I was sick for nearly the whole month of April. At the beginning of the month I was looking forward to the great records I would be getting for my regrettably 38th birthday (with my trouble-plagued life I don't think I wanted to live this long that's how I feel a lot of the time unfortunately), but when my birthday came I'd already had horrible bronchitis for a week and would continue to have it for another week and even at the end of May I'm still sick with the after effects and what may be another plague. Personal stuff I know, but when life is shite I feel like letting you know why my life has been SO SHITE THAT I COULDN'T GET BACK HERE FOR OVER A MONTH!
-A Lot Of Great Music Came, But The Biggest One Was Not The Most Expensive Fields And Megaton Are The Two Best-
It's nice to have all the great records I got for my birthday, but the one that cost the most although an absolute masterwork by an unlikely name (Incredible Hog- how much stupider a name could there be for a serious band?) is outclassed by two old standbys that I now fortunately have back- Fields from England on Dutch original press and the German/Anglo Megaton. All three however, are albums made at a time when anything in the world seemed possible. England was full of amazing bands as was most of Europe. Incredible Hog play music that is melodic heavy psych with brutal lyrics to a lot of the tracks and that downer vibe may be one reason why I listen more to Fields and Megaton. Fields gave me a lot of listening pleasure when I first heard it and it most certainly has not tarnished with the passing of the years. The songs are uniformly excellent and the performances stunning in their power, depth, and feeling. I would say that Incredible Hog takes some time to get used to the various different things going on which have me convinced about the quality, but the lyrics could have been a bit less like a sledgehammer and more like the whimsical nature of the group's name. You still should look for it, though, but look for Fields and the more affordable German original of Megaton (somewhat more affordable than over $1,000 that is!!!) first.
Fields from 1971 were a break off group by Graham Field of Rare Bird who sought to form a more down to earth band than the pretentious prog rock of his former group with Andrew McCullough from King Crimson's seminal LIZARD on drums and vocalist/session guitarist Alan Barry making a huge difference. Although Fields are a trio they have a far richer sound than Rare Bird who were a quartet with the rather risky instrumentation of two keyboards and no guitar. Graham Field wrote or co wrote much of Rare Bird's material on their first two albums, but he was saving his best or just put more into it to make it his best for Fields.
The difference is remarkable. Alan Barry replaces the low bellowing harshness of Steve Gould with a high pitched, strong, and piercing yet very melodic voice and Fields may best be described as an early Pomp Rock band where British melodic rock and progressive inclinations meet. I've known Fields for a very long time, but I never lose interest in music that never loses impact. So here's the secret formula to making music that works- you go for strong songs AND THEN THE CHOPS!
I will give a song by song analysis as part 2 of my entry here on Fields and the also brilliant and amazing Anglo/German hard rock pop psych masters Megaton are gonna be my next post.
-Fields Put Together One Of The Strongest Albums Ever Made Here Are The Songs-
The first track "A Friend Of Mine" begins with epic classically inspired organ solos and riffs supported by virtuoso bass from Alan and astonishingly played drums from Andrew who was a key contributor into why LIZARD may have been King Crimson's career best. Then there are a few notes ringing out bell like from the organ before the song settles into a beautiful romantic sparkling progressive pop number that features great lyrics, soaring vocals, and amazing playing from all three of the musicians. I think Graham Field faced up to the whole truth behind why Rare Bird were at best a pretty good and never a great band and at worst dire. The problem with Rare Bird was the plodding samey tempos, the overindulgent strained vocals, and hackneyed lyrics that too often replaced the good things that the band had. Fields made me lose interest in Rare Bird. I had been a huge fan of them before I heard songs like "A Friend Of Mine" where the pretentious doom-obsessed musings are left to bands more capable of that kind of very English darkness. Fields have an optimism about them that's much more refreshing than the always brooding nature of Rare Bird's music.
"While The Sun Still Shines" is an Alan Barry composition. Graham Field wrote most of the album and Alan Barry contributed 3 songs. This song is very melodic pop rock with strong vocals, great melodies, and that missing ingredient from Rare Bird- a guitar! Alan is quite a good guitar player and a fantastic singer. His voice is on the high end of tenor, but never shrill or overindulgent. I don't think anyone could possibly dislike this album if they are in their right mind. It's a good pick up album when I'm depressed. I sure can't say that for Rare Bird! The words to this song are all about traveling and being carefree, going wherever you may go to find that most elusive thing many of us, me included, have none of- a comfortable life.
"Not So Good" takes the concept of protest and statement songs and doesn't bash them into you. Instead, this song is something I can agree with completely. Like what comes before it and after it the whole sound is far off from Rare Bird, so far off that it makes me wonder if Rare Bird had the same effect on Graham Field that they have on me! Rare Bird fans will rave about his keyboards, but they'll need to make their ears a lot more open minded to appreciate Fields for what they are- a band between progressive, power pop, and rock not the bombast of Graham Field's former group. "Not So Good" is about growing troubles in England and the world. People are unhealthy and selfish and politicians never stop scheming and doing wrong. The lyrics are particularly concerned with environmental issues and political intrusion into the vast public's lives. Sort of a 1984 like concept, but not as dark as that would suggest. Sadly, today's world is exactly what "Not So Good" is a protest about- "We've got to fight and hold it tight/We've lost our air/Lost our food/Our clothes and homes/Don't touch our minds" is the key line in the chorus. The melodies are more Beatles than Keith Emerson and the vocal is high and confident which again put the song at odds with what Rare Bird had done.
"Three Minstrels" is a very romantic and uplifting song about 3 musicians who make magical happiness with Medieval folk influences in the phrasing of the verses and the lyrics and pure rock for the basis of the song. It doesn't get more perfect than this song and usually "perfect" doesn't exist. I would, again, not suggest this to progressive only buffs, but I would say that a lot of the early progressive bands aimed at writing melodic songs so you should give Fields a try even if you are an arch prog fanatic which oddly I was when I first got into their album. "Three Minstrels" is Yes if they were a rock band not a progressive rock band with long tracks or Genesis without the dithering they occasionally wandered into. Yes combined progressive with solid rock so there's a bit of a similarity between them and Fields particularly in the vocal department. I think Jon Anderson is the best voice in the world of progressive rock together with Peter Gabriel at his best. Both of them had a warmth and honesty that many other singers in that genre lack. A human element must be retained. I would say that despite the fact that he was always overdoing it and going crazy Martin Griffiths in Beggar's Opera more so because of his weaknesses than his strengths sounded human and listenable, but for bad machine made prog I think you know what's coming- Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and their ilk. Unlike some people who laugh at E.L.P and find them unintentionally funny I find it sad. Three of the best musicians in the world and they just didn't ever gel for a full album with the promising first 4 albums that all had some good songs giving way to the worst trash ever recorded by a famous progressive band. Pete Sinfield should be ashamed of himself for the lyrics he wrote for them. I saw them live in 1997 and I will have to admit how shockingly good they were in concert. Nobody expected them to put on such a great show. How sad that the hugely talented Emerson, Lake, and Palmer didn't gel on record after some bright spots on their early ones. I prefer The Nice even though I prefer Greg Lake's voice to the harsher Lee Jackson. "Three Minstrels" is what Emerson, Lake, and Palmer would have sounded like had the pretensions been thrown out the window.
"Slow Susan" is one of two instrumentals. The closing track on side one it certainly is very slow and atmospheric. Fields on the whole are a pastoral progressive rock/pop group of the highest order and it is only because of the Rare Bird connection I think that they aren't mentioned with bands as great as The Parlour Band and The Dog That Bit People. There's some beautiful melodies and a sweet sound to the organ that I wish more progressive bands had. Keyboards are the only instrument here with no drums and I never notice any bass either. It's a solo showcase for the talents of band namesake Field.
Side Two follows the exact same path as Side One. The first track is the prog rock blow out and then a much more melodic rock oriented sound for the rest of the side. "Over And Over," like "A Friend Of Mine," is a melodic progressive track based around heavy dramatic organ work and strong vocals. Alan Barry's delicious phrasing makes this song great to listen to when you're depressed. So does the sentiment that things are getting better instead of worse. I wish I could say that for my life and for the world. This song has a melodic power and conviction to it that place it up with the best in the progressive genre. There's some roaring organ work, powerful thundering drums, and thick heavy bass capturing a power that E.L.P seldom reached. However, this one track does have some similarities to Emerson Lake and Palmer, but with a Beatles influence (McCartney) that makes it far more palatable. Lyrically, again a statement is made. The song is about how the world is turning into a better place, but how law enforcement is corrupt and vile. It may sound like a "Hippie Sentiment" when actually it is far deeper than that. I find most police now don't abuse their power, but I ran into the most obnoxious bastard in the world last week who happens to be a nasty little cop literally. Don't generalize. This song says not to generalize. It also says a better time is here if we can open up to it.
"Feeling Free" like "While The Sun Still Shines" on Side One is more melodic rock than progressive rock. Again everything is perfectly done. The melodies are top class, the vocals are great, and the playing is superb. If you're as interested in the evolution of music in the 60s, 70s, and 80s as I am then you'll probably like me find this album to be essential. I never would have imagined so much progress made just by Field starting a new band especially one called "Fields" which gives an impression it will be a showcase for extravagant organ solos. He's clearly more interested in the songs than in showing off his prowess as a master of bashing an organ in. "Feeling Free" is about getting closer to nature, about living in a beautiful house on a hill and appreciating all the beauty that you are ignoring. A very goodhearted song.
"Fair Haired Lady" is one of two Alan Barry compositions on Side Two of the album and is a wonderful romantic ballad with soothing vocals, acoustic guitar, and sweet woodwinds making for a song that calms the mind instead of bringing you down. Instead of an angst-ridden break up song it simply says "We had a nice thing at the time, but I think I'll move on now." I wish I could find it that easy not to be seduced by happy events in the distant or recent past. This is a really nice and mellow song- very much something that like the whole album could have gained enough airplay to be a hit.
"A Place To Lay My Head" rocks. It's the rockiest song on the record with sharp guitar lines, strong vocals, and a power pop as opposed to progressive rock sound. Fields broke out of what Rare Bird had been in which was mostly a quagmire of boredom. I know I'm sounding really hard on Graham Field's former band, but I find it irritating that Rare Bird were always going over the top in the wrong way and that Steve Gould had a voice that seemed to be aiming for ugliness. I wish it had been Fields with the long career and not Rare Bird although funnily enough after Graham Field left Rare Bird recorded the excellent melodic progressive album EPIC FOREST which went much more in the direction of The Parlour Band or Fields (I wonder if that was intentional) than anything on their first two releases. Of course, it didn't go over well with their fan base and of course the good period for Rare Bird only lasted for one album. I know how hard I am being on a once favourite band, but ever since I heard Fields I heard what Rare Bird lacked in nearly all aspects of their music. "A Place To Lay My Head" and the whole Fields album couldn't have been done by Rare Bird and I find it very surprising to hear the difference in Graham Field once he's out on his own with total freedom and far superior musicianship and vocals. This is such a great album. An absolute gem and a masterwork.
"The Eagle" closes the album in splendid fashion and is the third song on the album written by Alan Barry. It's also the most progressive track, an instrumental with guitar featured much more prominently than keyboards. Fields jam here. They stretch out and go for the throat, but keep the strong melodic sense. "The Eagle" also features a mellotron which is a very nice touch to the song. There's lots of amazing guitar work, great melodies, and real power and emotion. This is one of the best albums of progressive melodic rock with wide appeal, great songs, and is uplifting much more so than most progressive albums are maybe because they are more rock oriented than chops oriented. Don't wait until you've finished your progressive listening for the day, put this record on first and take it from there. Anyone who appreciates great music needs to own this amazing album. Fields are a somewhat harder rocking pastoral progressive/melodic rock band and for that sound their album is one of the best in a genre full of great albums that unfortunately were oftentimes one-offs. Fields would split up after just one album which is really a shame. I wish they could have gone on much longer.
I don't know where my future is headed. It could be to a brighter life or it could be to an untimely end. I find so much anger and rage in me at things that I can't change or control and that is very hard to deal with. VERY HARD. I wish people would not be so pigheaded, selfish, and bellicose, but all three of those things are what Amerika is all about. This country needs a right proper kick in the arse. We've been abusing each other, abusing the world, and holding the world hostage for too long. I realized a long time ago there was nothing I could do about that, but it doesn't exactly help me to know there isn't anything I can do about it. I would like to make the world a better place, but making my own life a better one is about all I can try to do. I urge people to care more about nature and other people. I have experienced disgusting behavior in the last two months that have made me hate Amerika even more than I already hate it. This country was only good in the 60s and during the part of the 70s where people would rise up and speak out against the injustices of our nation. I would like there to be more upheavals and a heavy punishment sentence handed out to us, but that is unlikely to happen in the near future or at all. I can't resort to irrational behavior. I won't resort to it because it gets me nowhere. I'm hoping for better times ahead and time will show me whether it will be more of the same painful misery or to a happy, safe, and less draining life. Right now music is helping me in a huge way. I suggest it to you as a remedy for your issues. Peace out don't go crazy. Live for the right reasons and the right beliefs. These are things that you and I should know by now are priceless. I wish the good people well and the bad people Hell. Here I sign off and leave you with this recommendation- go for a listen to great favourite music or purchase great music. Give up on the whole political thing because there is no hope for it to improve now that we've been too blind to change it before it could get this ugly. Just live a better life if you can yourself.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
After A Long Low Period My Tale Of Revelations And Finally Becoming A Better Person- Hail Britannia! (Especially The British Army And Royal Navy)
My longest period away from writing a blog entry now will be fully paid back for by a long and extensive look into how much help came my way from the brilliant music of 9.30 Fly and other top flight British bands and the best organization in the world- The British Army.
Rewind back to January/February of this year I had walking pneumonia and my life was in complete and total disarray and misery. Not only was I physically sick for the entire beginning of this year I was not helping myself get over personal and emotional problems kept private here as all things about even the recent past no longer have any relevance and I've put them in the grave. To face the truth of being a record junkie who was wasting his whole life getting ripped off on Discogs and Musicstack and living in a fabricated view of the past that had brought my life the past 4 years down into a pit of worthlessness came after I was hit by a revelation that came not surprisingly after a long period away from the record addiction. This revelation hit me like a good hard blow and awakened me. Here is my story and I'd especially appreciate any comments from currently serving British soldiers and if someone from 9.30 Fly sees this post.
There was something known as The British Invasion which happened quite a long time ago that was a musical invasion and a huge earth shaker that leveled the Yanks and changed the world. After the excitement of the early rock and roll era had died music in America had gone stale and nobody would ever have thought that was going to change. It was sterile, boring, uninspired, and America was typically clueless to anything happening elsewhere. Over in the UK in 1962-1963 thousands of bands were in the midst of a revolution. They were picking up their own instruments and invented the "Self Contained Band" which has been firmly in place since The Beatles exploded onto an unsuspecting world in 1963/1964. What had began as Skiffle music took on a new form when early rock, blues, soul, R&B, jazz, folk and other British traditions were joined together in the kind of inventiveness only Britain could come up with. At the start most of this hugely exciting music and cultural revolution was kept to England and Germany where down and out British bands went to work. It would take some time for the music to be good enough for an international breakthrough, but unlike most other inventions musical or otherwise the fine tuning of British rock happened at the speed of light. America was reeling from post war gloom, the Blacklisting and Witch Hunting period, and the shocking assassination of president John Fitzgerald Kennedy. It seemed the country was dead and in true fact it was dead from its inception. Things had to be uprooted and on the unsuspecting Yanks in 1964 The Beatles stormed onto our shores. Who were these guys with their Northern English sexy accents and Mop Top hair who changed the world for good was what most Americans wondered. Soon every girl was in love with John, Paul, George and Ringo and in no time music and the world were changed for eternity by England. The Beatles did what had never been done before and the ensuing "Beatlemania" is hardly anything to be surprised at they were/are so special.
The Beatles are still something to be marveled at. They did what no one before them had done with four part vocal harmonies, jangling guitars playing chords and scales they themselves created, and went from a well kept British secret who were already adulated in England to a worldwide revolution. The Beatles began like most bands would with a mixture of original material and cover versions, but with each successive album there came more originals, more startlingly exotic sounds, and more maturity to prove this was going to be a lasting phenomenon and soon it wasn't like a dream. The Yanks and the World had been conquered by the British and other bands began to arrive on the scene with in many cases enough power and originality to be as meaningful as The Beatles. America was terrified of England when it came to authorities and parents, but the kids couldn't get enough of The British Invasion. Bands as diverse as the hard blues rock of The Rolling Stones and The Animals, the brash hard rock of The Kinks that would later find Ray and Dave Davies coming up with an entirely different melodic very British brand of storyteller's thinking man's music, and the mellower jazz and Baroque inspired Zombies changed the world for good, but also were banned from touring the States until the stupid bans against these musical warriors got lifted and America was blasted down by thee bands who accomplished what The Redcoats should have accomplished back in the 1700s. Next thing you know America would find itself in the midst of the counterculture and some good homegrown British inspired bands like The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Doors, Love, the electric Dylan and actually quite a few others.
