The Love Affair

The Love Affair

(NOTE: Arthur Lee and Love are apparently even more a legend in Great Britain than they are here; apparently, over there they W managed to transcend their American obscurity (even as has Capt. Beefheart). Anyhow, they did a tour there, around the first of the year, which is something they don’t do here, • and this came out of it.)

Well, Arthur Lee and Love have been gone, leaving, I suppose, mixed feelings ranging from wild enthusiasm for their performances to just plain disappointment. It must be pretty difficult for some of these American bands, who come over here preceded by inflated reputations and excellent albums, to meet people’s expectations — and, whereas Spirit were as magnificent as their albums, Love didn’t quite bring it off I feel.

The audiences at the four gigs I saw were all enthusiastic ... they recognized and clapped introductions (and some clapped the spade roadie, mistaking him for Lee), and went mad after each song, but Lee, rather than Love, made the evenings. Without him, they would have been, despite. the brilliant drummer, a very mediocre rock band. (Lee contends that they are his perfect group, but they certainly don’t hold a candle to the old Love.) Yet sometimes they really hit it off together.

While they were here they recorded a live album for Blue Thumb, the tracks of which will be taken from the following: '‘Stand Out”,-' “ Andmoreagain”, “Doggpne”, “Nothing”, “My Flash On You”, “Singing Cowboy”, “Love Is More Than Words”,’ “August”, “Orange Skies”, “Good Times”, “Little Red Book”, “Dream”, “Gather Round”, “Signed DC”, “Feel Dandy, Feel Good” and “Ride That Vibration Down”. Of these, “Singing Cowboy” and “Signed DC” were particularly excellent.

We didn’t approach Lee for an interview, but one of our sporadic contributors, Martin Kirkup, spoke to him at Birmingham, and here is part of his interview:

Love arrived 'at Birmingham Tow Hall on March 10th with about half an hour spare before playing. They had spent three hours in a car, driving from their London flat, and were tired and cold. All four huddled around heaters, Lee so close that he set his expensive fur jacket alight at one point. On stage, Colisseum were doing the last half of their act and the dressing room was very noisy. Relatively undisturbed, Gary Rowles sat tuning his guitar, Frank Fay ad, tall and humerous, chatted amiably and George Suranovich came and went every five minutes with beers and sandwiches. Arthur sat by the fire, knees pulled up to his chin. All four were smoking and drinking;Arthur seemed rather stoned, but sipped t-Sowly from a very large whiskey. He was relaxed and distant; aloof but quite willing to talk for awhile.

Z: How and when did you get this group together?

Arthur: About 18 months ago now, August 1968. I’d known Frank for about seven years, and he was playing with George and Gary. I saw,them and I wanted all three of them.

Frank: We’d played together for a couple of years then.

Z: What was the group called? Had you recorded anything?

Frank: No, we didn’t record. We worked places like Las Vegas, and the music was rather bad. We had a terrible name, I won’t tell you, I’m not going to say it, it’s too embarassing, but it was a terrible name! (laughs)

Z: Why didn’t Gary join when Frank and George did?

Arthur: Well, he wasn’t Too keen at first, I think I wanted him to.

Z:,So Jay Donnellan joined instead. Arthur: Yeah, (laughing) Jay! Jay Lewis, or Donnellan or whatever his name was; just Jay. I looked for a guitar for a long time and we got Jay but I guess we knew it wouldn’t work out.

Z: What’s he doing now?

Frank: Probably working in a. garage somewhere!

Arthur: So then We got Gary (smiles atGary), eventually! He’s our sorcalled lead guitarist; I mean, I stick bits in too, it’s deceptive. Yeah,-“so-called.”’

Z: How long was it from the old Love splitting to forming the new band? Arthur: Well, really it was only a week or so, maybe two weeks. They just went one by one, they went their individual ways.

Z: Are they still in groups?

Arthur: One of them, maybe two. An article. I read said that "Bryan’s studying classical music, but really I don’t know. Z: There were changes in that group though, like “Snoopy’’.

Arthur: Well, you know he, was a terrible, terrible drummer, and Micheal Stuart was, well, good, but very mechanical. Tjay (Cantrelli) was ljke an experiment, I’ve changed the band to get what I wanted, and I’m happy with what I’ve got now. > '

Z: That pile of. stone of the first two covers, what is it? -

Arthur: That’s Dracula’s fireplace. Up in Laurel Canyon — there’s Dracula’s house, where'we were for awhile, and just by it there’s this fireplace. The house belonged to Bela Lugosi, you know him? Great actor, very sad eyes. So Dracula’s fireplace was by his house (points at gas-fire, which he is ten inches away from). This is a funny ash-tray.

Z: When did you cut Forever Changes? Arthur: Early 1967. I wrote everything for that, worked it all out, except for Bryan’s two tracks. I arranged the orchestra on them all except his, and I produced “Alone Again Or” for him. It . needed the orchestra, you know, so I did that, wrote the charts. Bryan was the first to split. Yet, the first to get the bright idea.

Z: Who plays lead on that albUm?'Him? Arthur: John. He plays lead on them all, I play acoustic guitar but it’s amplified. I wanted John to stay with me, he’s a good guitarist; he was going to, but he, uh, freaked out.

Z: Was he fixing?

Arthur:'What?

Z: Fixing?

Arthur: I thought that’s what you said (laughs loudly). He was getting it together somehow.

Frank: Maybe he was fastlining of something! (collapses laughing) You kinda sneaked that one in.

Z: You never did much touring with that band, why did you change?

Arthur: We didn’t do any touring, we -stayed in L.A. (looks around room). It’s not.,. well, I didn’t want to, not for me, I didn’t feel like touring, but I changed my trip. I don’t know if I can ^explain it to you really.

I had a big hang-up about my appearance, used -to wear fifty pounds of beads around my neck, and I had tb

straighten my hair. Once, I put this hair-straightener on my hair, and you’re supposed to leave it on-for five to ten minutes, but I was loaded, I collapsed and was out for fifty minutes. 1 woke up and'went to wash the stuff out of my hair, and I washed my hair and all of my hair was in the bowl.. .'now I didn’t want to let a little thing like that get me down, sp I did some work. Really! It freaked my folks out, but I took the fifty pounds of beads off, and decided to get down to work. It changed my trip, that’s all, changed it.

I wanted to come over here then, but we sat around for awhile, working it out. The visit was overdue, but I’m glad we came; there are good vibrations over here, really, and ‘I want to come back late this year.

Z: Have you recorded since Out Here? Arthur: We’ve recorded a live album over here, like tonight, but I want to hear all that. If it’s released it’ll be on Blue Thumb, but maybe we’ll keep it for ourselves. George and Frank have written a couple of things too and we’d liked to have gone into the studios here but there isn’t time.

Z: Heyl You’re on fire!

Arthur: I’m burning! (beats smoke from his coat) Look at this fur! It’s lost a lot of hair; well, maybe it needed a haircut. You know what they say about these longhairs! (grins at George) Freaks! So maybe I’ll get my own hair cut too. Where’ve you been now?

George: Watching Colisseum. They really are good; that horn player and drummer, wow!

Z: Have you seen many other groups, here?

George: Yes, I’ve been watching a lot, it’s good to see new bands and some of

them are really good. We’ve played with Mighty Baby a few times and I like them and Cochise too. We’ve really enjoyed the tour, you know, and we’ll be back.

Arthur: All right, we got to go on in two minutes, everybody ready? Have the spare guitar on stage. Now we’re going straight through this one, straight trip, no bummers. Listen for the introductions, and make it. All right?