THE ROLLING STONES - We Love You

(MS)

1967 was the apex year of tabloid infamy for The Rolling Stones. A time when the Establishment attempted to bloody them via drug busts, court summons and imprisonment. It succeeded in knocking them off course for a spell, introducing a frisson of self-doubt to their exit-velocity swagger. But even more damaging was the perception from some, that they were looking a bit ill-prepared to adapt to the rapidly progressing musical climate their peers were defining, looking a bit “Out of Time”, like those poor girlfriends they were incessantly trampling over.

In truth these trials represent nought but a few creases around the eyes in Mick Jagger’s sun-dried dish-cloth face but history has left us with the idea that this period is some sort of aberration to be swiftly swept under the carpet. In actual fact The Stones mid-60s catalogue is chock full of sleeper gems that seem willfully neglected, almost hidden in plain sight, due to a combination of factors that have very little to do with the quality of the music. Poorly constituted track listings, sonic production transgressions, critical over-attention to everything recorded 68-72 and some sort of frenzied media obsession to gnash teeth that they just weren’t as good as The Beatles.

1967 felt like 2000 light years away when I was growing up and I remember rushing out to buy a copy of “Sgt Pepper’s” on the 20^th anniversary of its release. For someone so reliant on making home tape recordings, my ownership of a physical copy felt a bit like obtaining one of the Dead Sea scrolls. That evening a TV show commemorated the event. They did talk about the Stones but not “Satanic Majesties”. Tarring the garage roof that summer of 1987 I boomed out “Sing This Song Altogether (See what Happens)” and I made the comparison myself. It wasn’t that good.

There is some irony in focusing on 1967 as an obscure year for the Rolling Stones as it could be argued their entire output from 1963 is confused and badly ill-defined. What’s better the mono or the stereo? Do you go with the UK version or the US version? And what about the non-LP stuff on 45s and EPs? And the material that was scattered across albums over various years. And then there’s the stuff that retrospectively escaped due to loopholes in their business contracts and stuff that wasn’t released and still hasn’t, that’s as good if not better than some of the stuff that was. And now there is the stuff that’s been sensitively re-mixed in people’s back rooms that’s far better than all that over hyped re-cycled product resold to mug punters, dissected and discussed on the Steve Hoffman forum.

Go to YouTube and grab Ant2 Man Bee’s “Between the Buttons” and compose yourself a beautifully re-mixed version of that LP jettisoning the two abysmal Kinks meets New Vaudeville Band tracks that close each side. Add the “Let’s Spend The Night  Together/Ruby Tuesday” 45, throw in non-LP cuts “If You let Me” and “Get Your Yourself Together”, re-sequence the whole thing and take a 40 minute bus ride with it blasting in your ears. Suddenly this late 1966 album makes complete sense and puts The Stones progression from “Aftermath” into proper context. This album is the peak of their Dylan fixation, an artist they influenced to turn electric, who in turn provided them with the lyrical confidence to expand their own “put down” schtick and who would inadvertently rescue them when he shook everyone out of the psychedelic tree back to their roots.  

But before that tree got shook The Stones crept up to thumb their noses back at the Establishment. The “WE LOVE YOU” album that was never released is a post-modern classic (using re-mixing courtesy of Stereofidelic this time) where the band display a knowing disdain for the psychedelic movement they were moving through. It’s like a patch-work electric comic-book of the satirical, sincere and just plain odd. A mirror to the whole psychedelic movement, wrapped in whatever instrument Brian Jones was practicing at the time. It’s sloppy, tight, experimental, derivative, forward-looking and far better sequenced like this than in its original incarnation.

 Kicking off with the bongo hippies jamming in the shit, “Sing This Song Altogether” is an anti-Pepper overture with Paul and John in on the joke with backing vocals. The media was full of sunny San Francisco at the time. A long way from wintery London or paranoid New York. Riff-heavy “Citadel” with its bursts of North African horns, harks back to a trip to Warhol’s Factory hanging out with the creeps. “Candy and Taffy, hope you both are well” is the second name-check to trans girlfriends that year, coming hot on the heels of “Miss Amanda Jones” ode to Amanda Lear on the previous album.

“Hey girl, with your nonsense nose
Pointing right down at the floor
Hey girl, your suspender shows
And the girl behind you looks a bit unsure”

Amanda dallying with Dali

Point of note – Brian Jones had already had a fling with Nico by this stage and on VU’s “There She Goes Again” Lou Reed paid note for note homage to The Stones arrangement of “Hitchhike”. The inspiration flowed between the bands, ideas criss-crossed the Atlantic and everyone was openly stealing from each other.  “Dandelion” comes in at this point, sweeping through like a sweet soft-psych breeze to a fade-out like something from Syd Barret’s Floyd. This song is one of those stunning 45s that gets neglected for not being on an original album release. Shoehorning it in feels like restoring a national monument. Evolving from a trippy harp piece titled “Acid in The Grass”, the harpsichord driven “In Another Land” is an early hours piss take with The Small Faces. The sound of Bill Parks snoring at the end gives the game away. “2000 Man” describes a weirdly visionary future where the middle-aged hippies abstain from the Love Generation to an on-line ”…affair with a random computer” whilst the kids berate them for destroying the planet. They were on the nose with this one and musically too with it’s great swinging acoustic into electric riff-chorus. “Where’s that joint?” asks Mick as the doors crash behind him in the segue into the title track of this imaginary album. “We Love You” with Nicky Hopkins at his most psychotic was released as a thank you to friends and peers. John and Paul are on this one too. It sits in the space vacated by the infamous “Sing This Song Altogether (See what Happens)” which certainly is a hot turd and a classic example of going too far because there’s no-one around to tell you not to.

