Heinz -"The Singles" Vinyl, LP, Compilation (Triumph)

No one sounds like Heinz, because Joe Meek produced Heinz.  And the closest record maker to Meek is maybe Brian Eno, during his early solo album/song career.  Meek started off as a recording engineer for EMI during the 1950s and eventually left the corporate music world to start his own label, Triumph Records, for the sole purpose of producing and even writing hits.  His one accepted masterpiece is "Telstar," which he wrote and produced for The Tornados.  In that instrumental band, the platinum blond bassist, Heinz, caught Meek's eye (and ears).  If Phil Spector had Ronnie, then Heinz was Meek's obsession.  

The 16 songs on this compilation album are recorded in what sounds like from another planet.  Each country has their own take on rock n' roll, and these recordings sound like they came from Mars.  To describe the music, it's basic rock or pop but filtered through Meek's aesthetic it becomes a weird hybrid of bedroom recordings (he worked mostly in his home studio in North London) and musique concrete practices.  It's pop music, but clearly has avant-garde leanings that I don't think Meek was aware of. In that sense, he's an outside artist who thought himself as a commercial hit-maker.  And he was, at certain moments in his brief and tragic life. 

For the last 25 years or so, I have been obsessed with Joe Meek.  I'm slowly collecting his works on CD and on vinyl, which at times can be difficult to obtain.  "The Singles" I found the other day at Rockaway Records in Silver Lake, and I believe that it was once owned by Ronald Kane, who had a record collection that was out-of-mind-out-of-body great.   Nevertheless, Heinz belongs in an eccentric world of sound and vision.   The compression of the sounds and the muted drums are surely the foundation for not only Eno's "Here Come the Warm Jets," but also the pop side (side 1) of Bowie's "Low."   Without a doubt, the strangest recordings to come out of 1960.   Therefore a work of genius.  

Lou Reed - "Street Hassle" Vinyl, LP, Album, 1978 (Arista)

My favorite solo Lou Reed album is "Street Hassle."   It's the one album for me where Lou portrays the 'public' Lou Reed that we know and sort of love.   I may be wrong, but I feel that this is the last solo record where Reed is portraying a character.  His albums afterward, are basically Reed looking at the world as a first-person narrative.  Almost like a journalist covering his landscape in a John Cheever mode, or at the location of the gates of hell.   For instance, when he wrote and record "Berlin" he never at that time been to that city.  So, in a sense, the solo Lou is very much of a world that he made up, and put himself in as a character. 

The Velvet Underground years are spotless.  Full-on Lou genius work.  The solo career is a hit and miss, but when he's great, he's really fantastic.  "Street Hassle" is interesting to me because he's playing with the sound of the studio or the live recording.  This is such a murky sounding record that if it is a 3D object it would be mud or a heavy dish of food.   Aurally I think of Lou digging from the bottom to the top to get air, and there is something very closed off like one is locked in the basement, and one is really trying to break a hole to get light/air.  

The songs themselves are fantastic.  "Real Good Time Together," I think is an old Velvet's era song, and if memory is serving me correctly (always doubtful) it was on a live Velvet's album.  Nevertheless here it's a minimal piece of music, that builds to a tension, that eventually breaks loose.  A lot of the songs are arranged in that fashion.  The album's set piece is "Street Hassle," which is in three parts, yet still very contained narrative and the music arrangement is very tight.  The strings arranged by Aram Schefrin is minimal minded, that has a touch of Philip Glass/Steve Reich intensity. There is also a Bruce Springsteen uncredited cameo as well. 

The other song that sticks out is "Dirt."  Very direct, angry, catchy and wonderful.   This is very much bad-ass Lou Reed in his prime.  It's interesting to note that Reed's partner-in-crime, both Iggy Pop and Bowie also released ("Low" and "Idiot") compressed sounding records around this time (1977/1978).  There is an aesthetic link between these three albums.   Not sure if they were aware, or it was something in the air at that time.  Still, "Street Hassle,' the album,  is a remarkable piece of work.