STEVIE MOORE OR LESS
NT12 1975 C90
Disc One "Moore Or Less" (66:45)Bonus Tracks:
- 01. Night Mayor Of The City (6:00) 5/13
- 02. I've Begun To Fall In Love (2:07) 5/6
- 03. You And Me (2:26) 6/9
- 04. Watch Me On The News (4:47) 5/6
- 05. Midsummer Reflection (5:12) 5/4
- 06. Father Goes (6:23) 5/20
- 07. Flying High (3:14) 5/30
- 08. Hobbies Galore (4:13) 5/28
- 09. Raring To Go (2:50) 6/13
- 10. Just Because We're The Dig (5:30) 6/2
"Nth" NT13 (Instrumental Illness)
- 11. Pica Elite (4:15)
- 12. Nth (:53)
- 13. I'm Embarrassed For You (6:50)
- 14. Long Train Running (2:08)
- 15. Segment Of Truths (4:18)
- 16. Funky Cop (4:39)
- 17. Electropus 1978 (:49)
Disc Two "Steviestorys" (narrative songs) (74:29)
NTH Pt. 2
- 01. Tale Of The Sweet Violin (7:03) 6/11
- 02. I've Begun To Fall In Love (2:44) 6/26
- 03. Welcome To London (w/Baking It) (5:51) 8/26
- 04. Club Ego-go (3:42) 8/23
- 05. If Only I Was A Girl (and had a boy like me) (3:40) 8/??
- 06. You Missed You Fell (1:51) 8/??
- 07. Am I Gonna Cry (with: Powdo and dream-fade) (6:58) 8/29
- 08. Story (10:00) 9/16
- 09. I Told You (5:01) 9/5
- 10. Powdo ending (1:03) 8/30
- 11. Untrue Drums (6:05)
- 12. Electropus 1979 (:19)
- 13. True Drums (3:02)
- 14. Legend Of The Lege (For FZ) (8:19)
- 15. 41:33 excerpt (8:53)
| "Nuther experimental venture, immediately following the Major Beatle Tape for Harry. As his interest has multiplied and he sends large checks, stevie continues his recording obligation in a Gottlieb vein. Growing up and out becomes intense by the day, and money is seldom. And suddenly 226 Chapel is taken from us via auction and the terrible year sneers frustratingly on. Uncle Harry is the only feint hope." ---sept 1975 |
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–Stewart Mason, All Music Guide |
Also available on 2CDR $20
< MOORE OFTEN STEVIE DOES THE BEATLES >
AMG REVIEW: 1975's Stevie Moore Or Less builds on the strengths of the previous year's Stevie Moore Often, adding that album's newfound pop sensibility to the experimental tendencies of his earlier work. Both in its original cassette configuration and its expanded two-CD digital upgrade, the album actually consists of two separate but related offerings, including Steviestorys, an album of what Moore terms "narrative songs." These include the wondrously odd "Welcome To London," a hilarious two-person dialogue (with Moore playing both himself and an aggrieved Englishman) interrupted by the rocking instrumental "Baking It," and a lengthy suite-like cycle highlighted by the spoken-word surrealism of "Story" and a pair of great stand-alone pieces of hard-candy pop. "Am I Gonna Cry" and "I Told You." The other disc is even better, a song cycle that's start-to-finish excellent, with some of Moore's best writing ever: the ghostly ballad "I've Begun To Fall In Love" is a Brian Wilson-inspired treasure, and it's immediately followed by the British Invasion-styled "You and Me," one of Moore's finest and sweetest rockers. Other highlights include "Midsummer Reflection" (a samba co-written by Moore and Mike Burroughs in 1968 and originally recorded by their high school band the Marlborough), the comic freakout "Watch Me on the News" and the epic "Because We're the Dig," a hard-rocking tune written by Moore's close friend Victor Lovera that finally puts Moore's mid-'70s predilection for lengthy guitar solos into its proper context. The capper, however, is the simply perfect "Hobbies Galore," easily one of Moore's masterpieces. A simple voice and acoustic guitar tune with a metronome-like tapping for its only percussion and a reverbed whistling solo its only accompaniment, "Hobbies Galore" has one of Moore's most beautiful choruses and a lyric that's clearly close to Moore's heart, so much so that he resurrected the song for 1987's Teenage Spectacular and even named his 2003 greatest hits compilation after it. The CD version of Stevie Moore Or Less includes 1975's Nth, a collection of lengthy, jam-like instrumentals rather like the things the Bevis Frond would be doing a decade or so later, with the Frank Zappa tribute "Legend of the Lege" the standout.