Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Long-Time Miller Fan, February 3, 2002
This album is, as others have said, not the top-40-mid-seventies Miller that most folks are use to hearing. That being said, it's a terrific album and one of my top-five favorites. From the firey, fuzzy cover art to the long-distance reverb guitar, this album really puts me in the mood of days gone by. It has special meaning for me because it was originally given to me by an old girlfriend who snatched it from her brother's record collection back in the seventies because at that time it was out of print! It's certainly not "Swingtown" so don't expect that, but if you like melodic, clever, spacey music, this album will suit you just fine.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great!, July 23, 1999
By A Customer
The harp, which IS quite remarkable, is played by country session legend Charlie McCoy.Now for the album, this is one of Steve's better albums and I find myself returning to it more than his "popular" albums (along with Recall the Beginning, a vastly ignored gem). I knock it down to 4 stars only because drummer Tim Davis' two contributions are pretty awful. At least on the vinyl version they programmed these two dogs (Hot Chili and Tokins) at the end of Side 1. The rest of the album is uniformly excellent. The trio of acoustic based songs that open the album are lovely. Side two (or the latter half of the CD) has several outstanding rockers (Going to Mexico, Industrial Military Complex Hex, and Jackson-Kent Blues) with great guitar playing (yes, Seattle, that IS Steve on guitar!!!). A highlight of the LP is the hilariously dumb liner notes from Steve (Peace, brothers and sisters...). I hope they included this in the CD packaging. Seriously, this is a good album and if your idea of Steve Miller is a mid-seventies lightweight weenie popster, you should check this out (actually all of the SMB's first five albums are quite excellent...check them out).
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Studio tricks for the daring listener with headphones, July 1, 1999
By A Customer
Steve Miller, the first master of the old echo unit, the Echoplex, lets it shine here. With his producer, Glyn Johns, they set out to create a trippy, countrified psychedelia landscape. Listen to Matthew Sweet's album "Girlfriend" from 1992 and you'll see where he got all his ideas from. The sound quality and studio production is incredible; very hard to believe the album was put together in bits and pieces during a tour of the south. All of the songs are masterpieces and full of commentary about the times. Perhaps on this album, Miller makes his boldest political statements to date, especially on songs entitled "Jackson - Kent Blues" and "Industrial - Military Complex Hex." Both tracks are lyrically powerful and are Miller's take on the shooting of students by national guardsmen and the connection between the industry of war and the economy. Miller lets it open up a couple of times with fresh and upbeat perspectives on tracks like "Goin' to the Country", "Good Morning" and "Tokin's." Studio tape manipulation abound due to the genius of Glyn Johns who provides some incredible sounds that may have been inspired by Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland." As a whole, the album is solid. If you have headphones or really good speakers, you'll have fun listening to this album front to back.
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