Flipping sides (but not needing to) Nicky Hopkins solos away on “She’s a Rainbow” to future Zep man John Paul Jones string arrangement and Marianne Faiithfull’s backing vocals for the albums unheard smash hit single. I love the avant-gardy bit when the strings start duelling. The Stones nod to Arthur Lee’s Love with the line “She Comes in Colours”, from the Da Capo album, an album that features that band’s “Revelation” which sounds like an even more expansive wig-out version of the Stones “Going Home”. The influences abound. Next up is “The Lantern” maybe the deepest long lost Stones classic here, with a bass line foreshadowing “Jigsaw Puzzle” of the following year and a strummed acoustic that could have gone delta-blues if they’d wanted it to. What remains is a ethereal sounding description of love and loss amongst heavenly bodies, establishing a recurring theme. The instrumental section of “The Gomper” is surplus to requirements but the song section remains with its vibe eerily reminiscent of The Velvet Underground’s “Lady Godiva’s Operation”, forming a nice bridge into “Child of The Moon”. The latter was only put on tape in early 1968 a couple of months after the release of “Satanic Majesties” but when you’re making this stuff up who really cares. And in terms of sound this song is the band’s last flowering bloom to the sound of ’67. It also and very importantly rocks drawing the album’s symmetry back to the sound of “Citadel”. The darlings of the underground Pink Floyd did not escape the boys debauchery that year, so they upped it to create something more Floyd than Floyd, “2000 Light Years From Home” ends up as a serious contender for inventing space rock. The album ends with a far more successful attempt at Kinks-like whimsy with “On With The Show”. A book-end combination of audio-verite and Mothers-type satire which ends the album with a two-finger salute to any number of detractors.

Give this music a listen and maybe a deaf-ear to accepted wisdom.

(PS)

Their Satanic Majesties Request should serve as a warning to any bands out there who feel overly restricted by their management and want more creative freedom.

Despite his many faults, Andrew Loog Oldham was a visionary and central to the early success of the Stones, pitching them as the alternative to the Beatles that you wouldn’t want your daughters to marry. Sure, he was an unprincipled cad and took his artistes for all he could rinse them for, but perhaps he was just more in keeping with the times there. When he was forced to relinquish his control of the band, they took matters into their own hands and produced their next LP themselves… and the result is a shoddy, ill-disciplined mess of a record.

This is where the Beatles were light years ahead of the pack, in terms of shifting focus from the 45 to the 33. While they and the Stones had a string of fine singles, the difference in album quality between the two bands is stark, certainly between 1965-67: compare Aftermath with Rubber Soul and Between the Buttons with Revolver, and it’s really no surprise that Their Satanic Majesties Request is no Sgt Pepper.

The Stones’ 67 release has all the weaknesses of the previous albums, but without any of the structure. Yes, She’s a Rainbow is a cute single; Citadel has a raw, garage rock riff and is probably the highlight of the album; 2,000 Light Years From Home is pure Pink Floyd and an interesting attempt at far-outness… but that’s about it.

Sing This All Together is a weak song which should never have been an album opener; 2000 Man and On With the Show are attempts to sound like the Kinks, but have nothing of the wit and charm of Ray Davies compositions; The Lantern and Gomper sound like under-developed ideas stitched together to form songs which have no flow or internal logic, the latter ending up with an attempt at a raga jam which just overstays its welcome.

The band even had their own Ringo Starr moment when they actually let Bill Wyman honk into a microphone unattended for a few minutes on his own song In Another Land, followed by a recording of someone snoring: quite an effective anti-dope message right there, don’t do drugs kids.

The most egregious moment on the LP is of course, the torrid Sing This All Together (See What Happens): it’s over 8 minutes of ham-fisted, noodle-baked nonsense that sounds like a pre-school music lesson. Utter self-indulgence, but coupled with a staggering lack of competence and musicianship. Commentators have since tried to edit this monstrosity out of existence, but unfortunately it’s very much on my vinyl copy. Any producer worth their salt would’ve stopped recording halfway through and put the tape on a bulk eraser.

I should point out here that having your manager leave mid-session can sometimes be a blessing: just look at what the Jimi Hendrix Experience cooked up when Chas Chandler threw his arms up in frustration at all the hangers-on and stormed out of the studio after the 42nd take of Gipsy Eyes (how he even made it to 42 is beyond me, the dude must have had the patience of a saint)… but if removing the 3 minute shackles ends up with 1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) and Moon, Turn the Tides… Gently Gently Away then frankly, I’m all for it… but these were far better musicians, and they still had Eddie Kramer to Marshall them (see what I did there?).

