Have been searching about, and there seems to be no dedicated Cowsills thread, so I thought I'd start one. I'm heavily, heavily into them right now; have been looking for the recent-ish documentary A Family Band to watch to fill in my knowledge, but first heard them via the film Dumb & Dumber (of all things), which features 'The Rain The Park & Other Things' very amusingly, but didn't really explore them for another decade or so, until the Painting The Day compilation came out, at which point I heard the IIxII album, and realised that they matched The Association in terms of unheralded high-quality pop-psych and country-rock. I haven't much ventured into their first couple of albums for fear of running into something like 'Siamese Cat' ten times in a row, but the later stuff is a regular feature on my turntable, especially the On My Side album, and the last singles from the original run with Bill returning - I've added 'You (In My Mind)' to the running order of On My Side to get a contribution from Bill in there, which adds to it immensely. Obviously their story (or what I know of it) is horrible and tragic, especially Bill & Barry, and Bud Cowsill makes Murry Wilson look like a contender for Father Of The Year. But the music is just incredible. And, I just learnt that Bill was slated to join The Beach Boys in the mid-70s (maybe as a replacement for Blondie?), but Eugene Landy nixed this. Ironic then that John Cowsill has been their drummer and keyboard player for the last few years.
The excellent Bridey Murphy single. Band consisted of Waddy Wachtel, Bill, Barry and Paul Cowsill and (briefly) Lindsay Buckingham.
DO track down that Family Band dvd.......it's both happy and unbelievably sad and poignant....and lotsa great music on it, lets not forget!!
"Indian Lake" is to me one of the finest pop records ever recorded. I just love that song, and it rocks!
John Cowsill on The Beach Boys 50th tour was simply amazing. Kept everything just right for the songs but with some great new energy. I had no idea who he was, but he's one of the best drummers I've ever seen live.
When I was a little kid I thought they were really cool. Still play 'em once in a while and they bring back good memories.
We recently saw The Cowsills in Atlanta as part of the Happy Together tour. They sang The Rain, The Park & Other Things, We Can Fly, Indian Lake, Love American Style and Hair. Yes, they stole the show.
also track down their cd Global from 1998.....excellent disc, and their song Is It Any Wonder (also released on Yellow Pills: The Best of American Pop, Volume 1, a great compilation from 1993) and it's one of THE BEST pop/power pop songs EVER, imho!!!
He was a phenomenal addition to that tour. He channeled some thunderous Denny sounds while being a better technical player. I was almost as happy seeing him playing drums as I was tickled to see all those old guys playing together for what I am pretty sure was the last time.
I'd have a hard time thinking of any album as consistently excellent as Global that got so little attention. My favorite track is "What I Believe" but the entire album is awesome.
This was the Cowsills track on Susan's last solo album. Written by Barry and featuring all the surviving members. It's ridiculously good.
The On My Side album shown above is great-- I was wowed by it on first listen. Very much in line with the Millennium and stuff like that. It took me a long time to get around to hearing it since I had some preconceived notions about the Cowsills being cheesy family entertainment, but they were seriously as good as anybody in the soft pop/psych genre.
What makes them so appealing is that all of them are great vocalists too- once they got past the awkward child-to-adolescent phase, each of them kicked major behind on lead. There's a clip of them post-Bill playing at the Playboy Mansion which is all sorts of creepy, but Barry really nails IIxII live. A real revelation .
Speaking of the Atlanta show, here is their performance of Hair that night. Including the censored verse. Their vocals still sound great.
