Original_To:  BITNET%"allmusic@auvm"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 10:18:00 EST
From:         MCINTYRE@MSUPA.BITNET
Subject:      oh what a birthday surprise...

All month I've been staying out of the music stores as an attempt to
avoid overloading the credit cards.  (BTW, it didn't work.  The Ultravox
imports I had ordered came in and Tangerine Dream tickets went on sale.)
But Saturday was my birthday (43rd, for those who care), so Friday I
went shopping.

At the local chain store I found that most of the employees now know me
by sight as "that Hawkwind freak".  And my import order for _The Chronicles
Of The Black Sword_ had finally come in.

At the local used store, they had the domestic (US) releases of Hawkwind's
_Space Ritual_, _Hawkwind_ (the first album), _Hall of the Mountain Grill_,
and one other title that escapes me at the moment.  I picked up _Space
Ritual_, but I already had the others as imports.

So, not a bad birthday at all: two Hawkwind CDs.  But those were albums
I knew were available, it was just a matter of when they would make it
into town.  (And how come the used store can get *new* copies of titles
released by Capitol before the chain store can?)

However, while pawing through the pile of (mostly) used CDs at Flat,
Black, and Circular (and you thought calling a store a record shop
dated it), I did find a total surprise, one that actually caused me
to scream out loud "What the *FUCK* is this doing on disc?":
_Milestones_ by SRC.

Now SRC is a band I dearly love.  I went to so many of their shows
back in the early seventies that I would hang out with Glenn Quackenbush,
the keyboard player, between sets.  But I would bet that not more than
five people on this list have ever heard of them.  Why on earth would
Capitol release their second album as a CD?  The closest thing Capitol
ever did to promoting them was to include "Black Sheep" from their
first album on a compilation.  And Glenn told me that they got more
money from being on that compilation then they ever did from all three
of their albums.

SRC was an Ann Arbor band of the late sixties - early seventies.  That
makes them neighbors of the Stooges, but they shared a scene rather
than a music.  SRC was much tighter musically than the Stooges.  (The
only thing tight about the Stooges was the tourniquets when they were
shooting up.)  However, Iggy was a much stronger vocalist than Scott
Richardson.  Scott may have given the band its name (they were originally
The Scott Richard Case), but he didn't have much of a voice.  The main
musical interest in the band was the Quackenbush brothers, Glenn on
keyboards, mostly organ, and Gary on guitar, primarily the supersustain
psychedelic style.  Alas, Gary ran into some mental problems and was
unable to play on the third album, but he did recover and was playing
with the band when they were carrying on after Capitol dropped them.
(As a bit of trivia, the bass player on the albums, Al Wilmot, went
on to the Canadian band Lighthouse.)

If you didn't buy the compilation with "Black Sheep" on it, the only
other time you might have heard SRC would have been their two covers,
both of which showed up on _Milestones_.  (Well, they did do "I'm
So Glad" for A-Squared Records, but that had only local distribution.)
Their one moment of fame was "Hall Of The Mountain King", the Grieg
classical warhorse.  They played it straight, but just when you
thought it was over, they'd break into "Beck's Bolero" off Jeff Beck's
_Truth_ album.  Gary was quite capable of handling the guitar part,
and it was an instrumental, so Scott didn't have to sing. 8-)  The
album ends with another Grieg piece, although I am sure that Grieg
did not provide the lyrics for "The Angel Song": Scott recites a
story about an angel who envys humans' ability to dream and accepts
exile from heaven in trade for a lifetime of dreams and then sings
lyrics that turn the story into a metaphor for birth.

After Capitol dropped them, they kicked around the bars for a few
years.  Ironically, their set list featured covers of "Heat Wave"
before Linda Ronstadt did it and "Some Kind Of Wonderful" before
Grand Funk did that one.  Hmm, both Linda Ronstadt and Grand Funk
recorded for Capitol...  Do you think maybe SRC submitted demos
in an attempt to get back on the label?

To be honest, I can't recommend this disc to everyone.  The music
is dated, and Scott's voice is not going to be to everyone's liking.
But birthdays are an excuse to be nostalgic, and SRC's _Milestones_
on compact disc was a most excellent birthday surprise.

But I am not going to hold my breath waiting for _SRC_ and _Traveler's
Tale_ to appear in digital format.

John McIntyre
Physics - Astronomy Dept
Michigan State University