Customer Reviews

Present Tense

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This extraordinary collection of recordings is perhaps the jewel in the crown of two legendary California singer-songwriter-arranger-producers: Gary Usher and Curt Boettcher. While it was released as an album (all of whose 11 original tracks are included here), its confluence of original sources makes this something of a collective, rather than a group album.

The roots of these recordings lay in Usher's overflowing fountain of creativity. Having written, produced and recorded dozens of albums in a short period of time (often alone or with studio musicians and pals), he found his role as a top producer at Columbia (Simon & Garfunkel, The Byrds, etc.) to be limiting. He began to spend off-hours in the studio creating new works, and after failing to pitch Chad & Jeremy on the song "My World Fell Down" (previously recorded by the UK's Ivy League), decided to record it himself. Usher gathered elements of the legendary Wrecking Crew, along with Beach Boy Bruce Johnston and touring Beach Boy Glen Campbell (who sang lead) to wax what would become a #70 hit.

Interestingly, modern day listeners probably know "My World Fell Down" more from its inclusion on Lenny Kaye's original "Nuggets" compilation than they do from the original single or album release. The relative success of the single did bring a demand from label head Clive Davis for more, and Usher quickly began assembling material from the fictional Sagittarius (named after his astrological sign), eventually in conjunction with up-and-coming star Curt Boettcher.

Boettcher's early work with the group Ballroom yielded several tracks for the album, including the original recordings of "Would You Like To Go" and "Musty Dusty, as well as several more songs ("Another Time" "Song to the Magic Frog" and "Keep of the Games") that were re-recorded. It's a mark of Usher and Boettcher's synchronicity that the previously-recorded works fit the Sagittarius album so perfectly. Though produced a bit less lushly than the multi-voiced orchestrations they'd purpose-build for the album, the tone matched the album's slightly-high autumnal pop. At turns this is mindful of Brian Wilson's more complex works, the intense vocal arrangements that Boettcher pioneered with The Association, and the bubblegum psychedelia of The Lemon Pipers and Strawberry Alarm Clock.

What began as a downtime hobby for Usher turned into a full-blown collaboration with Boettcher, and an album with an extraordinary ratio of latter-day-collectability versus at-the-time-purchase. Sundazed's masterful CD reissue augments the original album with nine bonus tracks, seven of which are previously unreleased. Most importantly, the original single versions of "My World Fell Down" and "Hotel Indiscreet" display the odd bridges that Usher was forced (by Columbia) to edit away for the album. The former's middle part is a melange of bullfight music, baby cries and alarm clocks, while the latter includes an unusual spoken-word passage from Usher's then-recent label signing, The Firesign Theater. Firesign's Peter Bergman turns up again (as he did on many Usher productions of the era) on "Mass #586." Also of great interest is Boettcher's demo of "The Keeper of the Games," highlighting his singing in a setting that is much less ornate than usual for his finished works.

Dawn Eden's liner notes are terrific, and additional song notes flesh out some of the compositional and recording history. The original engineering of Roy Halee and Tom May has left us with sparkling clean tapes of a California masterpiece.

Idiosyncratically beautiful album from 1968, full of gorgeous melodies, lush harmonies, and stunning musicianship and production. A one-shot project by producer Gary Usher and many of L.A.'s elite session musicians (including Glen Campbell), it's a shame this album has been so overlooked for so long. Those who enjoy the late 1960s Beach Boys, Association, Harpers Bizarre, and the like will find much to appreciate in this stunning CD. Excellent dynamics and overall sound quality plus several bonus tracks just sweetens the deal.

Between 1966 and 1968 Gary Usher could made his big dream: making his own record. He met Curt Boettcher, a member of a califonia's sound band called Ballroom, and they made togheter this great record, indoubtly influded by Brian Wilson's masterpieces (Pet Sounds and Smile). This record is full of little unknown jewels of pop music history: "My world fell down", "Get the message", "Lonely girl", the Usher's lisergic get into "The Truth Is Not Real"... Almost an hour of really amazing songs, sweeted with the androginous voice of Curt... Thanks to Bob Irwin (Sundazed Cappo) to rediscover that.

