This Oneness - Surprize + Amalgamated Funk + Sonic Geometry. 1975-1976 USA-Minnesota

Where have I been these last few days? Right here. Immersed into the newly released CD from This Oneness. We'd been waiting for this release for some time (3 years?), as the band promised two more albums that were fully recorded but never released. That day has finally arrived, and what a package it is. More on that later. Let's start with the original CDRWL entry:

Minnesota based group who performs a Mahavishnu styled heavy fusion with Canterbury touches. The song portions are of the Midwest progressive rock variety ala Ethos and Albatross. The odd song out is 'Please the Sunshine', an almost-gospel like vocal track that is a bit painful to endure. Overall an excellent fusion album.

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As it turns out, the Mahavishnu reference is very poignant, since John McLaughlin was indeed a major influence. Both musically and spiritually. Now we know the album itself is only a small part of the story of this intriguing band. They went on to record two more albums, but without the woodwinds of Robyn Lee, which definitely changed their sound. Most of the proggy ambitions are gone, and its place is a ferocious jazz fusion. Not atypical of its era, but a cut above in quality. There's very few vocals after Surprize. And there's a tendency to break into jazz guitar land, with the expected rhythms of that genre. Only to turn back on the amps and the full instrumentation goes all in for heavy rock. Electric guitar and analog synthesizers rule the sound palette. Some really strong Moog work will be heard. The rhythm section is outstanding as well. Worth mentioning that the sound quality of these two additional albums is first rate. They could have (or should have) been on a major label. And there's enough material on Sonic Geometry to make up for a double album.

And what did these guys do on their off days? Shoot pool, drink beer, hang out at bars? Nope - they were the touring backup band for none other than Olivia Newton-John. Well, someone had to do it! But it goes to show how talented they really were. 

In the end, This Oneness were truly a professional outfit. One of those legendary regional bands that should have been known worldwide. That's a tale that's been told too many times I'm afraid. Anyway, buy this triple CD if you have any interest in American fusion.

Ownership: LP: 1975 Oz. Single sleeve. Acquired online (2012). I believe this may have been a Midwest Mike contribution to the CDRWL, and I was able to secure the LP relatively quickly.

CD: 2022 Oz. 3xCD as described above. Titled The Story of thisOneness. In addition to the two extra albums, you get a full history with contribution from most of the members. Full recording details are provided inside the multi-foldout digipak as well. We also learn that the band stylized their name as thisOneness, so the original cover was literal not artistic.

5/22/10 (CDRWL); 12/13/12; 12/12/22 (new entry)

Tom Nehls - I Always Catch the Third Second of a Yellow Light. 1973-1975 USA-Minnesota

Tom Nehls. So much to say here, and yet it's not easy to do so. As Nehls himself asserts 'Words Can't Explain'.

Nehls was in high school in Minneapolis - yes high school - when I Always Catch the Third Second of a Yellow Light was recorded and released. Even the title is incredibly clever and something most Americans who drive can relate to. The album does not have an obvious comparison, though it's clear that Nehls had the uninhibited imagination that comes with a certain kind of genius. Fortunately no producer or record executive got in the way to ensure that Nehls was focused on making a hit record. Apparently Nehls was quite obsessed with the creative works of the late 60s like Sgt Peppers or the Mothers of Invention. This comes across over and over. But only in the approach, not the sound.

This is a real grassroots effort. Basically Nehls and his high school friends went about making a rock album. And Nehls was fortunate to befriend a one Paul Stark who had just opened a professional studio. And Stark was anxious to test various ideas and sounds, and he found his counterpart with Nehls. So they had the opportunity to record - over a lengthy period of time - an album of intense creativity.

Ostensibly you will find Nehls filed in the "real people" category. Oh it's real alright, but not in the way the term has come to mean, that of semi deranged, incompetent artistry. The liner notes on the Now Again release address this as well. Rather this is real in that the imagination has no bounds. You won't hear another album like this - ever.

Going over a track by track would be difficult. This is one of those albums where one has to state: "You have to hear it". It should be noted the music is not radical or avant garde in the slightest, but rather something familiar but twisted. The songwriting is almost at the Burt Bacharach level, a writer that subconsciously must have entered Nehls' mind while composing this album. But it's also very psychedelic, in its purest state: Studio manipulation and other effects to throw one off balance.

