The Quality of Moicy! Has Not Strayed
An appreciation by The Capelin Sisters
Michael Hurley, The Unholy Modal Rounders,
Jeffrey Fredericks & the Clamtones--
Have Moicy!
(Rounder 3010)
The Wind Up
If Have Moicy! had been a motion picture, it surely would have been a left-field smash hit. The cast of characters alone would do any low-budget tragi-comic farce proud:
Peter Stampfel: Longtime heart and soul of the (justly) infamous Holy Modal Rounders, that "progressive old-timey" acoustic duo-turned-acid-damaged-anarcho-folk-rock-band (c.f. "If You Wanna Be a Bird" on the EEasy Rider soundtrack) -turned electric-barrelhouse-rock & roll string band (c.f. the Dr. Demento favorite "Boobs a Lot").
Possessed of an unmistakable Grandpa Jones-with-adolescent-hormones voice, a fiddling style that makes Doug "Ragin' Cajun" Kershaw sound like Yehudi Menuhin, and enough musical knowledge to start his own college. When the Holy Modals decided to move to Oregon, Stampfel elected to stay in New York, where he put together the Unholy Modal Rounders with bassist Dave Reisch and guitarist Paul Presti-- both of whom vetoed Peter's original choice of band name, the Renegade Catholics.
Well, there's no use in dwelling on what might have been.
Michael Hurley: Alias Snock. Never a member of either set of Rounders, but a compatriot from the start. Veteran of three LPs on the redoubtable Folkways and Raccoon labels. Painter, cartoonist, and absolutely the finest singer/songwriter of his de-generation.
Robin Remaily: Manic mandolinist, fleet-fingered fiddler, sock-o songwriter. Longtime Holy Modal Rounder, one-time brother-in-law of Michael Hurley. 'Twas Robin who talked the Holy Modals into making the move to Oregon, where they met fellow tunesmith/ ne'er-do-well Jeffrey Frederick and his mellotoned singing foil Jill Gross. The whole lot o' them proceeded to gig heavily all along the West Coast, billed variously as the Holy Modal Rounders and Jeffrey Frederick and The Clamtones.
It was also Robin who came up with the notion of getting most of the extended Rounders family (which, it must be noted, also included non-performing songwriter Antonia, as well as guitarist "Wax" Iwaskiewicz and drummer Robert "Froggy" Nickson-- both of them pals of Hurley's) together for an LP, and convinced Rounder Records (which had been named in honor of the Holy Modals) that it wouldn't be a colossal waste of time and money.
And, by gum, it wasn't, neither!
The Pitch
Seldom does such a motley assortment of rugged individualists congregate and make an album as unified, focused, and wholly delightful as Have Moicy! God knows the post-duo Holy Modal Rounders never quite managed it. The Traveling Wilburys? Come on!
Seldom does any album attract the utterly unanimous critical acclaim-- underground, overground, world 'round-- that Have Moicy! did upon its release in 1976. And later, too: in a decade's end Village Voice critics' poll of the best albums of the 1970s, Have Moicy! tied for tenth place with Unca Neil's Rust Never Sleeps. No bad company, that.
Robert Christgau, Rebby Sharp, Yo La Tengo, Byron Coley, the Young Fresh Fellows, Alice Medeiros, and virtually the entire staff of Grip Monthly writers/editors and their best friends are in full agreement on one point (and one point only): that Have Moicy! is beyond the bee's knees!
And not only is this classic LP still in print-- it's on CD, replete with newly-commissioned liner notes and comic strips from the pen of multi-talented Peter Stampfel.
The Hits
So what are you still doing here? Why didn't you jump up and run out the door to your favorite record store and buy (or special order) Have Moicy!, then run to all your friends' houses and make them listen to it so they'll run out and buy it? Haven't you been listening to anything we've been saying?!? Don't you trust us? What, do you need to be led by the hand or something? Want us to hum a few bars so you can fake it?
Only too happy to oblige! It goes something like this:
"Midnight in Paris"-- Stampfel & Antonia transform this obscure chestnut into the true bohemian rhapsody. "Life in a garret / Is great if you dare it / Cherie." Ah, quel fromage! The waltz-timed intro, with trilling mandolins and an uncharacteristically mellifluous croon from Peter, belies a naked lust for twisted kicks. Soon, some reckless picking from monsieurs Presti and Remaily will threaten to send this bastard Peugeot through the guardrails and into the canyon below, but fear not: good ol' Froggy can be trusted to keep at least one hand on the driving wheel.
