Peacock notes, on West Coast Diaries #1, by Robert Longman Jr.

Back in 1986, Charlie Peacock released a self-titled album on
Island Records (the same label as U2). It didn't do badly for a
few weeks, and had a bona-fide chart contender in "Down In the
Lowlands". Trouble is, most areas never got any of it to sell,
the record folks pushed a much weaker track as the 'single', then
compounded the mistake by not pressing the 'single' for sale.
The PR was killed within two weeks of release; not unprecedented,
but always foolish, since people don't buy records they don't know
about, especially with no radio play due to the 'single' screwup.

A year later, Peacock, thinking that another album was already in
the works, promised his fans at certain rock festivals that he
would have new music for them by festival-time next year. 1987
became 1988. Island dumped him, and noone was signing him. And
he had *promised* something new. To Peacock, promises are made
to be kept -- it's a matter of faith in a God who keeps promises.
So, he kept the promise in the only way he could. He gathered up
the demonstration tracks he had recorded over the last four years
in his attempts to be signed by a record label or to have major
stars use his songs. He mastered them, and made up a thousand or
so cassette copies to sell at the festivals. And sell they did.

Diaries #1 had 13 songs. Ten of these were demonstration tapes.
No album contract came from them, but Philip Bailey recorded "This
Is How the Work Gets Done", and "Only Love Will Hold Fast" was
done by the cast of the TV show *Fame* on one segment. One song
('Tears Rolling Down') was a track recorded but not used for
Peacock's first Lp *Lie Down In the Grass*. Another ('My Mind
Played A Trick On Me') was recorded off-the-cuff in the studio
control room, with only a quick going-over of the chords with
Jimmy Abegg just before the recording found here. The last track,
"Whole Lot Different", was a version of one of the *Lie Down*
tracks done up as they did it in concert.


WCD #1 Highlights :

Song #1 : "This Is How the Work Gets Done", funky dance stuff.
The idea is that we build on what others do, and others will build
on what we do, adding gift to gift, multiplying the effects,
creating something worthwhile. Noone can do it all by
themselves.

Song #3 : "Hot Night Downtown" follows the music to where it lives -
- in clubs, stores, parties, the nightlife places. Peacock's Exit
Records colleague and 77s leader Mike Roe is set into this by
name, as if to say to Roe fans, 'this is where we Christians ought
to be making our music'. Trouble is, (a) you'd only know that if
you'd heard of Mike Roe, and very few people had/have; (b) outside
of a few Sacramento gigs and a few LA showcases, Roe wasn't heard
much live (due in part to label problems worse than Peacock's!).
So be naive to that trick, and just enjoy a good track.

Song #7 : "The Way Of Love" is one of many songs where Peacock
describes what he sees love between people is like, in its truest
senses. "I like a love that keeps no record of wrongs/
Loves me when I'm good, loves me when I'm not"
It is also the song that has changed the most due to live
performance; compare this version to that on *The Secret Of Time*.


Song #10 : "Big Man's Hat", original version. (Like "The Way Of
Love", there are three : WCD #1, WCD #2's live acoustic version,
and the full done-up version found on 1990's *The Secret Of
Time*.) It's about Peacock's time as an up-and-coming phenomenon
in California underground clubs. He started to act the part,
with all the trappings : the lies, the booze, the ladies, the
scene, the threads. And, at least back then, he didn't know a
lot about music, he was just brazenly assertive. Which led to
the next song....

Song #11 : "My Mind Played A Trick On Me". Peacock had written
this to express a turning point in his life -- when he realized
what his alcoholism and carousing was doing to his wife, when she
had to put her foot down. The starkness and freshness of the non-
production heighten effect of the bottom-hitting lyric. The
moment it recalls was the bottom for Peacock, and he was very
hesitant to start doing this song live, even after its WCD #1
release.