The good news is that from 1968 to 1972, with the help of Jimmy Miller to herd these cats, along with the addition of John Mayall’s protégé Mick Taylor on lead guitar, the Stones produced their finest body of work upon which the band’s enduring legacy could be built.

Psychedelia just wasn't a good fit for the Stones. I think the best that can be said about this LP is that it’s a pre-cursor to greater things.

(LK)

There are, for me at least, a few greater pleasures in life than discovering new music, and I have been fortunate, over the span of many years, to have worked with people of all ages who have introduced me to a wide range of music of various genres and, it has to be said, of varying quality. Many of those same people would also hold the opinion, with which I did tend to agree, that the music of the eighties was much better than the current musical landscape. Even though we did tend to find ourselves in agreement on that matter, I have had to point out to them that, for all the good stuff that was around then, there was some absolute garbage that regularly made its way into the top ten of the musical charts. I shall refrain from naming names, but all I shall say is that you know who you are and we are all still waiting for an apology for having had to sit through all sorts of effluent, just to hear our favourite songs on the radio or television.

The interesting thing is that, in the same way that people today look back to the eighties, we, when we were of a similar age, would often look back to the sixties for our musical listening pleasure. Regardless of the many artists and styles of music that are available from that period, when discussing that decade amongst friends and colleagues, the question would frequently come up, do you prefer the Stones or the Beatles?

For those who preferred The Rolling Stones, which I will admit includes myself, there were the classics that everyone is now familiar with, whether that be the brilliant version of Not Fade Away that surpasses the original in so many ways, not least of which is just by the sheer energy brought to the recording, or the wonderful strutting pomp of (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction which, although constant over exposure to this cultural touch stone has lessened its impact, drips with sexual and psychological angst.

There are also the albums that everyone knows such as Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Exile On Main Street and Sticky Fingers, the last two not being released in the 60s but let’s not be too precious about these things, the heart of these albums were still bred in the 60s, but before these came the album that has possibly the most famous title of all, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which would lead to an alternative name for the band amongst commentators, but is well known for other reasons as well.

At the time the album was recorded three of the band, Brian Jones, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, were awaiting trial on drugs charges and facing the possibility of prison sentences, Brian Jones was becoming less able to contribute due to his drug use and psychological condition and then, just to add to their problems, Andrew Loog Oldham, their manager and producer, decided to leave. It should be noted that Mick Jagger has gone on record as saying that one of the reasons Oldham left was because he didn’t think the band were taking the recording seriously, and therein lies the problem with this record.

From the start this sounds less like an album and more like a rehearsal that has been recorded, or, at least in the case of the opening track Sing This All Together, like a school musical. When I sat down to listen to this album my main recollection of it was She’s A Rainbow, which I failed to get to on first listen because I turned it off after track five before I defenestrated myself from sheer disappointment. I’m not even trying to argue that She’s A Rainbow is a particularly brilliant song, but on this album it absolutely stands out because of the utter dross that surrounds it, with SIng This All Together (See What Happens) finishing the first side, meaning that the first half of the album is topped and tailed by two of the worst songs the Rolling Stones have ever seen fit to impose upon the world, at least until a couple of decades later and ignoring the solo works of the various members.

The second half of the album is not really any better, with the exception of, as I have already stated, She’s A Rainbow. The various tracks sound like an attempt to make a style of album that is simply not understood by the people making it. That’s not to say that there are not interesting parts to the songs; there are small parts of the songs, little riffs and musical themes which are enticing to the ear, but they never really develop into anything of great interest and are often drowned out in what appears to be a more is more approach. It is also the case that the way the album is mixed does nothing to help, sounding at times as if they took the view that everybody should feature as much as possible in every track, or possibly that everyone should help to mix every track. Whatever the reason may be, the sound that comes across is frequently a confused stew of sounds with a variety of instruments, which add nothing to any of the tracks, appearing for no apparent reason.

The late, great American comedian Bill Hicks once suggested that if you were against people taking drugs you should probably go home and burn all your albums, but when it comes to Their Satanic Majesties Request I would imagine that he would simply suggest that you burn the album because of the drugs the band were taking. It is hard to deny that the state of the band members, the drug use, the concerns over possible prosecution and their self-confessed lack of seriousness in regard to the song writing and production all had a negative effect on what was eventually laid down on vinyl. It certainly seems that the members of the band decided, whether by themselves or through changes in personnel, to discard their experiments in psychedelia and return to what they were good at, for which the world, I am sure, is eternally grateful.

BLODWYN PIG - Ahead Rings Out

(PS)

Late last year we said farewell to Mick Abrahams, or at least some of us did. His passing seems to have crept under most radars, as he is somewhat of a footnote in the history of British rock; but he really shouldn’t be.

As lead guitarist on Jethro Tull’s first (and some say, best) LP he deserves credit for adding a bluesy, jazzy feel to a band that became increasingly less interesting in the years after his departure. However as founding member and creative force behind Blodwyn Pig his legacy is far greater, no matter how short-lived the band itself was.