Curt Boettcher and Gary Usher are as close to music gods as anyone has been on this album. Superbly produced and even better performed, this album is spiritualy upmoving and cynically benign at the same time. From track one on, you don't want to shut the music off, but rather let it shift you along a path to...who knows where. The bonus tracks are all excellent too. A lot of music for about fifteen bucks, I say.

I wish to caution those of you considering the purchase of this wonderful album. I highly recommend the CD version released in 1997 by the label `Sundazed', as opposed to the recent 2009 version released by Rev-Ola. The reason is that the sound engineers who remastered the Rev-Ola release, chose to compress the audio to make it sound louder. In doing so however, they squeezed much of the audio dynamics out so that quiet passages sound nearly as loud as the loud ones. This practice of compressing audio to make it sound louder is very common in the recording industry today and is ruining music. The Rev-Ola release is a victim of today's "loudness wars". The Sundazed version, on the other hand, features the dynamics fully intact and it sounds wonderful! The sundazed version includes the same bonus material as the newly released Rev-Ola version.

The album was originally issued in 1968, and I would describe it as lighthearted psych-pop. It has that wonderful `Summer Of Love' sound and is very harmonious. At times it reminds me of the Moody Blues and The Association, among others. The melodies are very catchy and memorable. The song most will remember is `My World Fell Down', which was a hit in 1967. What makes this CD even more pleasurable is the inclusion of demo, unreleased, and single versions. Speaking of which, the single versions of `My World Fell Down' and `Hotel Indiscreet' are radically different from the LP versions, and I think they are far more superior and trippy! I personally find this album very fun and relaxing. It is packaged nicely with liner notes and photos.

Curt Boettcher is one of those guys whose name is always popping up in relation to cool, obscure 60s psych pop bands. He worked a lot with producer/arranger Gary Usher, was a member of The Millennium, whose album, Begin, is one of the great unacknowledged 60s records. And Boettcher was part of Sagittarius, a band that also featured a young Glen Campbell. Sag made just this one album, and it is just about perfect. Some kind of cross between Donovan, psychedelic Beach Boys, and bubblegum, the songs are pleasantly light and just psychedelic enough. Lilting melodies will take your mind to another place. "My World Fell Down," the best song of album, has already achieved cult status by being handpicked for the Nuggets collection. And there are three or four other tracks here which are just about as good as that one.

What a gem this is. Yes, it's ahead of its time. In fact, It wasn't supposed to be made. Gary Usher's boss expected Gary to produce for other musicians, not make his own music. It's amazing how hard-headed american employers are. But, I'll have to admit, musicians did have more liberty to make the music that was in their heart, not just what some limited-minded record label wanted them to do. I think that's why music in the 60's and 70's (and, what the hell, the early 80's), remains in our hearts and it's appeal never fades away to this day. Today's music is quickly forgotten the moment it leaves the radio (remember Natalie Umbriglia, Green Day, or Alanis Morissette? I barely do). Anyway, Sagittarius is a fabulous piece of work that didn't get the attention that it deserves. I first heard MY WORLD FELL DOWN (shorter stereo version) on a ROCK ARTIFACTS CD. Then Rhino put in in their Summer of Love (CD), and in the Nuggets box set. I knew their had to be something wonderful about Sagittarius, even though the single of MY WORLD FELL DOWN only charted at about #70 on Billboard. Present Tense is both Psychedelic, and yet very innocent sounding. Of course, you can hear Usher's bitterness at his boss in the lyrics of a few of the songs. I appreciate that this CD has both the album and single verions of MY WORLD FELL DOWN although it would have been cool if the longer single version was in stereo too. The songs "Glass" and "Hotel Indiscreet" are very charming, however, one of my favorite songs on here has a disturbing flaw. "Musty Dusty" starts to distort horribly about 2 minutes into the song. I guess we can't have everything. I highly recommend this CD though. I wouldn't doubt more people have bought this CD today, than the sales were for the album in its day.

