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All this talk of Jim Messina made me pull out his CD and his album.
I thought it would be interesting to share something with you that I
have noticed.
The original Jesters LP was released sometime in '64 and was credited
to "Jim Messina and his Jesters" (notice the copy of "Dick Dale and
HIS Del-tones") and it was called The Dragsters. This is the LP that
was reissued on CD on the semi-legit Euro label Surf in the '90s.
It's great stuff, 14 songs, 11 of them written my Messina. The
covers are: an uptempo version of the Breeze and I, and surf-guitar-
led versions of fifties instro hits Honky Tonk and Raunchy.
Messina's guitar work is truly exceptional, sounding like DD's
flashier doppleganger, with a lot of nimble fingerwork full of fast
hammer-ons and pull-offs, and not as much double-picking as you may
expect. I HIGHLY recommend this CD. The highlights for me are "The
Jester", which is as good as any surf song I think, "The
Cossack", "High Voltage" (an apt title!), and "Yang Bu". If there is
one criticism I would have of the material is that it's a bit light
on melody, instead relying on groove, energy and improvisation. But
it works most of the time. There's a really nice jazz and even blues
influence throughout, especially evident on "Suspense Run"
and "Hollywood Sound" (both very jazzy in rhythm and featuring some
tasty surf-blues guitar playing, with the latter obviously influenced
by Mel Torme's "I'm Comin' Home Baby"). And as Messina mentioned in
his interview, almost every song has a bunch of engine revving and
tires skidding noises overdubbed. A lot of songs also have the
noises of the band shouting along with the music, as if they're
really into it. I suspect these were overdubbed later, along with
the car-related noises.
So far, so good. But here's where it gets interesting. This album
was rereleased in '73, when NOBODY had any interest in surf music!
Why? Probably cause Messina was becoming a well-known name, and
somebody wanted to capitalize on it. Did Messina have any
involvement? Who knows? I have this LP, and the packaging looks
like it was from the sixties, with nothing giving it away as a
seventies record or a reissue. The liner notes all speak in the
present tense, and the photos are all from '64, though at least the
front cover is different than the original one. Big deal, you say.
Well, OK, yes, if that's all it was, who cares. But then let's take
a look at the track listing: only twelve songs this time ("Strange
Man" and "Suspense Run" were omitted). Again, big deal. But wait!
Here's where it gets interesting! Take a listen, side by side with
the original tracks, and you come to the shocking conclusion that
these are DIFFERENT versions of the tracks! The only song that
appears to be the same version on both albums is "Hollywood Sound".
The others vary from very subtle differences ("Chihiuahua", for
example - that one required very careful listening to tell they're
different) to completely different arrangements ("The Breeze and
I"). And "Tamale Wagon" is a completely different song on the '73
album! Most of the other songs are different in more subtle ways,
different tempos (with the original album tending to feature faster
versions), different licks, chord progression going up at some point
rather than down, different endings. And there are no shouting or
racing noises. So what the hell is going on here? Nobody seems to
know.
I've discussed this with John Blair a few years ago and he never
noticed the different versions of the songs - he thought it was just
a straight-forward reissue with a different cover, and two songs left
out (and of course with all the noises left out). But for any of you
that care and have both releases, compare them back to back. They're
clearly different, sometimes very obviously so. John suggested that
maybe Messina rerecorded the tracks in the seventies. I really doubt
that. I suspect that Messina couldn't give a crap about surf music
by '73, and anyway, the sound quality and the recording is very
authentic: it SOUNDS like a cheap early- to mid-sixties recording,
for better or worse. I can't imagine they would have struggled to
get such an authentic sound in '73. They probably would have wanted
to "improve" it! So, I'm pretty much 100% sure that's not it.
My conclusion is that whoever rereleased the album got a hold of a
bunch of master tapes which were not marked very clearly. These
master tapes probably spanned several months or more of recording
dates, thus featuring evolving arrangements of the songs. And the
tapes had a whole bunch of different takes of the same songs. Rather
than going back to the earlier album and trying to recreate it
perfectly, they probably just tried to listen for the best
performances and released those only. This is my best explanation of
what happened.
God, it would be really nice if somebody took the effort to find
those master tapes, and release all of the different songs, plus
their alternative '73 versions, in a cleaned-up sound, cause it
doesn't really sound very good. It took a while but it happened for
Eddie & the Showman, maybe one day it'll happen for the Jesters,
too. They DEFINITELY deserve it! This is among the best of sixties
surf music.
Anyway, just thought I'd share this with you.
(BTW, looking at the front cover of the album, where I could see
Messina's white Strat in a great deal of detail, you can see that
Messina left off the volume and tone knobs on his Strat - again, just
like DD!! Man, this kid had a BAD case of hero-worship! Good for
us, though, he created some awesome music as a result.)
Iven
