Customer Reviews

Tape From California

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For Phil Ochs fans, the long-awaited CD release of TAPE FROM CALIFORNIA is a real cause for celebration. It has been out of print for many years and it took a lot of effort on my part to get a copy on vinyl. Along with his album THE PLEASURES OF THE HARBOR, TAPE FROM CALIFORNIA documents what Phil perceived to be the cancerous immorality eating away at America's institutions and conscience. The title track, "White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land," "Half a Century High," "The War is Over," and especially "When in Rome" relentlessly pursue the theme of internal decay. "When in Rome," Phil's longest song ever, presents the history and future of the United States as those of a modern Roman Empire. Phil sees the American (Roman) Empire as corrupted force that has become the very evil it had intended to replace. The entire album (save one song) thematically leads up to this revelation; it's a unified whole as are all of Phil's later, introspective albums (PLEASURES OF THE HARBOR, TAPE FROM CALIFORNIA, REHEARSALS FOR RETIREMENT, GREATEST HITS). For those of you already familiar with Phil Ochs, this album will fill an important space in your collections. Those of you who are NOT familiar with Phil's work, listen to his topical albums first (ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO SING, I AIN'T MARCHING ANYMORE, PHIL OCHS IN CONCERT), so will be able to understand his transformation in context.

Whether the lyric lilt of his voice or the tremendous passion of his articulate poetry, Phils Ochs had a profound impact on listeners. He could be politically outlandish (sometimes even more outlandish that his own personal views) but more often incredibly insightful.

His lyrics are some of the the most intelligient written by the modern day folks artists or songwriter of any ilk. And his later work, although not in the least classic folk style material, showed an artistic maturity that could be dazzling. The lyrics could be at once cinematic, portraying a physical scene, and at the same time evocative of intense emotions.

And he used his voice with a keen sense of timing and phrasing -- it's fun just to listen to how he wraps a line around the tempo.

During his short life he was known as much for his politcs as his artistry, and he probably wouldn't have had it any other way.

The material here is that of his second "non-folk-music" albums and contains what some fans consider one of his poetic masterpieces -- the dark and unsettling story of "When in Rome."

Phil Ochs lived in the shadow of his mentor Bob Dylan. I believe that as a folk-protest singer, he exceeded him, though never got the name recognition. While others spoke to the "movement" of the 60s and 70s from the edges, Phil spoke to its heart, and especially the political left, those who were not into drugs but into politics instead. He released 3 good folk albums, "All the News That's Fit To Sing", "I Ain't Marching Any More", and "Phil Ochs in Concert". This album, plus "Pleasures of the Harbor" and "Rehearsals for Retirement" represented Ochs in his foray into rock, following his mentor Bob Dylan. It is by far the best of the three, as Ochs remains true to his folk roots in this one, whereas in the others he tries unsuccessfully to be "artsy". (Releases after "Rehearsals for Retirement" are mostly old material). The best song on this album is "When In Rome" where he compares the US to the Roman Empire. I believe this comparison is still valid today, as the US is an overextended power. For those new to Phil Ochs I would recommend this CD plus "Phil Ochs in Concert" and the Cctober 2001 UK release of his first two albums ("All the News That's Fit To Sing / I Ain't Marching Any More") as a 2 CD set. Skip the others, they are a waste of your hard earned money.

In the late 1960s, Phil Ochs went from being a folk strummer to a barouqe classisists. He signed with A&M. Tape From California, Reheasals For Retirement, and Pleasures From the Harbor are three of the most beautiful albums of the late 1960s, or any era, bar none.

Tape From Califonia may be the most well known of the three, but these wonderful records are not nearly known enough. With their ambitious structures, arrangements that rival Sgt. Pepper or Forver Changes and specific, essay like protest lyrics, this music was taylor made for FM progressive radio. The problem is that people now may see this music as dated; these are masterpieces that did not survive the purge, when FM became AOR and music selection was handed to demographic consultants.

