Howard Roberts - Antelope Freeway (impulse!)

[JSngry]

not necessarily beautiful, but definitely stoned.

you might not believe it unless you hear it.

[Rooster_Ties]

Who's on it, and when's it from?? All hail the Google...

Howard Roberts - Antelope Freeway -1971

Impulse! AS-9207 (LP)

1. Antelope Freeway - Part 1

2. That's America Fer Ya

3. Dark Ominous Clouds

4. De Blooz

5. Sixteen Track Firemen

6. Ballad of Fazzio Needlepoint

7. Five Gallons of Astral Flash Could Keep You Awake For Thirteen Weeks

8. Santa Clara River Bottom

9. Roadwork

Howard Roberts - electric & acoustic guitars

Bobby Bruce - violin

Mike Deasy - electric guitar

Pete Robinson, Larry Knechtel, Mike Wofford - keyboards

Brian Garofalo, Max Bennett - Fender bass

Bob Morin, John Guerin - drums

Edited May 15, 2009 by Rooster_Ties

[Chuck Nessa]

Decent amount of attention paid to this in the Kahn Impulse book.

[rostasi]

"Antelope Freeway, one mile"

"Antelope Freeway, one half mile"

"Antelope Freeway, one quarter mile"

"Antelope Freeway, one eighth mile"

"Antelope Freeway, one sixteenth mile"

"Antelope Freeway, one thirtysecondth mile"

"Antelope Freeway, one sixty-fourth mile"

"Antelope Freeway, one one-hundred-and-twenty-eighth mile"

...

[Joe]

Driving in and around that part of greater Los Angeles is indeed an often paradoxical experience.

Have heard snippets of this record in the past; now curious to hear just how patchouli-drenched it is.

[Noj]

Cool album, reminds me of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's Three Sided Dream In Audio Color. I especially like the track "Road Work."

[Hot Ptah]

Cool album, reminds me of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's Three Sided Dream In Audio Color. I especially like the track "Road Work."

O.K., that did it, I had to order it today.

[JSngry]

From where?

[JSngry]

Have heard snippets of this record in the past; now curious to hear just how patchouli-drenched it is.

Dude, there's a 5-ish minute thing on there called "Five Gallons of Astral Flash Could Keep You Awake For Thirteen Weeks" that's a very dry quasi-Firesign-ish thing about two guys riding along (one of them after delivering a truckload of spinach(sic)) constantly turning the radio dial and occasionally commenting.

Now, what exactly is "Astral Flash"? Well, according to: http://www.lysergia.com/LamaWorkshop/Tumbl...aTumbleweed.htm

ROBB(Kunkel) : "The Tumbleweed house in the winter had fires going in every room as there was only steam radiators for heat; they went through cords of wood. Drugs were a daily obsession, starting with acid-mescaline-hash-weed, eventually going to cocaine-opium and a drug called Astral Flash."

Q: What was Astral Flash?

ROBB: "It might have been MDA -- I do not know - but it was a powder put in water and snorted out of Dristan bottle. It caused tunnel vision and hearing and produced intense laughing euphoria. We all used it on the Dewey Terry session at the Record Plant and since no one could hear properly we called the session and went bowling... There were catered parties often -- one time a hotspring hotel was rented and the entire company did acid and took hot baths. Valerie Perrine the actress was there and it was very amusing; everyone naked and into hippiedom. Thanksgiving 1971 was held at my rooms as it was also my 21st birthday -- everyone was on mescaline and Astral Flash. I was given a present of MC Escher prints and a coffee can full of Humboldt weed. Dewey Terry entertained the crowd with versions of "Big Boy Pete" and "Justine". The Tumbleweed years were a great time to be young, creative and totally stoned at the expense of Gulf-Western."

And from the same site, this:

Howard Roberts

This avantgarde guitar LP has a lot of familiar Tumbleweed names involved, as well as some entertaining private jokes hidden in the sleeve artwork. Here's the lowdown courtesy of Stephane Rebeschini, who brought the album to my attention:

"One track is called 'Five Gallons Of Astral Flash could keep you up for thirteen weeks'. The inside gatefold shows a kind of turk/arab smoking a waterpipe, surrounded by a pot of 'Astral Flash', a box of 'Czygars'..."

ROBB: The "Antelope Freeway" album was an experimental record produced by Ed Michel and Bill Szymczyk. It was the record that made me want Howard Roberts on my record -- what a guitar player."

So the answer is....quite.

BTW - The Roberts side was from 1971, the Tumbleweed label ran from 1971-1973. So Roberts (or somebody) was already there.

[Hot Ptah]

From where?

I found a copy for $15 on ebay today.

[Joe]

Not to encourage this kind of behavior, but my research shows that a rip of this LP is floating through the tubes.

Now, this Tumbleweed label business...

[JSngry]

Joe, do you hear what I hear?

From where?

I found a copy for $15 on ebay today.

Congratulations! Re[port back, please. It's "dated" in a lot of ways, but that may or may not be appealing to you (or anybody else).

[Shawn]

Sounds like something I need to hear...

[Hot Ptah]

I have now received the copy of this album which I bought on ebay. To me, it sounds a lot like other rock albums from the 1971 period. It is unusual that it was released on a jazz label. It is not derivative of any other 1971 rock album or artist, I think. It is unique, but fits in well with the FM rock of that time. The spacey sound effects were common then, for example.

The spoken word section, in which the men are supposed to be traveling in a truck or car and talking and playing the radio, is not all that different from what was done on other rock albums up to that time.

There is some good guitar playing on the album, more in a blues based rock vein than a mainstream jazz style.

If this had been released on Warner Brothers or Atlantic in 1971, it would have seemed interesting and in the rock mainstream, although many listeners would have yearned for vocals. We are not used to an album like this coming out on Impulse, or Blue Note, or Prestige.

I listen to a lot of 1967-74 rock with my autistic son, who truly loves a lot of the rock music of that time, so this album does not seem unusual at all to me--especially if I listen without thinking, this is a jazz album on a jazz label.

[JSngry]

The spoken word section, in which the men are supposed to be traveling in a truck or car and talking and playing the radio, is not all that different from what was done on other rock albums up to that time.

Really?

Sounds more like Firesign Theatre than any rock record I've heard.

What still wigs me out is not the music per se, but how the hell did Howard Roberts get here?

[Chuck Nessa]

Offer of a check with Ed Michel as his paymaster.

[JSngry]

Perhaps...but I heard his Spinning Wheel side on Capitol, and it was a mix of that (and not very good "that" at that...) with some other stuff altogether.

[Chuck Nessa]

Astute studio guys in LA have fingers in the wind to stay alive.

You are over thinking.

Edited June 3, 2009 by Chuck Nessa

[JSngry]

Fingers in the wind to stay alive ain't necessarily a bad thing...

Big difference between a world-class "escort" and a common street whore.

[Jazzmoose]

And here I thought Howard Roberts was just a dirty guitar player...

[Chuck Nessa]

Big difference between a world-class "escort" and a common street whore.

Price and self image.

[JSngry]

And lessons learned along the way.

[Chuck Nessa]

That's how you develop self image and set price.

[JSngry]

All very useful tools!

Look, I'm just saying that you can either play every "style" of music under the sun for a buck and do it as a mindless, soulless robot, or you can do it with a bit of innate curiosity and attempted empathy, and maybe grow a little bit for having done so. Maybe not the path of a true "artist", the latter isn't, but not anything to casually dismiss in "human" terms either, I don't think.

Mileages vary, obviously, but hey.

[Joe G]

Fun thread!