If the name "Michael Brown" sounds utterly unfamiliar
and generic there's a good reason. His real name is Michael
Lookofsky, the son of session violinist Harry Lookofsky. After
he met three vocalists in his father's studio, the Left Banke were
born, becoming the first of several pop groups that Brown
masterminded. The group
helped start a mini-movement in rock (almost a fad) - "baroque-pop",
which involved orchestration,
good harmonies, decent songs in the vein of "Eleanor Rigby"
or "Lady Jane". However,
the Left Banke were the only really successful group in this
sub-genre, and their success passed as quickly as the fad.
The
lead vocalist had the unlikely name of Steve Martin, and an amazing
voice, smooth and high, which set them apart from other pop groups.
They initally broke up after Brown's father was unable to sell
their tracks to a label, only to have success with "Walk Away
Renee", which meriting touring (with the band playing their own
instruments ) and recording their first album. Brown, about 15
at the time, wanted to become a sort of Brian Wilson figure, staying
home and writing, and wound up leaving the group. The others
released a weaker second album, with some more traditional material
and then went their separate ways, while Brown went on to back
Montage (a poor man's Left Banke), and then to form Stories in the
early 70s. Stories made unconventional power-pop, compared with
the Raspberries or Badfinger, using Brown's piano often, and
incorporating classical elements. Their debut is disappointing
piano-pop, but things started to kick with their second album, About
Us. Brown's classical influence is present, sort of
creating prog-pop, but it still rocks. Unfortunately Brown quit
the Stories before they had a hit with an uncharacteristic cover of
"Brother Louie", which employed lead singer Ian Lloyd's
scratchy tenor in a soul setting. Stores then made a final
record, Traveling Underground, which has a harder sound,
before fading off into the sunset. Brown created a weaker
version of Stories with the Beckies in 1976, before disappearing from
any active role in the music world.
If you want to know more, the
people at All-Music Guide are a bit obsessed with Brown. Well,
at least Richie Untberger is.
Regretfully, There's Gonna
Be A Storm (Mercury 848 095-2) which has all the Left Banke ever
recorded, with the exception of a stray Steve Martin single and their
reunion album, has gone out of print. My advice is to pick it
up immediately if you see it.
The Left Banke: Michael
Brown (keyboards), Steve Martin (lead vocals), George
Cameron (vocals, drums), Steve Finn (vocals, bass).
Brown quit after one album. Various guitarists were members at
different points, in addition to the session people on recordings.
Montage: Bob Steurer (vocals), Vance Chapman
(vocals, drums), Mike Smyth (guitar, vocals), Lance
Cornelius (bass, vocals).
Stories:
Michael Brown (keyboards), Ian Lloyd (vocals), Steve
Love (guitar), Bryan Madey (drums). Brown
quit during the recording of About Us, and was replaced by
Kenneth Bichel. Kenny Aaronson (bass) was added
around then as well. Lloyd went solo after they broke
up.
The Beckies: Michael Brown
(keyboards), Mayo James McAllister (guitar), Gary
Hodgden (drums, vocals), Scott Trusty (vocals).
The
Left Banke: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina (1967),
**** After
the Left Banke scored a big hit with "Walk Away Renee" they
put together this record, which is pretty good. Almost
everything is orchestrated, but it is done well (the excellent
"Shadows Breaking Over My Head"). Most of the time
the orchestration gives the group a very moody atmosphere ("Pretty
Ballerina"), enhanced by Martin's excellent singing. His
voice is downright amazing; you cannott tell if he even has a
falsetto, as the high notes sound just as smooth as the rest.
However, Brown is really the foundation of the group, writing most of
their songs and contributing piano to most tracks. At their
worst, the Left Banke fall back on vocal harmonies and tread water
musically ("Let Go Of You Girl"), with the exception of one
dreadful Ringo country number (Brown's sole vocal spotlight "What
Do You Know"). At the opposite end, it is excellent
piano-pop ("She May Call You Up Tonight"). Despite
being released in 1967 there's very few traces of psych ("Lazy
Day" with it's repeating fuzz guitar line is sort of).
Certainly worth a shot if you're a Zombies fan, or you just like
gorguous pop music.
The
Left Banke, Too (1968), *** Brown left
before the group before this album was recorded, and the band suffers
from his absence. The album's songs are not as strong (mainly
written by Finn and semi-member Tom Feher), and the group compensates
for the loss of Brown by smothering orchestration on almost
everything, and including more guitar. Whatever the drawbacks
to this approach, there is still good material on here.
"Desiree" is a leftover Brown track, and a strong one.
