Spooky Tooth-That Was Only Yesterday

Let's face it, the 60s and the 70s was my era, even though I continue to review things in the 80s onward and thought that the 90s has their share of great bands as well.  But as time progresses on, some of the bands that I used to listen to on the FM side of the dial have not dated properly.  Some have not stand the test of time.

I used to be a Cactus fan back in the 70s, they had the guys from Vanilla Fudge and Jim McCartney from The Detroit Wheels and the screaming Rusty Day of Amboy Dukes.  But upon buying the reissues from Wounded Bird, I came to find that the first Cactus album isn't that great and the Rhino Best of, I donated it back to charity after hearing it.  The Fudge, loved their singles and their best of but their actual albums didn't do much for me anymore.  And the 1983 comeback album Mystery, bad beyond belief.  At least with Bloodrock I do enjoy their first two albums including the morbid D.O.A.  I've been searching for years for the Capitol best of Bloodrock And Roll, which came out as a reissue in the early 90s but then again I come to find I could live without that.  But I do keep my eyes open.

And then there's Spooky Tooth, a band that may have been A&M's answer to Vanilla Fudge.  Led by Mike Harrison and Gary Wright, later of Dreamweaver fame, they made a few albums for A&M and Island (although Island issued their albums in the UK).  In Arizona on vacation I found their so called classic Spooky Two in the cutouts fairly cheap and decided to buy it on a cross state tour of Arizona only to get to stuck in a runaway lane miles from nowhere and somehow somebody helped me out of that situation and the song I got stuck in the lane was Better By You, Better Than Me.  I came to find the album a farce and ended up on the trip back, donating it back to Goodwill and maybe thinking I may have misjudged them.

So in Quincy, FYE had a used copy of their best of, That Was Only Yesterday, which is Spooky Two with the best song left off the thing (I Got Enough Heartaches, a excellent song covered by Three Dog Night) and cherry picks three off their first Tobacco Road, Four from The Last Puff and an except from the Ceremony and one off the Mick Jones version of band with perhaps one of the best titles in rock history with You Broke My Jaw So I Busted Your Jaw to which Island in the US issued that album.

Rarely has a greatest hits package has disappointed me in a way that whoever compiled this best of had their head up their ass.  How could you leave off I Got Enough Heartache but in the process added the rest of Spooky Two?  That's deducts a half grade right off the bat.  The three sections from Tobacco Road, including title track and a oddball cover of Janis Ian's Society's Child are so damn pompous and over the top it sounds like they're going for a Vanilla Fudge sound, with bombast to boot.  Sunshine Help Me is passable.

Perhaps the best song or nadir is Evil Woman, the 9 minute FM favorite from Spooky Two.  It's interesting to hear both Harrison and Wright trade off vocals, and whoever decided to sing the higher notes must have been wearing very tight jeans in the process.    It's one of the songs that when the younger generation hears, wonders what the big fuss was all about. Better By You was later covered by Judas Priest.  When they tone down the rhetoric, they actually sounded like Humble Pie around the  As Safe As Yesterday to which Greg Ridley would later join.  In all fairness, Spooky Two is basically all you need if you want to know the hoopla of this band.

The scattershot song selection kills this best of.  Their second best known is a slowed down and druggy I Am The Walrus but also covers a Joe Cocker song (Something To Say) and up and coming Elton John (Son Of Your Father) that perhaps The Last Puff album might be worth a listen to, since Cocker himself provides some backing vocals and three members of the Grease band play on this.  Luther Grovsenor would leave and change his name to Ariel Bender as he replaced Mick Ralphs in Mott The Hoople.  Gary Wright would replace Mike Harrison for the 1973 Busted Your Jaw, to which only featured one song and the followup LP Witness, with Mick Kellie returning on drums no songs.  And then the band would break up, with Wright going on a solo career, Mick Jones played in Leslie West Band before starting up Foreigner, Kellie, the drummer would play on later albums by Johnny Thunders and become part of The Only Ones with Peter Parrett.

For a overview, That Was Only Yesterday isn't worth your time or effort since it borrows too much from the second album. Buy Spooky Two instead.  And shortchanges the rest of the catalog of this band.  And leaves you scratching your head of what the fuss was all about.

Grade C