My own life has held a longtime love of England, but I couldn't feel love for way too long I could only dwell on the distant past. It would take England to make me fall head over heels in love and change my life forevermore. What happened was I was beginning to get stronger and heal. I was beginning to spend more and more time away from the deadly sickness accumulating over graded overpriced worthlessness in the mail, and after about 200 disasters too many something had to happen, something huge. Getting back an even better copy of what is one of the rarest British albums and probably the best too 9.30 Fly helped tremendously, but at the beginning of this month I was watching a lot of The British Army on YouTube and spending more time with British soldiers on the phone. The inspiration started to come about and then all of a sudden I was hit by a revelation and a huge awakening. The past was unclouded all of a sudden and the miserable life of being a teenager and all the ugliness of those years was revealed. Then I got inspired to write song lyrics and then before I could go one inch back into the morass I was in I fell madly in love with England again and now began writing about real issues in my life and the real love that took me over and made me the man I am today. I could go on further about how I saw the past for what it was, but since it would be traumatic to relive the lies, destruction, and pain I suffered and inflicted then I will speak no further on the subject. Love is a healthy addiction to have and I'd say the only healthy addiction. When love hits your life so does inspiration and so does a total break from whatever disease you suffer. I will state firmly that if you, like me, have suffered from a devastating addiction the only way you'll ever get over it is to not only replace it, but to take a long hard look at what your life has turned into because of it. Is that easier said than done? Unfortunately, yes. I really was hit by an explosion, rocked to the core by England and my love for that country all of a sudden. It happened as if by magic, but I know something must have grabbed me in my mind and my heart and made me look at the mess I had created and the disaster I had brought on against myself, my family, and my loved ones. All that is dead now, though. All that matters is right now: The Present. Also what matters in a huge way is The Future which will see me back in my true home of England the best country in the world.
The new lyrics and musical inspirations are a Godsend. I'm no longer afraid to express my desires and beliefs and when I turn the basic songs into actual musical reality it will be amazing. I not only have ditched the addiction, but another awakening is how full of absolute shite the protest movement and all the Do Gooders are. The Hippie movement spawned some amazing music, but most of the amazing music came from England and Europe and was created by an entirely different mindset. 9.30 Fly, Philwit & Pegasus, World Of Oz, and most all of the wondrous music from 1967 through 1989 are a perfect case in point. Kestrel would be another good band to mention. 9.30 Fly is probably the best band to discuss here. Sounding as dark as a Gothic Cathedral, as mystic as a forest full of strange creatures and madcap Human friends dancing about it, as English as the clash of swords in Medieval combat and the roar of guns against an enemy brought to their knees, as English as the majestic beauty of that country itself and people themselves 9.30 Fly despite a horrendous amount of getting slammed by critics are something truly incredible. The group are based around the husband and wife team of Michael (Lead vocals and all songwriting) and Barbara (vocals, keyboards) Wainright and the 7 tracks that make up their album have a dark, haunting, and somewhat eerie yet very evocative sound that ranges from psychedelic folk rock to progressive flourishes with an entirely original take on songwriting and also from guitarist Lyn Oakley savage outbursts of roaring fuzz tone guitar virtuosity. If you were to spend the huge top price on this album you'd not regret a penny of it. Thankfully for me it came as a complete bargain!
The Anti War movement is bullshit. It isn't "Anti War" it's Anti Soldier created by old farts who know nothing of warfare, nothing of peace, and nothing of life. If peace means sitting on your ass and judging other people's so called "flaws" and "follies" then it is far from what peace actually is. I am not a pacifist and yet I also am not actively in support of conquest. The protestors are way more conformist than who they blame for conformity and just as smug, smarmy, and clueless as their tie for the ultimate evil- politicians. Disowning the protest movement and my hippie past is a huge part of my new life and new look. It would not be an opinion but a statement of fact to say the handsomest, most special, most giving, and closest to the true right way to live with the earth boys and men are British soldiers. I am proud of my passion and love for them and I also am proud of my love for ACTION!
Adrenalin, action, creativity, power from Nature, this is what the Anti War assholes are trying to keep us from. If you want to join any kind of Left Wing movement do as I have done and fight for The Environment. The more we steal from nature the more the end of the world is going to come faster. If we give into animal temptations, natural instinct, and both the romantic and sexual side of Love the better we will be. You know a movement is a hypocrisy and an evil outmoded lie when it relishes in posting hideous and disturbing images of maimed and slaughtered people on places like YouTube and is undoubtedly getting off on those sick and horrible images. I will not only never attend a protest again I also will never vote again as all politicians are an evil bunch of selfish scumbags. If you find that your life is spiritually and emotionally starving, stuck into a vicious cycle of self-destruction, and without any inspiration or true knowledge whatsoever then look to who will take those ailments and heal them: reach out and support England, seriously consider moving there, and also get closer to nature and others and further away from thinking there is only you. I know I'm not the only person who suffers adversity. I also know you have to battle through it.
Music that is created for love of music and creativity mainly comes almost entirely from Britain and Europe, but give full marks to American West Coast based melodic rock, soft rock, and a few choice psychedelic and harder rock outfits who were more interested in the musical and love end of the Counterculture than drug use. For a long period of time everybody looked to the British or blues rock and country rock for inspiration and that is without any doubt the best music and the best period. As far back as the 1966 there were major advancements and from the birth of original material based bands to the oncoming every second it seemed advancements in technology things got tastier and tastier. It's staggering to note that there were musical developments and true cultural revolution going on from those first days of The British Invasion right through to the end of the 1980s where everything went to rot in the 90s except in England where there still were some really great bands like Blur, Portishead, and Radiohead. Most American bands in the 1960s and 1970s who are great wanted to either be from the UK or just make their own kind of melodic rock that would meld both our traditions of blues and soul music with solid British rock. A good protest song can only come from the heart of someone who sides with soldiers and doesn't want them to get slaughtered by politicians and mocked by Goody Goodies. The best is to be found on the aforementioned 9.30 Fly album in that record's closing epic "Time Of War." This stunning progressive rock work of genius with folk and psychedelic leanings follows a young soldier from his desertion in fear from a pointless battle to his fight against those who pursue the clueless young man and try to kill him, to his eventual safety and when the last major vocal part comes in you'll hear England personified in music as you will for the whole album! Michael Wainright's vocals are very mysterious sounding and a bit ominous, but they also are very warm evoking parallels with both folk rock and solid rock vocalists as diverse as Fairport Convention and David Bowie. The song ends with joyous harmonies at the soldier's freedom and escape. I think love and sexual desire are all in all the best subjects to base music on because the whole political thing unless it comes from an emotional standpoint is tiresome. You're better off addressing loneliness and powerlessness in Warfare than the rubbish the protestors and their organizations feed their victims with violence and tired old shit about "baby killers" and all that garbage. No good anti war song has been written by Do Goods as they only Do Bad.
My journey through life's main goal is to find love, but you can only gain love through trust and finding somebody or a group you love and can imagine spending your life with. I love British soldiers and I can most certainly spend all the time in the world with them. Often as they are taken up with a huge workload and major demands this is not possible over the telephone. For those who haven't the time I understand. For those who give me their time and continue to give me inspiration, joyfulness, and affection I love you! I would like to see soldiers get more power in England, but a loss of power in the States. If ever there was a worthless bunch of losers who aren't even proper soldiers it would be the Amerikans. I bet even The French are better than us! If I can't believe in someone or something I walk away from them instead of moaning and groaning about them. Do not dwell on negativity. I will be from now on myself as I have finally turned out to be- resilient, strong-willed, emotional, and romantic. Finding love with help you lose addiction. Try hard enough or dream hard enough all the best will happen and come to you. Keep on reaching for the best and forget the past and live for the present and future. My warmest appreciation and love to the 1st Battalion Of The Rifles, The Household Calvary, and all my mates in not just those regiments but all over the UK and my musical inspirations for never letting me down. Cheers to you and here's to a brighter future and a rapidly fading past.
Rewind back to January/February of this year I had walking pneumonia and my life was in complete and total disarray and misery. Not only was I physically sick for the entire beginning of this year I was not helping myself get over personal and emotional problems kept private here as all things about even the recent past no longer have any relevance and I've put them in the grave. To face the truth of being a record junkie who was wasting his whole life getting ripped off on Discogs and Musicstack and living in a fabricated view of the past that had brought my life the past 4 years down into a pit of worthlessness came after I was hit by a revelation that came not surprisingly after a long period away from the record addiction. This revelation hit me like a good hard blow and awakened me. Here is my story and I'd especially appreciate any comments from currently serving British soldiers and if someone from 9.30 Fly sees this post.
There was something known as The British Invasion which happened quite a long time ago that was a musical invasion and a huge earth shaker that leveled the Yanks and changed the world. After the excitement of the early rock and roll era had died music in America had gone stale and nobody would ever have thought that was going to change. It was sterile, boring, uninspired, and America was typically clueless to anything happening elsewhere. Over in the UK in 1962-1963 thousands of bands were in the midst of a revolution. They were picking up their own instruments and invented the "Self Contained Band" which has been firmly in place since The Beatles exploded onto an unsuspecting world in 1963/1964. What had began as Skiffle music took on a new form when early rock, blues, soul, R&B, jazz, folk and other British traditions were joined together in the kind of inventiveness only Britain could come up with. At the start most of this hugely exciting music and cultural revolution was kept to England and Germany where down and out British bands went to work. It would take some time for the music to be good enough for an international breakthrough, but unlike most other inventions musical or otherwise the fine tuning of British rock happened at the speed of light. America was reeling from post war gloom, the Blacklisting and Witch Hunting period, and the shocking assassination of president John Fitzgerald Kennedy. It seemed the country was dead and in true fact it was dead from its inception. Things had to be uprooted and on the unsuspecting Yanks in 1964 The Beatles stormed onto our shores. Who were these guys with their Northern English sexy accents and Mop Top hair who changed the world for good was what most Americans wondered. Soon every girl was in love with John, Paul, George and Ringo and in no time music and the world were changed for eternity by England. The Beatles did what had never been done before and the ensuing "Beatlemania" is hardly anything to be surprised at they were/are so special.
The Beatles are still something to be marveled at. They did what no one before them had done with four part vocal harmonies, jangling guitars playing chords and scales they themselves created, and went from a well kept British secret who were already adulated in England to a worldwide revolution. The Beatles began like most bands would with a mixture of original material and cover versions, but with each successive album there came more originals, more startlingly exotic sounds, and more maturity to prove this was going to be a lasting phenomenon and soon it wasn't like a dream. The Yanks and the World had been conquered by the British and other bands began to arrive on the scene with in many cases enough power and originality to be as meaningful as The Beatles. America was terrified of England when it came to authorities and parents, but the kids couldn't get enough of The British Invasion. Bands as diverse as the hard blues rock of The Rolling Stones and The Animals, the brash hard rock of The Kinks that would later find Ray and Dave Davies coming up with an entirely different melodic very British brand of storyteller's thinking man's music, and the mellower jazz and Baroque inspired Zombies changed the world for good, but also were banned from touring the States until the stupid bans against these musical warriors got lifted and America was blasted down by thee bands who accomplished what The Redcoats should have accomplished back in the 1700s. Next thing you know America would find itself in the midst of the counterculture and some good homegrown British inspired bands like The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Doors, Love, the electric Dylan and actually quite a few others.
My own life has held a longtime love of England, but I couldn't feel love for way too long I could only dwell on the distant past. It would take England to make me fall head over heels in love and change my life forevermore. What happened was I was beginning to get stronger and heal. I was beginning to spend more and more time away from the deadly sickness accumulating over graded overpriced worthlessness in the mail, and after about 200 disasters too many something had to happen, something huge. Getting back an even better copy of what is one of the rarest British albums and probably the best too 9.30 Fly helped tremendously, but at the beginning of this month I was watching a lot of The British Army on YouTube and spending more time with British soldiers on the phone. The inspiration started to come about and then all of a sudden I was hit by a revelation and a huge awakening. The past was unclouded all of a sudden and the miserable life of being a teenager and all the ugliness of those years was revealed. Then I got inspired to write song lyrics and then before I could go one inch back into the morass I was in I fell madly in love with England again and now began writing about real issues in my life and the real love that took me over and made me the man I am today. I could go on further about how I saw the past for what it was, but since it would be traumatic to relive the lies, destruction, and pain I suffered and inflicted then I will speak no further on the subject. Love is a healthy addiction to have and I'd say the only healthy addiction. When love hits your life so does inspiration and so does a total break from whatever disease you suffer. I will state firmly that if you, like me, have suffered from a devastating addiction the only way you'll ever get over it is to not only replace it, but to take a long hard look at what your life has turned into because of it. Is that easier said than done? Unfortunately, yes. I really was hit by an explosion, rocked to the core by England and my love for that country all of a sudden. It happened as if by magic, but I know something must have grabbed me in my mind and my heart and made me look at the mess I had created and the disaster I had brought on against myself, my family, and my loved ones. All that is dead now, though. All that matters is right now: The Present. Also what matters in a huge way is The Future which will see me back in my true home of England the best country in the world.
The new lyrics and musical inspirations are a Godsend. I'm no longer afraid to express my desires and beliefs and when I turn the basic songs into actual musical reality it will be amazing. I not only have ditched the addiction, but another awakening is how full of absolute shite the protest movement and all the Do Gooders are. The Hippie movement spawned some amazing music, but most of the amazing music came from England and Europe and was created by an entirely different mindset. 9.30 Fly, Philwit & Pegasus, World Of Oz, and most all of the wondrous music from 1967 through 1989 are a perfect case in point. Kestrel would be another good band to mention. 9.30 Fly is probably the best band to discuss here. Sounding as dark as a Gothic Cathedral, as mystic as a forest full of strange creatures and madcap Human friends dancing about it, as English as the clash of swords in Medieval combat and the roar of guns against an enemy brought to their knees, as English as the majestic beauty of that country itself and people themselves 9.30 Fly despite a horrendous amount of getting slammed by critics are something truly incredible. The group are based around the husband and wife team of Michael (Lead vocals and all songwriting) and Barbara (vocals, keyboards) Wainright and the 7 tracks that make up their album have a dark, haunting, and somewhat eerie yet very evocative sound that ranges from psychedelic folk rock to progressive flourishes with an entirely original take on songwriting and also from guitarist Lyn Oakley savage outbursts of roaring fuzz tone guitar virtuosity. If you were to spend the huge top price on this album you'd not regret a penny of it. Thankfully for me it came as a complete bargain!
The Anti War movement is bullshit. It isn't "Anti War" it's Anti Soldier created by old farts who know nothing of warfare, nothing of peace, and nothing of life. If peace means sitting on your ass and judging other people's so called "flaws" and "follies" then it is far from what peace actually is. I am not a pacifist and yet I also am not actively in support of conquest. The protestors are way more conformist than who they blame for conformity and just as smug, smarmy, and clueless as their tie for the ultimate evil- politicians. Disowning the protest movement and my hippie past is a huge part of my new life and new look. It would not be an opinion but a statement of fact to say the handsomest, most special, most giving, and closest to the true right way to live with the earth boys and men are British soldiers. I am proud of my passion and love for them and I also am proud of my love for ACTION!
Adrenalin, action, creativity, power from Nature, this is what the Anti War assholes are trying to keep us from. If you want to join any kind of Left Wing movement do as I have done and fight for The Environment. The more we steal from nature the more the end of the world is going to come faster. If we give into animal temptations, natural instinct, and both the romantic and sexual side of Love the better we will be. You know a movement is a hypocrisy and an evil outmoded lie when it relishes in posting hideous and disturbing images of maimed and slaughtered people on places like YouTube and is undoubtedly getting off on those sick and horrible images. I will not only never attend a protest again I also will never vote again as all politicians are an evil bunch of selfish scumbags. If you find that your life is spiritually and emotionally starving, stuck into a vicious cycle of self-destruction, and without any inspiration or true knowledge whatsoever then look to who will take those ailments and heal them: reach out and support England, seriously consider moving there, and also get closer to nature and others and further away from thinking there is only you. I know I'm not the only person who suffers adversity. I also know you have to battle through it.