"Robbin' Banks"-- Jeff Frederick borrows Mike Hurley's cartoon anti-heroes Boone & Jocko (see Have Moicy's album cover) for this rollicking treatise on the furtive thrills of ill-gotten booty-- including chicken. "Keep them dogs quiet, good boy, I won't be long in the barn. . . " David Allan Coe likes this one a lot.
"Slurf Song"-- One explanation that has been proffered for the enormous success of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon is that its lyrics deal with universal human concerns: cash registers, alarm clocks, helicopters, etc. Certainly one reason for Have Moicy's continued popularity is its lyrical preoccupation with food, and it doesn't get any more lyrical than this! Snock's ode to the joys of eating (and the horrors of cleaning up afterwards) is the hands-down popular favorite on this collection. #1 on the Smorgasbord charts for 96 consecutive weeks during the extra-long holiday season of 1976-1977, and still a Thanksgiving/ Yom Kippur perennial. "Oh, a little wishbone ! I'll make a wish for a potato."
"Jackknife"-- If the producers of Deliverance hadn't insisted on cutting the now-fabled "barber-shop quartet" scene, this could've been even bigger than "Dueling Banjos."
"The Red Newt"-- Jeff Frederick Nietzche coughs up this existential parable: a congenial exchange between newt and crow turns ugly, with the crow ultimately bringing the newt home for dinner (e.g. newt soup). The newt's philosophical reaction: "Well, I don't care much if'n I die." This is about as close as an existential parable is likely to get to having a moral. Likewise Jeffrey Frederick.
"Griselda"-- The most achingly romantic song since "God Only Knows." With the possible exception of "Whole Lotta Rosie," but that's a whole 'nother kinda ache. Stampfel sings this Antonia composition as if his heart's about to blow up, and when he says "If we're caught I'll marry ya' tomorrow," you know Griselda couldn't doubt him for a half-second. It's enough to make any big-hearted gal want to change her name.
"What Made My Hamburger Disappear"-- Another dip into Frederick's bottomless sack of zen koans. The hypersensitive interplay between Presti (on slide guitar) and the rhythm section will have you laughin' just to keep from cryin'.
"Sweet Lucy"-- Snock & his ladyfriend get locked up on a D&D charge. Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, but they don't know Snock. Will have you cryin' just to keep from laughin'.
"Country Bump"-- Stampfel sweeps the nation with yet another dance craze. Here's one artifact from the disco era that hasn't dated a bit (meaning the song, not Peter). "Funky as a monkey & as natural as a tree."
"Fooey Fooey"-- Some people claim that there's a woman to blame. Hurley's doleful croak will at least convince you that the sorrow he's obviously been drowning for several hours are real enough. When he comes to the chorus he breaks into falsetto-- he can't help it. No one that's ever had a heart fractured could blame him for that. Jeff Frederick and the exquisite Jill Gross offer vocal support.
"Jealous Daddy's Death Song"-- Bears no resemblance to the Black Angel's. We know that Homer & Jethro once cut a tune called "Don't Monkey With My Widder When I'm Gone," but as we've not actually heard it we're prepared to believe that it's just a cosmic coincidence. Certainly H & J wouldn't have sung couplets like, "I know you can't wait until I'm dead / To try to drag her off to yer waterbed" (to cite one of the more printable stanzas). At least, not with the panache that Paul Presti (who shares the writing credit with Antonia) does.
"Driving Wheel"-- No relation to any other song of that name. Michael Hurley knows just how bad bad luck can be, and that blowing bubbles underwater will help in some cases (you thought you were the only one that did that, right?). Hurley and Remaily recorded a lovely rendition of this for the former's Armchair Boogie LP in '70, but left it in the can; Snock will sell no tune before its time. This version's right smack in the pocket. Transmogrify your blues with this sagacious toe-tapper.
"Weep Weep Weep"-- Jeffrey Frederick hits emotional bottom and re-writes "Fooey Fooey" in his own blurry image. There's this one thing that Jill Gross does in the second verse that's so damned eerie perfect you might better slit your wrists than listen to it.
"Hoodoo Bash"-- A demon-driven celebration of "excess, mess, and other things dear to my heart and perhaps yours" (as Stampfel once wrote in describing a song on another album).
As the finale, the message of "Hoodoo Bash" is plain, Jane: the Have Moicy party's on your property now-- carry on.
-- The Capelin Sisters (1991)