You'll know if this album is for you by the end of Side 1. 'No People in the Forest' is a psychedelic folk wonder. The beautiful short instrumental 'Words Can't Explain' leads into the stunning 'Clean Air'. When the female angelic vocals come in over the bells, if you aren't getting goosebumps up and down, then we're not aligned on what great music sounds like. And who provides those melt-in-your-tracks vocals? Dorothy Benham. Who?  Look her up. I recommend Google Images. Did you just miss a breath or two? She was Miss Minnesota in 1976, and Miss America in 1977! That's quite some accomplishment. Nehls wanted her on more of the album, but the timing of the sporadic recordings and school activities didn't allow for her to be there for more than one track (don't forget about that -  these were all kids in high school! And good kids too, involved with the school, that sort of thing). Oh what a pity.

'The Underwater Symphony' closes the side in very experimental fashion. Very trippy, but again extremely listenable. Side 2 continues this path, but becomes even more rock focused - and then you hit the album's peak at the end - the lengthy 'Your Death' is a tripped out psych rocker, and packs one heck of a wallop for an album such as this.

So let's talk about the new 2xCD/LP reissue set on Now Again (2019). The liner notes are excellent, one more of an opinion piece from a well known collector, the other a deep dive with Tommy Nehls himself, who has remained a professional musician all his life (living in Florida these days). When reading the first part, I kept seeing words like Texas and private press. Paul Major and the whole 80s / 90s collecting scene. I must know this guy! Well, sure enough, they were penned by Rich Haupt, he of Rockadelic fame. I spent a lot of time with Rich in the late 80s and early 90s. He was incredibly generous with his time, and I visited his house on many occasions. I wasn't in his inner circle, primarily because I was too poor for that crowd lol. But that didn't matter to Rich. He was the king of finding rare obscurities. The stories I could tell... Anyway I learned a ton from him back then. By the mid 90s I had moved away to Colorado and Rockadelic became more professional.

Tom Nehls is the perfect album to see his well-written notes. I don't recall this album from back then, so guessing it was a later 90s discovery. I don't remember when I first ran into his name, but most likely an ebay auction that netted a fortune. I made notes of all albums like that in the hope that one day I'd get to hear them. When the CDRWL really started in earnest back in 2009, Nehls was an early score (no, not the LP, but rather a cd-r). As I was about to enter it into the wish list, I discovered it had been reissued by Nehls himself! So I contacted Tommy Nehls and we had a nice dialog. And I purchased the "CD", but unfortunately it too was a CD-R, but professionally done. Later a friend confirmed that he pressed it as a manufactured CD. I never bought it again. Fortunately because...

No, I'm not done here. As alluded to above, there is now a double CD set with full liner notes, a few photos, and...........

A full album of newly found archival material! Are you kidding me? Whereas I Always Catch the Third Second of a Yellow Light was recorded in 1972 and 1973, these recordings come from 1974 and 1975. It's unmistakably Tom Nehls with different influences, including some that were more popular in the mid 70s. But with his own unique vision. It's almost as good as the album proper. Perhaps it's just as good, but I'm just getting my mind around it for the first time. Oddly the liner notes don't address these recordings. All we know is that Nehls stayed in Minneapolis and went to the University of Minnesota before transferring to a university in Wisconsin in 1975. So we're left to guess that he continued on with Stark until he left the state.

If you made it this far, I presume the album is already in your shopping cart. If not, you didn't get this far.

Ownership: CD: 2019 Now Again. Details are above.

Former ownership: cdr: 2006 TLN.

Originals are a small fortune. Apparently they pressed 1000 (which is a lot), but only sold ~100 to friends and family. The other 900 LPs stayed with Nehls' sister until - tell me if this doesn't sound familiar - her basement flooded. Sigh.

2009 (first listen); 6/9/19 (review / new entry)

Terry Masters ~ USA ~ Minneapolis, Minnesota

Thesaurus (197?)

We have quite the discovery to share today! It's been a long time, going back to the CDRWL days, that we had something this much fun to share. This one was discovered the old fashioned way - me taking a chance by buying the vinyl online. Score!