Music that is created for love of music and creativity mainly comes almost entirely from Britain and Europe, but give full marks to American West Coast based melodic rock, soft rock, and a few choice psychedelic and harder rock outfits who were more interested in the musical and love end of the Counterculture than drug use. For a long period of time everybody looked to the British or blues rock and country rock for inspiration and that is without any doubt the best music and the best period. As far back as the 1966 there were major advancements and from the birth of original material based bands to the oncoming every second it seemed advancements in technology things got tastier and tastier. It's staggering to note that there were musical developments and true cultural revolution going on from those first days of The British Invasion right through to the end of the 1980s where everything went to rot in the 90s except in England where there still were some really great bands like Blur, Portishead, and Radiohead. Most American bands in the 1960s and 1970s who are great wanted to either be from the UK or just make their own kind of melodic rock that would meld both our traditions of blues and soul music with solid British rock. A good protest song can only come from the heart of someone who sides with soldiers and doesn't want them to get slaughtered by politicians and mocked by Goody Goodies. The best is to be found on the aforementioned 9.30 Fly album in that record's closing epic "Time Of War." This stunning progressive rock work of genius with folk and psychedelic leanings follows a young soldier from his desertion in fear from a pointless battle to his fight against those who pursue the clueless young man and try to kill him, to his eventual safety and when the last major vocal part comes in you'll hear England personified in music as you will for the whole album! Michael Wainright's vocals are very mysterious sounding and a bit ominous, but they also are very warm evoking parallels with both folk rock and solid rock vocalists as diverse as Fairport Convention and David Bowie. The song ends with joyous harmonies at the soldier's freedom and escape. I think love and sexual desire are all in all the best subjects to base music on because the whole political thing unless it comes from an emotional standpoint is tiresome. You're better off addressing loneliness and powerlessness in Warfare than the rubbish the protestors and their organizations feed their victims with violence and tired old shit about "baby killers" and all that garbage. No good anti war song has been written by Do Goods as they only Do Bad.
My journey through life's main goal is to find love, but you can only gain love through trust and finding somebody or a group you love and can imagine spending your life with. I love British soldiers and I can most certainly spend all the time in the world with them. Often as they are taken up with a huge workload and major demands this is not possible over the telephone. For those who haven't the time I understand. For those who give me their time and continue to give me inspiration, joyfulness, and affection I love you! I would like to see soldiers get more power in England, but a loss of power in the States. If ever there was a worthless bunch of losers who aren't even proper soldiers it would be the Amerikans. I bet even The French are better than us! If I can't believe in someone or something I walk away from them instead of moaning and groaning about them. Do not dwell on negativity. I will be from now on myself as I have finally turned out to be- resilient, strong-willed, emotional, and romantic. Finding love with help you lose addiction. Try hard enough or dream hard enough all the best will happen and come to you. Keep on reaching for the best and forget the past and live for the present and future. My warmest appreciation and love to the 1st Battalion Of The Rifles, The Household Calvary, and all my mates in not just those regiments but all over the UK and my musical inspirations for never letting me down. Cheers to you and here's to a brighter future and a rapidly fading past.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
OF STRAIGHT LINES, FAIRFIELD SKI, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF ME, AN INNOCENT VICTIM FOR SURE
First things first. I am very apologetic it has taken so long for me to write another blog entry/review and I owe this one to my mates David Sinclair in Canada of Straight Lines and the entire band Fairfield Ski especially keyboards man/vocalist Bill Bonham and bass guitarist/vocalist Matt Bridger who all 3 have given me faith, courage, and support that I value as much as life itself when I don't wish I was dead. I have been suffering from flu symptoms, major chronic depression, and a horrible living situation and home where for my own sake only I won't go into detail about my true feelings towards my power mad mother and clueless father. The love has turned to hate and the victim of abuse, mistreatment, extortion, and lies is me enough said. If you want to read any further into that then do so yourself and think about how lucky you may be to be living on your own. I know sometimes my parents love me, but all too often we're fighting over my record addictions and spendings which are the only thing that bring me pleasure and will not be given up on no matter how hard they may try to demolish my dreams. Simple misunderstandings and arguments that shouldn't happen have led to deterioration and depression.
-Straight Lines Are The Best Band And They Also Tell It Straight From The Heart!-
When I am so low that death sounds like a good thing I play one of my favorite records and there is the end of the depression and I find blissfulness while listening. One such band who really bring me up when my life is disgusting is Vancouver Canada's Straight Lines. I was contacted last year by guitarist/vocalist/co leader David Sinclair and he's a really great guy. I admire him very much and this one is for you David and your band. Straight Lines were something of a Canadian supergroup in that all of them (Sinclair, keyboards man/saxophone/backing vocals/string arrangements W. Bob Buckley, bass guitarist/lead vocalist Peter Clarke, drummers Daryl Burgess, Pete Padden, and on their second album drummer/vocalist Geoff Eyre) had been active on the Vancouver scene since the mid 70s and Sinclair had even recorded at least one solo record before Straight Lines.
The band were a five piece on the first and quartet on the second which is called RUN FOR COVER. Both these albums are full of crisp clear harmonies, infectious melodies, brilliant guitar work, and some of the best songs since the heyday of The Beatles and Pilot. The two albums are very different from each other with their self titled first much more progressive pop/rock oriented and RUN FOR COVER more AOR/power pop (lots and lots of Beatles influences). If you want to hear the best Canadian melodic rock ever got go straight for Straight Lines. I'm telling you this band really know how to play like virtuosos and sing like melodic geniuses without once straying into self indulgence.
Their first album from 1980 begins with the somewhat atypical apocalyptic "Heads Are Gonna Roll" which is about inner city violence: "The street's alive you can feel it breathe/If You wanna survive then you better leave/Coz heads are gonna roll" is the chorus. A song of frightening power and real menace it certainly is not like anything else Straight Lines ever attempted. It's on "Flyin' Blind" and Peter Clarke's "Hope I'm Feeling Better" that the Straight Lines sound comes to the fore here on the debut. I'm not a fan of Supertramp so I'm gonna say Queen, Electric Light Orchestra, and 10cc come to mind with more emphasis on piano than synthesizer and let me tell you how much better that sounds! Supertramp had a great piano sound, but shit writing and songs. Straight Lines in a better world would have steamrolled over them, but they did make it huge in Canada. On "Flyin Blind" there's a few throwback passages to earlier California bands and I wonder if that means I could call this "Canadian West Coast Rock?" Maybe. Then again maybe not. Progressive sounds like a better word, but song oriented progressive pop. The guitar of Sinclair throughout both albums is outstanding- melodic, soaring, and majestic. The vocals are crystal clear, friendly to the ears, and also very McCartney a lot of the time and that can only be good. If you, like me, are a big fan of Pilot and New England then Straight Lines are the Canadian equivalent and just as good. Some songs such as "Sweet Water" and "Midnight Woman" mix bawdy misogynistic references with a good dose of playful humour, but in general the sound is just "let's go for a really good lyric and an even better melody."
Everyone in the band gets a chance to take off and fly and that often isn't through solos it's through how well they work together. The playing is never jack off and the vocals are never pretentious. In fact, pretension is something that doesn't exist in Straight Lines. I could go on further about Beatles similarities, but the most consistent one is the freshness. This is palette cleansing stuff and a lot of fresh air when I look at some of the utter rubbish that was being made at the same time although the early 1980s were for the most part a fantastic time for music. I'm thinking of the worst of Emerson Lake And Palmer or Gentle Giant in the 70s era more. I'm a huge progressive fan, but that's the wrong kind of progressive. Straight Lines are clever and they also come up with something rewarding beyond just being clever- when you feel really low and burnt out and destroyed put their albums on and some of the melancholic and also at times uplifting emotional melodies, lyrics, and vocals will put your life back where it should be.
I have my favorite songs on their debut and one of them is Side Two's catchiest song ever written "Roanne" which sounds like New England jamming with Asia! They came before Asia and I think that means that Sinclair and friends were thinking along the same lines as John Wetton before Wetton got there! "Roanne" is easily the catchiest song I've ever heard in my whole life. If The Beatles had had a happy instead of tragic ending this is how an all-arguments-mended Beatles would have sounded like. I've been mentioning The Fab Four a lot and that is because if you want to make great music that is usually the best place to start.
Even heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden have to start with a melodic band to build their music around and the good ones do. It's either The Beatles, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin who always had good craftsmanship, or any of the melodic great bands who you have to begin with and also end with. I'm not a huge fan of Iron Maiden or heavy metal in general because melody and structure are thrown to the dogs. I can, however, appreciate that kind of music sometimes and what I'm saying is that rock is a multifaceted kind of music as much as jazz, classical, or anything esoteric- Rock and Roll is damned esoteric!
There are songs on both Straight Lines albums that are so sophisticated that you know there was classical training involved. If you want the classics meeting pop, rock, and art song in a brilliant collision of sound and emotion look no further than the haunting closing track on their first album "The Things You Didn't Do." Bob Buckley wrote the string arrangement- now you can't tell me this band isn't the work of geniuses. There are some tracks that will please out and out pop rock fans like "She's A Rounder" and "Heart To Heart," but something here cuts way, way, WAY deeper than most of the usual troubled relationship pop. I'd say that Straight Lines understand a lot more about what people can go through in unfortunate situations than most other bands and for a band who for once lack cliches look no further.
RUN FOR COVER comes in one of the worst covers ever. A tasteless front design is made even worse by an attempt to shock by the band appearing half naked with a fake cover over them on the back! Thankfully, if the cover makes you think this is gonna be a disaster the music is the exact polar opposite. RUN FOR COVER moves away from progressive rock towards more AOR and Power Pop, but I have no problem with that as the solid writing and great vocals and playing of the first album are continued in a different kind of style of music. The title track and a few other songs are very similar to the wondrous German/Scottish band Lake especially "Run For Cover" which begins the album with a really strong track. Most people up in Canada will be more familiar with the second album by virtue of the inclusion of the huge hit "Letting Go-" a song that is purely Beatles in conception, melody, and quality. Before that there is the solid melodic rock of "There Are No Secrets" and the brilliant power pop of "It's Gotta Be Tonight." Straight Lines don't make mistakes. How few bands are capable of that, of knowing what's just right and what isn't should really make you think about how special David Sinclair and the rest of the band are. "Letting Go" is really, really sad. I've experienced the kind of sorrow that comes pouring out of this song many times and the beautiful melodies instantly grab hold of you and don't let go for a second. Especially impressive are the vocals which are soft and comforting at the same time that they are highly emotional. There certainly is nothing comforting about the lyrical content!
"Illusions" gets more into the earlier more progressive Straight Lines with a great lead vocal from David Sinclair. Side Two begins with another Lake type of melodic progressive pop track "Lighten Up" which is something we all should do- especially me! The rest of Side Two is heavily geared towards really visceral put down songs that are sharp, clever, and again are bringing to mind The Beatles. They sure don't look it, but the music is what matters and Straight Lines take all the best aspects of that great band and make magic happen with their own creativity. Clearly this is power pop influenced by the band who created that along with just about everything else, but the sophistication of Straight Lines is really astonishing. One of my favorites here is "I've Got News For You" which even features an electric sitar playing George Harrison style licks. If you love Pilot, Blue, New England, those kinds of bands as much as I do then do not miss Straight Lines. If everything is bringing you down and you need something new and exciting look for Straight Lines and grab them if you can find their quite hard to track down two albums. Both Straight Lines records are amazing and I feel really a lot better about myself to know that I have David Sinclair as a friend who occasionally corresponds with me. He's not the least bit full of himself which also is a great thing that I never take for granted when a lot of musicians let past achievements make them think they are something they most certainly are not. It makes sense David is a down to earth guy- this is down to earth music that takes you higher without blowing itself up into some big huge hyped up mess like Supertramp or any number of unworthy bands who sold way more in the States. If Canada has a latter day answer to the Fab Four it most certainly is Straight Lines. They did it not by imitation. They did it through the same kind of quality writing, vocals, and playing. Track their albums down- they are really amazing.
-A followup synopsis of Fairfield Ski- Now The Real Deal Is Available! Rush Out And Grab It!-
Fairfield Ski I have written about in detail several times before, but now their masterful lost in the mist of the dark ages of acetates and a shoddy hack job bootleg album have finally been put to rest as their at-the-time unreleased gem is available from the Guerrsen label in the way it was meant to be heard back in 1973 which means it took 40 years for justice to arrive! Done last year in limited pressing with a great band photo sleeve, fantastic sound quality, and a detailed insert included you need to get this album or you will have a very incomplete collection! Forget Oddesey and Oracle this album blows that out of the water! I better not say anything too mean
about The Zombies as they were a seminal band who led to even better things from Colin Blunstone he of the lovely magic soaring velvet voice and Rod Argent made magic in his own band, but there are issues I have with Oddesey and Oracle or rather one issue. All of Side One is a melodic pop heavenly dream with beautiful songs, wonderful vocals, and a really strong almost spiritual atmosphere, but what goes wrong on Side Two!!!!!!!!????? You get 3 more beautiful songs from the pens of Chris White and Rod Argent and then Chris White decides to turn this Oracle into something more like a living horror movie with the gory, violent, sick, and disgusting rant about the horrors of World War 1 "Butcher's Tale" a track that isn't even a song and destroys the album. It reveals how contrived the whole fucking thing is and how it was thrown together hastily in a way such as to make The Koobas much more satisfactory as an album of throwing the towel in. No, I'm sorry, I'm saying no to this album. The great songs are some of the greatest ever, but contrived. I don't understand why the cover is blown- if this war song is supposed to be an ambush against what preceded it it most certainly makes the point clear.
So I suppose you're gonna ask me if Oddesey and Oracle is neither of those things what is the best melodic UK album? FAIRFIELD SKI! Fairfield Ski are a band who had a very bright and yet very sad kind of a sound and who thanks to painful mismanagement it took ages for anybody to actually hear and most of us heard them through an atrocity called Fairfield "Sky." Yeah, I was one of those people. I find it staggering that something so musically rewarding couldn't get any kind of chance for a release at all at the time, but the music industry can be a really bad curse to many bands and their futures and this is one such band. Nigel Wright sings beautifully with a kind of control usually never heard and there's also some great musicianship from the ultra talented Birmingham foursome. I'd firmly recommend you go out and buy Fairfield Ski in this beautiful edition which features a real cover complete with "flip back" sleeve and that you simply go for Argent or Blunstone's solo career and just listen to something you can string together of the best songs The Zombies made from the revolutionary "She's Not There" through to the great tracks on Oddesey and Oracle. The best songs on Oddesey and Oracle for me are "Care Of Cell 44," "Brief Candles," and "Hung Up On A Dream" and if you're looking for something like the best of that album without the disaster "Butcher's Tale" which butchers the album I'd highly suggest this. Fairfield Ski's album is all over the map with an epic tour de force in "Would You Mind/The Writer," Sweet type power pop in "Circus" and "Man From Galilee" (both sung by my mate Matt Bridger), and emotional pop psych at an absolute peak for the rest of the album. Also, you should do a bit of Brummie music history if you find Fairfield Ski's ultra melodic sound of beautiful soft progressive rock out of character with the hard heavy metal all out attack of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. While it is true that Birmingham is a rockin' city its also a very much well rounded music city that gave us Tinkerbells Fairydust, Fairport Convention, and a whole host of other very different and always great bands. You can't forget Traffic's first album and their best work and really just open your mind a little.
All music can be good music. All parents can be bad parents. Sedentary people set in their ways, nasty, sick, greedy are gonna suck. Don't kill yourself- DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER IT FOR TWO SECONDS! Life is too short. If you, like me, suffer from parental abuse as unintentional as my parents do it or as intentional as yours might just keep your distance and don't let it make you get any stupid ideas. Life can be a pain in the ass there is no denying that, but I've found that through music there is something that makes life worth living. I've been having a horrible time of late, but I'm not about to cave to any stupidity on the part of blind and stupid people (politicians, people I have to deal with every day et. all). To lower myself to the level of insolent adolescent moanings is not something I'm about to let happen. By the way when I was a teenager I was pretty sharp, but I've grown without having to grow out of the best things I had then. If you need help or advice or encouragement and don't have any friends then go out and seek out music- it can really work wonders. I wish you a bright and productive future and I wish myself a way out of Hell and into Heaven.
-Straight Lines Are The Best Band And They Also Tell It Straight From The Heart!-
When I am so low that death sounds like a good thing I play one of my favorite records and there is the end of the depression and I find blissfulness while listening. One such band who really bring me up when my life is disgusting is Vancouver Canada's Straight Lines. I was contacted last year by guitarist/vocalist/co leader David Sinclair and he's a really great guy. I admire him very much and this one is for you David and your band. Straight Lines were something of a Canadian supergroup in that all of them (Sinclair, keyboards man/saxophone/backing vocals/string arrangements W. Bob Buckley, bass guitarist/lead vocalist Peter Clarke, drummers Daryl Burgess, Pete Padden, and on their second album drummer/vocalist Geoff Eyre) had been active on the Vancouver scene since the mid 70s and Sinclair had even recorded at least one solo record before Straight Lines.
