Released on Tower Records which went bankrupt. Only available on the original vinyl.
A1 Love Is Alive And Well
Producer - Michael Lloyd
1:34
A2 Flower City 2:07
A3 Flower Drum Drum 2:58
A4 This Planet Love 2:10
A5 War Game 3:07
B1 Reincarnation 2:08
B2 See How The Other Half Love 2:00
B3 Flowers 1:45
B4 Super Flower 1:59
B5 Me
Producer - Michael Lloyd
I believe this to be Kim Fowley’s first full-length album ever (although it was an extremely short ten-track-anything-but-long-player that caught Fowley in full L.A. ‘flower power’ mode...mere months before his switch to ‘Canyon People’ culture.) But Fowley was a man on the scene and already used to fully embracing all things new in the swirling musical trends, promptly adapting them to his own mysteriously teenage agenda. By one listen -- no, look -- of this record, you’d think he invented ‘flower power’ single-handedly. There he is, grimly staring directly into the camera on the front cover, stuffed into a Spector-ish velvet jacket with his hands pressed together in prayer around a flower as flower children cavort in the background in the late evening summer sun. And almost all the titles have the words ‘love’ or flower’ in the title, to prove how sincere he is about the whole thing. Is Kim Fowley sincere on this record? Is he ever? As usual, there’s enough ammunition on both ends of the scale to neither tip it either for or against, and besides, who cares. Because even if you don’t buy Fowley’s gambit for one single minute, you got to admit that it took unfeasibly big balls to foist this platter upon the public.
“Love Is Alive And Well” does have many ludicrously funny moments, like in the chutzpah to record a song called “Me” with a co-written songwriting credit, no less! Or to even release a track called “Super Flower.” Especially when it has no music, no singing, but only Fowley interviewing a group of Sunset Strip teenyboppers with questions like: ‘Why do you love Kim Fowley?’ or ‘You, flower child; what’s your opinion?’ It would be magnanimous if it wasn’t such an obvious set up, with ‘...he’s beautiful, kind, considerate…generous…’ or ‘wonderful, marvelous’ the only answers! But the album is Kim’s deck, and as usual, it’s loaded to the gills, and so the rest of the world and its rules will have to wait another day.
I’m sure “Love Is Alive And Well” was cut within a week’s time as Fowley was known for his economy in the studio -- contrasted by the self-penned liner notes that take up a good portion of the back sleeve:
”Love is alive an’ well. Our return to the innocence of childhood is the only flash of beauty and light upon the cropless field of life on which many of us may live.”
GET YOURSELF A GOOD COPY ON VINYL!!!!!
dope drumming....
2 дек 2018
