To almost quote Charles Dickens, Flash’s In the USA: Live Recordings 1972-73 is (sort of) “the best of times” and (sort of, again!) “the worst of times.” This three-disc 22-song smorgasbord throws all the musical paint onto the prog canvas, as some songs are rather rough with a texture perhaps on line with the cassette recordings for King Crimson’s much-maligned (and occasionally deeply loved!) Earthbound. Other tunes have a rather nice soundboard.
It’s like the Rolling Stones sang, “You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometime, you’ll find you get what you need.” Sure, it would have been nice if these latest live recordings had been engineered by Blue Note’s Rudy Van Gelder, but as everyone’s favorite cartoon character Popeye was oft to say, “I yam what I yam and dats all what I yam.” So yeah, Flash aficionados everywhere probably do need this.
Disc One is the concert from Aug. 1, 1972 at Roslyn, N.Y. All the tunes, “Black and White,” “There No More,” “Monday Morning Eyes,” “Small Beginnings,” “Children of the Universe” and “Lifetime,” have a really nice rough-and-ready good bootleg quality. There’s a tough prog-rock humanity here.
Disc Two, which begins with a Flash concert recorded on July 18, 1972 at Hempstead, N.Y., has a better sound. It starts with (the classic!) “Small Beginnings.” There’s an odd warmth here that sings from a long-ago time. “There No More” follows – though it’s oddly introduced as “Room with a View.” No matter. This is wondrous and dramatic music, that in its own way, is “shedding ever changing colors.”
Apparently, this is a radio broadcast, with a mention of the Dr. Pepper soft drink. No matter, again. “Children of the Universe” is next, while “Dreams of Heaven” begins with wah-wah bash from late ex-Yes guitarist Peter Banks and then travels down the complex prog-rock 14-minute yellow brick road. Did we really have that much patience way back then?
There’s also a nice sound for Disc Three’s Burbank recordings, (with a swanky introduction!) of “Psychosync” and “Dead Ahead” from an Oct. 9, 1973 broadcast.
By the way, In the USA: Live Recordings 1972-73 includes a “32-page booklet with exclusive band interviews, unpublished photos and tour itinerary” — which is always pretty cool. But alas and alack (to use an archaic expression!), the reviewer’s download never includes such amenities — which is always pretty uncool!
That said, please allow me to paraphrase Dave Van Ronk (aka the Mayor of MacDougal Street): He tells of a man who jumped from an upper story window, and while passing an observer in an open window midway through his decent, said to with ill-conceived optimism, “So far, so good.”
Well, the rest of Disc Three descends into (what sounds like) a grumbled cassette-held audience recording from a Flash show held Dec. 16th, 1972 at Passaic, N.J. “Small Beginnings,” “Black and White,” and “Children of the Universe” are fan-faithfully recorded and do require a slight re-alignment of a hopefully forgiving eardrum for full appreciation. Ditto (again!) for those same three songs recorded in Indianapolis. And finally, a rather rough Cape Cod recording of “The Bishop” and “Manhattan Morning” closes the final muttered grooves.
As said, love me, love my dog. Or, perhaps, love me, love my little-known never-to-be-inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame favorite band. But I do confess to a weird appreciation to that King Crimson live recording “in the rain from the back of a Volkswagen trunk” Earthbound album — especially when someone is yelling for a modicum of sanity in the fiery midst of a Robert Fripp-inspired perdition-fueled guitar solo smack dab in the middle of the apocalyptic “21st Century Schizoid Man.”
Sometimes, in rock ‘n’ roll music, that just has to happen.
So, yeah, In the USA: Live Recordings 1972-73 is “the best of times” and “the worst of times” and everything else in between. Flash was a prog-rock band that a lot of people loved. It’s all here – with a few wobbly warts. Of course, “You can’t always get what you want.” But any decent rock album will always sing, “I yam what I yam and dats all what I yam.” And this Flash last testament echoes into finial and very organic spinach-graced prog rock memory.
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