The band were a five piece on the first and quartet on the second which is called RUN FOR COVER. Both these albums are full of crisp clear harmonies, infectious melodies, brilliant guitar work, and some of the best songs since the heyday of The Beatles and Pilot. The two albums are very different from each other with their self titled first much more progressive pop/rock oriented and RUN FOR COVER more AOR/power pop (lots and lots of Beatles influences). If you want to hear the best Canadian melodic rock ever got go straight for Straight Lines. I'm telling you this band really know how to play like virtuosos and sing like melodic geniuses without once straying into self indulgence.
Their first album from 1980 begins with the somewhat atypical apocalyptic "Heads Are Gonna Roll" which is about inner city violence: "The street's alive you can feel it breathe/If You wanna survive then you better leave/Coz heads are gonna roll" is the chorus. A song of frightening power and real menace it certainly is not like anything else Straight Lines ever attempted. It's on "Flyin' Blind" and Peter Clarke's "Hope I'm Feeling Better" that the Straight Lines sound comes to the fore here on the debut. I'm not a fan of Supertramp so I'm gonna say Queen, Electric Light Orchestra, and 10cc come to mind with more emphasis on piano than synthesizer and let me tell you how much better that sounds! Supertramp had a great piano sound, but shit writing and songs. Straight Lines in a better world would have steamrolled over them, but they did make it huge in Canada. On "Flyin Blind" there's a few throwback passages to earlier California bands and I wonder if that means I could call this "Canadian West Coast Rock?" Maybe. Then again maybe not. Progressive sounds like a better word, but song oriented progressive pop. The guitar of Sinclair throughout both albums is outstanding- melodic, soaring, and majestic. The vocals are crystal clear, friendly to the ears, and also very McCartney a lot of the time and that can only be good. If you, like me, are a big fan of Pilot and New England then Straight Lines are the Canadian equivalent and just as good. Some songs such as "Sweet Water" and "Midnight Woman" mix bawdy misogynistic references with a good dose of playful humour, but in general the sound is just "let's go for a really good lyric and an even better melody."
Everyone in the band gets a chance to take off and fly and that often isn't through solos it's through how well they work together. The playing is never jack off and the vocals are never pretentious. In fact, pretension is something that doesn't exist in Straight Lines. I could go on further about Beatles similarities, but the most consistent one is the freshness. This is palette cleansing stuff and a lot of fresh air when I look at some of the utter rubbish that was being made at the same time although the early 1980s were for the most part a fantastic time for music. I'm thinking of the worst of Emerson Lake And Palmer or Gentle Giant in the 70s era more. I'm a huge progressive fan, but that's the wrong kind of progressive. Straight Lines are clever and they also come up with something rewarding beyond just being clever- when you feel really low and burnt out and destroyed put their albums on and some of the melancholic and also at times uplifting emotional melodies, lyrics, and vocals will put your life back where it should be.
I have my favorite songs on their debut and one of them is Side Two's catchiest song ever written "Roanne" which sounds like New England jamming with Asia! They came before Asia and I think that means that Sinclair and friends were thinking along the same lines as John Wetton before Wetton got there! "Roanne" is easily the catchiest song I've ever heard in my whole life. If The Beatles had had a happy instead of tragic ending this is how an all-arguments-mended Beatles would have sounded like. I've been mentioning The Fab Four a lot and that is because if you want to make great music that is usually the best place to start.
Even heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden have to start with a melodic band to build their music around and the good ones do. It's either The Beatles, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin who always had good craftsmanship, or any of the melodic great bands who you have to begin with and also end with. I'm not a huge fan of Iron Maiden or heavy metal in general because melody and structure are thrown to the dogs. I can, however, appreciate that kind of music sometimes and what I'm saying is that rock is a multifaceted kind of music as much as jazz, classical, or anything esoteric- Rock and Roll is damned esoteric!
There are songs on both Straight Lines albums that are so sophisticated that you know there was classical training involved. If you want the classics meeting pop, rock, and art song in a brilliant collision of sound and emotion look no further than the haunting closing track on their first album "The Things You Didn't Do." Bob Buckley wrote the string arrangement- now you can't tell me this band isn't the work of geniuses. There are some tracks that will please out and out pop rock fans like "She's A Rounder" and "Heart To Heart," but something here cuts way, way, WAY deeper than most of the usual troubled relationship pop. I'd say that Straight Lines understand a lot more about what people can go through in unfortunate situations than most other bands and for a band who for once lack cliches look no further.
RUN FOR COVER comes in one of the worst covers ever. A tasteless front design is made even worse by an attempt to shock by the band appearing half naked with a fake cover over them on the back! Thankfully, if the cover makes you think this is gonna be a disaster the music is the exact polar opposite. RUN FOR COVER moves away from progressive rock towards more AOR and Power Pop, but I have no problem with that as the solid writing and great vocals and playing of the first album are continued in a different kind of style of music. The title track and a few other songs are very similar to the wondrous German/Scottish band Lake especially "Run For Cover" which begins the album with a really strong track. Most people up in Canada will be more familiar with the second album by virtue of the inclusion of the huge hit "Letting Go-" a song that is purely Beatles in conception, melody, and quality. Before that there is the solid melodic rock of "There Are No Secrets" and the brilliant power pop of "It's Gotta Be Tonight." Straight Lines don't make mistakes. How few bands are capable of that, of knowing what's just right and what isn't should really make you think about how special David Sinclair and the rest of the band are. "Letting Go" is really, really sad. I've experienced the kind of sorrow that comes pouring out of this song many times and the beautiful melodies instantly grab hold of you and don't let go for a second. Especially impressive are the vocals which are soft and comforting at the same time that they are highly emotional. There certainly is nothing comforting about the lyrical content!
"Illusions" gets more into the earlier more progressive Straight Lines with a great lead vocal from David Sinclair. Side Two begins with another Lake type of melodic progressive pop track "Lighten Up" which is something we all should do- especially me! The rest of Side Two is heavily geared towards really visceral put down songs that are sharp, clever, and again are bringing to mind The Beatles. They sure don't look it, but the music is what matters and Straight Lines take all the best aspects of that great band and make magic happen with their own creativity. Clearly this is power pop influenced by the band who created that along with just about everything else, but the sophistication of Straight Lines is really astonishing. One of my favorites here is "I've Got News For You" which even features an electric sitar playing George Harrison style licks. If you love Pilot, Blue, New England, those kinds of bands as much as I do then do not miss Straight Lines. If everything is bringing you down and you need something new and exciting look for Straight Lines and grab them if you can find their quite hard to track down two albums. Both Straight Lines records are amazing and I feel really a lot better about myself to know that I have David Sinclair as a friend who occasionally corresponds with me. He's not the least bit full of himself which also is a great thing that I never take for granted when a lot of musicians let past achievements make them think they are something they most certainly are not. It makes sense David is a down to earth guy- this is down to earth music that takes you higher without blowing itself up into some big huge hyped up mess like Supertramp or any number of unworthy bands who sold way more in the States. If Canada has a latter day answer to the Fab Four it most certainly is Straight Lines. They did it not by imitation. They did it through the same kind of quality writing, vocals, and playing. Track their albums down- they are really amazing.
-A followup synopsis of Fairfield Ski- Now The Real Deal Is Available! Rush Out And Grab It!-
Fairfield Ski I have written about in detail several times before, but now their masterful lost in the mist of the dark ages of acetates and a shoddy hack job bootleg album have finally been put to rest as their at-the-time unreleased gem is available from the Guerrsen label in the way it was meant to be heard back in 1973 which means it took 40 years for justice to arrive! Done last year in limited pressing with a great band photo sleeve, fantastic sound quality, and a detailed insert included you need to get this album or you will have a very incomplete collection! Forget Oddesey and Oracle this album blows that out of the water! I better not say anything too mean
about The Zombies as they were a seminal band who led to even better things from Colin Blunstone he of the lovely magic soaring velvet voice and Rod Argent made magic in his own band, but there are issues I have with Oddesey and Oracle or rather one issue. All of Side One is a melodic pop heavenly dream with beautiful songs, wonderful vocals, and a really strong almost spiritual atmosphere, but what goes wrong on Side Two!!!!!!!!????? You get 3 more beautiful songs from the pens of Chris White and Rod Argent and then Chris White decides to turn this Oracle into something more like a living horror movie with the gory, violent, sick, and disgusting rant about the horrors of World War 1 "Butcher's Tale" a track that isn't even a song and destroys the album. It reveals how contrived the whole fucking thing is and how it was thrown together hastily in a way such as to make The Koobas much more satisfactory as an album of throwing the towel in. No, I'm sorry, I'm saying no to this album. The great songs are some of the greatest ever, but contrived. I don't understand why the cover is blown- if this war song is supposed to be an ambush against what preceded it it most certainly makes the point clear.
So I suppose you're gonna ask me if Oddesey and Oracle is neither of those things what is the best melodic UK album? FAIRFIELD SKI! Fairfield Ski are a band who had a very bright and yet very sad kind of a sound and who thanks to painful mismanagement it took ages for anybody to actually hear and most of us heard them through an atrocity called Fairfield "Sky." Yeah, I was one of those people. I find it staggering that something so musically rewarding couldn't get any kind of chance for a release at all at the time, but the music industry can be a really bad curse to many bands and their futures and this is one such band. Nigel Wright sings beautifully with a kind of control usually never heard and there's also some great musicianship from the ultra talented Birmingham foursome. I'd firmly recommend you go out and buy Fairfield Ski in this beautiful edition which features a real cover complete with "flip back" sleeve and that you simply go for Argent or Blunstone's solo career and just listen to something you can string together of the best songs The Zombies made from the revolutionary "She's Not There" through to the great tracks on Oddesey and Oracle. The best songs on Oddesey and Oracle for me are "Care Of Cell 44," "Brief Candles," and "Hung Up On A Dream" and if you're looking for something like the best of that album without the disaster "Butcher's Tale" which butchers the album I'd highly suggest this. Fairfield Ski's album is all over the map with an epic tour de force in "Would You Mind/The Writer," Sweet type power pop in "Circus" and "Man From Galilee" (both sung by my mate Matt Bridger), and emotional pop psych at an absolute peak for the rest of the album. Also, you should do a bit of Brummie music history if you find Fairfield Ski's ultra melodic sound of beautiful soft progressive rock out of character with the hard heavy metal all out attack of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. While it is true that Birmingham is a rockin' city its also a very much well rounded music city that gave us Tinkerbells Fairydust, Fairport Convention, and a whole host of other very different and always great bands. You can't forget Traffic's first album and their best work and really just open your mind a little.
All music can be good music. All parents can be bad parents. Sedentary people set in their ways, nasty, sick, greedy are gonna suck. Don't kill yourself- DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER IT FOR TWO SECONDS! Life is too short. If you, like me, suffer from parental abuse as unintentional as my parents do it or as intentional as yours might just keep your distance and don't let it make you get any stupid ideas. Life can be a pain in the ass there is no denying that, but I've found that through music there is something that makes life worth living. I've been having a horrible time of late, but I'm not about to cave to any stupidity on the part of blind and stupid people (politicians, people I have to deal with every day et. all). To lower myself to the level of insolent adolescent moanings is not something I'm about to let happen. By the way when I was a teenager I was pretty sharp, but I've grown without having to grow out of the best things I had then. If you need help or advice or encouragement and don't have any friends then go out and seek out music- it can really work wonders. I wish you a bright and productive future and I wish myself a way out of Hell and into Heaven.
Monday, December 2, 2013
David Lewis The Visionary And His Band Andwella's Dream/Andwella Some Of The Best Music During The Worst Times.
I used to "think" I knew what that unpronounceable guy in Artch also known as Erik Hawk was on about in the song "Power To The Man," but now I'm sure I know! If there is a woman who gives life and love instead of taking it away and leaving a trail of wreckage, sorrow, and destruction in this world my guess is she's either black, Indian, or Jinx Dawson from Coven and I'd probably go with Jinx. Jinx is a witch and she is trained at it. She also is a formidable singer/writer or was. I'm sure like the Wilson sisters Anne and Nancy in Heart, Joplin, the good women, the rock and roll ones, was taken for a big mighty long and bad ride, but she never became somebody who sounded cynical and the malicious nature of Coven grew more tongue in cheek as it went on. However, having said that Coven were no joke. They really were Satanists and they pursued their interests outside of music gradually more than in their music. They also had other visions which brings me to a certain David Lewis from Northern Ireland.
-An Introduction To A Brilliant Man And His Band Who Made The Best Music In The World-
One of the first really freaky and scary looking covers to catch my eye was the cover of the 2nd Andwella's Dream record where the band became simply Andwella called WORLDS END. This bleak picture of a dead face (it's Jesus Christ) with long hair really flipped me out on first seeing it as it looked like an album cover in a dream I'd recently had (shades of Artch and The O Band again). I hesitated to buy it and when I did eventually buy it I was 16 years old and didn't know what the fuck the music was all about- it just seemed like a whole bunch of different things and now I consider it one of the great records- up there with the known classics by both famous and obscure bands alike. I found out Andwella were formerly called Andwella's Dream and that album was a big ticket psychedelic acid rock monster. Well, it is, and WORLD'S END which followed it and then the shockingly different take on PEOPLES PEOPLE make for a perfect trilogy of unmatchable greatness that just flows over with feeling, character, and a really soulful power that grabs you and won't let go. Throughout their career there was one mainstay who wrote all the songs and had a powerful vision or I could say many visions and his name is David Lewis. David Lewis and the original line up of him on vocals/guitars/keyboards, Nigel Smith on bass, and Gordon Barton on drums came from Northern Ireland and were previously known as The Method. Northern Ireland is not a place I think highly of, but I'm beginning to wonder if hidden beneath all the Republican Sectarian muck there isn't some great gem and even holy power I'm missing. Have I ever met an Irishman I didn't like? No. I think the women are bitches most of them, but that's Irish Americans for you where a lot of the men are bastards. When it comes to the actual Irish I have never had an experience that was even mediocre with one- they have all been great and very warm people. One of my best friends was Irish and we had many great times with each other- he's a person I think of sometimes when I think lowly of humans as I often do.
David Lewis comes across as a man with a vision and not just another singer/guitarist/songwriter. His guitar work sets the first two records ablaze and his voice is even better, even more perfect, than dare I say that Irishman I've heard is a pretty nasty idiot, but an absolutely amazing genius Van Morrison. I love Van Morrison. I love David Lewis even more, though. There are similarities, but where Van goes more into Irish concerns and soul influences David Lewis doesn't need the influences because HE IS SOUL! I'd put his voice up there with Van's, but I would compare him more to Gary Brooker in Procol Harum than Van Morrison both as a singer and for the kind of music he plays/sings. He seems to have an interest in Satanism and the occult at times and at other times he comes off disillusioned with humans or else very gentle and loving so this is a man of many different feelings and emotions.
I would like to know more about Mr. David Lewis. Beneath a common name lurks a very uncommon person. His distaste for religion actually went as far as writing a song about a witch whose name is Andwella on the first album LOVE AND POETRY. If you're looking for the best psychedelic album ever made that goes off into progressive and hard rock territory look no further. It wasn't gonna stop there. WORLD'S END under the new name Andwella instead of Andwella's Dream gained an international release as did the follow up PEOPLES PEOPLE, but all 3 records were commercial flops at the time. I find that unfathomable. This is some of the most powerful music I've ever heard in my whole life. I have no idea how they managed to make one masterpiece after another without huge sales and the kind of popularity that made for the really big names of the era. Whilst sales wise the albums did nothing they speak volumes about all kinds of things and demolish many hugely successful bands like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Savoy Brown, Family (after the first album), and the increasingly over time inconsistent Traffic just to name a few examples. The influences on Andwella's Dream/Andwella's records are as varied as it gets with on the the first two albums the unlikely appearances sometimes all at once of early/great Traffic, The Band, and Jimi Hendrix with PEOPLES PEOPLE leaning more towards Band influenced pastoral folkrock than the full on attack of much of the first two. For all 3 albums David Lewis sings in a passionate and earthy voice that definitely has shades of a lower pitched Steve Winwood and Gary Brooker. I'd like to share my thoughts on each album separately now with you so hold on tight and be patient.
