| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| 1965 |
Posted - 07/07/2006 : 16:07:45
Stumbled across this yesterday: PF Sloan "sailover" released 22 Aug '06. FB duet on Halloween Mary, plus FB backing vocals on some other tracks. Also produced by J Tiven. Could be interesting...
(( I'm a Snake... cut in half 'cause I'm not the one you needed. )) |
| 35 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 05/26/2007 : 23:30:38
thanks 1965.
The waxworks were an immensely eloquent dissertation on the wonderful ordinariness of mankind. |
| 1965 |
Posted - 05/26/2007 : 17:57:54
quote:
Originally posted by shineoftheever
does frank sing on halloween mary?
The waxworks were an immensely eloquent dissertation on the wonderful ordinariness of mankind.
Yes. PFS & Black alternate verses on lead vocals.
***** |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 05/26/2007 : 15:56:29
does frank sing on halloween mary?
The waxworks were an immensely eloquent dissertation on the wonderful ordinariness of mankind. |
| Ziggy |
Posted - 09/27/2006 : 07:54:26
A revival of Frank's 'break baking days'!
Thanks for the reply, Jon. |
| Carl |
Posted - 09/26/2006 : 17:34:30
quote:
Originally posted by Jontiven
And PF and I will be signing and selling cds, so bring plenty of dough!
You mean he sells his CDs for uncooked bread? Horray!!
 |
| Jontiven |
Posted - 09/26/2006 : 13:50:28
Dear Ziggy,
We're working on it....hopefully there will be news....but not yet.
It may have to be a package tour, so with luck we'll find somebody to join forces with. Who knows?
bye again,
JT |
| Ziggy |
Posted - 09/26/2006 : 10:36:26
Any chance of you and Sloan coming to the UK anytime? |
| Jontiven |
Posted - 09/26/2006 : 10:08:40
OK, tomorrow I leave for California so this is my last missive on the impending gig.
If any of you do come to the Cafe DuNord gig, be sure to show up earlyish because there's no telling when that duet partner is going to step up to the mic to sing his duets on "Eve of Destruction" and "Halloween Mary."
And PF and I will be signing and selling cds, so bring plenty of dough!
bye,
Jon Tiven |
| Cult_Of_Frank |
Posted - 09/25/2006 : 13:09:40
http://forum.frankblack.net/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17064
 "Now you're officially my woman. Kudos. I can't say I don't envy you." |
| Jontiven |
Posted - 09/25/2006 : 13:00:56
He's really not that way.
Seriously guys and gals, I've had reasonable confirmation that Eric Drew Feldman will be in the house with his good friend Chuck and they will take the stage with Duane and Billy after PF plays.
Not that PF SLOAN himself isn't good enough reason to attend the show, I feel pretty confident the special guest quota is chock full.
bye,
Jon Tiven |
| Carl |
Posted - 09/23/2006 : 11:28:46
Don't let Frank get too drunk to play!!
|
| Jontiven |
Posted - 09/14/2006 : 04:28:39
PF SLOAN is playing San Francisco Thursday at the Cafe DuNord the 28th of September (next Thursday). With a special guest.....
The band will consist of PF SLOAN, JON TIVEN-guitar, MITCH WEISSMAN on bass, DUANE JARVIS on guitar, and BILLY BLOCK on drums.
I have been told that there will be a duet partner for "Eve of Destruction" and "Halloween Mary," we are legally barred from mentioning his name, but let's just say that he is In Charge. He may also do a few of his own songs with his new hot band.
I would get those tickets yesterday!
bye,
JT
|
| OldManInaCoffeeCan |
Posted - 09/13/2006 : 21:35:23
So, Jon, 'Sup, any news to share?
From your hint and my powers of deduction, I'm figuring you got some
special shows or events or more sessions to announce on behalf of The Man
while he's in and around Guitar Town the first week of October.
The way I see it, Boss Man's gonna be in The Great State of Tennessee
for 8 consecutive days, blessed sumbitch, and only commited to 3 shows
so far...so, that leaves a lot of extra time to do a lot of extra stuff...
So, you got any news on that, perchance?
