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Jeremy and The Lemon Clocks — Side by Side
(Fruits de Mer no#, 2023, 2CD / LP)

by Henry Schneider, Published 2024-02-16

Side by Side Cover art

Michigan-based songwriter, artist, and producer Jeremy Morris, who also runs JAM Records, is quite prolific. Just take a glance at Discogs and you will find a release list as long as your arm.  His band The Lemon Clocks have appeared several times on Fruits de Mer over the years (CD, lathe-cut picture disc, and a couple of compilations). This new release, Side by Side, would normally be a vinyl release, but given the 2 and a half hours of music, it would have resulted in a cost-prohibitive four-LP box set. Instead FdM decided to release a double CD plus a limited run of lathe-cut LPs containing two of the extended tracks, “Green Tambourine” and “Crimson and Clover.” Of the 19 tracks across the two CDs, only one track is by Jeremy and The Lemon Clocks, “Crimson and Clover.”  The other 18 tracks include one original tune, “Revolution #7,” and 17 covers all credited to Jeremy alone, although he brought in various friends to help flesh out his ideas. Side by Side is a true treasures-of-the-60s release covering well-known songs by The Lemon Pipers, Tommy James and The Shondells, Status Quo, Norman Greenbaum, The Move, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Pretty Things, The Byrds, CSN&Y, and oddly enough Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” from 1958. Jeremy Morris is a master of capturing the essence of each song, faithfully recreating the song, and then launching into extended versions with new verses and endless variations on each theme, some up to 18 to 24 minutes in duration! Disc 1 contains five marathon tracks and Disc Two contains 13 tracks in the three to six minute range. The marathon covers  “Green Tambourine,” ‘Crimson and Clover,” “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” and “Spirit in the Sky” are simply stunning in their reimagined brilliance and flights of fancy. Who would have thought that anyone could have improved on the originals? Plus his original instrumental “Revolution #7” is a pseudo-religious acid folk ethereal tune that is quite different from anything else on this set, that morphs very gently into a trippy raga rock jam. And then there is Disc 2 with far too many other excellent covers to enthuse about. One clever take by Jeremy is the melding of The Beatles’ “Dear Prudence” with “Baby, You’re a Rich Man.” Jeremy is not one to shy away from the iconic either. “Interstellar Overdrive” never sounded better, and the closing “Peter Gunn” begins with that familiar riff and morphs into a psych jam soaring to the stratosphere. By all means grab a copy of this excellent set.

Filed under: New releases, 2023 releases

Related artist(s): The Lemon Clocks

More info
http://www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/sidebyside.html

 

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