1969’s Ahead Rings Out is one of those albums that genuinely has everything for me: rock, blues, jazz, folk… it’s a complete masterpiece which has been overlooked for too long as far as I’m concerned.

Songs like It’s Only Love, Leave It With Me and The Modern Alchemist are jazzy romps with some lovely interplay between guitar, flute and saxophone supported by the swinging drums of Ron Berg; the latter track being one of the real highlights of the LP, it’s a purely bonkers, untrammelled joy from start to finish. I even get a bit of the quiet/loud section from Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man in there, although it’s somewhat less intricate and protracted on this track; but as the LP was released while In the Court of the Crimson King was being recorded, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that it might’ve had some small influence (until the great Fripp himself shoots me down, that is).

Bluesier moments are Dear Jill with some soulful slide guitar and Up and Coming; both of which take things down a notch following moments of frantic mayhem, adding calm and balance to proceedings. Folky bits are the wistful Change Song (complete with mockney introduction which would likely be completely lost on American listeners) and Backwash, serving as an overture to the album closer, Ain’t Ya Comin’ Home Babe? which perfectly combines blues, jazz and heavy rock with the delicate balance between light and shade that so few songs manage.

The star of the show for me is the pulsing rocker Sing Me a Song That I Know, with its driving beat that propels it along its few minutes’ duration. Again, it’s got that light, sprightly opening saxophone & ride cymbal riff pitted against the heavy rock juggernaut that is the body of the song. A full-throated vocal delivery from Mick caps the performance on a song that I will never tire of hearing as long as I live.

The album cover is one of the most iconic images in rock and the liner notes show Mick’s quirky sense of humour, which unfortunately was more intrusive and somewhat irritating on the 1970 follow up Getting To This, which had its moments but was a disappointing return. A couple of worthy solo projects in ‘71 & ‘72 followed (incidentally, check out the Mick Abrahams Band’s appearance on German rock show Beat Club, it cooks) before Abrahams’s retirement from music for several decades; but this debut release was something very special indeed.

Suffice it to say that I bloody love this LP and it will always have a place in my all-time top 5; I even wrote to Mr Abrahams some years ago to tell him just that, whether he got the message or not I will never know. When I shuffle off this mortal coil, I want my remains to be cremated: one half should be scattered over Sofia Vergara, the other half pressed into a copy of this album and played at full volume on each anniversary of my passing. Let it be so.

(MS)

Blodwyn Pig emerged from the slurry of the late 60s British blues boom. Just one of the B-list acts squealing like a litter of runts in search of the audience vacated by The Yardbirds and transatlantic Stones.

To say they emerged suggests some sort of trajectory to greatness, as if launched, like an ocean liner or rocket-ship into the musical firmament. A band embedded deep into our collective pop consciousness with an oeuvre of genre shifting albums critiqued and revered by the venerable music press of the day. Their guest musicianship harnessed by peers across a plethora of contemporary recordings. Photos snapped alongside the 70’s glitterati at all the right places. Recreational and sordid excess dissected in the tabloids of the day. The candid quotes, the dollybirds, the editorial condemnation, the appeal to moral authority. The newsprint splattered with sauce. And egg yolk. And ciggy ash. And oil. The thick dark spots transfiguring Anita Pallenberg and Keef to exotically hued cameos on page 7. “Marsh Magic topples Hammers!”, on the back-page. Belches, coughs. “Two double egg, chips and beans”, “Chish and Fips...who’s the Chish and Fips!”. A Luton caff, the Blod’s very own Chateau Marmont.

“Ahead Rings Out” opens with the barnstorming It’s Only love, the sort of thing you’d hear late at night, on the other side of the tracks, on the edge of town in an illicit, good-time Roadhouse…somewhere between Worcester and Dudley. Multi-instrumentalist Jack Lancaster sounds like Roland Kirk on this one, or rather Coliseum’s Dick Heckstall-Smith doing Roland Kirk, with everything stuffed in his gob. I only wished the drums had been placed in the centre of the mix. Switching to flute comes Dear Jill, a sweet country blues with slide that sits nicely in second place even if it does expose Mick Abrahams somewhat expressionless vocals. The fat driving Sing Me a Song That I Know is probably the best thing they ever recorded and found its way to more households than were interested via the popular “Nice Enough to Eat” Island sampler.

Island was investing in a multi-talented roster of jazzy-blues at the time and the Blod’s found a natural home amongst some stellar names; Chris Wood’s contributions to Traffic, Dick Morrissey’s multi-album If project, the Keith Tippett era King Crimson, Wynder K Frog’s party LP’s. And the guest slots like Chris McGregor and Lyn Dobson’s input to “Bryter Layter”, Harold McNair on John Martyn’s “The Tumbler” and that groovy Spooky Tooth b-side “Lugar’s Blues”. And of course there was Ian Anderson in Mick Abrahams old alma mater, Jethro Tull. You get a sense of all this in Lancaster’s closing track to Side One, The Modern Alchemist that snakes about in full progressive jazz-rock territory. But maybe that was it, save the guitar riffing on the closing track Aint Ya Coming Home. In between it’s more of the same but less and though it doesn’t really matter there’s a very good song they missed from the sessions for this LP called See My Way that the record company held onto for the band’s final LP in 1970. There’s even an American version of this album with other non-UK tracks, so someone blew it I think with the marketing.

