Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.rock.progressive
Titolo: [Millennium] da riscoprire asolutamente.

Cercateli, li ha ristampati la Columbia da non molto.
Se vi piacciono anche i Beach Boys, i Beatles...
RON EDGAR drms A
LEE MALLORY A
DOUG RHODES organ A
JOEY STEC A
MIKE FENNELLY gtr A
CURT BOETTCHER vcls A
SANDY SALISBURY vcls A
JERRY SCHEFF bs
KEITH OLSEN
ALBUM:
(A) BEGIN (Columbia CS-9663) July 1968
NB: (1) reissued in Holland in 1976. Also reissued on CD (CBS Special
Products WK 75030) 1990, with two unreleased tracks Blight and Just About
The Same (covered by The Association).
45s:
I Just Want To Be Your Friend/It's You (PS) (Columbia 4-44546) May 1968
5.A.M./Prelude (Columbia 4-44607) July 1968
There Is Nothing More To Say/To Claudia On Thursday (Columbia 4-44674)
Oct. 1968
Curt Boettcher was a prodigious talent (sadly he died in 1987 at age 43)
whose studio wizardry produced sounds and arrangements way ahead of any at
the time and The Millennium album was the culmination of this period. He'd
started out with the folk group The Goldebriars (two albums on Epic in 1964)
then formed a vocal duo, Summer's Children, before getting into production
which included The Association's first LP And Then Along Comes and their
million-selling Along Comes Mary 45. From then till Millennium he was
involved in a plethora of groups and studio projects:- Ballroom (with Sandy
Salisbury and Lee Mallory), Your Gang and Friar Tuck (both with Mike Deasy),
culminating in Sagitarius (with Gary Usher) which put out a lot of
unreleased Ballroom material. In the seventies Curt would issue a solo LP
and form California but it's for his creative outburst in the mid-late
sixties and those heavenly multi-layered vocal arrangements that he will be
remembered.
Millennium then, were put together as a vehicle for Boettcher's ideas with
the intention to weld Fennelly and Stec's rock background with the avant
garde pop of Mallory and Salisbury. Boettcher was to 'Lead the way'... and
there was a kind of evangelical fervour about it, best heard on their first
single It's You. Goldenrod who are thought to have acted as a backing group
to Lee Mallory, formed the basis of the remaining personnel, originally
becoming involved as part of the "Our Productions" house band led by Mike
Deasy.
Boettcher wrote almost half of the tracks on their pleasant pop/rock album,
with Jerry Scheff from Goldenrod contributing Dandelion to their repertoire.
Boettcher wrote almost half of the tracks on their pleasant pop/rock album,
Salisbury, Fennelly, and Mallory providing most of the remainder, with Jerry
Scheff from Goldenrod contributing Dandelion (not on the album) to their
repertoire. The album took a year to record and was only the second album
ever done on 16-track (Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends being the first).
Columbia Engineer Roy Halee had pioneered the technique by jerryrigging two
eight-track recorders with a third machine feeding the two.
Stylistically, the album is in the mould of Sagittarius, with the standout
cut being the astonishing Karmic Dream Sequence #1. A true voyage into the
infinite and six of the most magical minutes that Sixties music has to
offer. Group member Sandy Salisbury describes the song: "This piece still
evokes everything I felt in those days, from ecstacy to amazement to
downright fear. Though I never used drugs, I always felt somehow out of
touch when I heard this song - still do. The only explanation for that
feeling is that Karmic Dream Sequence somehow tells me that Life is far, far
deeper and more fascinating than my limited human mind can comprehend - it
makes me want to explore, to experience, to feel, no matter how scary it
gets".
When it looked like Millennium might become a full-time band, the Goldenrod
members departed due to session commitments, and Edgar, Rhodes and Keith
Olsen all previously with The Music Machine came into the frame.
The Music Machine personnel had early ties with Curt Boettcher as Edgar had
been the Goldebriars drummer, Olsen an old friend of Boettcher had played
with Gale Garnett and Jimmie Rodgers, and briefly with The Wayfarers, at
whose club in Charleston the Goldebriars often played. Olsen also married
Goldebriar' Sheri Holmberg, whilst Sean Bonniwell was the Goldebriars tour
manager, and migrated to LA with them adopting their all-in-black, dyed
black beatlecut look lock, stock, and barrel for The Music Machine.
Though Millennium never toured, 'The Lee Mallory Group', which consisted
basically of Goldenrod, Mallory, Salisbury, Rhodes, Fennelly and Stec
debuted much of the Begin material at the Pasadena Icehouse on a couple of
occasions in late 1967, as a dry run for the projected live Millennium
shows.
After being dropped by Columbia, The Millennium stayed together as a
songwriting/production team, with Boettcher, Olsen, Salisbury, and Mallory
joining the relaunched Sagittarius.
The protracted sessions for Sagittarius' Blue Marble in fact included
sessions for a solo album by Salisbury and various other projects which were
recorded back to back, including tracks for "Midnight Cowboy" written by
Millennium members (primarily Stec and Salisbury) and Harry Nilsson, which
were scrapped when their publisher fell out with the film producers (an
album by 'The Groop' Sing Songs From Midnight Cowboy includes covers of the
songs). Nilsson of course sang Fred Neils Everybody's Talking as the theme,
because Neil ironically refused to speed the song up.
Another project concurrent with Sagittarius' Blue Marble was an attempt to
launch another offshoot named, "Big Shot" fronted by Fennelly and including
former Goldebriar guitarist Murray Planta. This petered out fairly quickly..
Stec took up an offer from old friends The Blues Magoos to join full time.
He later worked as a writer with Steven Stills/CSNY, and made a solo album
with Jimmy Miller. Fennelly started Crabby Appleton, signing to Elektra and
enjoying some success. He also later made a solo LP, Lane Changer, which was
produced by Rod Argent and Chris White. Salisbury was a jobbing arranger
before becoming a best selling childrens author.
As an aside readers might note that Mike Deasy of Your Gang recorded the
creepy live tapes of Charles Manson at Spahn Ranch which did the rounds in
Hollywood and cut a couple of studio sessions too. Oddly, the Millennium
guys were part of Frank Zappa's clique rather than the folkrock crowd.
For more information, check Joey Stec's website:
http://members.xoom.com/joeystec/
 and the Millenium home page:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/3218/
.
(Vernon Joynson / Max Waller / Joe Foster / Lloyd Peasley)
--
Marco.
marco...@hotmail.com
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 Se vi piacciono anche i Beach Boys, i Beatles...
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