Customer Reviews

Lightning-Rod Man

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Folks should know that the first review on the site is off-base and ill-informed. The guy's opinion is fair enough, but comparing The Factory to Little Feat is absurd (it's a total '60s vs. '70s battle, and how you stand will depend on your general feelings about those two decades). The Factory (Lowell George was just a member, the addition of his name in front of the band is revisionist)was a mid-60s Los Angeles band with a great folk-punk rock sound. Don't be spooked by the bad cover art -- this is pure "Nuggets" & "Pebbles"-style jangly garage. The bands they should be compared with are '66-'67 era Sunset Strip acts such as Love, the Sons of Adam, Buffalo Springfield, the Seeds, the Music Machine, the Enemys, the Turtles and, of course, the Mothers. The Factory shared bills with a lot of these groups and compare favorably indeed. "Lightnin' Rod Man," produced by Frank Zappa, as a demo for Original Sound Records, is great '60s punk. Mostly, the Factory had a Byrdsy folk-garage bag and "Lost," "Candy Cane Madness," "Smile, Let Your Life Begin," "No Place I'd Rather Be" and "Slow Down" are excellent examples of this. "Hey Girl!" is a rockin' Arthur Lee & Love pastiche. The band actually played "Lost" and "Candy Cane Madness" on an episode of "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." (The Factory also was on "F-Troop" once.) The Chesterfield Kings, a '60s-influenced '80s band, rewrote "Lost" as "I Cannot Find Her." Some of the later cuts are a little weaker, but the first 10 are amazing so don't be discouraged by the previous review. This album is a lost treasure trove -- regardless of whether you have ever heard of Little Feat or not. Personally, I'd take the Factory over Little Feat any day of the week.

I will preface this review by saying that I am a big Little Feat fan, and into all sorts of other music besides. I purchased this CD years ago not really knowing what to expect, but I knew it was by an embryonic version of Little Feat and was produced by Frank Zappa. I found myself pleasantly surprised at both how wonderful the album is, and how different it was from the Little Feat material to follow. It definitely has a 1960's California vibe to it, and is more akin to the bright eyed psychedelic garage rock of the 60's than Little Feat's more down-home blues/rock/soul stylings of the 70's. Taken for what it is though, this album is a memorable gem.

Here comes the sad part: I came to know and love this album. I grew accustomed to every intricacy, to the bubbling over sense of joy and humour that permeates each song, to the sun-soaked sensation I felt awash in as I listened. I wanted to share these pleasures with the world and music lovers everywhere, and my exuberance turned to downtrodden hopelessness when my rare CD was stolen from me. My feelings of despair gradually dissipated as my memories of the greatness of this music faded off into the ether. And then, I found this listed on Amazon. The CD is indeed rare and pricey, and the collector part of me screams for vengeance. That said, I'm thrilled just to find the MP3s readily available for download, and cannot wait to soon rejoice again in the joyful splendors of this album.

I may just be a sappy sentimentalist who lost something near and dear to me, but this album has been sorely missed and will be a welcome re-addition to my ITunes catalogue. Very highly recommended.

Little Feat is my all time favorite band and Factory is Lowell's pre-Feat band with some of the Feat members already playing in it. To me it was such a surprise how much the band has developed between the recording of this album (=Frank Zappa produced demos) and the first official Little Feat album. The difference is like night and day. And unfortunately for this album but this one is the night in that case. Surprisingly bad album from such superb musicians. Thankfully there's a couple of tunes here that rise almost to the level of the first Feat album but other than those couple tracks listening to this album is a drag. But we all have to start from somewhere and since this is where the Little Feat started from to me this is pretty much like Jerusalem to the Christians: A holy place where only few of us ever go... And if you don't go for this, you don't miss a thing. Go for any other Little Feat / Lowell George album instead and you're doing yourself a great big favour.