(THE CAPTAIN MATCHBOX WHOOPEE BAND-Smoke Dreams)-J7-LP

	A$		80
	$		53

ITEM: VINYL 12” LP 33 1/3rpm
ARTIST: THE CAPTAIN MATCHBOX WHOOPEE BAND
TITLE: Smoke Dreams
COUNTRY PRINTED: OZ
CAT No: Image, ILP-724 [ORIGINAL 1973]
COVER: Gatefold cover (Grade at NEAR MINT+) barely noticeable small mark back cvr, centre of bottom seam
LABELS: (Grade at NEAR MINT+)
VINYL: (Grade at MINT-)
TRACKS:
A1 I Can't Dance (I Got Ants In My Pants) Written-By – Gaines*, Williams*
2:40

  A2 My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes Violin – Eric GradmanWritten-By – Pola*, Golden*, Kohler*
3:31

  A3 Nagasaki Written-By – Warren*, Dixon*
2:47

  A4 Sophisticated Mama Jug – Tony DunnWritten-By – Trad.* 
5:30

  A5 Mobile Line (France Blues) Written By – Duran, Stompfel
4:06

  B1 Hotsy Totsy (Everything Is) Written-By – Mills*, McHugh*
2:05

  B2 Who Walks In When I Walk Out Voice [Puffing & Panting] – Vera BankerWritten-By – Goodheart*, Hoffman*, Freed*
2:03

  B3 I'm Gonna Sit Write Down And Write Myself A Letter Written-By – Albert*, Young*
3:33

  B4 After You've Gone Written-By – Creamer*, Laton*
2:13

  B5 That Cat Is High Voice [Race Call] – Mike ChuggWritten-By – Williams*
3:00

  B6 Smoke Dreams (Of You) Written-By – Gisborne*, DeGreville*
4:28

  · PERSONNEL:
Acoustic Guitar, Vocals – David Hubbard, Peter Inglis
  · Artwork – Phil Lukies
  · Artwork [Rear Cover] – Jewan Roche
  · Banjo, Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin, Vocals – Mick Fleming 
· Bass [Tea Chest Bass], Jug – Peter Scott
  · Engineer – Ern Rose
  · Harmonica, Kazoo, Vocals – Jim Conway
  · Piano, Organ [Pedal Organ] – Jim Niven
  · Producer – Rhett H. Walker
  · Recorded By [Location Sound Effects] – Ross Cockle
  · Vocals, Washboard – Mick Conway  
  ALBUM COMMENT: MILESAGO
    Recorded in Melbourne Australia in 1973, Smoke Dreams was the first 12" long-playing record issued by the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, a homespun musical menagerie consisting of between seven and nine wild and wooly harmonica, washboard, jug, kazoo, and string players. Formed and led by brothers Mic and Jim Conway, this frowsy little group specialized in popular novelty, jazz and blues songs dating from the 1920s and '30s, whipping themselves into a frenzy over vintage delights such as "Mobile Line," "Nagasaki" and "I Can't Dance (I Got Ants in My Pants)." Smoke Dreams would be the only one of five eventual Captain Matchbox albums to be released in the U.S., where it came out in a Quadraphonic ESP edition and was immediately seized upon and prized by young North Americans whose temperaments and personal habits were similar in part to those depicted in the music, the album photos, and the perceptive liner notes by David Bland, which are worth quoting at length: "Coming down in time the group have developed more into a mirror of a certain lifestyle rather than just musicians playing together for fun and profit. The lifestyle is one many people would vehemently disapprove of whereas others might find it both exhilarating and delightfully decadent." The most obvious example of this brashly hedonistic approach is of course "That Cat Is High," written by J. Mayo Williams of Ink Spots fame. "My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes" was first recorded in 1930 by British bandleader Debroy Somers and in 1931 by Al Bowlly, Sophie Tucker and a young Lawrence Welk. Although "Sophisticated Mama" begins with an amazing jug/harmonica duet, the song's incipient misogyny detracts from the fun and might foster resentment among those who dislike the bossy sexist vulgarity of the lyrics. Beginning with "Hotsy Totsy" the progression of songs tell a tale of romance sullied by infidelity as "Who Walks in When I Walk Out?" opens with the sounds of a lusty twosome caught in flagrante delicto. The tunes then speak of loneliness and despair ("I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" and "After You've Gone") the inevitable self-medication ("That Cat Is High") and "Smoke Dreams," once a sentimental reverie for Fats Waller at the theater organ, here transformed into a heartbroken (and somewhat self-pitying) lament laced with latter-day lyrics that refer to high potency hashish. David Bland again: "Looking at the songs on the album the message becomes apparent. It is that even when things are going bad and you are down and out there is still a good side to life -- the best way to find it is to forget tomorrow or what happened today and live for the present by making 'whoopee'."
  COMMENT: MILESAGO
If asked to name the most entertaining and best-loved Australian band of the early '70s, it's a fair bet that most young people who lived through that period would nominate The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band. This crazily brilliant Melbourne-based ensemble played a uniquely Aussie brand of jug-band blues, spiced with jazz, swing, popular standards, cabaret, sideshow alley schtick and vaudeville routines including slapstick, tap dancing, juggling, magic and even fire-eating.