______________________________
While waiting for "Schwarma", I joined the "Cult of System of a Down", Huh... |
| Jontiven |
Posted - 09/05/2006 : 04:41:11
Give me a week or so.
Here's a hint: check the itinerary(s).
bye,
Jon Tiven |
| theonecontender |
Posted - 09/04/2006 : 09:19:18
Tiven! |
| Jontiven |
Posted - 09/03/2006 : 13:51:49
Watch this space.
bye,
Jon Tiven |
| Adam |
Posted - 09/01/2006 : 09:13:38
I picked the album up last night, at my local independent cd store. It's pretty good. Violent sticks out at first listen.
7/27/99 9:30 Club DC
6/18/00 Fletcher's Baltimore |
| billgoodman |
Posted - 08/30/2006 : 12:24:03
People, the album is (legally) streaming here:
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/
just click on the PF Sloan cover
---------------------------
God save the Noisies |
| ScottP |
Posted - 08/28/2006 : 12:57:55
Back in the early 90's I used to get write-ups in the local newspaper too. But with much more anonymous headlines such as, "Panty Thief Strikes Again!"
So, what does a "straight-outta-Memphis lead guitar" sound like? Guitar, amp, and playing style, please. |
| Jontiven |
Posted - 08/28/2006 : 12:25:57
PF Sloan
(Joe's Pub; 220 seats; $20)
Presented inhouse. Reviewed Aug. 24, 2006.
Band: PF Sloan, Jon Tiven, Sally Tiven, Craig Krampf, Dennis Diken.
By DAVID SPRAGUE
Variety
If presented with a list of PF Sloan's accomplishments -- from writing the protest classic "Eve of Destruction" to providing the falsetto vocals on Jan & Dean hits -- the average rock fan would probably wonder why the guy's name isn't nearly as well-known as his resume. It's possible, of course, to blame Sloan himself for some of the murkiness. He'd gone a decade and a half between releases before Hightone issued "Sailover" last week and had never opted to mount a proper tour until the 13-date trek kicked off at this Gotham gig.
Looking lean and limber and accentuating the muscular over the mellow, the 60-year-old Sloan bared the sharp edges -- both topically and sonically -- of songs like the barbed country paean "Sins of the Family" as if he were trying to lance long-festering psychic lesions. That's been one part of his m.o. since his earliest days -- as he affirmed by bringing "Eve of Destruction" into the new millennium with a slight lyric tweak and a burlier rhythmic pulse.
While Sloan referred again and again to his long period of musical inactivity -- painting the hiatus, a good chunk of which he says was spent driving a beer delivery truck, in hues darker than the average Nick Drake song -- he showed little sign of rust once the music started.
For the most part, the newer material Sloan aired here compared favorably to his chestnuts. He's a bit of a sap when he turns his attention to matters of the heart -- "Soul of a Woman," for instance, was awash in the sort of hippie sentiment that went out of favor around the same time those "Love Is" posters faded from memory -- but when taking aim at enemy targets (as on the wry "Violence"), he's stiletto-sharp.
Sloan's backing band -- keyed by Jon Tiven's straight-outta-Memphis lead guitar -- provided ample heft, but one got the sense that even if he were going it alone, he'd still be able to land a knockout punch.
|
| Apesy |
Posted - 08/25/2006 : 18:36:37
Got it! I'm up to "Halloween Mary" so far and loving everything.
So happy to see Sloan recording again.
So bummed that I'm missing him perform at the Iron Horse tonight...
-=Apesy |
| Apesy |
Posted - 08/25/2006 : 11:46:56
Forgot this was coming out so soon; stumbled upon it at my local independent CD shop on a trip to pick up the new Mountain Goats and Chad VanGaalen albums. I didn't have enough for all three, so I'm going back tonight to grab it.
-=Apesy |
| Carl |
Posted - 08/25/2006 : 09:35:44
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/magazine/daily/15336401.htm
Posted on Wed, Aug. 23, 2006
Songwriter PF Sloan moving into next
cycle
By A.D. Amorosi
For The Inquirer
Comeback culture is rife with
runaway heroes.
Some we know well; others
never got their due the first
time around.
