spirit album (also used), and I effectively bailed on Spirit here, their third album and the last produced by Lou Adler. I never got to know
Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, an album I often see hailed as a high point of Spirit's catalog. OK fine, there are still some Spooky Tooth and Wishbone Ash albums I'm hoping to get to too. I finally gave
Twelve Dreams a listen a few days ago and didn't find it much better than
Clear, so now as then this is my proximate stopping point with Spirit. Maybe I should have tried harder. In fact, I don't think I listened to
Clear much at all even back then, because it was mostly unfamiliar to me when I got to it whereas I recognized the first two quite readily—used to play them a lot. To get to the point,
Clear strikes me as very generic 1969 rock. It might be better than the first three Grand Funk Railroad records but sadly not by that much. Another touchpoint might be the Savoy Brown album
Looking In (which might overall be better). I like a lot of this stuff but even so these are not high compliments, and so it must be said about Spirit and
Clear. It kicks off with "Dark-eyed woman on a hot summer's night" accompanied by heavy riffing and that's about where it stops too. The songwriting is just not there. It's uninspired and feels labored and obvious. They're hacking up lungs trying to pull it together. "Ground Hog," especially when it gets into its "old man winter" jive, is verging on Spinal Tap for ludicrous self-parody. "I'm Truckin'" speaks for itself. For once the extras deliver up the prize: a 1969 radio ad for the album tacked on to the end of the track
"Coral." It starts with an eerily prescient (I admit) voice montage of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Then the hip doleful voice guy enters: "Many sounds don't make sense," he intones. "But one thing is clear: Spirit." Sound of belabored rock song stirring to half-life. This message approved, no doubt, by Lou Adler.
I was impressed with your recent review of Spirit's first album, Jeff, as you'd given a good summary of the band's strengths and the musical mixed messages that sometimes framed those talents. However, before I could post a thank-you comment, your reviews of Spirit's second and third albums showed up on subsequent Saturdays, again with good insights.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, we seem to have gotten aboard the Spirit train at the same time, after hearing "I Got a Line on You", in my case on my car radio while motoring, and I had to get The Family That Plays Together LP right away. I enjoyed it so much that a few months later Teresa surprised me with a copy of Clear after a downtown shopping expedition, and it graced our turntable as well. Despite my interest in those two sets, somehow I never got around to scoring their first album, though I knew some of its cuts from the radio. Finally, in 1991, Sony sent me a promo of the 2-CD Time Circle (1968-1972) Spirit compilation, complete with nine songs from the first album, and I was balled over by the one-two punch of "Fresh Garbage" and "Uncle Jack", two Jay Ferguson rave-ups, still my favorite Spirit cuts besides Randy California's "I Got a Line on You". And again your and my tastes converged, as even though the compilation also includes most of Dr. Sardonicus, I rarely play that disc as often as the earlier stuff, not sure exactly why.
I should mention that if you were underwhelmed by your listens to Clear, that album was possibly somewhat compromised by the fact that Spirit had just done the soundtrack earlier in 1969 for Jacques Demy's movie Model Shop, and as the movie itself didn't do well at the box office, the execs above cancelled a release of the soundtrack album, forcing Spirit to hustle to get Clear recorded and out there to keep new product in the stores. Some Model Shop passages were used in Clear's songs, and eventually the full Model Shop tracks showed up on various compilations, and finally as an official soundtrack release.
Take a look at Model Shop if you get a chance, it's been on TCM a few times in recent years. Watch for Jay Ferguson himself, cast as an exuberant hippie, no method acting needed.
Richard "It Shall Was" Riegel
That's great to know about Model Shop. I had no idea and it makes it more "Clear" how the album came about. I want to track that movie down. Thanks Richard!
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