  An obvious and common comparison would be England's Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, but it would be quite wrong to label Matchbox as mere copyists -- in fact Mic Conway has said that didn't hear the Bonzos until long after Captain Matchbox had been formed. The Conway brothers were born into a family with strong background in music and popular entertainment, particularly vaudeville theatre and opera -- their grandfather was an original vaudevillean, and their Aunt Lyla was a dancer on the famed Tivoli circuit.

  As related in the documentary film The Jim Conway Blues, Mic and Jims father (a wool buyer) tried to dissuade his children from the uncertainty of a musical career, to no avail. The greasepaint obviously ran in the veins of his illustrious scions; as well as Mic and Jims well-known exploits, their sister Janie is also a noted musician whose credits including the late '70s Melbourne new wave band Stiletto with Jane Clifton.

  As teenagers at Melbournes Camberwell High School, Mic and Jim formed the forerunner to Matchbox, The Jellybean Jug Band and entered the school's annual talent quest "for a laugh" but they annihilated the competition, as this former CHS student recalls:

  "I remember standing in the packed gym, watching the Jelly Bean Jug Band -- with Mic on ukelele, washboard and the whisky keg (filled with jelly beans which were thrown at the audience after the performance! Jim played the kazoo and harmonica (and later became Australia's best proponent of that instrument) The whole gym erupted into cheers when they won the event ... we all knew they were talented and SO different. Jug band music in 1969 was a new sound to us. When they evolved later into Captain Matchbox, their first album, Wangaratta Wahine was the most popular LP around. It was everywhere. I still treasure my copy.

  After high school Mic and Jim founded their first professional band, The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, which centred throughout its life on the Conway brothers. Their inspirations came from their family background in vaudeville, and in particular from Mics fascination with the family collection of vintage 78rpm records of music by Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton and other classics of jazz, swing and hot music. In a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Mic also named American satirical composer Tom Lehrer as one of his musical idols.

  Probably the very first film of the band's in its earliest days (which was featured in the Jim Conway documentary) was captured on film by their neighbour and fellow CHS student Chris Lofven, who went on to be a pioneer of Australian music video. Chris is well known for the classic film-clips he made for Spectrums "I'll Be Gone" and Daddy Cool's "Eagle Rock " in 1971, and directed the cult road 1976 movie Oz. These wonderful images of the original Captain Matchbox were taken from Chris Lofven's experimental short film 806, which also includes priceless footage of Sons of the Vegetal Mother, Myriad and Quinn. Happily, this long-unseen short is now available as a bonus feature on the DVD edition of Oz.

  Captain Matchbox emerged at a time when there was a vogue for these styles and they were contemporary with similar local acts such as The 69-ers, Starving Wild Dogs, The Original Battersea Heroes, The Gutbucket Blues Band, The Stovepipe Spasm Band and The Moonshine Jug and String Band (which later evolved into The Angels). Billed as Australias loudest jug band, the unique, irreverent Matchbox style was a hit on the theatrically inclined Melbourne underground scene and they became a regular attraction at venues like the TF Much Ballroom and the Thumpin' Tum, alongside acts such as Spectrum, Daddy Cool and Jeff Crozier.

  Their popularity with so-called head audiences was doubtless enhanced by their repertoire, which was liberally spiked with covers of classic jazz and blues numbers that contained thinly-veiled dope references -- songs like "Smoke Dreams", "If Youse A Viper", "That Cat Is High" and "My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes".

  VINYL GRADING SYSTEM

MINT:
RECORD: New condition with no surface marks or loss of sound quality.
COVER: New condition with no surface marks, creases or wear.
NEAR MINT:
RECORD: Barely noticeable surface mark with no loss of sound quality.
COVER: Barely noticeable surface mark/ wear.
EXCELLENT:
RECORD: Some signs of being played with extremely little if no loss of sound quality.
COVER: Slight wear or creasing.
VERY GOOD:
RECORD: Obviously been played with noticeable surface marks & the occasional light scratches but exhibits no major loss of sound quality.
COVER: Noticeable wear on cover, seam or spine.
+(PLUS)/-(MINUS):
Slightly up or down in condition as appears in the comments above.
NOTE:
Gradings are done visually unless there appears to be a questionable surface mark on the vinyl, it is then put on the turntable to check. A comment describing the outcome will appear if this is the case.

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