From solo artists like Brian
Wilson and classic rockers
like the Who to reuniting
punks and post-punks from
the New York Dolls to the
Pixies, you can hardly throw a
drumstick without hitting
someone coming back
around.
But you can't call it a
comeback if the artist was
never really here to begin
with.
Take PF Sloan.
The songwriter of the quintessential protest rocker "Eve of Destruction" as well as the
'60s classic "Secret Agent Man" was nearly a well-respected artist in his own right.
Yet his gorgeous sandy baritone - first heard on folk-pop mid-'60s albums Songs of
Our Times and Twelve More Times - went hidden for decades because of what Sloan
describes as an effort by his record label and publishing house, Dunhill, to keep him
composing instead of performing. Sloan believes he got to record only so that artists
and publishers would hear his songs.
By 1970, Sloan was felled by bigger, life-threatening problems: severe depression,
catatonia, hypoglycemia.
Caught between the sorrowful, indentured state of his life in the music business and
increasingly worsening health, Sloan signed away his publishing rights.
"Sometimes it's easier to walk away," Sloan said recently from his home in Los
Angeles. Walk he did, until he got better, mentally, physically and spiritually.
Today, at 60, Sloan is not only releasing Sailover, his first major U.S. record in more
than 30 years (let's forget about [Still on the] Eve of Destruction, recorded for the
Japanese market in the '90s). He is also starting his first-ever tour tonight in
Philadelphia.
"I'm not scared," he said.
He doesn't sound it. With his measured sotto voce, he sounds as confidently cool as
his new songs, such as "If You Knew." Still, there's something haunted about him.
Why come back now, in such a politicized time, with a reworking of "Eve of
Destruction"?
"Now is always a good time, we all know that," he said teasingly. Even so, he said, "I
had no desire to want to be or get involved in the music business again. And if I did, I'm
an artist that's never sold a record. There's been no agent or manager who'd seek to
take that on. And if I exploded creatively, my physical and mental problems made it all
so unrealistic."
Things weren't always bad.
Philip Schlein was born in New York City. His father took the name Sloan after feeling
the sting of anti-Semitism upon his move to L.A. in 1958. (His son said he was unable
to find work until he changed his name.) Young Phil took on the initials "PF" after
happening onto records by Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan.
Phil was a rock-and-roll fanatic - Chuck Berry and Little Richard. But protest folk offered
him something more. "Those songs," he said, "forced me to become an artist."
First he became a songwriter.
After meeting Elvis Presley at a record store in L.A. and getting an impromptu guitar
lesson from the King, Sloan won an open audition for songwriters held by Aladdin
Records, an R&B label. He was 13 and had never written a song.
PF wrote songs mediocre, good and great; surf, pop and folk. Some he wrote alone,
some with Steve Barri, and all for Screen Gems exec Lou Adler, who left that movie and
record producer to start his own label, Dunhill.
Sloan and Barri went with Adler, and wrote and produced hits for the Mamas and the
Papas, Johnny Rivers, the Grass Roots, and more. They redefined the California sound
as sunny but shaded with ruminative clouds of lonely gray.
"Around every candle, there's a circle of darkness," Sloan said, not only of his sad,
arching chords but of the gathering storm behind the record business. "In the '60s, all
the bands thought the labels and managers and themselves were like a family. It
wasn't like that at all."
The Pepsi Generation wasn't so communal.
Add the strains of the Vietnam War and the blight of dysfunctional families, and Sloan's
most popular songs came rushing out one evening in the spring of '64 - "Sins of a
Family" and "Eve of Destruction." (Both are on Sailover, released yesterday.)
"I grew up in American schools, believing I had the right to tell people what needed
fixing," Sloan said of "Eve" and its tale of righteous indignation.
The song offered
everything poetic and political that Dylan had given audiences. With a rocking
arrangement and smooth melody provided by singer Barry McGuire, Sloan's song was
the hit of 1965.
Though folk music offered a way to talk to someone and politicize things in a
conversational way, "Eve" came from a rock experience.
