Search - Guess Who :: Canned Wheat

Great stuff

BENJAMIN MILER | Veneta, Oregon | 10/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Too often, many people would write off The Guess Who as a singles band mostly capable of delivering some hits and pretty much ignoring their albums, aside from a Greatest Hits package. Too bad, as Canned Wheat, their second from RCA demonstrates, that they were fully capable of making great albums too!



Here you get treated with the original version of "No Time". We all know the hit version that appeared on their following album American Woman, that version was edited, with some of the more hostile lyrics at the end removed. Here, you get to hear it all in its original glory. There's also an extra guitar solo you don't hear on the more familiar hit version. The album did spawn two big hits, with "Laughing" and "Undun". The former tends to be rather pop-oriented, while the latter has a rather jazzy feel. There's also the wonderful acoustic piece "6 A.M. or Nearer". I really love how the band suddenly gives us a jazzy passage with flute, certainly making them far more than a typical AM dial pop/rock group that some might dismiss them as. "Of a Dropping Pin" is another one of my favorite, but I have to say "Key" would be the album's crowning glory if Garry Peterson didn't waste around 3/4 of this piece with a drum solo. "Key" itself starts off great, with nice use of acoustic guitar, and a great electric guitar solo from Randy Bachman, although I find the biblical lyrics a bit hard to take in. The album closes with "Fair Warning". It's basically one of the band members, speaking in a pseudo-Scottish accent warning everyone the dangers of being a rock star and that you're better off not being one.



Except for the excessive drum solo on "Key", this is an excellent collection of songs proving the Guess Who really do deserve more credit."

With all Due Respect . . .

mzocoh | Beautiful New Hampshire | 06/28/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The following review USED to be part of the reviews of this album (which I like the album, by the way) - the review is, in my opinion, one of the finest works of art ever put to print, I happened on it one day long ago and just now noticed that it had "expired" from the site - I saved it to a text file when I originally found it, so here it is, deservingly relisted! . . . it's brilliant.



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my uncle's fav!!!, June 23, 2004





Reviewer: A music fan



Guess what? My uncle Curtis loves this CD. His brother gave it to him for his birthday and he plays it every weekend when me and my sister stay over at his house. He makes us these really funky pancakes on Sunday morning and he dances around the kitchen in his funky blue bathrobe singing along to "She Come Un-done." Which is really a groovy song even my sister Caitlyn like. It was so funny last weekend we were at Curtis house and he had been taking medicine for his stomach but he hadn't eaten anything in three days. He was acting really goofy. He puts on the Guess Who and starts air drumming to "The Key." It has this drum solo that last for an hour and Curtis was rolling up newspapers and making them into drum sticks. He starts hitting the newspapers on the kitchen table. Next thing you know he slams one of the newspapers into his ash tray and it goes flying up in the air and ashes got all over my sisters scrambled eggs! Then the cat jump on the table and the cat got swatted with a newspaper and my uncle turned up the CD really loud. But he loves the music. Its like he goes into a time warp and he starts burning this incense that he has had since 1977. It smells like stale perfume but he says to us: this is what we did in the 70's. But the worse thing he did is he slammed his head into this twisty lamp that he has coming down from the ceiling. He has probably hit his head thirty times on this stupid thing. But this time was the worse. He was screaming in agony. First his face went red and he was just really silent then he started yelling explotives and me and my sister like it was our fault. Then my sister told my mom that he cussed at us and she yell at Curtis for being a bad role model! Uncle curtis is sort of the black sheep of the family. Last thangsgiving he spent the whole day in the garage trying to put together an old train set. But he loves old music the best. I tell you when he listens to the Guess Who he is just happy as a kid in a candy store. He sings along to "These Eyes" and even the dog starts howling and singing along! That's the magic of my uncle. Even if he puts tin foil in his kitchen window and doesn't shave on the weekends and read the Sunday funnies like it's front page news! He still tells my sister: one day I'm selling everything I own and moving to Bermuda. But one thing is for sure, he will never sell his Guess Who albums!"