Since another
outpost in cyberspace has already written exhaustively on these recordings, I'm probably going to defer to them to do most of the explaining. As for my part, I'll break this down fairly succinctly.
Cap'n Swing were the band populated by
Benjamin Orr and
Ric Ocasek after the their folk-rock combo,
Milkwood and of course, the hallowed
Cars. This is a collection of eleven demos cut two years prior to the Cars now legendary and eponymous debut circa 1978. Cap'n Swing bore zero resemblance to Milkwood, and despite the diminished roll of keyboards here, these songs skew considerably closer to what the pair would be responsible for courtesy of their impeding meal ticket. Heck, we even get a sneak preview of "Bye Bye Love." Further in, "City Lights" and "Strawberry Moonlight, sport some proto-punky pizazz, while "Jezebel" and "You're Always Brighter" mine Rundgren-esque veins without being too obvious. And it would be hard to overlook that the midtempo "Come Back Down" conveys itself as a vague rewrite of "Sweet Jane." Yes, a few things here are a bit overlong, but again these are demos and not necessarily intended for the general public. Enjoy.
01. Bye Bye Love
02. Strawberry Moonlight
03. Jezebel
04. Goes on Sleeping
05. Twilight Superman
06. You're Always Brighter
07. City Lights
08. Dream Trader
09. You Can Have 'Em
10. Come Back Down
11. Crazy Rock-n-Roll
2 comments:
Thank you for this. I wasn't aware of it and it's awesomely insightful to the future band.
Bye Bye Love is pretty much the same song with the guitars way too low and that terrible keyboard prog rocking it up in the right hand speaker. Great vocals though. Imagine if this is the sound that made the first album, how would the powerpop landscape have sat without the Cars arriving intact.
SUCH a good gathering from this era...I collected Cars' demos and outtakes in the late 70s and 80s(I had like 10 different, high quality versions of then non-LP classic, "Take What You Want" - JUST to hear Elliot Easton's different guitar solo takes on this great tune).
I grew up in Boston and can attest that shortly after these were recorded they found a huge groove and inspirational 'north star' - making quantum leaps in terms of confidence and band craftsmanship.
Keep 'em coming from the band...
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