" 'Eve' spawned a new rock-and-roll protest rock," Pixies front man Frank Black says in
the August issue of British music monthly Mojo. "PF may have been influenced by Dylan
but [he] took it somewhere else with 'Eve,' " Black said. Black and Buddy Miller sing on
Sloan's rerecording of the track, and Black's pal Jon Tiven coproduced the meagerly
budgeted ($7,000!) Sailover.
"My love of American folk - its ethics, dignity, poetry, freedom and morality - became my
personal mode of expression," Sloan said.
But rock was sexier than folk. His label and publishers agreed, and Sloan said they
wanted hit songs, not solo records. Sloan claims that, when he began to record, he got
zero support from the label or studio.
As Sloan's battles with depression and hypoglycemia worsened, he became unhappy
with his old label - or any label. So he signed away his songwriting rights to Dunhill.
"I was happy to walk away from it all. I signed away my livelihood," he said. It's the first
time he actually laughed during the conversation.
Sloan moved into his parents' house, where he began getting himself well. By the mid-
'80s, as he grew healthier, Sloan traveled to India, where he studied Hinduism and
Buddhism and made them a part of his own nondenominational belief system.
Back in Los Angeles, he wrote short stories about his experiences and did odd jobs,
like delivering beer. By the mid-'90s, he got an apartment on his own.
"They say the body moves in seven-year cycles," he said. "I had to wade through
several of those."
In 2002, MCA (which bought Dunhill) threw out the '72 deal in which he had signed
away the rights, Sloan says. Since then, he adds, he has earned royalties on his
classics. When Sloan felt well enough to record, starting in 2004, he did.
Now Sloan plays old songs with renewed vigor, along with sarcastic new songs such
as the pop-cultural "Violence."
"I wish I could have always been in this state," Sloan says. "I feel that my new songs
are so uplifting, healing, insightful and fun. I'd go anywhere to perform them."
Sloan believes "Eve of Destruction" has new poignancy now that we're again at war.
"My problems are nothing compared to what I see around me," he said. "And that
people still respond to that song means that they still want answers to these terrible
human problems we only thought we were on the road to correcting all those years
ago."
To listen to a clip of PF Sloan, visit http://go.philly.com/albums
PF Sloan, who wrote "Eve of Destruction," starts his first
tour here. |
| The Marsist |
Posted - 08/23/2006 : 10:39:29
yeh man bought uncut for the syd barret article but would have paid every penny for this awesome awesome track. GET IT!!!
Art is the child of Nature; yes, her darling child, in whom we trace the features of the mother's face, her aspect and her attitude.
-Beck
|
| Carl |
Posted - 08/23/2006 : 10:30:26
Really?! Great! Someone posted up a link to a radio show before, where Frank picked a load of favorite songs, and he was talking about that!!
 |
| The Marsist |
Posted - 08/23/2006 : 10:25:03
eve of destruction w/ frank, appears on the free cd given with uncut this month. its excellent
Art is the child of Nature; yes, her darling child, in whom we trace the features of the mother's face, her aspect and her attitude.
-Beck
|
| Jontiven |
Posted - 08/23/2006 : 08:49:24
Songwriter on the 'Eve' of his reconstruction
ny daily news BY DAVID HINCKLEY
...You can bury your dead,
But don't leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor,
But don't forget to say grace...
"Eve of Destruction," P.F. Sloan
Forty-one rocky years later, the man who wrote one of the defining protest songs of the restless 1960s - a song that by several measures was never topped - says he paid a high price.
P.F. Sloan also says he'd do it again, and that's one reason he's back in 2006 with a new CD, "Sailover" (Hightone), and his first-ever U.S. tour, which comes to Joe's Pub tomorrow night.
Still, he did not return lightly.
"I was out of the business for 30 years," he says. "I sold things on the telephone. I delivered beer. If people asked what I did, I'd say I was an insurance agent.
"The music business had a lot of bad memories for me. So much of it crushes creativity."
In the '60s, Sloan hung out with people like the Beach Boys and wrote pop hits like the Grass Roots' splendid "Where Were You When I Needed You" and Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man." He also turned psychodramas into compelling songs like "Sins of a Family," which he recuts beautifully with Lucinda Williams on "Sailover."
But "Eve" was the lightning rod, an angry song that bypassed Dylaneseque metaphor for sledgehammer couplets like "There'll be no one to save / With the world in a grave."
