Paul Kantner, Grace Slick & David Freiberg, Baron Von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun (side A)

1973's Baron Von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun leaps out to an energetic start with "The Ballad of the Chrome Nun" — it strikes me as a sort of precursor to Patti Smith's rock songs, but I'll likely never know whether Smith was influenced by Grace Slick.  There's still some softness here, and throughout the album, that would never be at home on any album associated with punk — the drums are low in the mix and lack impact, while layered vocal harmonies fill the foreground.  The rest of the album generally lacks the drive of "The Ballad of the Chrome Nun", with memorable songs like "Walkin'" alternating with less focused tracks.  Guests range from Jerry Garcia, whose guitar solos are prominently featured, to the Pointer Sisters, who are apparently some of the voices filling the foreground.  Kantner and Slick are working to move away from the overt hippie influences on 1970's Blows Against the Empire, but they haven't settled into the commercial rock template of Jefferson Starship.  The resulting album wanders between these influences, along with some straightforward rock that has a bit in common with late-era Jefferson Airplane — the magic of their talents is obvious in places, but it generally fails to sustain.  The front cover image, which depicts the muscle of human bodies, references nothing, which seems to further reflect the album's confused search for direction.

Toy Love, Live at the Gluepot (side C)

Between the punk rock aggression of the Enemy and the stripped-down duo format of Tall Dwarfs, Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate fronted the pop band Toy Love.  The band also featured future Bats and Minisnap bassist Paul Kean, along with Jane Walker on keyboards and Mike Dooley on drums.  Toy Love's studio recordings have already been compiled on the 2005 double-CD Cuts (and reissued on the Toy Love double LP in 2012).  Live at the Gluepot, also from 2012, captures an entire concert from the group's heyday in 1980.  It includes songs familiar to Toy Love fans, like "Squeeze", "Cold Meat", and "Swimming Pool", alongside undocumented oddities like "2nd to Last Song T.L. Ever Wrote".  For a live recording from the soundboard to cassette, the quality is impressive, if imperfect — the sound is impressively clear, but Knox's funny lyrics are sometimes hard to discern, and the drums sound almost comically dry.  While in the studio, the group seemed to interact in a more unified fashion, here Bathgate's punk rock roots leap out — he often appears to drive ahead of the rest of the group, pulling most noticeably in front of Dooley's more neutral drumming.  It also amazes me that Toy Love played such long headlining sets — Live at the Gluepot fills a double-LP.  The reissue includes a nice booklet with notes, classic photos (in addition to those on the cover), and reproductions of old articles and flyers. 

Robert Wyatt, Nothing Can Stop Us (side A)

1982's Nothing Can Stop Us collects mostly tracks from Robert Wyatt's 1980 and 1981 7" singles.  Side A of the album collects A-sides, and side B collects the equivalent B-sides in the same sequence.  I cannot, however, find evidence of a "Born Again Cretin" / "Red Flag (o.k.?)" 7", and these two songs seem to appear only on the LP.  Two of the singles were splits with other artists, and both B-sides are included here — Disharhi's performance of their song "Trade Union" and Peter Blackman reciting "Stalingrad".  Of the eight Wyatt performances, he only wrote one, the opening "Born Again Cretin".  In the others, he seems to find consistent political content, from the overt lyrics of "Red Flag" and "Stalin Wasn't Stallin'", to his emphasis brought to subtler words in Chic's "At Last, I am Free".  Because the songs were recorded as different singles, the personnel varies, but the sound is surprisingly consistent.  Wyatt uses a similar, bright digital keyboard sound throughout his tracks, and it's generally placed in the foreground.  His voice is recorded to match the keyboard, and other sounds are brought into line in the mix.  The album consistently emphasizes early-80s sonic trends — everything is syntactically clean and bright, despite being a simple and modest recording.  The cover painting, of a worker protesting within the Rolls Royce logo, nicely matches both the political contents and rough-hewn sound quality.