-THE BEGINNING: ANDWELLA'S DREAM'S OF LOVE AND POETRY-
Released in 1969 when psychedelic rock was beginning to turn into progressive, hard, folk, and country rock there is a lot of all of the above and a lot of psychedelic mind frying going on on the first album. It may be the best place for psych fans to start off. David Lewis penned all of the songs which range from the scathing fuzz guitar attacks on "The Days Grew Longer For Love," "Shades Of Grey," "Andwella," and the Hendrix inspired mania of "Sunday" to the beautifully haunting psychedelic number "Felix" to the tuneful singalong country rock of "Man Without A Name." You can hear the beginning of Thin Lizzy and at times even a little Jethro Tull, but that's probably because of the blues influences and some of the guitar passages. "Take My Road" is another great song, a really great song. CBS did nothing for Andwella's Dream. The Troubles in Northern Ireland were at their ugly beginning and I bet Andwella's Dream were glad they'd left for England which was unfortunately the only way to survive for Irish bands at that time. I bet they weren't too happy about CBS pressing the record in very limited quantities and now if you own the original you own a 1500 quid or $2,000 record! That means we should be really glad that both the old bootleg which is in and of itself a collector's item and the legitimate Lightning Tree edition have fantastic sound quality. You have to have this album. I would put every song as a killer in my book here and the lyrics are astonishingly good. It's a snapshot in time of a different time. Unfortunately, it's the songs about prejudice and evil that still ring true today. David Lewis seems like somebody you'd see sitting alone in a corner looking and feeling contented by himself just strumming a guitar and jotting down poetry. I guess I'm saying he comes across rather introverted. He also has an interest in the occult which makes for some intriguing lyrics on all 3 records. Would a worldwide deal change his direction? No. Read on further, but do seek the first one LOVE AND POETRY out first it will blow your mind much more so than any number of hugely successful albums that came out at the same time.
-IS WORLD'S END THE END OF THE WORLD- NO IT MAY EVEN TOP THE FIRST-
WORLD'S END managed to get the newly simplified named Andwella a worldwide deal and came in a dark, creepy, and stunning cover which had songs about everything of importance in its grooves when you put the record on the turntable and cranked it up. "Hold Onto Your Mind" is a natural continuation of the first album with killer melodies, driving Koobas alike piano, and blasting wild ass guitar raging violently out of control at the end. If ever there was a #1 hit that was only a #1 hit to those lucky enough to hear it this song is exactly that. You also as with the debut get a wide range of different genres thrown in which include stabs at Gospel/soul influences in "I'm Happy Just To See You Get Her," beautiful ballads like the tender and charming "Lady Love" about a woman who is loveliness personified, and stark haunting numbers like the title track and the powerfully creepy tour de force "Shadow Of The Night." There's even a progressive rock instrumental number in "Michael Fitzhenry" that excels at exactly what Traffic were failing miserably at after a great first album. Andwella and David Lewis weren't gonna cave in and turn into bullshit rock like Family or to a lesser extent Traffic after an amazing first album- they were gonna move and groove and develop their solid musical ideas into something that might be even more impressive if that's something I can even imagine- wow! Look no further for perfection- here it is! David Lewis I hope is still with us and I hope that for the whole band. I don't know just how poor the sales were of their albums, but most certainly they weren't good. An American label should have made them huge, but unfortunately that just didn't transpire. I don't think David Lewis was going to get perturbed by the public's indifference. He may have seen his songs as something private from his heart he was revealing and maybe he wasn't too unhappy when he had to keep his secrets secrets. However, as personified in "The Road" he was developing an obsession with The Band and olde timey handicrafts and this would lead to a personnel upheaval and huge musical change on PEOPLES PEOPLE. Now we reach that album. Album #3.
-PEOPLES PEOPLE THE HUGE HIT DOESN'T COME, BUT A GREAT ALBUM DOES-
Now things weren't too good for Andwella. Two albums of musical brilliance have been recorded and released with miserable sales and clearly something was gonna change and the musical climate was changing anyway. David Lewis on PEOPLES PEOPLE is the only member besides the band's keyboard player who himself was an addition who is left on the third and last album. The guitar flies out the window. So do dark progressive influences and psychedelic brain blasters. A friendly, pastoral, melodic, and song based album of very pleasant music and great lyrics is what lies in store for you on PEOPLES PEOPLE. Right off the album starts with one of their best songs in the soul influenced "She Taught Me To Love" and there's not one weak track on the album, but I miss the soaring smashing guitar pyrotechnics and energy of the first two making the third a very different listening experience. Some songs sound like attempts at a hit single, but none of the emotional power is thrown out this is just the most introverted and most commercial of the three albums. It has to be heard like the first two albums, but the audience they couldn't reach on the first two still wasn't reached on the third album. I can't believe it didn't work out better for the brilliant songs of David Lewis. He'd written three albums worth of greats and classics, but the record sales were poor again. Not surprisingly it was the last album. I feel very sad for Andwella. This album is beautiful. it isn't quite as good as the first two or maybe it is I leave that for my mood swings to decide. When I want to smile and relax I put PEOPLES PEOPLE on. When I want to fly out into a completely different world I put the first two on, but one thing can't be denied- there's a vision here and it's a powerful one. You need to get all 3 albums and don't worry about the American pressings sounding not-so-hot like many times happens they actually sound fantastic. We should be glad that Andwella came out in America, but their albums have vanished making them only available for the most part on the internet and I strongly urge you to track them down through discogs or musicstack. If you walk into a record store and see WORLD'S END or PEOPLES PEOPLE grab them and your life may take on a whole new path. I am increasingly removing myself from society and becoming an introvert. I would like to thank my friends in England who have been so supportive and my friends who care here, but introversion seems to be the way to go in a life that unless I fill it with music becomes more and more questionable for how much pleasure can be in it when there is such a huge amount of sadness and anger. I feel that I've been taken for a ride. I suspect that David Lewis felt the same way. I've found someone to connect with in him and I love his music. I would be overjoyed if he would write to me if he happens to read this blog entry. Feel free to send any of your comments (positive ONLY!) my way and I'm going into my Andwella world very soon again tonight! And you should too.
-An Introduction To A Brilliant Man And His Band Who Made The Best Music In The World-
One of the first really freaky and scary looking covers to catch my eye was the cover of the 2nd Andwella's Dream record where the band became simply Andwella called WORLDS END. This bleak picture of a dead face (it's Jesus Christ) with long hair really flipped me out on first seeing it as it looked like an album cover in a dream I'd recently had (shades of Artch and The O Band again). I hesitated to buy it and when I did eventually buy it I was 16 years old and didn't know what the fuck the music was all about- it just seemed like a whole bunch of different things and now I consider it one of the great records- up there with the known classics by both famous and obscure bands alike. I found out Andwella were formerly called Andwella's Dream and that album was a big ticket psychedelic acid rock monster. Well, it is, and WORLD'S END which followed it and then the shockingly different take on PEOPLES PEOPLE make for a perfect trilogy of unmatchable greatness that just flows over with feeling, character, and a really soulful power that grabs you and won't let go. Throughout their career there was one mainstay who wrote all the songs and had a powerful vision or I could say many visions and his name is David Lewis. David Lewis and the original line up of him on vocals/guitars/keyboards, Nigel Smith on bass, and Gordon Barton on drums came from Northern Ireland and were previously known as The Method. Northern Ireland is not a place I think highly of, but I'm beginning to wonder if hidden beneath all the Republican Sectarian muck there isn't some great gem and even holy power I'm missing. Have I ever met an Irishman I didn't like? No. I think the women are bitches most of them, but that's Irish Americans for you where a lot of the men are bastards. When it comes to the actual Irish I have never had an experience that was even mediocre with one- they have all been great and very warm people. One of my best friends was Irish and we had many great times with each other- he's a person I think of sometimes when I think lowly of humans as I often do.
David Lewis comes across as a man with a vision and not just another singer/guitarist/songwriter. His guitar work sets the first two records ablaze and his voice is even better, even more perfect, than dare I say that Irishman I've heard is a pretty nasty idiot, but an absolutely amazing genius Van Morrison. I love Van Morrison. I love David Lewis even more, though. There are similarities, but where Van goes more into Irish concerns and soul influences David Lewis doesn't need the influences because HE IS SOUL! I'd put his voice up there with Van's, but I would compare him more to Gary Brooker in Procol Harum than Van Morrison both as a singer and for the kind of music he plays/sings. He seems to have an interest in Satanism and the occult at times and at other times he comes off disillusioned with humans or else very gentle and loving so this is a man of many different feelings and emotions.
I would like to know more about Mr. David Lewis. Beneath a common name lurks a very uncommon person. His distaste for religion actually went as far as writing a song about a witch whose name is Andwella on the first album LOVE AND POETRY. If you're looking for the best psychedelic album ever made that goes off into progressive and hard rock territory look no further. It wasn't gonna stop there. WORLD'S END under the new name Andwella instead of Andwella's Dream gained an international release as did the follow up PEOPLES PEOPLE, but all 3 records were commercial flops at the time. I find that unfathomable. This is some of the most powerful music I've ever heard in my whole life. I have no idea how they managed to make one masterpiece after another without huge sales and the kind of popularity that made for the really big names of the era. Whilst sales wise the albums did nothing they speak volumes about all kinds of things and demolish many hugely successful bands like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Savoy Brown, Family (after the first album), and the increasingly over time inconsistent Traffic just to name a few examples. The influences on Andwella's Dream/Andwella's records are as varied as it gets with on the the first two albums the unlikely appearances sometimes all at once of early/great Traffic, The Band, and Jimi Hendrix with PEOPLES PEOPLE leaning more towards Band influenced pastoral folkrock than the full on attack of much of the first two. For all 3 albums David Lewis sings in a passionate and earthy voice that definitely has shades of a lower pitched Steve Winwood and Gary Brooker. I'd like to share my thoughts on each album separately now with you so hold on tight and be patient.
-THE BEGINNING: ANDWELLA'S DREAM'S OF LOVE AND POETRY-
Released in 1969 when psychedelic rock was beginning to turn into progressive, hard, folk, and country rock there is a lot of all of the above and a lot of psychedelic mind frying going on on the first album. It may be the best place for psych fans to start off. David Lewis penned all of the songs which range from the scathing fuzz guitar attacks on "The Days Grew Longer For Love," "Shades Of Grey," "Andwella," and the Hendrix inspired mania of "Sunday" to the beautifully haunting psychedelic number "Felix" to the tuneful singalong country rock of "Man Without A Name." You can hear the beginning of Thin Lizzy and at times even a little Jethro Tull, but that's probably because of the blues influences and some of the guitar passages. "Take My Road" is another great song, a really great song. CBS did nothing for Andwella's Dream. The Troubles in Northern Ireland were at their ugly beginning and I bet Andwella's Dream were glad they'd left for England which was unfortunately the only way to survive for Irish bands at that time. I bet they weren't too happy about CBS pressing the record in very limited quantities and now if you own the original you own a 1500 quid or $2,000 record! That means we should be really glad that both the old bootleg which is in and of itself a collector's item and the legitimate Lightning Tree edition have fantastic sound quality. You have to have this album. I would put every song as a killer in my book here and the lyrics are astonishingly good. It's a snapshot in time of a different time. Unfortunately, it's the songs about prejudice and evil that still ring true today. David Lewis seems like somebody you'd see sitting alone in a corner looking and feeling contented by himself just strumming a guitar and jotting down poetry. I guess I'm saying he comes across rather introverted. He also has an interest in the occult which makes for some intriguing lyrics on all 3 records. Would a worldwide deal change his direction? No. Read on further, but do seek the first one LOVE AND POETRY out first it will blow your mind much more so than any number of hugely successful albums that came out at the same time.
-IS WORLD'S END THE END OF THE WORLD- NO IT MAY EVEN TOP THE FIRST-
WORLD'S END managed to get the newly simplified named Andwella a worldwide deal and came in a dark, creepy, and stunning cover which had songs about everything of importance in its grooves when you put the record on the turntable and cranked it up. "Hold Onto Your Mind" is a natural continuation of the first album with killer melodies, driving Koobas alike piano, and blasting wild ass guitar raging violently out of control at the end. If ever there was a #1 hit that was only a #1 hit to those lucky enough to hear it this song is exactly that. You also as with the debut get a wide range of different genres thrown in which include stabs at Gospel/soul influences in "I'm Happy Just To See You Get Her," beautiful ballads like the tender and charming "Lady Love" about a woman who is loveliness personified, and stark haunting numbers like the title track and the powerfully creepy tour de force "Shadow Of The Night." There's even a progressive rock instrumental number in "Michael Fitzhenry" that excels at exactly what Traffic were failing miserably at after a great first album. Andwella and David Lewis weren't gonna cave in and turn into bullshit rock like Family or to a lesser extent Traffic after an amazing first album- they were gonna move and groove and develop their solid musical ideas into something that might be even more impressive if that's something I can even imagine- wow! Look no further for perfection- here it is! David Lewis I hope is still with us and I hope that for the whole band. I don't know just how poor the sales were of their albums, but most certainly they weren't good. An American label should have made them huge, but unfortunately that just didn't transpire. I don't think David Lewis was going to get perturbed by the public's indifference. He may have seen his songs as something private from his heart he was revealing and maybe he wasn't too unhappy when he had to keep his secrets secrets. However, as personified in "The Road" he was developing an obsession with The Band and olde timey handicrafts and this would lead to a personnel upheaval and huge musical change on PEOPLES PEOPLE. Now we reach that album. Album #3.
-PEOPLES PEOPLE THE HUGE HIT DOESN'T COME, BUT A GREAT ALBUM DOES-
Now things weren't too good for Andwella. Two albums of musical brilliance have been recorded and released with miserable sales and clearly something was gonna change and the musical climate was changing anyway. David Lewis on PEOPLES PEOPLE is the only member besides the band's keyboard player who himself was an addition who is left on the third and last album. The guitar flies out the window. So do dark progressive influences and psychedelic brain blasters. A friendly, pastoral, melodic, and song based album of very pleasant music and great lyrics is what lies in store for you on PEOPLES PEOPLE. Right off the album starts with one of their best songs in the soul influenced "She Taught Me To Love" and there's not one weak track on the album, but I miss the soaring smashing guitar pyrotechnics and energy of the first two making the third a very different listening experience. Some songs sound like attempts at a hit single, but none of the emotional power is thrown out this is just the most introverted and most commercial of the three albums. It has to be heard like the first two albums, but the audience they couldn't reach on the first two still wasn't reached on the third album. I can't believe it didn't work out better for the brilliant songs of David Lewis. He'd written three albums worth of greats and classics, but the record sales were poor again. Not surprisingly it was the last album. I feel very sad for Andwella. This album is beautiful. it isn't quite as good as the first two or maybe it is I leave that for my mood swings to decide. When I want to smile and relax I put PEOPLES PEOPLE on. When I want to fly out into a completely different world I put the first two on, but one thing can't be denied- there's a vision here and it's a powerful one. You need to get all 3 albums and don't worry about the American pressings sounding not-so-hot like many times happens they actually sound fantastic. We should be glad that Andwella came out in America, but their albums have vanished making them only available for the most part on the internet and I strongly urge you to track them down through discogs or musicstack. If you walk into a record store and see WORLD'S END or PEOPLES PEOPLE grab them and your life may take on a whole new path. I am increasingly removing myself from society and becoming an introvert. I would like to thank my friends in England who have been so supportive and my friends who care here, but introversion seems to be the way to go in a life that unless I fill it with music becomes more and more questionable for how much pleasure can be in it when there is such a huge amount of sadness and anger. I feel that I've been taken for a ride. I suspect that David Lewis felt the same way. I've found someone to connect with in him and I love his music. I would be overjoyed if he would write to me if he happens to read this blog entry. Feel free to send any of your comments (positive ONLY!) my way and I'm going into my Andwella world very soon again tonight! And you should too.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Finally After 21 Years The ULTIMATE ROCK OPERA Libretto Is Done Largely Thanks To 1 Rifles UK's Inspiration Now Seeking Daring If Raw Recruits For The Musical Part- Let's Rock!
I've made up with my very best friend and the only record dealer I consider a friend after some disgusting comments and much harm done by someone who shall go nameless and is completely tarnished in my mind. Getting to that truth took up a bit of my time, but most of the last two weeks have been taken up on a finally realized breakthrough I've spent 21 long years trying to get right- a full fledged rock concept opera now loosely based on a really revealing and detailed dream 22 years ago that concerned an anti Christian more so anti religion and vehemently anti war concept album that was supposed to be so devilish, violent, scathing, masterful, and hard brute force about concrete truths that nobody could play it without a huge overhaul to their mind, their soul, and their way of thinking about my favorite group of people in the whole world- Soldiers (excluding females and mostly British To The Bone)
-The Opera And The Vision: The Reality Of Writing The Heaviest Thing Ever Written-
I've had many really vivid and detailed dreams that turned out to hold some real form of truth for my whole life, but it's the music/military/occult based ones from my "growing years" that really have been the most memorable. A long time ago I gave full account of the prophetic dream about The O Band which turned out to be a case of Deja Vu, but my dream of the mighty album called BLAK MAJICK RITUAL (the spelling in the dream and the spelling I use) must certainly be the highest for inspiration, educating me, and pointing a path a million years ago of where I'm headed now. I had no real clue about how I felt in regards to soldiers from any country when I had the dream, but in December of 1991 the birth of a lot of changing and growing happened when I was fighting like a brutal warrior against the even more brutal injustices of the school I was in. I strongly suspect that what happened in the course of the dream had a lot to do with my just blossoming fascination with the occult and dark subject matter, but it just as much had to do with the amazing music I heard by the Swedish psychedelic/pop hard rock legends Blond.
