The Cars - The Cap'n Swing Years (1974-1976)

This is basically a completely unreleased, and rarely bootlegged, studio album by the Cars. Not a great one, mind you, since the band was still finding its sound, but if you like the Cars you should like this.

Get comfortable, because in order to explain this album, I need some time to explain the basics about the pre-history of the Cars. The two lead singers in the band, Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr, were lifelong best friends (though they had some estranged years after the Cars broke up). They met way back in 1968, while they were both living in Cleveland, Ohio, as teenagers. They began collaborating musically, and were involved together in numerous bands that had little success. 

Their biggest success came in 1972, when the band they were in, "Milkwood," put out a studio album called "How's the Weather?" This album soon went out of print, and has stayed out of print. If you listen to it today, it's strange, because the voices are clearly recognizable as Ocasek and Orr, but the music is totally different. Blowing with the musical winds of the time, they sounded very much like a mellow Crosby, Stills and Nash, with lots of vocal harmonies and acoustic guitars. I considered putting a song or two from that album on this album, but it's average stuff and the style would be wildly out of place. However, note that one song here, "Dream Trader," was originally on the Milkwood album, but the version here is a 1976 remake with a drastically different, and more rocking, arrangement.

Milkwood, a trio, fell apart soon after their album failed to sell. Ocasek and Orr moved to Boston, and they continued trying to make it in the music business, but still without music success. The timing isn't clear, but sometime between 1973 and 1975, they were joined by Elliott Easton, who would stay as the lead guitarist for the Cars. 

The first three songs here come from 1974. I know very little about them. I don't even know what band name they were using at the time, although "Richard and the Rabbits" is a possibility, since that was used for a while in this time period. But presumably these three songs are originals by Ocasek, who wrote the vast majority of songs for the Cars, especially in the early years. The mellow Milkwood sound was gone and the Cars sound was starting to form.

Some time in early 1976, the band changed their name again, to "Cap'n Swing." By this time, Greg Hawkes had joined them. He'd been occasionally playing with Ocasek and Orr for a couple of years, but he'd had other musical commitments to fulfill for a while. He would become the permanent keyboard player for the Cars.

At first, the band was completed by a drummer named Glenn Evans and a bass player named Kevin Robichaud. Neither would last to the Cars. (Orr would eventually take the bass player spot while continuing to sing.)

This five-member band began having lots of success in the Boston area. They recorded some demos and got an opportunity to take them to New York City, with hopes of getting a record contract. But this didn't go well. Easton later recalled, "We took [the tape of demos] back to Boston with our tails between our legs." It's likely that most of the songs here are from that demo tape. The first three songs are from 1974, as I mentioned previously, and "Lover and a Holiday" was recorded by Cap'n Swing in 1976, but at a different session. Versions of most of these songs appeared on the Internet, but only since around 2020 have most of them shown up with the excellent sound quality you hear here, after a band member leaked better versions to the public.

Listening to these songs, I can understand why the record companies rejected them. The band was getting better, but they still hadn't perfected their own style. On one hand, they were heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground and the similar sounding Modern Lovers. On the other hand, they were heavily influenced by Steely Dan. Apparently, some record executives specifically complained that many of their songs went on too long, with lots of jazzy keyboard noodling in a Steely Dan style that didn't suit the songs. 

Ocasek and Orr took this advice to heart. Back in Boston, they shortened their songs, cut out most of the jazzy noodling, and moved towards a more rocking direction. Unfortunately, we don't have any Cap'n Swing recordings from after they made that stylistic change. 

But they didn't stay as Cap'n Swing for long in any case. Around the start of 1977, they got a new drummer, David Robinson. This was a promising development, because he'd previously been the drummer for the Modern Lovers, which I mentioned already as one of their biggest influences. He would stay on as the permanent drummer for the Cars. He also disliked the band name, "Cap'n Swing," which is an objectively bad name. The way "Captain" gets shortened is strange, and having "Swing" in the name implied they played swing music from the 1940s, which they definitely did not. Robinson suggested "The Cars," and that name stuck. They began playing as the Cars in January 1977, and thereafter went from success to success, helped by the changes they'd made. In 1978, their debut album "The Cars" was released, and it went on to become one of the most critically and commercially successful debut albums of the era.   

