Nektar Appreciation Thread

and Recycled, and Remember the Future, and Down to Earth, and the rest aren't bad either

this band is criminally underrated

 

The first thing I heard by this Band was "A Tab in the Ocean" ... and it was love at first listen.  A couple of weeks later, raided Moby Disk and got "Journey to the Center of the Eye" ... loved both and had to get a 2nd copy of "A Tab in the Ocean" ...

 

When they did their first tour, saw them at ... I think it was the Santa Monica Civic ... with their "Light Theater", which ... was a bit of a throw back to the old SanFran days, and between you and I, I think that it was a bit too hippy'ish, instead of more valuable and important ... a lot better could have been done. So, in many ways, it was an extension of the long cuts that you might see/hear at the Fillmore that you could never get on record in America! No one does long cuts in America and survive to make a 2nd and 3rd album!

 

"Remember the Future" came out and it broke big.  And it was good.

 

A couple of years later, we got "Recycled" ... now, I'm particular to this album as it is one of the very best psychedelic rock assaults out there, and it does not stop. Maybe it is the addition of Larry Fast and his electronics that made this so big and so strong ... but it is an album that you play non-stop in one listen, if you can handle it. It is, their best album musically, although lyrically, "Remember the Future" is their most focused album of all. But the version of "Marvellous Moses" that was in the album was quite lightweight compared to the original version that was being done in concert that was longer and harder ... so I thought.

 

In the end, the last song in "Recycled" was one of the saddest things I ever heard and pretty much showed us that the band was hurting ... they had done a massive tour with Golden Earring and I think they were not only exhausted but sick, and tired and burned out. The next album is weak, even though it has a couple of great songs, but it feels like they were not new stuff, but stuff that was already in the vaults, like "That's Life" and "Show Me the Way"  that they had played in concert before.

 

All in all, a very special group of guys ... if my name was Mick Brockett I would have extended the light show to film and possibly even theater, in order to go a step up from the psychedelic days, and I think the fact that they were still stuck in it (visually) didn't help in a time when there was a backlash against the hippie days and disco was "hipper" and "dope was out and coke was in" ... and . blahh and blahh ... and stuff like this was losing its flavor.

 

Of all the albums, the one that is rarely discussed is actually the one I love to play the most ... "Sounds Like This" ... is what you get in concert ... and it is a fabulous album and merely shows you an excellent rock band in concert ... nothing more ... but somehow folks prefer the "concept" pieces, even though they are excellent, but not the same as these. It is an excellent example of what inspired a band and how they turned their inspiration into their own music ... the two really long cuts in that album are tops ... and then some.