Various Positions

THE SKYGREEN LEOPARDS Minotaur (Burn A Candle For Love)

The Skygreen Leopards, a Californian duo of Donovan Quinn and Glenn Donaldson, take their name, and a good deal of inspiration, from mid-20th C. American poet Kenneth Patchen. "Because where they planted skygreen leopards grew": hard to believe, but listening to them, the fantastic is almost believable. The music's crisp and clear, twangs like folk, and is sung fey. It’s both charming and charmed, as intimate as a campfire singalong, and yet joyfully acknowledges the life in the open around it. The Leopards wrote this album in a seacoast cabin, an affect reminiscent of another California poet, Robinson Jeffers (though it was a rental, and probably did not look as cool as Jeffers’ tor). The arrangements are offhand, and considering their background in improv, sound assured in their breeziness. According to Donaldson, composing in Skygreen works something like this: "Donovan Quinn & I sit around & drink coffee & talk about Kenneth Patchen or debate the merits of Bob Dylan’s various phases, then we 'write' songs." Still, it would be easy to pin the twee tag on these sunlit explorations were it not for the clouds that gather. Like Patchen, a deep dissatisfaction erupts from the menagerie -- one gets the sense that they were not born in the countryside, but have retreated there.

Patchen viewed the world of man as misruled to the point of catastrophe. His poetry uses nature images to evoke the sense of refuge in an inhuman, incorruptible, space. "Minotaur" (from this year’s Life & Love In Sparrow’s Meadow on Jagjaguwar) pulls the verdant curtain aside to view the inner shadow. It's a song about monstrous behavior leading to a lostness, and the ensuent hope for transcendence: "Oh, to be a prairie bird." As the woodland processional marches out, variations on the refrain, "This is the message that your minotaur brings" are repeated, while another voice insists, "Burn a candle for love." There's a meaning at work here that avoids easy solutions, a small hope amid the backsliding of society's progress -- Patchen would be proud.

[The Jehovah Surrender EP will be released later this month. It sounds as if the band has moved, perhaps only temporarily, from the shed to the garage, having added distorted guitar, fuzz bass, and what sounds like an actual drum kit. The change aligns them more closely with the popular sound of Nuggets et al. You can read the fanciful account of the events behind the recording here.]

QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE Just For Love

One of the first San Francisco bands to stir up the 60’s scene, Quicksilver Messenger Service suffered more than most from extenuating circumstances. They initially spurned label money, but found room remaining on the bandwagon two years later, having fully cemented their reputation on the West Coast as a live act. A drug bust had already sidelined singer Dino Valente, who would not rejoin the band until 1970. Upon his release, he recorded a self-titled solo album, a hermetically sealed period piece that cast himself as a humble sage who gently directs young women down the path of right intention (that ends in his bed). He apparently was kinda like this offstage, too. "Overpowering and indulgent" reads one online assessment, and even his own producer, Bob Johnston, acknowledges that "people thought that he was evil."

QMS did pretty well without him, recording several albums, gaining some notoreity, and playing Monterey. Valente rejoined just as the whole West Coast pop experiment came crashing to halt; the hippie dream gave way to drug nightmare, and harsh 70’s reality commenced in earnest. From the dual-guitar jam attack for which they were known, Valente brought down the fans by loading QMS’ fourth LP with his fussily cosmic ballads; "Just For Love" is the title track. Arthur Levy notes that every song on Dino Valente is directed towards a "you," and the approach is no different here. The song sounds pleasant enough; it’s definitely an easier listen than the strained harmonies (both musically and lyrically) of Valente’s solo record. It resonates well in ’05 with its similarity to Forever Changes’ stately arrangements. Tasteful piano flourishes, pageantal drumrolls, a troubadour's guitar line -- over and above the assembly soars Valente, sounding like Roky Erickson emulating "Song to the Siren" above the demon static. There’s a certain trippy swagger up and down the verses, a "kaleidoscopic dimension of simpatico" (to quote Arthur Levy’s Dino Valente liners) that, for all its ridiculousness, still manages to intrigue.