Anyway about halfway through side two I found myself re-reading the sleeve notes that suggest the appalling gatefold sleeve is cut in half and worn on your head like a party hat. Those hip hipsters Hipgnosis didn’t think of that did they? Then I’m on the A638 to Pontefract. In the back the 25-50 year old-looking drummer has picked up a bird and with the van skidding to avoid Pete Brown and Piblokto speeding South, the rear-view mirror gives the driver a front-row view of a big pimply arse going through the motions. That’s what I hear in this music.

(LK)

I have not listened to Blodwyn Pig, more specifically Ahead Rings Out, for many, many years; I think the last time that I actually listened to the whole album was when I was a teenager, so when the subject of this album came up I was met with the awkward realisation that I don’t like Blodwyn Pig. Obviously there is nothing wrong with not liking a band, regardless of what people might say, but the awkward part of this confession is that I have no idea why! I have thought about it quite a lot over the years when the name has popped up; it’s not the music, though I wouldn’t say that they are my favourite band musically, and it’s not their image, which I’m not sure they actually have in any meaningful sense. Certainly there is the name which to me sounds like an insult, though I’m fairly sure that it isn’t, but when you put a traditional name from a culture that you are not a part of next to a commonly used insult there is always the possibility of a misunderstanding; but that is not the reason why I am left with this feeling of dislike toward the band. So I have to wonder, what is it about this band that has left me with this reaction, what, in my limited experience with this band, has caused me to dislike Blodwyn Pig?

The origin of Blodwyn Pig is a classic story, one that is so common that it is now a music history cliche, where a member of a band leaves due to “creative differences” to form another band closer to their idea of what makes good music. In this particular case the first band was Jethro Tull, the person leaving was Mick Abrahams and the band he formed was, rather obviously due to the context, Blodwyn Pig.

Formed in 1968 as a four piece they would release their first album, the aforementioned Ahead Rings Out, the following year, which would receive both critical plaudits and commercial success. Their music is generally placed in the blues explosion of the late 60s in the UK which included bands such as Fleetwood Mac, Cream and Free, though they generally sound more like the blues influenced bands from the early 60s; whereas the likes of Fleetwood Mac and the others were moving to a style that was extending the nature of the blues via amplification, effects and distortion, both in the nature of the sound that was produced and the way that the music itself was structured. Ahead Rings Out, Blodwyn Pig’s first album, generally stays close to what may be considered a standard blues style, they do show influences of other musical styles, but rarely is this ever developed into something different.

The first three tracks are fairly standard blues with the exception of Sing Me A Song That I Know which, although still based very obviously in a blues style, dares to do something different and, nearly sixty years on from its release, still feels original and interesting. I would go as far to say that this is probably the stand-out song on this album.

The fourth track completely changes the dynamic of the album with a complete shift in musical style. The Modern Alchemist you might expect, due to the title alone, to be something of a mix of musical chemistry, bringing the influences from the different band members together to create something bigger than the separate parts, but it simply isn't. There are a few suggestions of the blues in there, but they disappear quickly to be swallowed up into what is a fairly standard jazz track, albeit with some distortion on the guitar which may be considered atypical for the genre. This is not to say that it is bad, I find it quite enjoyable as jazz goes, but it leaves you unsatisfied with the sense that there could have been something better. The same can be said for Leave It With Me, another jazz number that reaches for something a little different, but this time it’s folk music that features. The difference here is that rather than hints of folk music that don’t really go anywhere, you have interludes within the track where there is a sudden outbreak of folk music which just as quickly stop and play no further part in the track.

The other tracks are decent examples of country, delta and Chicago blues and, in a strange way, this is the fundamental problem with this album; if you told someone that each of the tracks was by a different artist or group, I genuinely believe that most people would want to know who each one was and want to hear more from each one, but that doesn’t make a great album. What you get instead is a collection of tracks where it appears that a band is showcasing their talent with the hope of impressing their audience.

So, to return to the premise from the beginning, do I have a better idea of why I seem to have a dislike for Blodwyn Pig? The simple answer is no, I still don’t know why this band engenders such feelings. There is nothing wrong with this album; I would even go as far as to say that it is a good album that I have developed a greater liking for the more I’ve listened to it, but, as I have already said, it is hard to escape the feeling that this is a band that is trying to showcase the range of their talents rather than create an album.

MARCO FERRARI -Touche Pas a la Femme Blanche!

 Released January 1974

Marco Ferrari

It's a western! A continental western from the mid 70's when the western was winding down. Terence Hill and Bud Spencer wern't in it, though it did have a lot of stars. But none of them had ever made westerns before and they'd never make any others again. Same goes for the director. It wasn't shot in Almeria either, it was shot in Paris. In fact it's set in Paris. On a building site.

