I culled this tasty gem from the personal collection of recording engineer Brock Fricker. While the overall approach maybe more straight ahead, fans of Frank Zappa will note a striking resemblence to the Mothers of Invention in the arrangements on this album:
With all that’s happening in the global economy at the moment, the theme of this album may be more pertinent than ever. The liner notes come from a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett on 14 May 1935:
The very least your government should do under the existing circumstances, is to grant direct relief to these boys, and let them live their own lives. This I admit is no solution to the unemployment Question in its broader aspects, but it is at least more human than the herding of our youth into isolation and despair. It is not a question of food and clothing but rather a question of mental distress brought about by days and years of hope, which has become hopeless and unbearable. It must end quickly if we are to avoid the disaster, which is a natural outcome of intolerable conditions – a condition of suffering in the midst of abundance.
As to subversive organizations and the coercion of agitators I can only say that to me the so-called agitator is the salvation of any man’s country; he is the symbol of progress; without him our civilization would wither and fade.
It is high time that we forget about this communist bogey and tackle these questions from the stand point of their merit of leadership. We can no longer let a cause suffer because there happen to be a few individuals in the ranks who have been indiscrete in days gone by. The youth of the land have awakened to the injustice of their position all along the line, and the day of reckoning is close at hand.
Horn – On The Peoples Side
Special Records, 1972
Catalog: 9230-1028
Personnel:
Les Clackett, vocals
Bruce Burron & Gary Hynes, guitars
Alan Duffy, bass
David deLaunay, keyboards
Wayne Jackson, trumpet
Bill Bryans, drums
Credits:
Special thanks to Moses Znaimer. Recorded at Thunder Sound Studios, Toronto, Canada, between August and September 1972. Roach was recorded in October 1971. Special thanks to Jan Kudelka, George Taros, and Nancy Simmonds for added sounds. Family Plouffe of Toronto on Vibrations. Produced by Alan Duffy, Bill Bryans and Horn. Recording & Mix Engineer by Brock Fricker. Remixing by Alan Duffy, Bill Bryans & Brock Fricker. Album graphics & design by Jim McConnell. Road Crew by Paul Ritchie. Coordination by Bleakney McConnell.
Track Listing for CD:
The track listings for the LP and my digital transcription are different. The notes from the original LP do not include track times nor the lengths of the various suite segments, so I had to guess on the overall breakdown. In the actual recording, Pony Buns is the only clearly identified suite, and thus it is the only one I broke down as such. All other tracks are identified as individual songs. Je pense mieux sous le tapis translates to “I think better under the rug.”
1) Things in themselves – 3:48
2) Free all my brothers and sisters – 2:33
3) Roach – 2:25
4) Vibrations (vee-bra’-syohn) – 1:19
5) Johnny guitar plays childrens music – 3:10
6) Pony Buns: 3 Blows – 1:08
7) Pony Buns: Je pense mieux sous le tapis – 2:44
8) Pony Buns: Goof the Truth – 3:03
9) Pony Buns: Musicatto – 2:41
10) Working together – 5:52
11) On the People’s side – 5:39
Track Listing (original LP):
1) Things in themselves
- A. Things in themselves Part one
B. Intermission
C. Voice of the lonely man
D. Things in themselves Part two
2) Free all my brothers and sisters
3) Roach
- A. Roach
B. A March
4) Vibrations / vee-bra’-syohn
- A. Vibrations
B. Johnny guitar plays childrens music.
5) Pony Buns
- A. a
B. 3 Blows
C. Je pense mieux sous le tapis
D. Goof the truth
E. The Buzz
F. Musicatto
6) Working together
- A. Song
B. Dance
7) On the Peoples side
Music credits:
1) Bruce Burron, David deLaunay
2) Gary Hynes, Bruce Burron
3) Bruce Burron
4) Gary Hynes, Les Clackett; Lyrics from a poem by Pierre Martin
5) Music: Bruce Burron and Horn, except Goof the truth and The Buzz which was written by Gary Hynes; Lyrics: David deLaunay
6) Music: David deLaunay, lyrics: David deLaunay & friends
7) David deLaunay
Musicatto, by David deLaunay:
Often you’ve looked
and your past has appeared
a veil
on your present.
Imposing what you are
on what he/she is.
Often you’ve held yourself back
and you have appeared
veiled
between you and he/she.
Often you’ve stepped boldly forth
and allowed futures unknown
to become
your present.
Let’s meet walking tall
on a musicattoed wall
from where we’ll
wage war
on real enemies,
Not those we hide
in each of us.
I am the creator and site administrator at The Basement Rug. I have been collecting LP's and CD's for more than 30 years. I 
I came back for a second look around the new site, and found this. The sound of the sample you’ve provided is almost too close in its resemblence to the MOI for comfort. it’s been said that imitation is supposedly the best form of flattery, but you’d think an up and coming band (at least at the time that this recording was made) would have picked a less iconoclastic role model to emulate. You gotta’ start somewhere though. 4 stars for their good taste.
Being a Zappa zealot, I’ll look forward to hearing this in its entirety. Not to scoff at for its similarities, but hopefully to applaud for just how well they may have done their homework. The sample certainly sounds encouraging.
Unfortunately, I’m presently maneuvering a slippery slope comparable to the boys pictured above. All around me I’m finding people almost intuitively forming practice bread lines, just in case it comes to that again.
Hope you’re keeping warm, and employed.
I’m not on a slippery slope just yet, but I’m in the same geographic location. My job may soon disappear. Not sure what I will do yet if it does. Anyone out there wanna pay me for blogging? :)