Growled by folksinger Barry McGuire, it hit No. 1 in late September 1965, sparking controversy whose passion may be hard to explain today.
"The song destroyed my career," says Sloan. "People who didn't like it decided to kill the messenger. They said I must be either a hack or a Communist."
When he also developed health problems he dropped out, and it took 15 years for producer Jon Tiven to talk him into "Sailover," on which remakes like "Eve" mix with new tunes like the pensive "If I Knew."
There's a country flavor to many tracks, plus pop and folk. The sound is clean, not slick, perhaps reflecting the fact it was cut in 20 days.
Sloan likes it, he says - as he still likes "Eve of Destruction," whether people consider it an un-American rant, a self-parody or a brilliant call to arms.
"I knew right away it was powerful," he says. "Writing it was like Jacob fighting the angels. It was almost like I was being called to it.
"It changed lives. I saw that. So it validates what I did, my choice to go into music."
As for the world, 41 years later, he's a little more optimistic.
"There's still a lot of darkness, so much fascism," muses Sloan, who turns 63 next month. "But things are getting better. If you look for good, you can find it."
|
| Jontiven |
Posted - 08/23/2006 : 08:48:01
Songwriter PF Sloan moving into next cycleBy A.D. Amorosi
For The Inquirer
PF Sloan, who wrote "Eve of Destruction," starts his first tour here.
Comeback culture is rife with runaway heroes.
Some we know well; others never got their due the first time around.
From solo artists like Brian Wilson and classic rockers like the Who to reuniting punks and post-punks from the New York Dolls to the Pixies, you can hardly throw a drumstick without hitting someone coming back around.
But you can't call it a comeback if the artist was never really here to begin with.
Take PF Sloan.
The songwriter of the quintessential protest rocker "Eve of Destruction" as well as the '60s classic "Secret Agent Man" was nearly a well-respected artist in his own right.
Yet his gorgeous sandy baritone - first heard on folk-pop mid-'60s albums Songs of Our Times and Twelve More Times - went hidden for decades because of what Sloan describes as an effort by his record label and publishing house, Dunhill, to keep him composing instead of performing. Sloan believes he got to record only so that artists and publishers would hear his songs.
By 1970, Sloan was felled by bigger, life-threatening problems: severe depression, catatonia, hypoglycemia.
Caught between the sorrowful, indentured state of his life in the music business and increasingly worsening health, Sloan signed away his publishing rights.
"Sometimes it's easier to walk away," Sloan said recently from his home in Los Angeles. Walk he did, until he got better, mentally, physically and spiritually.
Today, at 60, Sloan is not only releasing Sailover, his first major U.S. record in more than 30 years (let's forget about [Still on the] Eve of Destruction, recorded for the Japanese market in the '90s). He is also starting his first-ever tour tonight in Philadelphia.
"I'm not scared," he said.
He doesn't sound it. With his measured sotto voce, he sounds as confidently cool as his new songs, such as "If You Knew." Still, there's something haunted about him.
Why come back now, in such a politicized time, with a reworking of "Eve of Destruction"?
"Now is always a good time, we all know that," he said teasingly. Even so, he said, "I had no desire to want to be or get involved in the music business again. And if I did, I'm an artist that's never sold a record. There's been no agent or manager who'd seek to take that on. And if I exploded creatively, my physical and mental problems made it all so unrealistic."
Things weren't always bad.
Philip Schlein was born in New York City. His father took the name Sloan after feeling the sting of anti-Semitism upon his move to L.A. in 1958. (His son said he was unable to find work until he changed his name.) Young Phil took on the initials "PF" after happening onto records by Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan.
Phil was a rock-and-roll fanatic - Chuck Berry and Little Richard. But protest folk offered him something more. "Those songs," he said, "forced me to become an artist."
First he became a songwriter.
After meeting Elvis Presley at a record store in L.A. and getting an impromptu guitar lesson from the King, Sloan won an open audition for songwriters held by Aladdin Records, an R&B label. He was 13 and had never written a song.