The Italian director Marco Ferrari was a maverick, somewhat avant-garde figure, very much in the shadow of his many more illustrious compatriots. Something of a Dadaist, he had more in common with Alfred Jarry than he did Roberto Rossellini and by the early 1970's his career was flat-lining with each obscure-by-intent, release. In his contemporaneous films of the period he'd cast his favourite actor, Ugo Tognazzi in "L'Udieze", as a pimp working for the Vatican, and in "Dillinger e Morte" it's Michel Piccoli as an ennui-filled bourgeois who absent-mindedly murders his wife. In "La Cagne", Marcello Mastrioianni stars as a Messerschmitt obsessed Robinson Crusoe who finds himself besieged by a woman who wants to be his dog. Pretty odd films.

Michel Piccoli, snacking 

Inspired by a sumptuous banquet that precipitated life-saving diabetes treatment, Ferrari gathered his actors together for le film de scandale of 1973, "La Grande Bouffe". With the addition of Phillipe Noiret, they portrayed a group of respectable men of society, who inspired by somewhat elusive motives, affect their own demise through excessive over consumption. Along the way they indulge themselves with a group of prostitutes and overcome dangerous bouts of flatulence. The film chimed with the post-May 68 political climate which saw many established directors paying homage to the radical agenda set by Jean-Luc Godard and the younger generation of cineastes he'd inspired. At one end of the scale Pasolini's "Teorema" (1968) made it's radical commentary within a minimalist context, whilst Fellini's papal fashion-show in "Roma" (1972) took things towards giddy excess. However nobody could begrudge Ferrari's effort as being crowned the intemperate "Citizen Kane" of this whole period; a film that would inspire adulation and revulsion in equal measure.

High on this reception, Ferrari immediately re-assembled his cast and plunged straight into his next
project. This time round his incarnate love of absurdity and improvisation would hit un-paralleled heights. 

The film was shot in the summer of 1973 in the vast crater burrowed out from the demolished Les Halles food
market. For 800 years this central space had functioned as the Le Ventre des Paris or Belly of Paris, a designation immortalised in Emile Zola’s novel of the same name. But like London’s Covent Garden, Paris had long outgrown the efficiency of hosting such services in a congested central location. Under Georges Pompidou, plans were made to re-imagine the area as a central hub for the subterranean RER rail interchange, with shopping and culture sat aloft like a concrete layer of icing. That this gateau was not to the taste of the Parisians is of no great surprise and subsequent attempts to sweeten the pudding have been met so far with very little civic enthusiasm.  I like to think that Ferrari was prescient in this regard, with the setting not merely a happy accident but one imbued with a deeper sense of iconoclasm. It also preserves a la Aragon’s Le Paysan de Paris, an immortal record of a city in turmoil and transfiguration. 

In this hollowed out building site, Ferrari decided to shoot of all things a satirical recreation of the Battle of the Little Big Horn…with Custer’s last stand…Indians et al. He juxtaposed the semi-straight depiction of the story by actors in authentic period costumes, against the jarringly modern setting. Scenes are clearly shot whilst the demolition is in progress. At one point an Indian massacre is conducted in the fire lit to topple on old market chimney and cannons are fired bringing down the iron-work of a large covered hall. Soldiers idle in street cafes awaiting orders and executions are held in the site’s moulded plastic viewing platform. At one point Sitting Bull leads an expedition to a boutique to purchase guns. In another an exhibition is held of embalmed Indians, their bodies stuffed with back copies of Paris-Soir. 

Wounded Knee 1973

The mood is comical but dark, with the history of the Indian genocide linked to contemporary American foreign policy. There is a whiff of Vietnam in the air and pictures of President Nixon decorate the walls with Watergate referenced. In the February of 1973, a few months before filming commenced the ghosts of the Big Horn were revisited in the Wounded Knee Occupation which resulted in a 71 day stand-off between the American Indian Movement and the FBI which resulted in three fatalities. In the film, the character Pinkerton, a Professor of Anthropology, oversees events dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. As the 7th Cavalry descend on the Oglala Sioux, his shirt is emblazoned with the letters CIA and he exits the stage en-route to Chile. It’s that sort of film. 

Perhaps the closest comparison to this film is the surreal end scene of the contemporaneous “Blazing Saddles” when the mass bar room fight collapses into the Busby Berkeley sound stage, though the farce here never quite transcends the polemics.

The cast however look like they’re enjoying the shoot and with the director inserting himself into the assembly we are forgiven for thinking the whole thing was shot in between courses for another of Ferrari’s gastronomic feasts. In addition to Mastroianni as Custer, Noiret as General Terry and Piccoli as Buffalo Bill the film is a-wash with European acting talent. Alain Cuny plays a stone-faced Sitting Bull, Serge Reggiani with shaved head japes as a king's fool and Catherine Deneuve is Custer’s romantic foil. The film's title "Touche Pas a la Femme Blanche!" (Don't touch the white woman!) is a phrase addressed repeatedly throughout the film to Ugo Tognazzi's character Mitch, the Indian scout who plays a pivotal role to the film's chief protagonists. His character carries the greatest satirical depth and pathos. Ridiculed by his Army paymasters, abused by the Govt. civilians and despised by his Indian brethren, his painfully duplicitous role is revealed as a blessing compared to his miserable existence in a subterranean sweat shop.