The dream took place after a lot of listening to Blond and for the first time in my life soldiers started to play a positive role largely thanks to some of Blond's very insightful lyrics. I recommend the album to everyone and you can hear some real wisdom and fortitude in "Sailing 'Cross The Ocean" and "Time Is Mine." You can learn what love really is too- a tough subject for me at the time and for many years to come as I was completely unaware of where that emotion would lead me to...
I for many, many long hard years tried to capture all the heavy vibes of the music in that dream about the ultimate apocalyptic, violent, savage, hard as hard can be, and also musically momentous album and every time it turned out the same- I was struggling and getting nowhere as Benjamin Blake Mitchner trying to fill the shoes of the dream's majestic powerful mysterious Pieter Pryce (Peter Price was how the half Swedish half Dutch vocalist/musician/writer Anglicized his name).
One of his bands was called Witching Hour and that was to be the name and inspiration of my earliest failed attempts at the tender ages of 16 to 18. As far as I could go with inventing great pyrotechnics, shadings, and musical nuances into my guitar playing I just couldn't write the songs. I couldn't write one song to make that even more true to life. I was struggling while I was growing. Time would tell that the breakthrough wasn't gonna come at all during my teenaged years. Witching Hour was a band that never existed as you can imagine. They happened in a dream and I couldn't fulfill the music heard in the dream with my meager writing abilities.
Fast forward quite a few years and I would try even harder, but something was standing in my way and causing me to nearly give up all hope. I couldn't get the words right. I needed to have a huge force touch my life, I needed a huge motivation, someone or something I loved enough to really go out and make the statement for. Inspiration comes in strange experiences sometimes and sometimes it will hit you right when you think all hope is lost. Read on and see if you have the power to become a part of the brilliance I'm gonna spend a whole lot of time, effort, and hard work on!
-The 1st Battalion Of The Rifles Regiment Come To The Valiant Rescue And Tony Martin ex Black Sabbath provide the next steps required to do it- Thanks to all and everyone who helped!-
I've been on a crazy ride for a few years with the 1st Battalion Of The Rifles Regiment in England where these tough, intelligent, forward going, and for 95% fantastic soldiers can trace their roots back to the war Great Britain should have won- the ludicrous to me American War Of Independence. One of the main things that sparkled in the all-revealing dream and led to the whole Army Witch And Warlock Nonconformity Message Maker I now am happened just days before the dream when I acted out my hatred of American conformist nationalistic blind as can be thinking by playing the part of a Redcoat British Soldier in school and I smashed up a whole bunch of things during a "Patriotism Raising" ceremony that was like every other ceremony at the school I was in- full of nothing but a lot of bullshit. I was caught on video camera in my defiant stance and said "I'm not taking this fucking shit anymore you don't get your independence and you'll be hearing from ME!" Yes, it must be revealed that those Redcoats later on would become my unknowing musical salvation in the form of the wonderful soldiers who can proudly call them their ancestry and heritage.
Most of the soldiers in 1 Rifles have been generous, patient, friendly, helpful, wise, highly educational, and kind to me and I sincerely thank British soldiers especially them for enabling me to make this huge leap forward as I feel very strongly that soldiers from everywhere good (including America now) are some of the most underrated men/boys if not THE MOST UNDERRATED in the world. I see how soldiers are detested and hated by a lot of stupid people and this can filter right through into mean spirited wholly wrong lyrics and comments and beliefs often held by a whole lot of stupid people. For 12 years I've been vehemently anti Irish in my beliefs and anti anyone who is against the British Army. I unfortunately could not channel this into my writing because I hadn't had a vision to string around the for/against scenario this album was about from the first revelations of it in the dream. There have been great and brilliant and also horrible and heart breaking experiences with The Rifles over the time that I've become involved in my relations with them, but since the best soldiers in the regiment and the many great British soldiers going way back that I've had the pleasure to know vastly outweigh the bad it was only a matter of time before I would reach that experience that made me come up with something that would be even more of an experience than the first time I heard the one Jimi Hendrix put us into. Conversations got more serious and that was step one. I got a lot of bringing up when I was down and that was step two. The lightning strike just happened and was helped immensely by conversations and encouragement these extraordinary lads didn't even have to grant me. I knew I'd found the resilience and strength needed through the encouragement instilled by them for me. To all my mates you warmed up my heart and lit the spark (then the fuse).
I was thinking about things like scary imagery in songs, underground vibrations that rumble your soul, and really getting into the warrior mindset when I by chance started listening a lot on YouTube to Chicago's groundbreaking Coven and their powerful soaring voiced true to life real witch Jinx Dawson. Jinx if you see this I love you. Jinx is a woman who can do what hardly any other women can do for the vehemently NOT straight me- she can really take a hold of my heart. Jinx and the whole band probably got used and since I've heard all about the bad experiences of the Wilson sisters of Heart in the beginning of their career nothing would surprise me. I think that if another all out rocker female came out now she would probably and hopefully eclipse the kind of nowhere music made by most female artists of late bar the fantastic Portishead. I hear in Coven's music a band that defies all the phony pious nonsense not only much of this country, but that all religion stands for. They went from proud Inverted cross wearing Satanists to sparkling melodic songs with Jinx and the whole band showing their always improving chops and especially that lovely blonde woman breaking new ground with her voice. I don't know anybody in Coven, but I can say that they helped me out on the musical/lyrical front of the breakthrough although not as much as soldiers who are and always will be my #1 inspiration.
In 1 Rifles there are musicians, music followers, and singers who may be miles away from me when it comes to bugling and things like that, but I love Army music and marching sounds so I decided to not just talk with the boys about war, life, love, happiness, and sadness, but really to listen. When looking at the horrendous kind of sacrifices made for ungrateful and utterly shitheaded leaders and stupid dark ages dwelling in the 21st century filth people anger like the anger that would often make me blow up in school started to swelter in me. I then had the breakthrough- I started writing and it just was coming to me by magic. I kept on with it and lo after 21 years it's finally paying off!!!! I've changed a lot of the concept drastically from the dream and really made it operatic and for operatic what's better than the monolith majestic sound of the great singers like Tony Martin of 10 years now shamefully washed out of their catalog Black Sabbath or the tragically no longer with us David Byron of Uriah Heep and Freddy Mercury? I sing very forcefully and with a lot of soul. These greats really have inspired me and I'm much more comfortable singing very dramatic stuff that borders on opera so that together with a kind of vocal bugle revelry or sadness and fire-in-my-heart ideas for the music I'm creating the best of 1 Rifles helped top it all off for me.
-Inspirations Aplenty Musical Mayhem To Be Developed And Brilliant Help During Bad Periods-
I sing like an Englishman when I'm not singing like some of my American pomp rock and AOR influences and it would be lying to say that Dennis Deyoung of Styx or Steve Perry of Journey would have happened without two great singers who got there first who were both English- David Byron and Freddy Mercury (actually Mercury was/is Parsi Tribe Indian born in Madagascar). It also would be very contradictory if I didn't admit what a huge influence both Perry and Deyoung have been for me. Dennis is a perfectionist and he also tried hard to bridge opera with rock succeeding beautifully. Still for the best vocals in the history of heavy music both Byron and the Madagascar master Mercury are still number one and both tragically are dead.
I was hit hard by the deaths of several musical friends, but the worst experience in terms of losing somebody lies with a very good mate in 1 Rifles CPL Mark Palin who very sadly was killed in 2011 in Afghanistan fighting for people who I will not even talk about and whose country we should not be in. I will only say one thing- I don't like them one bit. I can't feel much sympathy. I simply feel like they have their world and we have ours and we shouldn't have gone in trying to turn their world into anything like the Western World. They simply are too diversified, but they warm people's hearts when they are a lot of them Taliban and supporters who are total savages. They are not cultured tribes like the shamefully treated Native Americans who are still a million light years ahead of the settlers who wiped so many of them out. I guess just like the "Ireland Question" I'm off with my mates in the British Army and the rest of the world is horrified. I like that. The more I started thinking about it, thinking of what we get up to saying with each other, the bond we have together, I knew I'd get right into a soldierly mindset and ready myself for possibly the bloodiest texts (or if you prefer the word Lyrics) ever laid down. I aim to be honest and to shock and only aim to please myself. I had spent too much energy thinking about other people's opinions and what they may think. I ditched that nervous thinking for my Rock Opera. The words I've come up with stem from very Anti war beliefs I have that for a change side with the ones who have to do the dirty work. I also ended up naturally working in themes of love and other romantic imagery to offset the really grim stuff.
-Summing It All Up And The Question Is Asked Are You Ready To Rock!-
The opera slams religion, but it also dares to really get down with some seriously violent tones and I finally have written something that shows the two sides of not just my soul, but the lads I've written it for. I think that music still can move forward. We may think sometimes "Oh, that's been done everything's been done," but I'm starting to see things differently. Nobody has had the courage to say some of the things I put down not even Sabbath. However, I do not wish to make music that is so metallic that you can't understand the words to it and it sounds like a machine is doing it. Heavy Metal became just as perverted as Christianity or Allah when it turned into white trash hate music. Back in the days of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, and very significantly with the amazing new developments made by emotionally riveting bands like Diamond Head metal could have a lot of passion, a lot of depth to it. There have been quite a few hard rock, heavy progressive, and heavy metal bands who have really discovered the kind of way down emotional soul searching going on in everything from the best of the blues and soul classics to actual Opera. I believe that rock comes out of African American and Classical music sometimes with shadings of folk. If you get too far from the foundation on which all rock should be built you end up with music that not only is not authentic, but is also unlistenable. I've used in the heading for this the title of a song by the original Michael Schenker Group (MSG) with the unique Gary Barden as vocalist "Are You Ready To Rock." I did a lot of looking back on my whole life since music became so powerful to me and a lot of searching when I wrote my mighty long opera. I had to retrace my steps many times and think a lot. I wanted to touch on something emotional, something with soul, something where despite all the dark and violent sentiments I would not have to resort to using nowhere metal cliches. I would say if there's a band who are the musical equivalent to 1 Rifles that band would be several. You have to put a few together, but coming up near the top of the list is the sadly much neglected Alaska who came not from Alaska they came from England and came out of one of the most seminal brilliant bands ever- Whitesnake. David Coverdale is a perfect example of what one man can accomplish in the face of adversity. He went from years of ignorance when he was making his best music to a huge worldwide star, but even though he got to stardom he has remained a great person.
Alaska, however, are even closer to what I want from my music. You hear clearly the words from almost mellow vocals and hear all the different shadings in the music. The best of their two albums is Heart Of The Storm and like my own lyrics they wrote on sometimes some pretty scathing subjects. Their second album The Pack was a little bit too hurried and not enough of the melodic brilliance of the first is included on it, but what is included is a song that influenced me greatly even without the album in my collection- the scary anti war song "I Really Want To Know." You can understand all the words to this song about a massacre and everything is so melodic you don't feel like you are being bludgeoned by a bunch of angry stupid white guys as you would feel if say Megadeth had done it. Music can only go forward by going back for a few memories and then plunging forward. History and the men who make it can only go forward by taking it forward not by going back. Essentially my opera is those sentiments. I have created a nightmare vision of the future based on despots and fascism that goes back to Adolph and Stalin and ahead to George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Ossama Bin Laden and I put the scared, angry person I am when thinking about the bastards who get power and abuse it long after all that's going on now into a nightmare vision of the future. I don't believe that we'll ever go forward unless some major upheaval occurs. There has to be some kind of awakening and I strongly believe in my message of finally something so awful happening that after nothing but blackness and despair hopefulness and the right kind of power come out of it. Soldiers aren't machines. They have a lot more feelings than the heartless people who are against them. I will end with likewise I am not in any way a plastic, artificial, or one-dimensional person I am multifaceted and I strongly feel my breakthrough shows that. If you have courage enough then soon you may be helping to make some musical history and some dreams finally come true.
-The Opera And The Vision: The Reality Of Writing The Heaviest Thing Ever Written-
I've had many really vivid and detailed dreams that turned out to hold some real form of truth for my whole life, but it's the music/military/occult based ones from my "growing years" that really have been the most memorable. A long time ago I gave full account of the prophetic dream about The O Band which turned out to be a case of Deja Vu, but my dream of the mighty album called BLAK MAJICK RITUAL (the spelling in the dream and the spelling I use) must certainly be the highest for inspiration, educating me, and pointing a path a million years ago of where I'm headed now. I had no real clue about how I felt in regards to soldiers from any country when I had the dream, but in December of 1991 the birth of a lot of changing and growing happened when I was fighting like a brutal warrior against the even more brutal injustices of the school I was in. I strongly suspect that what happened in the course of the dream had a lot to do with my just blossoming fascination with the occult and dark subject matter, but it just as much had to do with the amazing music I heard by the Swedish psychedelic/pop hard rock legends Blond.
The dream took place after a lot of listening to Blond and for the first time in my life soldiers started to play a positive role largely thanks to some of Blond's very insightful lyrics. I recommend the album to everyone and you can hear some real wisdom and fortitude in "Sailing 'Cross The Ocean" and "Time Is Mine." You can learn what love really is too- a tough subject for me at the time and for many years to come as I was completely unaware of where that emotion would lead me to...
I for many, many long hard years tried to capture all the heavy vibes of the music in that dream about the ultimate apocalyptic, violent, savage, hard as hard can be, and also musically momentous album and every time it turned out the same- I was struggling and getting nowhere as Benjamin Blake Mitchner trying to fill the shoes of the dream's majestic powerful mysterious Pieter Pryce (Peter Price was how the half Swedish half Dutch vocalist/musician/writer Anglicized his name).
One of his bands was called Witching Hour and that was to be the name and inspiration of my earliest failed attempts at the tender ages of 16 to 18. As far as I could go with inventing great pyrotechnics, shadings, and musical nuances into my guitar playing I just couldn't write the songs. I couldn't write one song to make that even more true to life. I was struggling while I was growing. Time would tell that the breakthrough wasn't gonna come at all during my teenaged years. Witching Hour was a band that never existed as you can imagine. They happened in a dream and I couldn't fulfill the music heard in the dream with my meager writing abilities.
Fast forward quite a few years and I would try even harder, but something was standing in my way and causing me to nearly give up all hope. I couldn't get the words right. I needed to have a huge force touch my life, I needed a huge motivation, someone or something I loved enough to really go out and make the statement for. Inspiration comes in strange experiences sometimes and sometimes it will hit you right when you think all hope is lost. Read on and see if you have the power to become a part of the brilliance I'm gonna spend a whole lot of time, effort, and hard work on!
-The 1st Battalion Of The Rifles Regiment Come To The Valiant Rescue And Tony Martin ex Black Sabbath provide the next steps required to do it- Thanks to all and everyone who helped!-
I've been on a crazy ride for a few years with the 1st Battalion Of The Rifles Regiment in England where these tough, intelligent, forward going, and for 95% fantastic soldiers can trace their roots back to the war Great Britain should have won- the ludicrous to me American War Of Independence. One of the main things that sparkled in the all-revealing dream and led to the whole Army Witch And Warlock Nonconformity Message Maker I now am happened just days before the dream when I acted out my hatred of American conformist nationalistic blind as can be thinking by playing the part of a Redcoat British Soldier in school and I smashed up a whole bunch of things during a "Patriotism Raising" ceremony that was like every other ceremony at the school I was in- full of nothing but a lot of bullshit. I was caught on video camera in my defiant stance and said "I'm not taking this fucking shit anymore you don't get your independence and you'll be hearing from ME!" Yes, it must be revealed that those Redcoats later on would become my unknowing musical salvation in the form of the wonderful soldiers who can proudly call them their ancestry and heritage.
