Milestones

The "Bolero" mentioned previously is NOT by Ravel.
It is "Beck's Bolero", written by Jimmy Page, and featured on the "Truth" project by The Jeff Beck Group. Listen to the two side-by-side and you'll see.
As a Detroit are resident in the late 60's, I know Milestones from the day it came out, and was thrilled when, back in the 90's, One-Way reissued all the SRC catalog.
I had the pleasure of seeing them live twice, and, both times they were amazing.
To those that have never heard this band, treat yourselves.

...that's how Red Skelton once described what you saw as you drove through Texas. Doesn't have anything to do with this review, but I thought you might enjoy that. And it might help to temper the fact that I don't have a lot that is good to say about SRC's (the Scot Richard Case) second studio album, even if it is, to me, a rather enjoyable period piece, and as a metro-Detroiter, an honored home-town relic.

SRC has a rather slick sound... lead vocalist Scot Richardson has a smooth, strong tone with adequate range and excellent enunciation for a rock singer. Combine that with some raw and vibrant lead guitar, favoring the psychedelic side of life, from Gary Quackenbush, and an able keyboard and rhythm section, and you have the makings of a respectable band, which is exactly what SRC was (at least in southeast Michigan circa-1970). The band never took a bite out of the big-time however, and most of the blame for that can probably be laid at the feet of weak lyrical content. Instrumentally the band certainly had their moments, most notably on this particular disc in their interpretation of Grieg's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' from Opus 23, which appears in a medly along with a fine rendition of Ravel's 'Bolero' (introduced with a sturdy scream from Richardson). The medley features nice, fuzzy, classic late-1960's electric guitar runs, and plenty of impressive "boom, boom, boom" percussion. While this six-minute-plus medley strikingly closes out side one of the original vinyl, another epic running eight-minutes-plus closes out side two. The ambitious 'The Angel Song' opens with an engaging prog-rock melody, and Moody Blues-like spoken prose describing a fantasy about an angel without dreams who falls from Heaven to possess "a lifetime of dreams". Lyrically it's the strongest effort on the disc, as the fallen angel runs through experiences such as "I cannot remember my very first tear". Beats the heck out of the more pedestrian lyrics that populate most of the tracks, such as the "show me and I'll show you" chorus from the love ballad 'Show Me'.

The SRC seemed to have an aversion to putting commercial success anywhere near the front burner, and the fact that only a handful of songs on the disc conform to the three minute format of AM Top-40 radio probably speaks to that more than anything else. The album opens with a four-minute-plus array of heavy psychedelic guitar and organ runs on 'No Secret Destination', followed by the kind-of-a-drag, slow tempo 'Show Me', to a 4:49 reflection on finding peace in the world, 'Eye of the Storm'. Tracks seven through nine mix another slow tempo love ballad, 'Our Little Secret' ("our little secret will be that we have no secrets at all"), with 'Turn Into Love', a mid-tempo rocker featuring a group of female back-up singers and a rich, sinewy electric bridge, and finishing with a runaway rock track, 'Up All Night', "trying to catch a reflection of someone who use to be me". Rounding out the ten-tracks offered is 'Checkmate', which stands as perhaps the best example of the imbalance SRC struck between a strong instrumental presence, and weak lyrical substance ("we all know checkmate's the end of the game").

Like many bands of the 1960's and early 1970's that never quite made it, SRC possessed qualities that made their inability to crash into the mainstream especially frustrating. There's plenty of energy and sincerity saturating the disc, but it's like a ladder made out of balsa wood... it just doesn't have the structural intergrity to lift you up. The album is an out-of-print rarity on CD, and certainly not worth the sixty or so dollars a genuine copy commands today. Even at standard prices, ownership of this disc would be a questionable investment.

Milestones (SRC #2) began the experimenting w/lyrics and song presentations that continued through SRC #3 (Traveller's Tale) and the Lost Masters CD (collection of previous releases and material shelved for nearly two decades). Strong music and the only political type songs that SRC ever wrote (No Secret Destination/Eye of the Storm) . . . quirky love songs (Your knights have all fallen, your king is on his own, I've got you in Checkmate, and we're here all alone) and ( . . . I grinned like the Cheshire cat, I flew like a runaway rocket, I spun like a lost acrobat . . . we were up all night). Fun but weird album. At least Gary Q is on guitar!

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