The orchestrated numbers are frustrating with some decent songs
underneath ("Dark Is the Bark" has intrusive
horns), but the influences are more far-reaching than
on their previous album. "My Friend Today" has an
awesome Motown-like intro, with a real cool bass line underneath
Martin's singing, despite the ensuing strings and horns. Some
other experiments don't work as well - the Kinks
knockoff "Bryant Hotel" with Martin doing his best Ray
Davies impression, or the various psych influences like the backwards
coda on "In the Morning Light", and occasionally
meaningless lyrics. Still, the album has enough good songs like
the crunching power-pop of "Goodbye Holly" or the more
typical "There's Gonna Be a Storm" with Martin's top-notch
singing, to merit three
stars. A very young Stephen
Tyler sings backup for a couple of songs.
Montage
(1969), **1/2 Michael
Brown's new group recorded their new album at roughly the same time
the Left Banke made Too. If the Left Banke without Brown was
not exactly stellar, then one might expect Brown without the Left
Banke to be far better. He may not have officially been a
member, but he plays all the keyboards, writes most of the material
and produces. But his material isn't as strong this time. Still,
there's no mistaking that this came from the same source as the Left
Banke - it has the same feeling, but has a quieter and simpler feel
to it, and the vocals arrangements are not as intricate. In this
sense, Montage was closer to the original Left Banke's pop than the
more forceful approach of Too. The group does have some gems,
as on the rather melancholic "She's Alone" with its
excellent string orchestration. But while the near duplication
of Brown's previous sound does come off beautifully sometimes ("The
Song is Love", "I Shall Call Her Mary", "Tinsel
and Ivy"), many of the songs are do not rise to that level.
Out of the more different songs there's a semi auto-biographical
number ("Grand Pianist" sort of a Michael Brown's Song)
and a happy time nuclear bomb tune ("Wake Up Jimmy (Something Is
Happening Outside)"). A key reason the album is not as strong
as the Left Banke's material is that Montage's vocalists
are up to the Left
Banke's level. Lead singer Vance Chapman is good - he's
easily talented enough to have been in the Left Banke - but he lacks
Steve Martin's cool
name and ability to blow the listener away. Chapman has a more
fragile tone, and his range is not as great. Ironically, this album
would have benefited from some of the heavy-handed orchestration of
Too. Essentially this is a low-rent version of the Left
Banke - same writers (Brown and either Bert Sommer or Tom Feher),
same lightly orchestrated piano sound, even "Desiree" (in
an inferior version here), but the result is lackluster. The
decision to have Bob Steurer sing lead on a couple of songs is a
mistake, as his voice is rather thick and he even hits some wrong
notes in "Men are Building Sand". Because the band
members are all unknown quantities (one can see the photo montage was
done in two sessions - one at a public gig and the other strictly for
promos) it iss possible they played on the record, but it could also
be session men. If one isn't yet skeptical, the liner notes
include a line from Brown describing the group as "my friends
more than they were people who could really do an album."
The album is also really short - under half an hour, and the bonus
tracks are moderately worthless. Hardcore Left Banke fans will
like this.
Stories
(1972), **1/2 Unsuccessful.
Although he isn't as talented, Brown faces the same sort of
challenges that Rod Argent must have in
shifting from the Zombies to Argent. Take some pop and add more
rock, but like that confusing antifreeze and water mixture, how much
of each? Stories straddles the line between the two
here, dropping the famous vocal harmonies and complex backing usually
associated with a Brown project in favor of piano-pop with some odd
characteristics. A main shift occurs with the singer -
vocalist/bassist Ian Lloyd, who doesn't get the benefit of the
traditional glorious backing vocals here. Lloyd is not quite a
Rod Stewart clone, but close.
Stewart with a slightly "better" voice, and a Beatles
infatuation, but still more of a "rock" voice than a
piano-pop voice by far. The album's self-production overplays
the piano-pop thing to the group's detriment as well. Well,
what did the group like about themselves? Under the "like"
column mark down Lloyd's vocals, and Brown's keyboards. Under
"dislike" put Steve Love's guitar and Lloyd's bass.
It makes sense, but these decisions are wrong. Madley gets
stuck sort of 1-2ing the beat lots of times, Lowe is inaudible
frequently, and Lloyd's bass is so far dispersed it might as well be
in the Heavyside layer. Brown dominates the group
instrumentally, sometimes playing off himself, and one just gets
tired of him after a while. That is due to the
monotonous, and otherwise generally bad, production. When the
piano-pop is on, it's decent, like the good-nature Beatles retro rag
"I'm Coming Home" which reached the lower parts of the
charts as a single, or the goofy "St. James". Brown
does have plenty of the usual classical musical ideas, and in better
surroundings some of the songs might have been great ("You Told
Me", "High and Low", "Kathleen").
There are a few attempts to be lush, but they don't excel
("Kathleen"). Lloyd's lyrics rarely venture outside
of the regular romantic arena (one of the exceptions, "Hello
People" sounds like 60s peace anthem), helping to keep this
album just ordinary. Still, there are glimpses of their
harder-rocking future here in "Take Cover" and "Step
Back". In the end, this is just a lightweight
piano-pop album that is disappointingly average. (Side note - doesn't
Brown looks like Jeff Goldblum with a bad mustache and glasses on
this album?)
