Chet: Please contact me.


--- In martinmullappreciationsociety@y..., faroffdistantplace
<no_reply@y...> wrote:
> Hi -
>
> Sorry for the "commercial", but I figured
> you folks would be interested...
>
> I'm currently selling a brand new CD release
> from "Double Standard String Band"
>
> It's old-timey music (banjo, guitar, fiddle,
> mandolin, string bass) recorded in 1966 (!)...
> The master tapes we're recently discovered
> and have never been available anywhere before.
>
> The two songwriters are Les Daniels (banjo,
> vocals) and Martin Mull (guitar, vocals).
> Back then, Les was a student at Brown University
> in Providence while Martin was studying next
> door at the Rhode Island School of Design.
> The two collaborated again on the 1974 Soop
> record, but these recordings pre-date those
> sessions by almost a decade and this gritty,
> country-folk-grass picking is the real deal!
>
> The "Double Standard String Band" was fully
> restored and mastered for CD - there are
> 16 tracks in all, 12 of which feature Martin
> Mull. It's all professionally packaged in
> full-color (except for the B/W period photo
> of Les and Martin performing live in 1966)
> and features liner notes by Les himself.
>
> This is a small, limited pressing that is
> not available in stores - mail order only:
>
> $14 money order payable to "J. Alexander"
> PO Box 170, Barrington, RI 02806
> ($20 if outside the USA)
> Please include your shipping address with payment.
> Thanks!
>
> ----
> "...Les also sings, plays banjo, and writes songs...a
> combination of bluegrass, folk and country, with a heavy
> emphasis on sophisticated Tom Lehrer-style parodies.
>
> "...[five] of these tunes were written with comedian/actor
> Martin Mull. [also two others written solely by Mull]
> The first of the Mull-Daniels collaborations, "Cleveland,"
> is a Stephen Fosterish paean for the joys of Ohio: "Oh me,
> oh me-oh-my-o/I miss the life I loved down in Ohio."
> "The Great Bellvue Murder Mystery" is another
> rural-rube-in-the-city-missing-his-home-place parody, and
> "Country Lass" switches between major and minor as the narrator
> searches for a tongue-in-cheek "good ole country lass."
>
> "The songs that Daniels has written himself are equally fun,
> if not even more so. "First Base" compares love to baseball:
> Now I'm just a little farm team boy,
> and I'd like to fill your heart with joy,
> But I'll have to get my uniform dyed blue,
> The way I'm cryin' they'll have to call the game on account of rain,
> 'Cause I can't seem to get to first base with you.
>
> "Cowboy Song" is a minor key ballad, with a jilted lover
> imagining what it would be like to be a fearless cowboy.
> It's droll and wistful, with a sweet, traditional-sounding
> melody. The dryly humorous tone continues with "Beggars Can't
> Be Choosers," in which the narrator has to be content with the
> ugly girl who's just bailed him out of prison, and "I Just
> Broke Jail" (does Daniels, like Hitchcock, have a prison phobia?),
> which tongue-twistingly tells of a moonshiner and his travails
> with the law. "Mr. Moonshine" looks at the illegal practice
> from the point of view of a woman who sings plaintively,
> "Lips that touch whiskey will never touch mine, Mr. Moonshine /
> Hands that make whisky will never get frisky with me."
> The gorgeous melody belies the ironic lyrics, and one could almost
> believe this to be a turn-of-the-last-century prohibition ballad.
>
> "Another more serious song is "Sentimental Value," in the same
> antique vein as "Mr. Moonshine." My favorite, however, is
> "The Coyote Kid," which begins with a rhythmic guitar line which
> leads into a far more complex chord progression than many of the
> other songs. The story the song tells is equally complex and
> haunting."
>
> -- Chet Williamson
> -----