If eating a marshmallow could be an aural experience, it would sound/taste something like this album. Where to begin? Sundazed has done a superb job in the packaging of this re-release. The liner notes are excellent, which provide the listener with much background information on the music contained herein by one of the albums co-creators/producers, Gary Usher. But as for the music itself...The vocals by Curt Boettcher (the other half of the production "team," and who wrote the majority of the material here), are akin in sound to what is heard on the Bee Gee's earlier albums ("1st" perhaps), and Van Dyke Parks' "Song Cycle." Boettcher's voice is affected in such a way (as Parks' was) with high compression or reverb or phasing (I'm not sure what the effect is exactly). In short, the songs are delightful! I can't imagine why this album hasn't received more attention. The production is perfect, bringing to mind the pain-staking efforts of a Phil Spector or Brian Wilson (who was an acqaintance of Usher's, according to the liner notes). The songs are outfitted with much brass, woodwinds, harps and etc, so much so that I feel the music sounds like the score to a never-produced, uplifting musical from 1966, 67 or 68. I hate to refer to so many other artists whose music this reminds me of, but the production value of the sole United States of America album, or "Odessey and Oracle" by the Zombies is also heard here. "Present Tense" has the song quality and consistency of "O. and O." as well, which I consider very high praise. Almost all of the songs here are warm, happy and sweet. And with a couple of appearances by two of the Firesign Theater guys, amusing as well. What more could you ask for? Mssr.'s Usher and Boettcher, wherever you are (and the good people at Sundazed for putting so much time and expense into the re-issue), thank you, thank you, thank you. I listen to "Love's Fatal Way" or "Would You Like to Know" and I instantly feel happy. I can't get most of these songs out of my head, and that's a good, a very good thing.

take sgt.pepper off your player and give this a try. gary usher, columbia record producer and previous writing partner to brian wilson, you might say wanted to do his own 'pet sounds'. here it is with a little help from his studio friends. very melodic, primarily soft and colourful, harmonic and interspective, perfect background music for going thru the high school yearbook with your kids...welcome back to "67.

SUNSHINE POP BAND REVIEW: Sagittarius [Los Angeles, California].
Don't be put off by my 4 star rating. I reserve 5 star rating for my most favorites, but this band should be high on anyones list!
This morning I decided to check some Sunshine/Psychedelic Pop bands and they popped up. What a revelation!

BOTTOM LINE: If you are into music from the Summer Of Love they are a band that you need to check out.

What you get is 20 songs, 53.1 minutes of music.
What I got was 12 songs, 31 minutes of above average songs, with 3 songs that are rated 5 star by me.

Someone on amazon's site recommended only getting the Sundazed-1997 version vs. the 2009 Rev-Ola version and I concur.
You most likely heard of the 'Loudness wars' and how they master it so the softest passages sound as loud as the loudest parts.
Yes you can argue that it helps when your in a loud environment i.e. car and have a point, but I like my music to have depth (soft to loud) at my disposal.

The three songs that stand out to me is:

My World Fell Down - 1967 - "AMG Pick. There is probably no better emulation of the Beach Boys circa the "Good Vibrations" period than Sagittarius' "My World Fell Down," which was a very modest #70 hit in 1967. Glen Campbell lead vocals."

You Know I've Found A Way - 1968 - "Good first impression on the vocal harmony. AMG Pick. Curt Boettcher and Lee Mallory wrote this song during The Summer Of Love."

Glass - 1968 - "Good first impression on this soft Psychedelic sitar song. Beautiful vocal harmony. Craig Brewer reportedly was not a professional singer, but just a friend of Boettcher's who wondered in."