{"id":4217,"date":"2010-11-27T01:38:19","date_gmt":"2010-11-27T06:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=4217"},"modified":"2012-06-25T20:55:45","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T00:55:45","slug":"the-rock-town-hall-interview-mystery-date-michael-fennelly-of-crabby-appleton-and-the-millenium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-rock-town-hall-interview-mystery-date-michael-fennelly-of-crabby-appleton-and-the-millenium\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rock Town Hall Interview: Mystery Date Michael Fennelly of Crabby Appleton and The Millennium"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Crabby Appleton<\/p><\/div>\n

You may recall a recent <\/a>Mystery Date<\/a><\/em> featuring a proto-power pop song<\/a> that Townspeople correctly identified as being from 1970 while puzzingly and incorrectly guessing was recorded by an obscure Dutch band. Our <\/a>Mystery Date<\/a><\/em> turned out to be an American band, <\/a>Crabby Appleton<\/a><\/strong>, led by Michael Fennelly<\/strong>, who’d previously come to underground pop acclaim as a member of “sunshine pop” commercial flop and cult favorite The Millennium<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I first discovered The Millennium when Begin<\/em> was reissued on CD, probably around 1990. My friends and I had started a Rutles-like offshoot band that we envisioned as one of the “second-tier” pop-psych bands we loved, including\u00a0The Turtles, The Hollies, Grass Roots, and The Pretty Things. This new old band we’d discovered, The Millennium, was just the sort of band we’d envisioned. “It’s You” is one of the great songs from that era; I still get chills everytime I hear it. Little could I have imagined that, 20 years later, I’d piece together a long, vague personal history with the music of one of the writers of that song and get the chance to talk to him.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0mentioned in the Mystery Date<\/em> thread on Crabby Appleton, when I first came across their album at my college radio station, in 1981, my late-night DJ shift friend and I didn’t get it. The band name and the hard rock elements threw us off. Revisiting the album with nearly 20 years of time to catch up on early 1970s’ hard rock I actually dug it! I played “Go Back”\u00a0for my old college friend too, and he did too. One of the reasons we enter the Halls of Rock is to revisit stuff we didn’t get at earlier points in our lives. The good day of discovering that Crabby Appleton’s debut album was actually a solid, slightly ahead-of-its time piece of work that tied back to an earlier band I loved continues with our chat with Michael Fennelly.<\/p>\n

Fennelly grew up in Westfield, New Jersey, which he left at the age of 17, hitchhiking his way to California with visions of a career in music. He had no music business connections, “Just an accoustic guitar, and a driving need to get out of NJ and my parents’ home.” On his Facebook page, The Music of Michael Fennelly<\/a><\/em>, he describes the scene he entered<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Los Angeles in the mid to late 60’s was amazing. Very freewheeling, compared to the conservative East Coast from which I’d come. I revelled in the fredoms that were all around me, and loved my new life and new surroundings. I felt totally at home in the world of Hollywood hippies and long-hairs. And there was a prevailing sense of rebellion and try anything that was invigorating.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After kicking around (and sleeping in) coffeehouses, Fennelly quickly fell in with Curt Boettcher<\/strong>‘s musical world. “I played some low-level gigs with a band I formed in a coffee house, in which I was\u00a0living. But, from there, I was cast into CBS Studios for marathon recording with\u00a0The Millennium.”<\/p>\n

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It's The Millennium.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Millennium was a studio band organized by Boettcher. The recording budget of Begin<\/em> reached fairly astronomical heights, but eventual album sales did not come close to lift off. Boettcher and engineer Keith Olson<\/strong>, a “genius,” according to Fennelly, who would go on to produce Fleetwood Mac<\/strong>‘s massive albums, recruited the musicians and cooked up the sounds, but Fennelly says the process was more collaborative than some sunshine pop historians have envisioned. “We usually didn’t feel orchestrated by Curt, literally or figuratively, but felt encouraged to contribute ideas and approaches. Where Curt did manipulate a bit was on placing his stamp and his voice over others’, particularly during the mixing process.”<\/p>\n

Fennelly comes back to Boettcher’s annoying habit of mixing his own lead vocals over those of the songwriter’s when talk turns to his memories of the recording of Begin<\/em>‘s highpoint, the Fennelly-Joey Stec<\/strong> song “It’s You.”<\/a> I was hoping to learn something about the powerful mix of acoustic guitars, pulsating bass, and phase shifting that characterize the song, but “What stands out, to me,” Fennelly said “is the sound of Curt’s voice, mixed higher than mine on the\u00a0lead vocal. Didn’t get much airplay…”<\/p>