Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen1971-06-07
San Francisco, CA
KSAN Pre-FM master recording, very good quality
Available in both lossless (FLAC) and mp3 (320 kbps) versions
Note: This post is a replacement for a previous Commander Cody post (1973-05-28 - Rotterdam) that was originally posted in October 2014, and was removed in April 2015 due to a DMCA copyright infringement claim. What follows is the original text of the post, which introduces Bill Kirchen and Commander Cody, followed by a description of the new replacement concert.
Update: Unfortunately, the download for this replacement CC show has also been deleted from the servers after less than a week, again due to some supposed copyright claim. Thus, it appears that virtually all the decent quality Commander Cody shows are now being stopped from being shared. Thus, I will not try to replace the links, or try to post any more Commander Cody shows for download. Sorry. But I will leave this post up for informational purposes only.
Another artist I saw this past summer was legendary guitarist Bill Kirchen. If you're not familiar with Bill Kirchen, and have any interest at all in country-rock, swing, rockabilly, and just good ol' honky-tonk rock, I strongly suggest you check him out, he is just wonderful. Bill got his start as the original guitarist for Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen in the late sixties. CC-LPA was a wild, eclectic band that featured a unique mix of country, rock, Western swing, rockabilly, and barroom blues, as well as a dose of hippy drug culture weirdness. With the exception of one breakthrough hit single (Hot Rod Lincoln, 1971), the band had an exclusively cult following, as they were not generally accepted by either the rock or country mainstream at the time. Always known as a great live band, their reputation and popularity actually soared only after they split-up in the mid-seventies, as more people became exposed to and began to accept and enjoy their style and sound. This resulted in numerous releases of live recordings from their classic period (1969-1975) over the ensuing years (At least 12 live albums released!). The Commander (real name George Frayne) tried to re-capture the spirit with a new incarnation, known just as The Commander Cody Band in the late seventies to early eighties, but it was never quite the same. After Cody, Bill Kirchen went on to various other bands, projects, and solo recordings (as well as several different short-lived Commander Cody reunions), and I'll talk more about Bill's subsequent career in a later post. Today I'm focusing on those early days with Commander Cody. Although it is hard to find many high quality unofficial recordings of the original band (almost everything decent has been released in some form or another) [Ed. note: this was made even more clear with the copyright claim and subsequent deletion of the show I had previously posted here - which was a show I did not know had been released in any form - hopefully this replacement show will survive], here is a complete show from a San Francisco radio broadcast in 1971, in very fine quality, and this gives a good idea of what they were all about, and a selection of their wild, vast repertoire, at least from fairly early in their run. Many of their best songs were still yet to come. So please, check out Commander Cody, Bill Kirchen, and the rest of the Airmen in this spirited show recording from 1971.
Tracklist:
disc one: 70:31
01: Lost In The Ozone Again
02: Faded Love
03: Working Man Blues
04: Down To Seeds And Stems Again Blues
05: Smoke That Cigarette
06: Wine Do Your Stuff
07: Semi Truck
08: Ain't That A Pity
09: Workin' On The Midnight Shift
10: The Family Bible
11: Diggy Liggy Lo
12: What Made Milwaukee Famous
13: Lookin' At The World Through A Windshield
14: Chairman Creeper
15: Hot Rod Lincoln
16: Git It
17: Gone Gone Gone
18: I Ain't Got Nothin' But Time
19: Give Tennessee Credit
20: High On A Hilltop
21: Sea Cruise
22: Blues Stay Away From Me
disc two: 53:06
01: Home In My Hand
02: The Shadow Knows
03: Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You**
04: Accidentally**
05: Divorce Me COD
06: Jambalaya
07: Ain't Nothin' Shakin'
08: Goin' Back To Tennessee
09: Tutti Frutti
10: Honky Tonk Blues
11: Nadine
12: Crying Time
13: Crazy Arms
14: Rip It Up
15: Lost In The Ozone/ (Again)
notes: ** with Lynne Smith
Bruce Barlow: Bass, Vocals
Bobby Black: Pedal Steel Guitar, Vocals
Commander Cody: Piano, Vocals
Lance Dickerson: Drums, Vocals
Billy C Farlow: Harmonica, Vocals
Bill Kirchen: Guitar, Vocals
Andy Stein: Violin, Saxophone
John Tichy: Guitar
Sorry. Download no longer available, due to deletion from server sites, apparently due to some copyright infringement claim. No replacement available. There was no intentional posting of copyrighted material, but it appears that many CC shows are copyrighted, even if a corresponding official release is not known to exist. For more classic Commander Cody, please buy their official releases
One of the best early books about rock (and I read just about all of them before the 90s explosion of rock book publishing) was "Starmaking Machinery" by Geoffrey Stokes about a record label (Warner etc I think) trying (and expecting) to break Commander Cody in the mid/early 1970s. Still a bit under the spell of rock as against "the Man" but pretty realistic and down to the ground. Good portraits of the very diverse members of this agglomeration.
ReplyDeleteSo, thanks for the Commander Cody. A band I love more for a book about them than for their music, but their music is more that OK too.
This looks like a ball, and like something I need to investigate.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing.
Ah, but where was this recorded? They give a phone number in there...we thought perhaps it was Pacific High Studios, but we looked up their number in the 1971 directory and it doesn't match.
ReplyDeleteI am a huge fan of Commander Cody shows. I have seen their several shows with my dad. Recently I attended an event at live music nyc venue and it was so much like their shows. It was just fabulous and really enjoyed it!
ReplyDelete