So who is Terry Masters anyway? Well if you start digging around the ole' World Wide Web, you'll discover that he had one 45 released under the avoid-at-all-costs name of Terry Masters at the Organ. You can hear one of the three tracks on YouTube (not bad really, guessing a 1970 provenance). Beyond that, what you'll find is Masters was basically a nightclub crooner. You can see and hear live clips on YouTube from 1983 of him sitting at the keyboards and singing Hall & Oates, Bob Seger, that sort of thing. Apparently he was playing Vegas shows, as well as performing lounge music in his native Minneapolis. This ties in with the narrative we then read on the back of this private press (which shows a forlorn Masters in a toga made from what looks like an old bathrobe): "Many people ask Terry to do the music he really enjoys, but limited to dance music on the job, he is not always able to play from the heart. Now, accompanied by John Calder on the drums, Terry creates the music everyone has requested and shows his great versatility on the organ, bass and mellotron. We hope this completely instrumental and spontaneous album will give you a new insight into the "other  side" of Terry Masters."

Ummm... something tells me this isn't what his fan base had in mind. When I purchased the LP, the seller fortunately photo'd the back cover so I could read the above quote. Without that I would not have taken the chance. An instrumental album with mellotron can't be that bad I figured. I actually thought this was going to be an electronic rock album with drums, similar to perhaps Klaus Schulze on Moondawn, but without synthesizers and more organ. Nope. It's an instrumental prog rock album all the way! Just two side long excursions titled rather predictably 'Thesaurus I' and 'Thesaurus II'.  The music is very free form, loose in structure, but not noisy or avant-garde in the slightest. It's very engaging I must say. And it is absolutely slathered in mellotron. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say this album has more mellotron than any 1970s era album discovered in the last 20 years. The album really has no obvious comparisons. Of course one could pull out ELP as a desperate attempt, but that's really scratching the surface. Probably the closest comparison I can come up with is Siloah on Sukram Gurk, but more professional sounding than that would imply. Perhaps also The Trip at the time of Caronte, if one considers the instrumental work, and replaces guitar for mellotron. John Calder is going nuts on the drum kit, playing in an almost jazzy manner, but clearly on amphetamines. Calder incidentally was the drummer for none other than Podipto, a relatively well known country rock band from northern Minnesota who had one major label release in 1970.

Finding info about this album is nigh impossible, though there have been a handful of sales on ebay, as archived by Popsike. Mostly not expensive either. One dealer called it "folk psych", clearly they did not take the time to hear the album, as it is of course, neither. Other auctions call it a "synth" album. None of those either (though some people do erroneously call a mellotron a "synth").

An album truly out of nowhere. Not brilliant or the greatest lost album of our time, but certainly excellent on the whole. If for nothing else, worth hearing for its unique sound crafted inside a more familiar terrain. Sadly, Terry Masters passed away in the summer of 2018. Hopefully he got to tell his story to someone, or wrote it down somewhere. I certainly would like to know more.

There is no date listed anywhere on the LP. Judging by his look, the way the album is presented, and the instrumentation, I would think 1973 is about right. Perhaps 1975 as heartland America always had these nutty outliers. But these are pure guesses on my part.

Ownership: Tektra (LP). Brown textured single sleeve with indented red lettering.

No reissues as I update this post (3/8/25).

2/2/19 ( review / new entry); 1/3/22 (update)

Cain - A Pound of Flesh. 1975 USA-Minnesota

Classic private label Midwest hard rock from 1975, this time hailing from Minneapolis. Most known for its grotesque cover of human flesh pulled out of a can, this perhaps a reflection on the local Minnesota meat packing employers and the continuing labor strife issues that were particularly strained in the 70s and 80s (as documented in the movie American Dream). I’ve gone on before about these type of bands, all played for local hard working Union guys, high school flunkies, and just general no-goods and never-beens. And their girlfriends… “Yea dude, she’s a stripper over at Peek-a-Booze and loves to get wasted and rock!” Overall, Cain’s debut album is an excellent representation of mid 70s hard rock. Guitarist Lloyd Forsberg certainly holds his own, while vocalist Jiggs Lee (gotta love that name!) gives a very good high pitched blues rock performance. When Cain stretches a composition past the 4 minute mark, then even more talent is revealed. ‘Katy’, ‘Badside’, and the longest, the eight minute ‘All My Life’ shows an almost progressive like nature – closer to Styx than Yes though. Lyrically, these guys hit a smelly whiskey bar double play. Check these gems out: “She’s long and lean, she’s got the meanest streak you’ve even seen. Just a South Side Queen…”. “Well, if you you (sic) ain’t getting’ (sic) any and you’re really stuck on looks, you find yourself in the bathroom sittin’ down with the picture books, you take your situation in hand.” I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. The real irony is that the CD booklet, written by the band, states “(the album) originally was intended to have a very ethereal theme with a reference to William Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’”. Methinks the years of booze and partying created a delusional revisionist history. And about the cover? “The resulting cover was the idea of (original label) ASI Records’ marketing department run amok." A Pound of Flesh is a real party starter and a must own for hard rock hounds and anyone who appreciates the Monster (now Rockadrome) Records aesthetic. Time to go on strike and grab a bottle of Grain Belt beer, cause Cain’s playing tonight at Humpin’ Hannah’s.

