Producer, songwriter, scenester, svengali, unrepentant opportunist and spectre at the feast: if Kim Fowley’s name is attached to a project, you can’t help perking up – either in eager anticipation or amused dread.
Wildfire compiles the three albums Fowley gifted to the Imperial label in the late 60s. The first, Born To Be Wild: The Exciting Organ Of Kim Fowley, is a likeably makeweight instrumental set intended as an unthreatening entrée into the “now sound” for middle-aged rocking daddies. With its accessible, meekly groovy organ-led covers including Pictures Of Matchstick Men, Hello, I Love You and Soul Limbo, it’s fun if not fundamental, and is wisely relegated herein to the back-end of both CDs.
The real meat is provided by 1969’s Outrageous, a bestial, largely improvised, straight-society-baiter on which Fowley’s hoarse shamanic yelling, hyperventilating, “method” commitment and primordial regressions (Nightrider, Inner Space Discovery) suggest Iggy at the end of his not-inconsiderable tether, or Lorenzo St Dubois (LSD) from The Producers.
The same year’s Good Clean Fun melds Zappaesque comedic duologues (Motorcycle, Ode To Sweet Sixteen) with queasy country-rock (Baby Rocked Her Dolly) and distressingly horrible musique concrète (Energy, Lights The Blind And Lame Can See). Somehow, Fowley emerges as the freak-flag-waving sexual predator it’s ok to love.
by Oregano Rathbone
Tracks
Disc 1
1. Animal Man (Kim Fowley, Marty Cerf) - 2:46
2. Wildlife - 4:10
3. Hide And Seek - 2:10
4. Chinese Water Torture - 0:46
5. Nightrider - 2:24
6. Bubble Gum (Kim Fowley, Marty Cerf) - 2:30
7. Inner Space Discovery - 4:03
8. Barefoot Country Boy - 2:03
9. Up - 4:05
10.Caught In The Middle - 5:40
11.Down - 4:47
12.California Hayride - 1:22
13.Born To Be Wild (Mars Bonfire) - 2:46
14.I Can't Stop Dancing (Gamble Huff) - 2:07
15.Shake A Lady (Ray Bryant) - 2:05
16.Hello I Love You (John Densmore, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, Jim Morrison) - 2:06
17.Soul Limbo (Al Jackson Jr., Booker T. Jones, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Steve Cropper) - 2:39
18.Space Odyssey - 2:48
All songs by Kim Fowley except where stated
Tracks 1-12 from "Outrageous" LP 1968
Tracks 13-18 from "Born To Be Wild" LP 1968
Disc 2
1. One Man Band (Michael Lloyd) - 2:13
2. Ode To Sweet Sixteen (Harlowe) - 1:26
3. Good Clean Fun (Michael Lloyd) - 2:18
4. Search For A Teenage Woman (Rodney Bingenheimer) - 2:17
5. Energy (Kim Fowley) - 2:04
6. Baby Rocked Her Dolly (Merle Kilgore) - 2:21
7. Motorcycle (Jerry Landis) - 2:22
8. Kangaroo (Warren Zevon) - 3:55
9. Light The Blind And Lame Can See (Kim Fowley) - 1:55
10.Good To Be Around (Michael Lloyd) - 2:15
11.The Great Telephone Robbery (Kim Fowley) - 6:30
12.I'm Not Young Anymore (Warren Zevon) - 4:29
13.Wild Weekend (Phillip Todaro, Thomas Shannon) - 2:30
14.Pictures Of Matchstick Men (Francis Michael Rosi) - 3:04
15.Savage In The Sun (Mars Bonfire) - 2:44
16.Sunshine Of Your Love (Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Brown) - 2:30
17.Classical Gas (Mason Williams) - 2:29
18.Fresno 1963 (Tom Ayres) - 2:23
Tracks 1-12 from "Good Clean Fun" LP 1969
Tracks 13-18 from "Born To Be Wild" LP 1968
Musicians
*Kim Fowley - Vocals, Keyboard, Percussion
*Mike Allsup - Guitar
*Eddie Hoh - Percussion
*Mars Bonfire - Guitar
*Jimmy Greenspon - Keyboard
*Joe Schermie - Bass
*Orville "Red" Rhodes - Steel Guitar
*Wayne Talbert - Keyboard
*Carmen Riale - Bass
*Ben "Blues" Benay - Harp, Guitar
*Joe Torres - Percussion
*Skip Battin - Bass
*Mars Bonfire - Guitar
*Neil Innes - Piano, Guitar, Vocals
*Michael Lloyd - Keyboards, Guitar
*Vivian Stanshall - Vocals, Trumpet
*Warren Zevon - Vocals, Guitar
*Richard & Thomas Frost - Vocals