PF wrote songs mediocre, good and great; surf, pop and folk. Some he wrote alone, some with Steve Barri, and all for Screen Gems exec Lou Adler, who left that movie and record producer to start his own label, Dunhill.
Sloan and Barri went with Adler, and wrote and produced hits for the Mamas and the Papas, Johnny Rivers, the Grass Roots, and more. They redefined the California sound as sunny but shaded with ruminative clouds of lonely gray.
"Around every candle, there's a circle of darkness," Sloan said, not only of his sad, arching chords but of the gathering storm behind the record business. "In the '60s, all the bands thought the labels and managers and themselves were like a family. It wasn't like that at all."
The Pepsi Generation wasn't so communal.
Add the strains of the Vietnam War and the blight of dysfunctional families, and Sloan's most popular songs came rushing out one evening in the spring of '64 - "Sins of a Family" and "Eve of Destruction." (Both are on Sailover, released yesterday.)
"I grew up in American schools, believing I had the right to tell people what needed fixing," Sloan said of "Eve" and its tale of righteous indignation. The song offered everything poetic and political that Dylan had given audiences. With a rocking arrangement and smooth melody provided by singer Barry McGuire, Sloan's song was the hit of 1965.
Though folk music offered a way to talk to someone and politicize things in a conversational way, "Eve" came from a rock experience.
" 'Eve' spawned a new rock-and-roll protest rock," Pixies front man Frank Black says in the August issue of British music monthly Mojo. "PF may have been influenced by Dylan but [he] took it somewhere else with 'Eve,' " Black said. Black and Buddy Miller sing on Sloan's rerecording of the track, and Black's pal Jon Tiven coproduced the meagerly budgeted ($7,000!) Sailover.
"My love of American folk - its ethics, dignity, poetry, freedom and morality - became my personal mode of expression," Sloan said.
But rock was sexier than folk. His label and publishers agreed, and Sloan said they wanted hit songs, not solo records. Sloan claims that, when he began to record, he got zero support from the label or studio.
As Sloan's battles with depression and hypoglycemia worsened, he became unhappy with his old label - or any label. So he signed away his songwriting rights to Dunhill.
"I was happy to walk away from it all. I signed away my livelihood," he said. It's the first time he actually laughed during the conversation.
Sloan moved into his parents' house, where he began getting himself well. By the mid-'80s, as he grew healthier, Sloan traveled to India, where he studied Hinduism and Buddhism and made them a part of his own nondenominational belief system.
Back in Los Angeles, he wrote short stories about his experiences and did odd jobs, like delivering beer. By the mid-'90s, he got an apartment on his own.
"They say the body moves in seven-year cycles," he said. "I had to wade through several of those."
In 2002, MCA (which bought Dunhill) threw out the '72 deal in which he had signed away the rights, Sloan says. Since then, he adds, he has earned royalties on his classics. When Sloan felt well enough to record, starting in 2004, he did.
Now Sloan plays old songs with renewed vigor, along with sarcastic new songs such as the pop-cultural "Violence."
"I wish I could have always been in this state," Sloan says. "I feel that my new songs are so uplifting, healing, insightful and fun. I'd go anywhere to perform them."
Sloan believes "Eve of Destruction" has new poignancy now that we're again at war.
"My problems are nothing compared to what I see around me," he said. "And that people still respond to that song means that they still want answers to these terrible human problems we only thought we were on the road to correcting all those years ago."
|
| Jontiven |
Posted - 08/23/2006 : 04:37:48
'60s legend Sloan is on the eve of a comeback
By Joan Anderman, Boston Globe Staff | August 22, 2006
Cruel twists of fate aren't uncommon in the music world. But P.F. Sloan's story is one for the ages.
:
Globe Living/Arts stories |
A&E section |
To begin with, you don't know his name, which isn't exactly a crime; plenty of the best tunesmiths ply their wares outside the spotlight. But you probably know his music. The seminal '60s protest anthem ``Eve of Destruction" (a hit for Barry McGuire) and the evergreen spy theme ``Secret Agent Man" are Sloan's most enduring contributions to the pop canon, but he also penned jukebox faves for the Turtles, the Grass Roots, the Association, the Mamas and the Papas, Jan & Dean, and Herman's Hermits -- all before he turned 22.