Ownership: LP: 1975 ASI. Single sleeve. Recent acquisition from JL (2023). Last night's listen resulted in a +2, though I had it rated too low to begin with. Should have been +1. My first copy (purchased in 2005) was the Monster CD that made up most of the review above. I've altered it for current state mindset.

2005; 2006; 12/21/18 (new entry); 3/30/23

Steve Tibbetts ~ USA ~ Minneapolis, Minnesota

Steve Tibbetts (1977)

Steve Tibbetts' debut album is as groundbreaking as his more recognized second album Yr. My recollection of his debut was something more akin to an instrumental acoustic guitar album with a blazing freakout electric piece at the end. But actually there's more than that on display. There are synthesizers throughout, and the acoustic guitar accompaniment is more common in what one would hear on a French electronic album back in the 1970s. Which makes me wonder if Tibbetts didn't spend a bit of time in the Import section of his local Minneapolis record store. And, yea, 'How Do You Like My Buddha?' is still a killer closer.

Ownership: 1977 Frammis (LP)

9/14/18 (acquired / review)

Yr (1980)

Minneapolis based guitarist Steve Tibbett's second album is quite a diversion from his debut, and as well for the ECM label that reissued this a full eight years after the fact (with a new cover). Starting where 'How Do You Like My Buddha?' left off from the otherwise all-acoustic debut, Tibbetts gets straight to the point of the album at hand. The all instrumental Yr features Tibbetts on acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards (including quite a bit of mellotron), and all sorts of stringed instruments. Accompanying him is a bassist, and no less than four credited percussion players. So while the album cannot help but feel tribal, especially looking eastward toward Asia, the album doesn't comfortably fit in genres such as World Fusion or New Age. Primarily this is due to Tibbett's decidedly psychedelic guitar style. There really is no album like Yr in the vast annals of musical history, that I'm aware of anyway. Including from Tibbetts himself who more or less began to adopt the ECM aesthetic going forward. Perhaps early David Torn provides a slight guidepost, but this is far more warm and alive. Even if you've heard other Tibbetts albums, I strongly encourage you to lend an ear to Yr (so to speak). It's a revelation.

Ownership: 1980 Frammis (LP). With signed insert #769. Artist is shown as Steve Tibbtz.

1991 (CD acquired); 7/24/13; 8/11/15; 7/17/18 (review)

7/17/18 (new entry)

Highway. 1975 USA-Minnesota

Highway are from Fairmont, in far south central Minnesota, near the Iowa border. The music is guitar fronted hard rock, with traces of radio friendly vocal lines, and the odd progressive meter. Not too far in sound from Iowa's Truth and Janey actually (same time period and region), though Highway aren't quite as testosterone fueled. It's a prototypical mid 70s Midwest American private press from the rural fruited plain known locally as "fly over country". Great melodies, killer guitar, frantic rhythms, and a hope for a better tomorrow.

Personal collection
CD: 1990 private

Originals come in a single sleeve, with a brilliant period cover of the American US and State highway experience (not Interstate). The CD is an exact replica, with some additional photos. No history, but there are 4 excellent live bonus tracks that are not on the album.

This one came up via the CD-R revisit project that is normally attributed to the CDRWL blog. When I came across the title, I was all set to add it to that blog when I saw there was a CD reissue, but details were scant. I figured it might be some old bootleg. But I kept digging until I found the band has a website. I wrote the e-mail address listed, and received a quick response. Yes, sure enough the band produced a CD some 25 years ago (or at least that's the copyright date - it's unclear when it was actually released). And best of all, it is a real factory pressed CD, not a homemade CD-R! It's not cheap ($20 + $3 for postage), but certainly worth it if you're into this type of music, as originals are quite pricey. You can order one via this link.