So its a film about colonial exploitation, racism, economic subjugation and the folly of valour...amongst heavy-duty earth-moving machines. It’s a curio and one worth seeing. At least once, anyway, if only to remind ourselves that wise lessons about civil insurrection used to be a subject of inspiration to the producers of mainstream entertainment. 

Whereditallgo?

OS MUTANTES e a Revolução Tropicalista

 (LK)

When you think of Brazil there are probably one or two things that spring to mind, depending upon your age and geographical location. For much of the world a mention of the country will bring up images of the famous golden football shirts and world cups of the 1970’s and 80’s, of football played the way that so many wish it were still played and skills that have yet to be bettered. For others it is Carnaval with its huge street parades, magnificent ornate floats and of course scantily, if extravagantly, clothed women, or the miles of golden beaches with scantily clad women…I may be getting slightly off track here, but nevertheless these are images that come to mind at the very mention of the word Brazil. However, there is another thing that is so fundamentally Brazilian that it is intrinsic to the things mentioned above and that is music.Again, when you think about Brazil, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about music is probably Samba, the music that accompanies every Carnaval video and every film tracking along a Brazilian beach, but there is other music that has come out of Brazil. Bossa Nova, developed sometime in the 1950’s as a fusion of Samba and Jazz, became very popular for a short time and still has its fans today, but then in the mid-sixties came an art movement that gave rise to a new style of music that would reflect a much wider set of influences than those that were internal to Brazil.

The Tropicalia movement started, like so many it seems, as a small group of musicians and poets, amongst whom the most famous is probably Gilberto Gil, in the north-east of Brazil, before shifting the whole movement to Sao Paulo, where, through a series of connections, they would come into contact with a band by the name of Os Mutantes. Gil invited them to play with him at the 3rd Annual Festival of Brazilian Popular Music, which, the following year, led to them being invited to work with him in 1968 on his eponymous second album as well as featuring on the album Tropicalia: ou Panis et Circencis, a statement album for the movement as a whole, which would create a connection that would lead to conflict with the military government of Brazil. In the same year they would release their debut album, titled Os Mutantes, which would start their journey to becoming one of the most influential Brazilian bands to make themselves known beyond the borders of the country.

Listening to a band singing in a language different to that which you speak is always an interesting experience, the connections and clues that can be gleaned from the lyric of a song are missing which, as a result, means that a lot of room for nuance is also missing. The music on this album tends toward the whimsical, with the occasional delve into more serious, contemplative sounding tunes, but does the way the music sounds relate to what the songs actually mean? Anyone who has listened to music for any amount of time, particularly the era this album originates from, will be aware of a strong tendency of disparity between music and lyric in songs, the juxtaposition of cheery music with lyrics that tend toward the dark, menacing tone or the sad song which carries a message of hope are common tropes, but they depend upon an understanding of both elements to create their effect. So what do you do when one of those elements is obscure to you? Well, one suggestion would be to stop trying.

When you just sit back and listen to this album it becomes an enjoyable experience. The sounds that are put together, from fuzztone guitar and keyboards, distortion and what would appear to be environmental sounds, and the use of different forms and ideas of music, the obvious Brazilian influence, with both Samba and Bossa Nova playing their parts, as well as the obvious influence of The Beatles, are all amalgamated into a coherent and pleasing whole, whilst still having enough edges to keep it all interesting. They have also stayed relatively relevant, Kurt Cobain and Flea have both expressed a love of their work and The Bees covered A Minha Menina on their debut album in 2002, and that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise as this is an album that looks both backward and forward musically, taking in the musical influences of Brazil and mixing them together with psychedelic pop, jazz and soul to create a sound that, although very much of its era, was a strong suggestion of music to come in later decades.

(MS)

I remember Maite from Stockwell in those late 90’s. Studying towards a doctorate in Latin American studies. One October she speculated on how she was split between buying a winter coat or buying a ticket to Rio. Even then it was fantastic bullshit, but the previous year she’d been on a field trip in the Amazon and entertained us with tales of plucking fresh fruit and avocados from the foliage. That Autumn we saw Maria Bethania at Drury Lane and newly inspired I criss crossed the (now cleared) forests of the London record shop community in search of Brazilian music. Like the fruit, I picked out album sleeves on the strength of their colourful and exotic skins. One of the first was by Os Mutantes.

Os Mutantes. Mutants. Plant or animals that are different from other plants or animals of the same kind because of a change in the structure of their genes. A hybrid or composite entity. Something that has assimilated foreign bodies to create something else.

The indigenous Tupi Indians of the Brazilian central plains would eat their adversaries to utilise their power. The preference for strength ensuring only the bravest warriors were consumed in this way. Through time the Tupi were exiled to the outer coastal fringes of the South American land mass where they encountered the Portuguese Empire. Through the mass cultivation of sugar cane, an influx of more than 2.8 million West African slaves entered the mix. The burgeoning state gained its independence and in the late 19^th Century set upon on its path towards nation building. By the 20’s the modernist writer Osvaldo De Andres would define the cannibalistic culture of Brazil as both a unique and essential catalyst in the country’s evolving culture. By the 30’s this artistic intelligentsia would be absorbed into high office.