Most of the soldiers in 1 Rifles have been generous, patient, friendly, helpful, wise, highly educational, and kind to me and I sincerely thank British soldiers especially them for enabling me to make this huge leap forward as I feel very strongly that soldiers from everywhere good (including America now) are some of the most underrated men/boys if not THE MOST UNDERRATED in the world. I see how soldiers are detested and hated by a lot of stupid people and this can filter right through into mean spirited wholly wrong lyrics and comments and beliefs often held by a whole lot of stupid people. For 12 years I've been vehemently anti Irish in my beliefs and anti anyone who is against the British Army. I unfortunately could not channel this into my writing because I hadn't had a vision to string around the for/against scenario this album was about from the first revelations of it in the dream. There have been great and brilliant and also horrible and heart breaking experiences with The Rifles over the time that I've become involved in my relations with them, but since the best soldiers in the regiment and the many great British soldiers going way back that I've had the pleasure to know vastly outweigh the bad it was only a matter of time before I would reach that experience that made me come up with something that would be even more of an experience than the first time I heard the one Jimi Hendrix put us into. Conversations got more serious and that was step one. I got a lot of bringing up when I was down and that was step two. The lightning strike just happened and was helped immensely by conversations and encouragement these extraordinary lads didn't even have to grant me. I knew I'd found the resilience and strength needed through the encouragement instilled by them for me. To all my mates you warmed up my heart and lit the spark (then the fuse).
I was thinking about things like scary imagery in songs, underground vibrations that rumble your soul, and really getting into the warrior mindset when I by chance started listening a lot on YouTube to Chicago's groundbreaking Coven and their powerful soaring voiced true to life real witch Jinx Dawson. Jinx if you see this I love you. Jinx is a woman who can do what hardly any other women can do for the vehemently NOT straight me- she can really take a hold of my heart. Jinx and the whole band probably got used and since I've heard all about the bad experiences of the Wilson sisters of Heart in the beginning of their career nothing would surprise me. I think that if another all out rocker female came out now she would probably and hopefully eclipse the kind of nowhere music made by most female artists of late bar the fantastic Portishead. I hear in Coven's music a band that defies all the phony pious nonsense not only much of this country, but that all religion stands for. They went from proud Inverted cross wearing Satanists to sparkling melodic songs with Jinx and the whole band showing their always improving chops and especially that lovely blonde woman breaking new ground with her voice. I don't know anybody in Coven, but I can say that they helped me out on the musical/lyrical front of the breakthrough although not as much as soldiers who are and always will be my #1 inspiration.
In 1 Rifles there are musicians, music followers, and singers who may be miles away from me when it comes to bugling and things like that, but I love Army music and marching sounds so I decided to not just talk with the boys about war, life, love, happiness, and sadness, but really to listen. When looking at the horrendous kind of sacrifices made for ungrateful and utterly shitheaded leaders and stupid dark ages dwelling in the 21st century filth people anger like the anger that would often make me blow up in school started to swelter in me. I then had the breakthrough- I started writing and it just was coming to me by magic. I kept on with it and lo after 21 years it's finally paying off!!!! I've changed a lot of the concept drastically from the dream and really made it operatic and for operatic what's better than the monolith majestic sound of the great singers like Tony Martin of 10 years now shamefully washed out of their catalog Black Sabbath or the tragically no longer with us David Byron of Uriah Heep and Freddy Mercury? I sing very forcefully and with a lot of soul. These greats really have inspired me and I'm much more comfortable singing very dramatic stuff that borders on opera so that together with a kind of vocal bugle revelry or sadness and fire-in-my-heart ideas for the music I'm creating the best of 1 Rifles helped top it all off for me.
-Inspirations Aplenty Musical Mayhem To Be Developed And Brilliant Help During Bad Periods-
I sing like an Englishman when I'm not singing like some of my American pomp rock and AOR influences and it would be lying to say that Dennis Deyoung of Styx or Steve Perry of Journey would have happened without two great singers who got there first who were both English- David Byron and Freddy Mercury (actually Mercury was/is Parsi Tribe Indian born in Madagascar). It also would be very contradictory if I didn't admit what a huge influence both Perry and Deyoung have been for me. Dennis is a perfectionist and he also tried hard to bridge opera with rock succeeding beautifully. Still for the best vocals in the history of heavy music both Byron and the Madagascar master Mercury are still number one and both tragically are dead.
I was hit hard by the deaths of several musical friends, but the worst experience in terms of losing somebody lies with a very good mate in 1 Rifles CPL Mark Palin who very sadly was killed in 2011 in Afghanistan fighting for people who I will not even talk about and whose country we should not be in. I will only say one thing- I don't like them one bit. I can't feel much sympathy. I simply feel like they have their world and we have ours and we shouldn't have gone in trying to turn their world into anything like the Western World. They simply are too diversified, but they warm people's hearts when they are a lot of them Taliban and supporters who are total savages. They are not cultured tribes like the shamefully treated Native Americans who are still a million light years ahead of the settlers who wiped so many of them out. I guess just like the "Ireland Question" I'm off with my mates in the British Army and the rest of the world is horrified. I like that. The more I started thinking about it, thinking of what we get up to saying with each other, the bond we have together, I knew I'd get right into a soldierly mindset and ready myself for possibly the bloodiest texts (or if you prefer the word Lyrics) ever laid down. I aim to be honest and to shock and only aim to please myself. I had spent too much energy thinking about other people's opinions and what they may think. I ditched that nervous thinking for my Rock Opera. The words I've come up with stem from very Anti war beliefs I have that for a change side with the ones who have to do the dirty work. I also ended up naturally working in themes of love and other romantic imagery to offset the really grim stuff.
-Summing It All Up And The Question Is Asked Are You Ready To Rock!-
The opera slams religion, but it also dares to really get down with some seriously violent tones and I finally have written something that shows the two sides of not just my soul, but the lads I've written it for. I think that music still can move forward. We may think sometimes "Oh, that's been done everything's been done," but I'm starting to see things differently. Nobody has had the courage to say some of the things I put down not even Sabbath. However, I do not wish to make music that is so metallic that you can't understand the words to it and it sounds like a machine is doing it. Heavy Metal became just as perverted as Christianity or Allah when it turned into white trash hate music. Back in the days of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, and very significantly with the amazing new developments made by emotionally riveting bands like Diamond Head metal could have a lot of passion, a lot of depth to it. There have been quite a few hard rock, heavy progressive, and heavy metal bands who have really discovered the kind of way down emotional soul searching going on in everything from the best of the blues and soul classics to actual Opera. I believe that rock comes out of African American and Classical music sometimes with shadings of folk. If you get too far from the foundation on which all rock should be built you end up with music that not only is not authentic, but is also unlistenable. I've used in the heading for this the title of a song by the original Michael Schenker Group (MSG) with the unique Gary Barden as vocalist "Are You Ready To Rock." I did a lot of looking back on my whole life since music became so powerful to me and a lot of searching when I wrote my mighty long opera. I had to retrace my steps many times and think a lot. I wanted to touch on something emotional, something with soul, something where despite all the dark and violent sentiments I would not have to resort to using nowhere metal cliches. I would say if there's a band who are the musical equivalent to 1 Rifles that band would be several. You have to put a few together, but coming up near the top of the list is the sadly much neglected Alaska who came not from Alaska they came from England and came out of one of the most seminal brilliant bands ever- Whitesnake. David Coverdale is a perfect example of what one man can accomplish in the face of adversity. He went from years of ignorance when he was making his best music to a huge worldwide star, but even though he got to stardom he has remained a great person.
Alaska, however, are even closer to what I want from my music. You hear clearly the words from almost mellow vocals and hear all the different shadings in the music. The best of their two albums is Heart Of The Storm and like my own lyrics they wrote on sometimes some pretty scathing subjects. Their second album The Pack was a little bit too hurried and not enough of the melodic brilliance of the first is included on it, but what is included is a song that influenced me greatly even without the album in my collection- the scary anti war song "I Really Want To Know." You can understand all the words to this song about a massacre and everything is so melodic you don't feel like you are being bludgeoned by a bunch of angry stupid white guys as you would feel if say Megadeth had done it. Music can only go forward by going back for a few memories and then plunging forward. History and the men who make it can only go forward by taking it forward not by going back. Essentially my opera is those sentiments. I have created a nightmare vision of the future based on despots and fascism that goes back to Adolph and Stalin and ahead to George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Ossama Bin Laden and I put the scared, angry person I am when thinking about the bastards who get power and abuse it long after all that's going on now into a nightmare vision of the future. I don't believe that we'll ever go forward unless some major upheaval occurs. There has to be some kind of awakening and I strongly believe in my message of finally something so awful happening that after nothing but blackness and despair hopefulness and the right kind of power come out of it. Soldiers aren't machines. They have a lot more feelings than the heartless people who are against them. I will end with likewise I am not in any way a plastic, artificial, or one-dimensional person I am multifaceted and I strongly feel my breakthrough shows that. If you have courage enough then soon you may be helping to make some musical history and some dreams finally come true.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
A Healthy Slice Of Mayan Quiche, Vikings, and Psychedelic Heaven Popol Ace and Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera
Reflecting is important and beginning anew even more important after an end to something comes about. The end of a 21 year and longer relationship came about earlier this week unexpectedly and shockingly when a tried and tested best friend became an enemy that I will never have anything to do with again. I will not go into detail as I don't wish to waste my time or the time of anyone reading this, but when a lie is told to demonically suit the selfish interests that can demolish the person on the receiving end and then more lies follow once the accusation flies and gets out in the open I will firmly state that downright lying can hurt as much as a sharp physical wound. This time the lies about my own person and who I am made me so angry that I will no longer consider this fool a friend of mine, but a sycophantic disease carrying loser who is dead and gone in my life. No more long drives to see him. No more phone calls. No more connections. I'm really mad.
It happens to all of us and what I suggest you do is just to calmly withdraw and go find something or someone you know you can trust. Some people will always be there to bring you up when you fall down. Whilst I am not enamored of every bloke in the Rifles Regiment of Britain I love quite a few of them as I do my wonderful German soldier mate Hans and talking with soldiers and listening to great music has really been a help to me and I fancy myself a kind of musical warrior/soldier myself who isn't a soldier. That's the way it's always gonna be. You keep up the fight and you don't give it up because people tell you you're worthless or "weak minded" or whatever their bullshit happens to be. I don't particularly feel comfortable on the telephone until I can ease into a conversation. I can be an idiot at first, but then if the talking starts I become more relaxed, more willing to discuss things at length. One thing I'll discuss here is that music is the key to my happiness and tends to be something very inspirational sans any religious connotations. So now that this bridge is yet another one decimated, rotted, and destroyed I simply went to that old fashioned remedy of music and thank Heavens I have a loving mother and father who put up with me and my always changeable moods from both a great person to a totally vexing one.
We all have faults. No one is perfect. However, if you get the best of people together in a band magic can really be pulled off and miracles too. That's where Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera come in. I would go right out and say that their one album under that name and with Dave Terry who is Elmer Gantry at the front is probably not just a once in a lifetime masterpiece, but the best British psychedelic rock album ever made. I have been loving them since I was 16 and a half and found a British original for $15 in the basement of a porn shop disguised as a record store in darkest Poughkepsie NY.
-From Triumph To Disaster and Back To Making The Hurt Heal-
That basement had a lot of amazing records and went to Hell when I made the fatal error of telling an arch rival record dealer of its existence. Sure enough I go back and it was all picked over except for the rarest Klaatu record in 95. In 1997 it was a nightmare and a memory so painful that I will NEVER DISCUSS IT. I was a horrible person then, but as horrible as I was I paid in full for the bad behavior and destructive lifestyle I was leading at the start of my 20s. I'd been done wrong by life and took it out on the people who cared about me and I won't be doing any more of that. My life had been written off by me when I was 21, but at 22/23/24 I made a best friend in a man named Ras from Denmark which is a country of mainly wonderful people except for one horrifically nasty and pathologically lying record dealer I know not the name of nor do I care. Ras worked in a great store sadly long since out of business in Manhattan called Second Coming and Ras provided me with a healing experience as did the store's inventory. I also made best friends with a Siberian acquaintance turned great supporter of me who I wish very well in whatever he does now so many years later. This was before the days of the Internet and I marvel at how different the world was then, how less selfish and cold everything/everyone seemed. I wouldn't have imagined that Popol Vuh Norway/Popol Ace (Same band) could be true in their condemnations of most people as being self-loving egotistical bastards and as for the songs they wrote about love I was just beginning to learn of that emotion's true meaning. As time has gone on I have been in love many times, but first loves tend to come into view when I listen to the two albums I'm discussing here.
-Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera Welcome To The Brilliant Show-
Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera were the first British band to totally knock me out and blow my mind into fragments reassembling it to see that the British and Europeans beat the shit out of the American psych I was mainly into. Not all American psych is useless or inferior, but most of it is what I started with not what would rule as majestic and powerful over time. I've heard some people start with British and European stuff and then they bite into American "garage psych" and that changes their tune. Poor losers and fools is all I can say as I went through the opposite musical metamorphosis. I started off with American bands. I started with garage rock and garage psych and when I heard Kak for the first time the garage was a dusty old cobwebbed place full of nothing. As soon as The Zombies and Kak had blown my mind something had to come along that I could actually call my own and not just dream about having the way I dreamed then of having an original of Kak. Kak may well be the best American album, but unfortunately I've had it 3 times now and the pressing is really as poor as can be. Another problem with American records. Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera came along just when I least expected it and I was hit really between the eyes with a big revelation when I heard it. In America it came out on Epic the same label as Kak and suffered from an almost as bad pressing job so go for the much rarer much more expensive British pressing which also looks a whole lot nicer. I had certainly never heard anything as varied and different, as exotic, as quintessentially English as Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera and I still get a magical "room full of sun filtering in" warm vibe when I hear the album.
Formed in Coventry and going down to London to be an in group on the Swinging scene there Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera comprised Elmer Gantry (Dave Terry real name: Lead vocals, rhythm guitar), John Ford (bass, a few other instruments, vocals), Richard "Hud" Hudson (drums, sitar, vocals), and last but certainly not least Colin Forster (lead guitar). The band played all the most happening discotheques and clubs and were very much a Mod band who got very ambitious when they gained valuable time in the studio. Songs like "Mother Writes," "Dream Starts" with its distorted vocals and Love style brass arrangements, "Air" with sitars aplenty, and the freaky "Reactions Of A Young Man" are Proto Progressive in nature and also can serve as a primer a year earlier of what The Koobas delved into to a certain extent. "Long Nights Of Summer" and "What's The Point Of Leaving" are beautiful melodic pop psych and should have been major hits. You even get an uproarious comedy number in the trad jazz gone to spastic nutso land full on freak out of Elmer/Dave in his histrionic reworking of Oscar Brown Jr's "But I Was Cool." "Mary Jane" is a druggy song with a strong funky groove to it and great vocals similar to The Koobas and you can really see the variable sounds created here on a one off brilliant masterwork coexist in harmony with each other- important.
-The All Important Question Of Music And The Essential Ingredients--
The lyrics on Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera are far more intelligent than nearly any American record I can think of and a lot of my distaste for American stuff of the lesser variety comes down to bad playing and bad lyrics. Even a band like Graffiti who try so hard for the kind of wide reaching Moody Blues vibe are second rate runners up when you really think about it. Graffiti were plagued by horrendously bad lyrics and this was not uncommon. Just listen to The Litter for Christs Sake this is really lame stuff "Action Woman" and a million and one cover versions trying to be Mod!!!!! The Litter were my number one band in the beginning, but time has not been kind to Distortions or either of their other two albums with the pick of a poor pack going to the Proto Metal Emerge on a real label (Probe). I'm not going to say there aren't American albums that are essential to your collection there are a lot of them, but they tend to be the undervalued ones. I personally prefer American stuff of the more pop psych/melodic psych variety as I feel that's what we do best, but for heavier ones there's a few really good bands who are very much in the minority. The Litter were at least better than the band that talented guitarist Tom "Zippy" Caplan formed Lightning who suffered from horrible vocals and too much Americana.
Oh geez, God damn The Band for what they did to music! Everything was about cliches when the half Canadians/half Yanks came on the scene with all their nonsense about Dixie and hot chicks. America would have to grow musically before it could become something to take seriously and that happened full on with the advent of Pomp and AOR. Take out Kansas and keep everything else in we mastered AOR/Pomp Rock and bands like Boston, Journey, Styx, Survivor, and New England are some of the best music ever created. Steve Perry is a perfect example of the underdog saving the day. He wasn't particularly handsome, but with a voice made out of gold he delivered and wrote good lyrics too. Steve wasn't happy with stardom and eventually the introverted Journey front man caved under all the pressure and screamed out for his sanity and his private life not to be invaded all the time. Success is a double edged sword to be sure.