Stories:
About Us (1973), ***1/2 This
album is a rock album - things are faster, louder and there is some
actual production. Stories is more of a real rock group here
than other power-pop bands, using little multi-part harmonies and the
like. As opposed to other groups, Stories decided to use the
Beatles more as a stepping stone rather than a blueprint, and in
doing so probably captured more of the Beatles' essence.
Producer Eddie Kramer unleashes Steve
Love, who almost single-handedly makes this a power-pop album
by driving each song. Lloyd's bass has also been allowed to
descend to the point where it can be discerned. Lloyd's
voice sounds a bit like Jon Anderson's here, if Jon Anderson sang
like a normal person (and was crossed with Rod Stewart). He
gets a chance to use his rock voice, instead of competing with the
saccherine Eric Carmen over piano-pop songs.About Us
starts off with "Darling", a
really great song which has classical lines all over the
place, but still rocks. Heck, they even use some glowing
mellotron in the background. Of course there's a good share of
Beatles imitations ("Don't Let Me Down" - not the Beatles
song, the annoying George Washington-like "Believe Me", the
drumming on "Changes Have Begun"), but they have certainly
outgrown their wimpy piano-pop ways. Just listen to "Hey
France", which pounds away, as evidentially they forgot that
sitars weren't cool in 1973. The back side isn't as good, with
some brief instrumentals ("Circles", "Down Time
Blooze") to fill out the time. The last song was their one
big hit, the smooth and funky "Brother
Louie", and was recorded after Brown left the group. Produced by
Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise, the song is good,
but quite different from everything else on the record. Also,
Brown shaved and dropped the glasses for this one - good call.
Sometimes a re-christening with the hands of a different producer is
all one needs.
Ian
Lloyd and Stories: Traveling Underground (1973), *** This
incarnation of Stories showed a lot of promise, and it is a shame
they broke up. The album has a markedly different tone: harder,
more dense and expansive. A lot of this can be traced to new
keyboardist Kenneth Bichel. Whereas Brown seemed to favor
simple direct piano parts, Bichel takes more of the Rick
Wakeman approach - change sounds a good deal and create a sense
of background with layered keyboards. This isn't to say he
sounds like Wakeman (he doesn't), but he does some interesting things
(the unexpected modulating and blunt moog line in "Soft Rain",
or the film soundtrack-like interlude that is "Freefall").
The album's increased production is very noticable (the strange but
enjoyable "Hard When You're So Far Away" with a phased drum
intro, and echoey multiple vocal lines), thanks to new bassist Kenny
Aaronson's former bandmates Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise. But
all in all, the real keys are the tracks that bookend the album -
"Bridges" and the title track, where Steve Love cranks it
up and Lloyd manages to deliver a pair of fantastic songs.
Stories had evolved beyond power-pop - the group actually sounds
threatening enough on the last track that you expect Lloyd to kick
down your door and deliver the song to your face. There is one
final straight power-pop song, "I Can't Understand It",
which is a beauty. The rest of the album, however, never really
breaks out, and the two songs designed to cash in on the success of
"Brother Louie" ("I It Feels Good, Do It" and
"Mammy Blue" with the latter sounding like a re-write of
their hit) fail to do so. Stories were going in an interesting
direction on here, and the album is pretty quality, even if it wasn't
great. Produced by Kenny Kerner, Richie Wise and the group.
Doesn't Traveling seem
like it should have two l's?
The
Beckies (1976) Brown's
descent continues with this lone album from his late 70s group. He's
made only minor changes from the Stories' format - adding some 50s
undercurrents ("River Bayou", "Other Side of Town"),
and a vague nod towards disco ("Song Called Love"). The
remainder sound like cut-rate Stories tracks, as these musicians are
not as strong ("Fran", "One of These Days").
Brown's playing and production is pretty anachronistic throughout,
adding strings in places, as well as sticking to plain old piano.
While most musicians' eschewing of synthesizers is to be commended,
Brown often puts far too much emphasis on his chattering keyboards.
Maybe some kick-ass harmonies could have helped these songs ("River
Song" is as good as it gets on here), as many have faily pretty
melodies, but both Scott Trusty and drummer Gary Hodgden continue the
downward arc of vocalists. Only when the focus is aimed more towards
Jimmy McAllister's guitar does the band's power-pop take off, mostly
on "Right by My Side (Etude)" probably due to the
involvement of associate producer Rick Rowe. Honorable mentions go to
"Midnight & You" and "Can't Be Alone", but
the Beckies had the right idea, but the wrong way to go about it.
Produced by Brown and Ron Frangipane, with Brown and Hodgden
co-writing the songs.
The
Left Banke: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina (1967),
****
The
Left Banke, Too (1968), ***
Montage
(1969), **1/2
Stories
(1972), **1/2
Stories:
About Us (1973), ***1/2
Ian
Lloyd and Stories: Traveling Underground (1973), ***