Glauber Rocha’s “Terra Am Transe” reflects on this political turmoil. In his film a poet rides the wave of a newly birthed administration, enjoying the patronage of his cohorts on their rise to executive power. On the regime’s lurch towards tyranny he rejects the transformation and is shot.

By the 50s the country’s journey to the modern world found permanent expression in the vision of communist architect Oscar Niemeyer’s new capital city of Brazilia, founded on the central plains of the Tupi. Turning into the 60’s this utopian vision became married to progressive socialist ideals. But comme toujours the progressive Left simply furnished a waiting room ready for the far Right to occupy. In 1964 a coup d’etat with US backing overthrew the progressive President Goulat and a temporary military regime was installed. Temporary for over 20 years.

Round about this time other rebellions were breaking out. Culture is identity and music is a highly important and emotive issue within Brazil. The raw material of samba from the Afro-American north-east was refined with gringo jazz into the exportable bossa-nova. The Left rebelled against the sun and sex banality of the lyrical content. There were rumblings that the white bleached transformation of the music had sacrificed something en-route to it becoming the emblematic sound of the Copacabana bourgeois. But across the world a million cocktail glasses clinked in easy listening ignorance. The closet influence of America and England influenced the working class Jovem Guarda (the ie-ie-ie equivalent of the French ye-ye) which in turn influenced the evolving Musica Popular Brasileira. Televised song festivals took on the fervor of football matches with partisan clans alternately singing along via printed lyric sheets or drowning out the music in loud opposition.

And then in 1967 with Che prowling the jungle borders
and the spirit of Simona Bolivar in the air, the rebellious

Tropicalistas from Bahia dropped an anarchist bomb into this highly charged atmosphere. Wrapped up in Sgt Pepper-imagery, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Ze and Gal Costa briefly turned contemporary Brazilian pop culture on its head. Putting the Dada into Carmen Miranda-da they shook a cocktail of bossa, samba, tango, psychedelia, bolero, hard rock, cumbia, chanson and rumba to revisit the ‘20s cultural cannibalism. And in only12 months they would alienate both Left and the Right acting as the primary catalyst for the State’s repressive lurch towards an oppression that would stretch into the 1970’s.

And Os Mutantes, the pop group? They were a sort of house band to this revolution. Alongside arranger Rogerio Duprat they would contribute to much of the music created by this incestuous collective, backing Gil’s landmark Beatlesque-Capoeira West Side Story “Domingo No Parque” and Veloso at his incendiary appearance at the 3^rd International Song Festival which resulted in a sort of Dylan at Newport type clash of cultures. Their own albums stand up well, with the opening two particularly fine examples of the movements aesthetic melting pot. Like planets circling round the sun, when The Beatles shone at their brightest so the band’s they inspired found their radiant peak. By 1969 with Gil and Veloso in London exile they moved to more generic rock, their light increasingly diluted in the outer rings of the cosmos.

But the legacy of this period left us an abundance of wonderful music both before, during and after the Tropicalistas. Put on your new winter coat and take a walk through your local forest to pick out as many colourful consumables as you can.

(PS)

Occasionally you hear an album that grabs you by the lapels and demands that you snap out of whatever funk you’re currently in and just bloody smile, why don’t you.

Os Mutantes’s 1968 debut is ostensibly a pop album infused with psych and prog flavours throughout, like the stripes in Willy Wonka’s sticks of rock; it also has elements of avant-garde, but without the pretention that can sometimes go hand in hand with that. I don’t actually think they’re trying to be Art in any formal sense, this LP seems like a genuine desire to create interesting and diverting sounds, it’s sonic experimentation and exploration in its purest sense.

For parts of this LP I get a taste of contemporary Mothers of Invention works like Uncle Meat or Lumpy Gravy, but with less complexity and focus on musicianship. These guys didn’t have the Serious Chops that the Mothers had, but there’s certainly a fair helping of invention there – and there are still some non-standard rhythms, as in the alternating 3/4, 3/4, 2/4 pattern of the first part of Panis et Cirenses; and Baby is a doo-wop number that wouldn’t be too far out of place on any early Mothers LP.

I also get the lo-fi aesthetic of the first couple of Velvet Underground LPs, with Rita Lee in the Nico role, especially in the dreamy O Relógio - but there’s much less self-conscious cool imagery here, they’re clearly not taking themselves too seriously like the Velvets did. This to me is pure far-out entertainment... it also sounds like it was recorded on a cornflakes packet through a sock for 50p, which only adds to its innocent charm.

It still seems rooted in Brazilian musical tradition too, despite the freaky influences of contemporary overseas popular counter-culture; there are precious few (if any) Americanisms in there, and the instrumentation and harmonisation give an authentic feel to the sound, especially in the samba rhythm of Ave Genghis Khan before it meanders off in its various directions.

It’s joyous, liberating fun… even the hammy music hall sound of Senhor F grates less than usual for me, as it all seems to fit into the chaotic ‘everything including the kitchen sink’ aesthetic. It’s a glorious festival of the absurd, which evidently caused a few establishment feathers to ruffle in its year of release… 1968 was the yearof rebellion and protest, after all. Weird and wonderful stuff.