So now you know all about Cap'n Swing. I'm calling this a "Cars" album because A) I think the name Cap'n Swing is awful, and B) they effectively were the Cars already, with only a change of drummers to come. (Besides, the first three songs are from before they used the Cap'n Swing name.)

Let me explain some more about the music here. I've included most of the songs from this time period I could find. However, I didn't include some songs, especially from the 1974 session, because I didn't think they were good enough. I also didn't include a few 1976 songs. I passed on "Bye Bye Love," because that was released on the debut album in a better version. Another song, "Twilight Superman," was so clearly "inspired" by "Sweet Jane" by the Velvet Underground that it's best forgotten. A couple more might have been worthy, but had poor sound quality.

Furthermore, after hearing all these songs, I had to agree with the record company execs who complained that their songs went on too long, with too much jazzy noodling. So to make this more palatable, I've made drastic cuts to six songs (the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles). In the most drastic example, "City Lights" originally was six and a half minutes long, but I've edited it down to three minutes. Trust me, you're not missing much with these cuts. For instance, a majority of the cuts got rid of repeated verses and/or choruses that just repeated what happened earlier in the songs. But if you want to hear the full versions, they all can be found on YouTube and other places. Oh, and also, I edited all the songs to boost the lead vocals in the mix. For many of the songs, the vocals were buried way down.

Interestingly, with the exception of "Bye Bye Love," virtually none of these songs would go on to become Cars songs. It is said Cap'n Swing played "You're All I've Got Tonight," from the Cars debut album, in concert, but apparently they never made a studio version of it. I've previously posted an album of Cars non-album tracks, which you can find here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-cars-take-me-now-various-songs-1977.html

Most of those are from 1977 and 1978, and were not released at the time, Yet all or most of all of those songs are different than the Cap'n Swing songs. So at least two albums worth of songs were left unreleased. I'm sure there are more songs from the early and mid-1970s that didn't get recorded, or the recordings didn't survive. I suppose one key reason the Cars' debut album is so good is because Ocasek and Orr had spent well over a decade working up to it, and they discarded many songs along the way.

By the way, note that most Cars songs are sung by Ocasek, though there are some key exceptions sung by Orr, such as "Just What I Needed," "Let's Go," and "Drive." Their voices are very similar, so it's often hard to tell. (They claimed this was because they sang together for so long, especially through their formative years.) But back in this time period, the vast majority of the songs were sung by Orr (who arguably had the better voice). I could be wrong, but I think the only song here sung by Ocasek is "City Lights," while "Dream Trader" has shared lead vocals between Ocasek and Orr.

All of this material remains unreleased because members of the Cars consider it "juvenile" material they would just as soon forget. For similar reasons, they've never allowed the Milkwood album to be released. But while I don't hear any lost classics here, I think this is a pretty decent bunch of songs (especially after the edits and remixing).

One song, "Will You Still Love Me Tonight," is a bonus track. I actually think it's one of the better songs, but it's downgraded due to sound quality. This is one of only three live Cap'n Swing songs I've found. (The others, "Strawberry Moonlight" and "Start It All Again," sound better in their studio versions.)

01 Harlequin (Cars)
02 I Need Spring (Cars)
03 Start It All Again (Cars)
04 Strawberry Moonlight (Cars)
05 Jezebel [Edit] (Cars)
06 Goes On Sleeping [Edit] (Cars)
07 You're Always Brighter [Edit] (Cars)
08 City Lights [Edit] (Cars)
09 Dream Trader (Cars)
10 You Can Have 'Em [Blue Moon Saloon] (Cars)
11 Come Back Down [Edit] (Cars)
12 Magic Pants [Crazy Rock and Roll] [Edit] (Cars)
13 Lover and a Holiday [See Through My Eyes] (Cars)

Will You Still Love Me Tonight (Cars) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16173958/THCRS1974-1976_ThCpnSwngYrs_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a bit of a mystery. From right to left, it shows Ben Orr, Elliott Easton, Greg Hawkes, Ric Ocasek, and Danny Lewis. The first four would go on to be members of the Cars, but Lewis was the drummer briefly, before David Robinson became the drummer. So this probably is from late 1976, right before Cap'n Swing was renamed the Cars. It's the only photo of the band that I could find.