Johnny J. Blair – Yellow House

Johnny J. Blair
Yellow House
1988 (no label)
San Francisco, California, USA

Johnny J Blair – Lead and harmony vocals, bass, banjo, drums, drum programming, guitars (acoustic/electric/slide/12 string), Hand percussion, keyboards, violin

Side 1:

1. Dmitri Karamazov Escapes
2. Open The Book
3. Journalistic Girl
4. Teen Reporter Meets the King of African Rockabilly
5. Prayer for a Dying Rhino
6. Apathy
7. Ya Gotta Care (1983 version)
8. Peter Lawford’s Last Words
9. Sho Hideyo
10. Yellow House
11. Eros Obedient
12. Polemics and Derision

Side 2:

1. Do You Wanna Know It?
2. Out of the Noisy Planet
3. Permanent Vacation
4. Seems Like Its Time
5. Richard Quatermaine Was There
6. Holds Me With The Muse
7. Desert Ruby
8. Dreams and Sermons Volume One
9. Dreams and Sermons Volume Two

This is one of many uber collections by Johnny J. Blair. It came with a full page insert that describes the various projects and sources of each song, as well as the long list of the guest musicians that contributed to each one (even though it was still mostly Blair on each one). However, many of these songs seem to come from a band called October than Blair was a part of at one time. You can see by Blair’s BandCamp page that he is very prolific and quite active to this day. As you can guess, the music is a bit all over the place, but in this case it works well. There are several experimental songs, but all tunes would fit generally under the “alternative” label (although many are pure experimentation coolness and others are pure pop goodness).