But the harpsochords, strings and consonenet scales of this music show Ochs and producer Larry Marks able to rival Bach and Mozart. If you go to Amazon's Sampler, you will see a lot of these tracks are six or seven minutes; long for folk tunes.

And they are not folk songs in the early Dylan sense: these are musical novellas, with amazing bridges and inderludes. The delacacy and the protest lyrics and the guitar playing do give this work a folk base--Ochs was a true artist who never compromised. But this is really--well, I was going to say folk classical; but it is more informative to remember Tape From Califonia comes from a period when labels did not matter: origionality and invention did.

Ochs suffered from depression--he commited suicide in 1976-- and you can hear the sad break in his voice, as if he could cry any second. This is not the affect of a country or blues singer, but the real voice of a real person, who was hurt and broken--his big heart was protected by tissue paper.

The lyrics may sound dated, though they are so heartfelt and convincing they still work.

But the music is some of the most beatiful American rock as ever produeced, and sounds as fresh now as the day it was born.

One of three absolutely essential American rock albums

Phil Ochs' "Tape From Califonia" was great. Only 8 songs, but they all had very intelligently written and insightful lyrics, and the music sounds good as well. Those were the days where every song on an album was intended to be good, not just one or two purposely-manufactured "hits" and the rest is mere filler, like many of today's full-length CDs (a trend that I think began with The Beatles' White Album (remind me again why it was a DOUBLE album?) and grew over time). But I digress. In fact, the best song on this album was the one that was way too long to be played on the radio (clearly not designed as a hit), the 13-minute epic "When in Rome." Though the lyrics are tricky to interpret, it is often believed to be about the history and predicted decline and fall of the American Empire, comparing it to the Roman Empire. The 8-verse ballad complements the anti-war songs "White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land" and "War is Over," the latter being a hit, as well as the humorously ironic "The Harder They Fall." Another great song was "Joe Hill," one of Ochs' most well-known songs about a folk singer and union organizer who was executed based on dubious evidence. The album is a great mix of traditional folk, protest music, and folk-rock--truly one of Ochs' finest.

Phil Ochs's never quite achieved the success he deserved. He spent his early years singing folk ballads and protest songs. But, unlike his real-life friend Bob Dylan, Phil never garnered more than lukewarm approval from the masses (or the critics.) It's a shame because Phil Ochs was savagely witty, a truly great lyricist, and his ability to write a great song outweighs his lackluster voice and less-than-professional guitar skills.

Whereas Dylan redirected his talents to a more personal level in the mid-60's, Ochs never quite broke free from the activist mindset. After embarassing himself with an Andy Kaufman-esque phase of performing Elvis songs on stage in a drunken stupor, and effectively losing what little audience he had when the Vietnam War ended, Phil Ochs ended his own life almost exactly one year to the day after hostilities in Vietnam ended.

'Tape From California' is Phil's attempt to expand artistically, and the results for most listeners will probably be "thanks, but no thanks." This album is really a snapshot in time of a troubled musician who personifies "rebel without a cause." The music is good, but around the edges one gets that uneasy feeling that things are only going to end badly for the troubador from Texas.

This album is Phil's 2nd best in my opinion (my favorite is Pleasures of the Harbor). I love the title track, Joe Hill (which I think is far better than Joan Baez's more famous version), the hilarious The Harder They Fall, and the majestic, intimate epic When in Rome. Phil had a great sense of narrative in his songs, and nowhere is it better than in When in Rome. He was inspired by the movie Viva Zapata to write that song (movies inspired quite a lot of Ochs's work, like the title track of Pleasures of the Harbor was inspired by John Ford's film The Long Voyage Home). The lyrics are masterful, and Phil's performance is brilliant. The song Joe Hill is much more informative than the more well known version by Joan Baez. Ramblin' Jack Elliot does some great finger pickin' on this song too. The song White Boots in a Yellow Land is a powerful anti-war song, and is still valid today. The album is a little more stripped down than Pleasures, but it's still good (I liked the orchestration on Pleasures).