And then P.F. Sloan disappeared.
History has written that he just walked away from the business. The details of the story are murky, and Sloan himself is reticent to rehash the nightmare. Suffice it to say that cutthroat label executives and a loaded gun played a role in Sloan's abrupt exit, not just from the music scene but from the rest of life, as well. In 1966 Sloan signed away his songwriting royalties-- past, present, and future. He grew depressed, moved back in with his parents, and then slipped into a state of catatonia. Over the years he would experience a vast assortment of physical and psychological maladies. The man who was once one of pop's brightest talents spent the past three decades listening to Glenn Gould records, working on a yet-unfinished piano concerto about Beethoven's attempted suicide, and eking out a living as a telephone solicitor.
Now he's back.
``I didn't have full function of my intellect and my heart until a year and a half ago," says Sloan, 62, on the phone from his Los Angeles home. ``I'm looking forward to plugging back in."
Today , HighTone Records is releasing ``Sailover," Sloan's first album (with the exception of a bizarre 1993 Japanese release) in 34 years. Tomorrow the singer-songwriter embarks on his first US tour, which brings him to the Iron Horse in Northampton on Friday and Club Passim in Cambridge on Saturday.
The album features nine laid-back new folk-rockers, none compelling enough to steal the thunder from the vintage tracks. Sloan has updated five of those, including ``Eve of Destruction," where the songwriter trades verses with Frank Black and Buddy Miller, and ``Sins of a Family," a duet with Lucinda Williams.
``Sloan took protest folk and turned it into protest rock." says Black.
Nashville songwriter and producer Jon Tiven -- who last decade relaunched the careers of both Arthur Alexander and Willie Dixon and also produced Black's last two solo discs -- was at the helm. It's a place he's wanted to be since the early '90s, when he saw footage of Sloan performing on a late-night cable channel.
``I didn't know the song or the singer, but it was fantastic," says Tiven. ``I waited for them to announce who it was, and the next day I ran out and bought a British import of one of his anthologies. He was singing songs that were, for me, on a par with the stuff I grew up on, the Beatles, the Stones, Dylan. I was like, `Why doesn't anybody know about him?' I thought this would be a great guy to bring back in front of people."
Tiven located Sloan and has called him every six months, beginning in 1991, with the hope of luring him back into the studio. Sloan said no every time. But the two became friends and eventually collaborated on a couple of tunes, and last year Sloan changed his answer.
``The day I said yes to Jon I wrote two songs," says Sloan. `` `Violence' came out in 10 minutes, and so did `PK & the Evil Dr. Z,' which I must tell you was a true experience, although when I tell people they think I'm mentally deranged again. It just came out, and I realized that the songwriter I hadn't been in touch with in 30 years wasn't crippled, just waiting."
Sloan is eager to get in front of an audience. Back in the '60s, he says, the suits at Dunhill Records -- for whom Sloan cranked out hit after hit -- prevented their most successful songwriter from establishing a solo career.
``The label refused to let me go out and perform," says Sloan. ``They wanted me to stay in the back room working 24 hours a day for them. I've been looking forward to playing and singing for people all my life."
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| vilainde |
Posted - 08/23/2006 : 00:22:42
And a rather harsh one from webzine Music Box Online:
<<There’s a reason why PF Sloan is known as a songwriter rather than a performer, and to put it bluntly, his lyrical depth and melodic sensibilities are far stronger than his performance skills. Even bolstered by a line-up that includes Lucinda Williams, Frank Black, The Rascals’ Felix Cavaliere, Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson, and the E Street Band’s Garry Tallent, his latest endeavor Sailover largely lands with a dull thud. Sloan seems to be all too aware of his deficiencies, and throughout the set, he self-consciously searches for a voice that he can call his own. Unfortunately, he never finds it, and although he blurs the lines among Ray Davies, Elvis Costello, and David Bowie on All that Time Allows and swipes Lou Reed’s deadpan tonality for a refurbished rendition of Halloween Mary, he far more frequently settles into an imitation of Bob Dylan’s sneering twang. It certainly doesn’t help matters that neither the arrangements that Sloan employs nor Jon Tiven’s bare-bones, roadhouse production values do much to give the songs the jolt of electricity that they desperately need.
