Ben Vaughn had a dream. No, he didn’t want to change the world, he just wanted to record an album in his beloved 1965 Rambler American. So with an eight-track reel-to-reel in the back seat, an eight-channel mixing board in the front, an isolation booth in the sizable trunk, and mikes, instruments and effects pedals wherever they’d fit, he buckled up, in the process giving a whole new spin to the term ‘garage band’.
While Rambler ’65 will probably be remembered more for its technical achievement, the musical worth of its sparse, lo-fi charm should not be overlooked. A swirling organ riff (a la “Runaway”) and a chugga-chugga melody gives “Boomerang” a freewheeling twist; the infectious “Rock Is Dead” could be the sweetest pop tune the Cars (no pun intended) never wrote; and “Perpetual Motion Machine” is trapped in a psychedelic headspin. The simple and heartfelt “Song for You” and the twangy, guitar-driven “The Only Way to Fly” are also standouts.
Not everything is so resplendent. The plodding “Heavy Machinery” really does sound as though it was recorded in a 30-year-old clunker, and Vaughn’s vocals can be rougher than sandpaper. Yet his ever-present wit makes Rambler ’65 much more than a novelty album. Vaughn’s humor shines through on the rock ‘n’ roll sci-fi tune “Rock is Dead”, and when he gets a laugh out of his own pain on the opening track with a bad pun: “Seven days without love makes one week.”
As for curios, there’s the engine solo out front of “Heavy Machinery”; Vaughn’s foot-stomping floorboard riff on “Seven Days”; and cameo appearances by various unavoidable neighborhood noises. And with traces of rockabilly, R&B, surf music, blue-eyed soul and pop, Rambler ’65 is truly rocking Americana.