Sugarloaf “Spaceship Earth”

This is the kind of record I look for, cover-wise, in the cheap used records—a gnarly, full cover color photo of the band—they’re standing out in the country somewhere—they’ve put up a crude wooden sign that says “Sugarloaf” and a rural style mailbox says “Spaceship Earth” (ready for fan mail? or maybe they’re at Buckminster Fuller’s house). Sometimes I wish it was still 1971—when you could wear leather vests and striped pants. The one guy has on one of the most absurd sweaters I’ve ever seen, at least on a man, sleeveless, sideless—actually, it might be a chainmail undergarment, I’m not sure. There’s another band photo on back, two more big ones inside (it opens up just for that!), and there are individual pics of them on the sleeve, with lyrics on the opposite side. The first song is a disappointingly proggy instrumental (title song) —but it gets way better after that. Some good songs. They’re all over the place, a lot of variety, a really fun record—a bit psychedelic, pop, a bit prog, some blues rock—I like the harder and heavier stuff the best, some pretty hot playing all around. My favorites include: “Hot Water”—heavy duty sound and funny lyrics: “No sleep for breakfast,” and “My eyes were red white and blue/I just got a letter from the Internal Revenue/Hot water hot water hot water…” “Rusty Cloud” is good. “I Don’t Need You Baby”—really nice, slows it down, a pretty soulful blues number—good singing, too, maybe my favorite on the record. “Woman” is very funny—the way they keep turning on a dime from the fantasy ideal to the “reality”—”Woman… always got something to do.” Ha! LP ends with “Tongue in Cheek,” an epic freakout over, again, the “woman”—they should have put her picture in one of the 12x12 album-art frames—or instead of “Woman,” called that song “Rosanna” or “Rose Darling” or whatever her name is. I mean, now I wanna meet her—is she Medusa or what? The band was from Denver—originally called Chocolate Hair—which is just nuts enough that you kind of wish they’d lived with it. They had a hit song off their first album, but I don’t remember it—I was 10, busy diagramming sentences. Internet says someone’s making a documentary on the band, which will have to be a feature just to keep up with the name changes, personnel changes, label changes (including Brut!), and freaked out Denver. Hopefully there’s some old live band footage, filmed live shows, or 8mm just sittin’ around the kitchen, doin’ whatever. W/ da sugarloaf.

10.2.26