The Seventy Sevens: Sticks and Stones (1990)

 

Tracks:

1. MT
2. Nowhere Else
3. This is the Way Love Is
4. Perfect Blues
5. Don't, This Way
6. You Walked in the Room
7. The Days to Come
8. The Loop
9. God Sends Quails
10. Love Without Dreams
11. Do It For Love
12. The Lust, the Flesh, the Eyes, and the Pride of Life
13. Pearls Before Swine
14. Bottom Line 

After their one shot at major-label stardom passed by largely unnoticed by the World At Large, the 7s went into a period of semi-hibernation (kind of like the "Sleep" state on a PC).  Tootle and Volz left, and Smith did session work.  In the meantime, Roe went into the studio and surfed through the deep stack of unreleased demos, alternate takes, and almost-finished versions of the band's songs over the previous years, and put together the best of these into what was supposed to be an archival hodge-podge entitled Sticks and Stones.  The funny thing was, it ended up being a strong, cohesive collection in its own right, and for some fans, surpassed The Seventy Sevens (myself included) on a song-for-song level.  

While it's true that the Island album had a more diverse scope and was more of a piece than Sticks, the quality of the material on the latter record makes one wonder why some of these tracks couldn't have made their way onto the "official" release.  The opener "MT" (as in "More Than") is an angular piece of 80s power pop, produced by "Bongo Bob" Smith, which explains the percussion-heavy, razor-sharp riffs and beats that drive the song.  It's a flashy enough version of a quasi-techno sound, but like a red leather jacket is very much of its time and place.  Still, the band looks pretty good in red leather.

More revelatory and representative of their strengths is what should have been the album's single, "Nowhere Else."  With backup singers chanting, "Hey Nah Nah" and a hook that comes right out of a 60s girl group song, Mike paints a picture of an evening communing with God in a valley under an expansive star-lit canopy.   Driven by acoustic guitars and Aaron's usual sharp but unobtrusive percussion, the song fills the mind like a heavenly ether and echoes long after the last chorus fades out.  Mike sings the line, "Nowhere else I'd rather be than in your heart/eyes/arms" so smoothly that they all sound like "aaahh," and for a long time I thought he said "arms" three times.  It's a beautiful picture of man connecting with his Father on a personal and intimate level, and right up there with "The Lust..." as one of his best creations.

Speaking of that song, the demo version which was recorded before the Island release is featured as part of a group of songs subtitled "Lost Island Treasures."  These are demos of Seventy Sevens tracks that sound just as good as the final versions and in the case of "The Lust..." actually surpasses it.  Chris Hillman helps out with a brilliant background vocal (resulting in a fuller sound) as well as mandolin on the last chorus.  It also has a more rollicking rhythm, the main sliding riff adding an extra wobble to its already tipsy feel.  

Going back to the undiscovered artifacts, "Perfect Blues" is a standard piece of 50s blues that has some gruff guitar riffs that make it edgy, as well as an overdubbed Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano solo that is four tracks mixed down to one.  "Don't, This Way" is described by the author as "the saddest song I ever wrote," and its melancholy singing as well as chunky but weepy guitar parts capture that feeling well.  "God Sends Quails" is a long jam in the tradition of "Pearls Before Swine" (a studio version of which is also featured) with a long intro featuring an ominous Volz bass riff and some scathing solo playing by Roe.  The message is one of receiving God's blessings even if they're in the guise of failure and defeat: "You failed...spit out your manna, God sends quails."

For a few years, Sticks and Stones was the only Seventy Sevens product available on the market, unless one wanted to go digging around in old record bins or pawn shops for the odd cassette.  And if one could have only one of their albums, this would be a good one to have around, at least of the 80s version of the band.  Still, changes were in the air, and the Mark Three version of the band would bring a whole new set of flatware to the table.