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:: War Games ::

By the time The Lovin' Spoonful made this album at the end of 1968,
they were no longer a band having lost lead guitarist Zal Yanovsky to
a drug bust the previous year, and the departure of singer/songwriter
John Sebastian to pursue a solo career. The band's drummer and
sometime singer/songwriter Joe Butler carried on using the band's name
for a brief period, and turned out this album to a mostly uninterested
public. Even a nude shot on the cover didn't move many units, nor did
a move toward trendy political commentary, ala the track, "War Games".

What starts out sounding like a woman being coached to have an orgasm,
turns out to be the beginning of a life. If I have to explain anything
else about this sound collage, then you must be majorly oblivious to
the obvious and there's nothing I can do about that. I certainly can't
explain why this track was created except that it was a good way to
fill 7 minutes worth of album space, and Butler apparently was not up
to the task of coming up with something on par with "A Quick One While
He's Away", so we have this.

The rest of the album is pleasant enough, but wholly unremarkable. So
return with us now to the end of the 60s. Or don't.


Mike

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