As a reminder of his legacy, Sloan reworked five of his older tunes for Sailover, including Where Were You When I Needed You and Eve of Destruction, and it’s telling that these are some of the better tracks on the outing. The former, of course, was a lofty hit for The Grass Roots, but Sloan’s version settles into a pleasant but unremarkable blast of jangly gospel-soul. The latter fares marginally better, and although it lacks the urgency of Barry McGuire’s iconic interpretation, the air of tired resignation in Sloan’s voice is well-suited to the song’s slow-building climax as well as its 41-year-old, yet sadly still-urgent message. The other highlight — and the only time that Sloan truly sounds as if he wants to be performing — is the newly penned PK & the Evil Dr. Z, a playfully surreal fantasia that, with its driving groove and a blues-y guitar lapping at its fringes — is worthy of mid-’60s-era Dylan. At almost any other point in time, Sloan’s return from a self-imposed exile would have been enough to allow him to coast on his past achievements, but considering how many artists recently have been re-energized by the current socio-political climate, the competition is too immense for Sailover’s unassuming fodder to garner much attention.>>
Denis
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| Erebus |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 15:47:00
I must take advantage of this opportunity, since it likely won't come again, to praise the cover of "Eve of Destruction" by Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady on "Pair A Dice Found", the routinely but unjustly maligned 1990 album from Hot Tuna, my favorite band of 60s survivors. That said, there may just be some P.F. Sloan in my future.
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| Jontiven |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 13:10:08
Very nice review on allmusic.com
P.F. Sloan-SAILOVER
by Mark Deming
It's nice to know some things don't change. More than a dozen years after his last album and 40 years since he penned the epochal pop-protest number "Eve of Destruction," P.F. Sloan is still writing worthwhile pop songs with smart, impressionistic, and somewhat off-kilter lyrics, and Sailover confirms time has been quite kind to his muse since he last entered a recording studio. Sailover is not built from the same sort of Brill Building materials as Sloan's best-known work of the '60s (either as recorded by the songwriter himself or through such clients as Johnny Rivers, the Association, the Turtles, the Grass Roots and lots more); these days, Sloan and producer Jon Tiven go for a simpler approach (guitar, bass, drums, keys) that not only emphasizes the rootsy leanings of his melodies but brings out the Dylanesque side of his songwriting, which doesn't manifest itself in extended lyrical abstraction but a clear desire to write of the personal and the political with the same draw. While Sloan has resurrected a few old favorites for this set (including "Eve of Destruction," "From a Distance," and "Sins of a Family"), the new material makes it clear the man has been keeping his songwriting chops in solid shape; "Violence" and "PK and the Evil Dr. Z" speak clearly with the same mordant wit that he's summoned in his best-known music, while the compassion and warmth of "Love Is 4Giving" and the wanderlust of the title tune prove that while he's mellowed a bit, he's also learned what to make of it. And even when he does revisit the past, the mournful weight of the new recording of "Eve of Destruction" (with guest vocals from Frank Black and Buddy Miller) and the bitter eloquence of Lucinda Williams' verses on "Sins of a Family" show that some protest songs never die, they just remain uncomfortably relevant. Sailover shows P.F. Sloan still has songs in his bag that are well-worth hearing, and he has a gift for making them work in the studio; this is the work of a man who ought to be making records more often than once every 13 years, if he's so inclined and we're so fortunate.
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| darwin |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 12:35:35
"P.F. Sloan sat in his small dining room and smoothly played some guitar licks to the recording of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" coming from the CD player."
Hey, that song was astutely nominated as the Best Song in the World.
http://forum.frankblack.net/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15724&whichpage=1&SearchTerms=,wonderful,world |
| floop |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 12:02:12
there's an article in the LA times about this.
Tiven is even quoted
http://www.calendarlive.com/music/cl-et-sloan22aug22,0,4432031.story?coll=cl-home-more-channels |
| Jontiven |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 06:37:58
Album out in about a month, dates to coincide, and here's the EPK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJQ7YS4QDaM&search=PF%20Sloan
bye,
JT |
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