-The Best Can Sometimes Come Before A Commercial Success-
Many musicians have been subject to the pressures of record companies and management going back to the 60s and Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera weren't handled properly and also were very young and gullible when they made their big punch out of the window of musical history that would later be completely shattered to fragments by The Koobas and then the British/European progressive onslaught. Two of the four would go onto huge success, but this would come as sidemen in The Strawbs where the material was inferior and so was Dave Cousins. The Strawbs peaked too soon with a young Sandy Denny and try as I might I can't get Dave Cousins and all his overdramatic folky pretentiousness or the demonic folk diva that Denny became in Fairport Convention. If you want folkrock stick with the bands that stress rock or twisted arrangements/vocals over folk. Go buy the first Earth Opera album that is how folk psych/progressive folk should be done. Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera show no signs of what was to come in The Strawbs thankfully and are very much a psychedelic/progressive rock band with the accent on rocking out or more subtle, reflective moods that predate the wonderful Dog That Bit People. With more of a push and more support in general they may have lasted longer and not become Velvet Opera the band who made Ride A Hustler's Dream which is more folk/blues rock although I should add is pretty good for prog/folk psych too. Nothing good came to these boys. They tried from 1967 on through 1970 and it just wasn't getting heard or praised or anything of that sort which they should have had. I'm not a huge fan of Paul Brett except as a brilliant folk guitar innovator with some nice songs here and there, but even he could rock as he proved on Velvet Opera's new look Ride A Hustler's Dream which isn't anywhere as good as the first album, but it certainly has some great tracks.
-The Quiche is Particularly Lovely Made By Vikings! Norway's Popol Vuh/Ace-
Popol Ace began life in Norway in 1972 on their album debut as Popol Vuh of Norway not the boring German Popol Vuh. If ever a band deserved to be huge worldwide and are progressive rock Gods look no further. Jahn Teigen was such a formidable vocalist that he was the first pick to replace Peter Gabriel in Genesis and it's pretty astonishing he turned them down. Add to that the huge talents of Arne Schulze (guitar), Pete Knutsen (guitar/keyboards), Terje Methi (bass), and Thor Andreassen (drums) who also were great at harmony vocals and this is a band with killer songs, great production work from the whole band as a team, and possibly the best progressive record ever made in Quiche Maya. This album came out under the name Popol Ace as their first release under the new name with a superior cover of the band as Vikings on a Fjord and I would recommend forking out for that version as it is there that you can hear how far they improved from their first album to Quiche Maya.
The eponymous debut by Popol Vuh (Norway) is a great album and flautist Pjokken Eide adds some nice colourings to the selections, but lyrically and musically it isn't perfect. The two songs on the Popol Ace album speak volumes as to the huge step forward the group made. "Hunchback" was probably together with the amazing closing epic "Medicine" the high point of their debut with great lyrics and very creative musicianship. "All We Have Is The Past" was a lesser track also about mortality, but a little unrealized with a great middle and only OK majority of the song. There were some rough edges and some mistakes that needed to be adjusted, but I would definitely say that you need to get all their albums with Jahn Teigen at the forefront. Popol Vuh/Ace made some major changes between first and second releases and came up with Quiche Maya- an album of staggering beauty, fearsome power, and amazing voyages into the ultimate progressive wonderland.
Repackaged with all the best songs as Popol Ace's debut it really is something to go out and fork out for. There are two hard rock/jazzy prog tracks both of which show maturity and forcefulness unmatched in "Queen Of All Queens" about a horrible girl who uses everybody and ends up with not one friend in the world and the equally pissed off lyrically unfathomable "Milk-White Satin-Dressed Departure" about how relationships can be a major turn off for the person left to clean it all up when its over and long since dead. Most of the other songs are experiments in romance which would make the album unique for them as they tended towards more metaphysical matter/fantasy lyrics on their amazing follow up as Stolen From Time. "Dark Nights" is a melodic song about the hard adjustment to the darkness that comes and steals the day, but songs like "Yesterday" and "Between You And Me" are romantically based dramatic progressive symphonic rock at the absolute peak of that kind of music's powers. The lush waves of mellotron recall the wonderful British band Spring and Arne Schulze plays superb guitar that is understated, soaring, and melodic like a dream jam session in 1973 between George Harrison and a very young Michael Schenker.
-Conclusion-
Stick with those who love you seems to be the motto of Popol Vuh during this phase of their career and also live for yourself, your dreams, and your ambitions. It's hard to believe in the relationship that ended for me ending at all let alone in such an ugly way, but when people are lied to and the truth comes out there is no way to escape it. Thankfully the week is over and it brought me a lot of great wonderful brilliant music including Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera and Popol Ace. Music is a great thing sometimes and can also be a bad thing. It becomes a bad thing when some nefarious freaks use it as a way of stirring up violence, sickness, deformity, and hate messages, but we all know that's not really music it's just rubbish. I'm staying me. If people can't live with my eccentricities or special desires, my hopes and my dreams then even if I thought I knew them I never knew them and I throw them in the garbage- its an easy thing to end when you can make the simple fact a reality that you never knew that person at all. Be tolerant and don't be shy of following your own visions and fantasies. I hope one day a better less judgmental world becomes something I can have helped to create.
It happens to all of us and what I suggest you do is just to calmly withdraw and go find something or someone you know you can trust. Some people will always be there to bring you up when you fall down. Whilst I am not enamored of every bloke in the Rifles Regiment of Britain I love quite a few of them as I do my wonderful German soldier mate Hans and talking with soldiers and listening to great music has really been a help to me and I fancy myself a kind of musical warrior/soldier myself who isn't a soldier. That's the way it's always gonna be. You keep up the fight and you don't give it up because people tell you you're worthless or "weak minded" or whatever their bullshit happens to be. I don't particularly feel comfortable on the telephone until I can ease into a conversation. I can be an idiot at first, but then if the talking starts I become more relaxed, more willing to discuss things at length. One thing I'll discuss here is that music is the key to my happiness and tends to be something very inspirational sans any religious connotations. So now that this bridge is yet another one decimated, rotted, and destroyed I simply went to that old fashioned remedy of music and thank Heavens I have a loving mother and father who put up with me and my always changeable moods from both a great person to a totally vexing one.
We all have faults. No one is perfect. However, if you get the best of people together in a band magic can really be pulled off and miracles too. That's where Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera come in. I would go right out and say that their one album under that name and with Dave Terry who is Elmer Gantry at the front is probably not just a once in a lifetime masterpiece, but the best British psychedelic rock album ever made. I have been loving them since I was 16 and a half and found a British original for $15 in the basement of a porn shop disguised as a record store in darkest Poughkepsie NY.
-From Triumph To Disaster and Back To Making The Hurt Heal-
That basement had a lot of amazing records and went to Hell when I made the fatal error of telling an arch rival record dealer of its existence. Sure enough I go back and it was all picked over except for the rarest Klaatu record in 95. In 1997 it was a nightmare and a memory so painful that I will NEVER DISCUSS IT. I was a horrible person then, but as horrible as I was I paid in full for the bad behavior and destructive lifestyle I was leading at the start of my 20s. I'd been done wrong by life and took it out on the people who cared about me and I won't be doing any more of that. My life had been written off by me when I was 21, but at 22/23/24 I made a best friend in a man named Ras from Denmark which is a country of mainly wonderful people except for one horrifically nasty and pathologically lying record dealer I know not the name of nor do I care. Ras worked in a great store sadly long since out of business in Manhattan called Second Coming and Ras provided me with a healing experience as did the store's inventory. I also made best friends with a Siberian acquaintance turned great supporter of me who I wish very well in whatever he does now so many years later. This was before the days of the Internet and I marvel at how different the world was then, how less selfish and cold everything/everyone seemed. I wouldn't have imagined that Popol Vuh Norway/Popol Ace (Same band) could be true in their condemnations of most people as being self-loving egotistical bastards and as for the songs they wrote about love I was just beginning to learn of that emotion's true meaning. As time has gone on I have been in love many times, but first loves tend to come into view when I listen to the two albums I'm discussing here.
-Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera Welcome To The Brilliant Show-
Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera were the first British band to totally knock me out and blow my mind into fragments reassembling it to see that the British and Europeans beat the shit out of the American psych I was mainly into. Not all American psych is useless or inferior, but most of it is what I started with not what would rule as majestic and powerful over time. I've heard some people start with British and European stuff and then they bite into American "garage psych" and that changes their tune. Poor losers and fools is all I can say as I went through the opposite musical metamorphosis. I started off with American bands. I started with garage rock and garage psych and when I heard Kak for the first time the garage was a dusty old cobwebbed place full of nothing. As soon as The Zombies and Kak had blown my mind something had to come along that I could actually call my own and not just dream about having the way I dreamed then of having an original of Kak. Kak may well be the best American album, but unfortunately I've had it 3 times now and the pressing is really as poor as can be. Another problem with American records. Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera came along just when I least expected it and I was hit really between the eyes with a big revelation when I heard it. In America it came out on Epic the same label as Kak and suffered from an almost as bad pressing job so go for the much rarer much more expensive British pressing which also looks a whole lot nicer. I had certainly never heard anything as varied and different, as exotic, as quintessentially English as Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera and I still get a magical "room full of sun filtering in" warm vibe when I hear the album.
Formed in Coventry and going down to London to be an in group on the Swinging scene there Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera comprised Elmer Gantry (Dave Terry real name: Lead vocals, rhythm guitar), John Ford (bass, a few other instruments, vocals), Richard "Hud" Hudson (drums, sitar, vocals), and last but certainly not least Colin Forster (lead guitar). The band played all the most happening discotheques and clubs and were very much a Mod band who got very ambitious when they gained valuable time in the studio. Songs like "Mother Writes," "Dream Starts" with its distorted vocals and Love style brass arrangements, "Air" with sitars aplenty, and the freaky "Reactions Of A Young Man" are Proto Progressive in nature and also can serve as a primer a year earlier of what The Koobas delved into to a certain extent. "Long Nights Of Summer" and "What's The Point Of Leaving" are beautiful melodic pop psych and should have been major hits. You even get an uproarious comedy number in the trad jazz gone to spastic nutso land full on freak out of Elmer/Dave in his histrionic reworking of Oscar Brown Jr's "But I Was Cool." "Mary Jane" is a druggy song with a strong funky groove to it and great vocals similar to The Koobas and you can really see the variable sounds created here on a one off brilliant masterwork coexist in harmony with each other- important.
-The All Important Question Of Music And The Essential Ingredients--
The lyrics on Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera are far more intelligent than nearly any American record I can think of and a lot of my distaste for American stuff of the lesser variety comes down to bad playing and bad lyrics. Even a band like Graffiti who try so hard for the kind of wide reaching Moody Blues vibe are second rate runners up when you really think about it. Graffiti were plagued by horrendously bad lyrics and this was not uncommon. Just listen to The Litter for Christs Sake this is really lame stuff "Action Woman" and a million and one cover versions trying to be Mod!!!!! The Litter were my number one band in the beginning, but time has not been kind to Distortions or either of their other two albums with the pick of a poor pack going to the Proto Metal Emerge on a real label (Probe). I'm not going to say there aren't American albums that are essential to your collection there are a lot of them, but they tend to be the undervalued ones. I personally prefer American stuff of the more pop psych/melodic psych variety as I feel that's what we do best, but for heavier ones there's a few really good bands who are very much in the minority. The Litter were at least better than the band that talented guitarist Tom "Zippy" Caplan formed Lightning who suffered from horrible vocals and too much Americana.
Oh geez, God damn The Band for what they did to music! Everything was about cliches when the half Canadians/half Yanks came on the scene with all their nonsense about Dixie and hot chicks. America would have to grow musically before it could become something to take seriously and that happened full on with the advent of Pomp and AOR. Take out Kansas and keep everything else in we mastered AOR/Pomp Rock and bands like Boston, Journey, Styx, Survivor, and New England are some of the best music ever created. Steve Perry is a perfect example of the underdog saving the day. He wasn't particularly handsome, but with a voice made out of gold he delivered and wrote good lyrics too. Steve wasn't happy with stardom and eventually the introverted Journey front man caved under all the pressure and screamed out for his sanity and his private life not to be invaded all the time. Success is a double edged sword to be sure.
-The Best Can Sometimes Come Before A Commercial Success-
Many musicians have been subject to the pressures of record companies and management going back to the 60s and Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera weren't handled properly and also were very young and gullible when they made their big punch out of the window of musical history that would later be completely shattered to fragments by The Koobas and then the British/European progressive onslaught. Two of the four would go onto huge success, but this would come as sidemen in The Strawbs where the material was inferior and so was Dave Cousins. The Strawbs peaked too soon with a young Sandy Denny and try as I might I can't get Dave Cousins and all his overdramatic folky pretentiousness or the demonic folk diva that Denny became in Fairport Convention. If you want folkrock stick with the bands that stress rock or twisted arrangements/vocals over folk. Go buy the first Earth Opera album that is how folk psych/progressive folk should be done. Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera show no signs of what was to come in The Strawbs thankfully and are very much a psychedelic/progressive rock band with the accent on rocking out or more subtle, reflective moods that predate the wonderful Dog That Bit People. With more of a push and more support in general they may have lasted longer and not become Velvet Opera the band who made Ride A Hustler's Dream which is more folk/blues rock although I should add is pretty good for prog/folk psych too. Nothing good came to these boys. They tried from 1967 on through 1970 and it just wasn't getting heard or praised or anything of that sort which they should have had. I'm not a huge fan of Paul Brett except as a brilliant folk guitar innovator with some nice songs here and there, but even he could rock as he proved on Velvet Opera's new look Ride A Hustler's Dream which isn't anywhere as good as the first album, but it certainly has some great tracks.
-The Quiche is Particularly Lovely Made By Vikings! Norway's Popol Vuh/Ace-
Popol Ace began life in Norway in 1972 on their album debut as Popol Vuh of Norway not the boring German Popol Vuh. If ever a band deserved to be huge worldwide and are progressive rock Gods look no further. Jahn Teigen was such a formidable vocalist that he was the first pick to replace Peter Gabriel in Genesis and it's pretty astonishing he turned them down. Add to that the huge talents of Arne Schulze (guitar), Pete Knutsen (guitar/keyboards), Terje Methi (bass), and Thor Andreassen (drums) who also were great at harmony vocals and this is a band with killer songs, great production work from the whole band as a team, and possibly the best progressive record ever made in Quiche Maya. This album came out under the name Popol Ace as their first release under the new name with a superior cover of the band as Vikings on a Fjord and I would recommend forking out for that version as it is there that you can hear how far they improved from their first album to Quiche Maya.
The eponymous debut by Popol Vuh (Norway) is a great album and flautist Pjokken Eide adds some nice colourings to the selections, but lyrically and musically it isn't perfect. The two songs on the Popol Ace album speak volumes as to the huge step forward the group made. "Hunchback" was probably together with the amazing closing epic "Medicine" the high point of their debut with great lyrics and very creative musicianship. "All We Have Is The Past" was a lesser track also about mortality, but a little unrealized with a great middle and only OK majority of the song. There were some rough edges and some mistakes that needed to be adjusted, but I would definitely say that you need to get all their albums with Jahn Teigen at the forefront. Popol Vuh/Ace made some major changes between first and second releases and came up with Quiche Maya- an album of staggering beauty, fearsome power, and amazing voyages into the ultimate progressive wonderland.
Repackaged with all the best songs as Popol Ace's debut it really is something to go out and fork out for. There are two hard rock/jazzy prog tracks both of which show maturity and forcefulness unmatched in "Queen Of All Queens" about a horrible girl who uses everybody and ends up with not one friend in the world and the equally pissed off lyrically unfathomable "Milk-White Satin-Dressed Departure" about how relationships can be a major turn off for the person left to clean it all up when its over and long since dead. Most of the other songs are experiments in romance which would make the album unique for them as they tended towards more metaphysical matter/fantasy lyrics on their amazing follow up as Stolen From Time. "Dark Nights" is a melodic song about the hard adjustment to the darkness that comes and steals the day, but songs like "Yesterday" and "Between You And Me" are romantically based dramatic progressive symphonic rock at the absolute peak of that kind of music's powers. The lush waves of mellotron recall the wonderful British band Spring and Arne Schulze plays superb guitar that is understated, soaring, and melodic like a dream jam session in 1973 between George Harrison and a very young Michael Schenker.
-Conclusion-
Stick with those who love you seems to be the motto of Popol Vuh during this phase of their career and also live for yourself, your dreams, and your ambitions. It's hard to believe in the relationship that ended for me ending at all let alone in such an ugly way, but when people are lied to and the truth comes out there is no way to escape it. Thankfully the week is over and it brought me a lot of great wonderful brilliant music including Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera and Popol Ace. Music is a great thing sometimes and can also be a bad thing. It becomes a bad thing when some nefarious freaks use it as a way of stirring up violence, sickness, deformity, and hate messages, but we all know that's not really music it's just rubbish. I'm staying me. If people can't live with my eccentricities or special desires, my hopes and my dreams then even if I thought I knew them I never knew them and I throw them in the garbage- its an easy thing to end when you can make the simple fact a reality that you never knew that person at all. Be tolerant and don't be shy of following your own visions and fantasies. I hope one day a better less judgmental world becomes something I can have helped to create.
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