Good To Know: The Beckies Story

After leaving the Stories, songwriter and keyboardist Michael Brown was looking for a new band, so he roped in some like-minded musicians from Kansas City and the Beckies were born. Brown was also the songwriter and driving force behind the Left Banke, and he took on both roles with the band, giving their rough-and-tumble power pop sound some light Baroque touches. They recorded one album for Sire in 1976 before splitting, and Omnivores Good to Know: The Beckies Story combines that with demo sessions recorded during the groups formative early days and a session recorded in 1975. The album itself is a nice artifact of the power pop era, calling to mind Badfinger in the way it melds crunchy guitars and uptempo tracks with yearning vocals, soaring melodies, and the occasional string-filled arrangement. The best songs are those that rock lightly with breezy vocal harmonies and Browns key dancing around the edge. "Right by My Side (Etude)" and "Other Side of Town" are fine examples of how the Beckies give the power pop equation a little bit of their own math. Sometimes they go a little too far in the Baroque direction -- like on "River Bayou" or "On the Morning That She Came" -- and the vocals let them down. Both vocalists in the band (Scott Trusty and Gary Hodgden) are fine on the rockers, but neither of them has the pipes to match Browns level. Its still a nice little artifact, though, and some of the songs are quite good. The added demos are a little rougher, yet somehow sound better. Maybe its the added looseness or the less formal recording setting, but the songs have a little more life, and the roughness of the vocals fits better. Most of the demos were co-written by Brown and Trusty. For some reason, those were all tossed out when it came time to record the album and replaced by songs co-written by Hodgden. That meant the bands catchiest song, "Blue Monday," and the one with the prettiest melody, "Baby Oh Baby," were both left off the album. Thats inter-band politics for you, one supposes. Its good that the tunes are finally getting official release, and nice that the Mercury demo was saved too. The Beckies may have lacked that extra bit of zing that the best bands have, but they were decent, and this collection is worth checking out for power pop completists. ~ Tim Sendra

レフト・バンクなどで活躍したマイケル・ブラウン率いるパワー・ポップ・バンドの、唯一のアルバムとなった76年の『The Beckies』が2枚組のアンソロジーとして登場した。Disc-1はアルバム本編11曲のリマスターを収め、Disc-2にはその未発表デモ音源13曲が満載されている。報われなかった才人たちの活き活きした奮闘の記録に泣き笑いしながら浸りたい。
bounce (C)大原かおり