Despite being pretty new to me, this one is special to my heart because it’s special to a friend’s heart – so special that he named his record store after it!
Recorded and released in the later part of 1967, when all things musical were moving at an incredible pace, this album is on the cutting edge of the move from standard pop rock to dreamier, edgier psychedelics. If you want the sound of The Summer of Love, this is it. It opens with the iconic “Alone Again Or,” a Bryan MacLean composition that evokes a Spanish guitar dream. It’s a great launch for a great album (and here again, a beautiful Susanna Hoffs cover decades later brought the spark of memory — “oh yeah, I know this song!”
The album is full of crisp song-writing, social commentary, beautiful sounds and — absolutely crucial for psych rock — inscrutable titles. “Maybe the People Would Be The Times, or Between Clark and Hilldale” contains a gorgeous structure and some punchy horns. “The Red Telephone” brings the harpsichord (there was simply not enough baroque rock produced for my tastes). Make no mistake, though: this is psychedelic rock that knows what’s going on in 1967, and not all of that is good. (And very little of it has changed.)
As with the rest of the Love catalog, I was basically unaware until my friend Shawn brought them into my life just a few years ago. This record came from him. He loves this album so much he named his record business for it, “Forever Changes.” Starting as a weekly pop-up at a local cafe, he had to change locations after the COVID lockdown and moved to a monthly format, which I don’t think satisfied his need to get good music onto people’s record players. And so now, in just a few weeks, he’ll be opening a real record store right here in Phoenixville, PA, under the “Forever Changes” name, and I couldn’t be happier for him. (I also owe him a shelf I said I’d build. It’s coming.)
I think it’s interesting that the two most important record shops in my life have both been named for their proprietors’ favorite records. The first one, the record store in Syracuse that completely changed my life as I went insane with record collecting, was Desertshore, named for the owner’s favorite album, Nico’s “Desertshore.” Naming your store for an obscure, very out there 1970 album by an already little-remembered singer was a mood, as the kids say, and let you know where the guy (Alan, I think?) was at. You could say the same for Forever Changes. I could not be more excited.
The grand opening of Forever Changes is on Sat., Nov. 27 (Small Business Saturday). You can read more of Shawn’s story here.
