Guest Reviews - 3

The Fabulous Ventures

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Here's a third guest review of Ventures albums. This one is by fellow Ventures fan Tony Meloche.]

If you've eaten pre-packaged supermarket hot dogs all your life, and the day finally comes when you eat a genuine Chicago deli hot dog, or a Kosher knackwurst, it is a revelation. Finally, you know what a hot dog is supposed to taste like, rather than hot dog filler. Fans of The Ventures have been enjoying the lack of "filler" in their album collections for four decades now, but from the period that I feel is the true "Golden Age" of the Ventures there are several albums that brought this concept to it's highest perfection - and one of those albums "The Fabulous Ventures", is the subject of this review.

Released by Dolton Records in 1964, "TFV" contained 12 songs, at least 11 of which any other instrumental group would have been delighted to have as their" A" side release. The album opens with the Jack Nitzsche/Sonny Bono tune "Needles and Pins", where Nokie Edwards demonstrates beautifully that 1) Fuzz is supposed to be a tone coloration, not the tone itself, and 2) Phrasing is everything to a good solo. The girl chorus in backup is used perfectly - that is to say not overused. The single thing that the arrangement could have done without is the massed brass chords, though the engineer mercifully keeps them well to the back for most of the record. A strong start for any instrumental album, and it gets better.

Track two is a Ventures original titled "Runnin' Wild", and is distinguished by a can't-miss guitar lead, and excellent rapid-fire mute-string rhythym work by Don Wilson. Listen to Mel's drumming on this cut - crisp, clean and never overdone. As many times as I have listened to this tune, I still can't decide if Nokie doubled himself on the final climb to the top of the fretboard, or played those rapid fire thirds simultaneously - I think the former, but I'm not sure.

Track three is another Ventures original called "Eleventh Hour". I have heard a story that it was submitted by the Ventures (on request) for possible use as a television show theme, but was not used. The story is likely apocryphal, but there was a 1960's televison show called "The Eleventh Hour", so I suppose it is possible. But the mood conveyed by a title like "The Eleventh Hour" is captured perfectly in the Dick Glasser production. Distant tom-toms (with heavy reverb), throbbing tremelo in the rhythm guitar styling (arpeggios, wisely, instead of full chords) and Nokie's beautiful lead work, each phrase ending with high "b" and "e" notes that are simple to play - on a 24 fret guitar, which the Mosrites were not - he had to have been getting that beautiful ringing tone with harmonics (try it).

Track four is the tune "The Cruel Sea", written by Mike Maxfield, who was at that time the lead guitarist for the British invasion group "Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas". The Ventures perform this well (somewhat faster than the original), but have always sounded to me like good, pro muscians merely doing a tight demo of someone else's tune in this cut. It is not a "weak" song, per se, but in my opinion, it is the weakest number on the album - and it hardly qualifies as your typical "filler" song, at that!

Track five: Batten down the hatches, folks! And pull your kerchief up over you nose and mouth, because Nokie is going to leave you in his dust! A quintessent solo rock guitar romp is next, in the tune "Scratchin' ", another Ventures original. Every phrase of the solo says: "This is how it's done", and it ain't braggin if you can do it! Screaming along at the impossible tempo of 100 beats per minute, relative to the quarter note (that's 400 sixteenth notes every 60 seconds, gang!), Nokie gets great backing from the rest of the guys - it sounds like they had a lot of fun recording this one. The addition of what sounds like an acoustic, possibly even a 12-string acoustic, to the rhythym section is a nice touch, and the descending chord pattern played in the rhythm, (A, Ab, G, F#), comes through clearly because Nokie is careful not to tromp all over the rhythym part there. - the mark of a true pro.

Track six gives us "Tall Cool One" - a deep bow from the Ventures to some of their idols, a Pacific Northwest-based instrumental group called The Wailers. Here, the Ventures let the music and the arrangement do the talking. The soloist on the Hammond is not credited - there were several excellent keyboardists sitting in with the Ventures in the studio in those days - but the tune is keyboard centered, and Glasser and The Ventures wisely left it that way. Don Wilson has said in several interviews that it bothers him that the excellent sidemen and women who played with the Ventures in the studio in those days were not credited, and he is glad they are now. I like this recording better than the Wailer's original; it is a bit brighter-sounding, and has more immediate "smack" (for our untranslatable concept of the day!)

Side two opens with the tune that gets my vote for "Most Overlooked Ventures Masterpiece", the song "Only The Young", by J. Seals. Simplicity itself; any junior-high garage band could learn the whole number in a sitting, but how many guitarists on earth could play it as achingly beautiful as Nokie Edwards does? The little-by-little crescendo of the girl backup singers is a stroke of genius - kudos to Glasser. I never tire of listening to this one.

Track two on side two is the song that was released as the "A" side of the single that this album showcased - the Venture's original "Journey To the Stars". Deep drums, followed by reverb "splash", followed by an amazing sound from Bob Bogle's bass, that might be desribed as "short-circuiting" (!), and the ominous rhythm chords begin, interrupted by the fire-bell like clang of Nokies lead. Interestingly, Nokie plays the entire first chorus in the Pipeline-like "twitter" style here, but in live performance never did that, that I have ever heard. In the bridge of the song, though, we hear something for the first time that will become a regular feature on several succeeding albums: The famous "organ that isn't an organ" - but a sax played through a maximum-speed Leslie speaker. This is heard most clearly on "Walk Don't Run '64" , and "Slaughter on 10th Avenue", in later albums. A very good "space genre" tune, marred only by one of Nokie's rare lapses of good taste - the bedspring-like bouncing up and down on the vibrato handle at the end of the song.

Track three is "Fugitive", a tune that had gotten some airplay as a guitar solo by an artist named Jan Davis, but the Ventures version is definitive, as their version of almost anyone else's instrumental hits were. Excellent bass work from Bob Bogle on this tune. The lead is difficult, but seems to present no problems for Nokie, of course. Glasser wisely used a bit of the "pack of dogs" tape throughout the song without overdoing it. Very effective number.

Track four brings us to "Ravin' Blue", which probably grew out of simple studio "noodling". Don has great fun with a snarly ostinato over which Nokie comentates simply, making the overall sound of the tune very conversation-like. Other lead guitarists would have added "a lot more notes" to this one - Nokie knew better. The slowdown at the ending is made even more effective Bogle's doubling of the rythym guitar notes. Some of the most creative and clever drumming Mel Taylor does on the whole album is in this cut.

Track five was the "B" side of "Journey" - "Walkin with Pluto", a blues-like tune featuring the (then still novel in rock music) "overloaded" guitar sound that had been popular with blues artist for a long time. Once again, the sax-through-a-Leslie puts in an appearance. This song still retains the "outer space" feel that turns up throughout this album, recorded just after, (and in the case of some of the songs, simultaneously with,) the "Ventures in Space" sessions.

To close the album is Henry Mancini's "Pink Panther Theme". Lead guitar and organ (a real one this time!) share the spotlight about equally in this excellent arrangement, which, as Gerry Woodage said in his liner notes for the SeeForMiles CD "has a definite jazz feel". Interestingly, Nokie Edwards still uses this tune in his live performances today, on occasion.

Twelve songs. Eleven solid keepers, and one "not half bad" filler. Value like this in the sixties was rare, (the Beatles, maybe), and is even rarer today. But the fans of The Ventures came to accept it as a matter of course. It is one of the things that made the "The Ventures" what they were.. Good listening to you, until next time.

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Last Updated: January 1, 2003