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.
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.
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 19th 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
Niemoller’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 3rd 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. Likes 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.
“Half the nation’s gone to war, the other half is out
to score”
World conflict looms and GenZ snoozes beneath its vast
collective eiderdown. Pressed together almost touching, these children resemble
us on that first sanctioned Covid exercise, when we stumbled out into the
half-light of Hampstead Heath desperately avoiding each other. Adolescence ends
at 32 these days we are told, but what’s going to happen to these kids when
they are forced to wake up?
Secondhand’s “Reality” fumbles along in the eye of
this very same storm. An oddly philosophical effort, musically birthed in a
primitive early prog-psych style. It was pulled together and released against
an all too familiar and repeating cycle of ambition, indifference and tragedy.
Washed down for inspection, it’s a curio of curios.
Let’s start with the packaging. The garish purple
sleeve is striking with a mocked-up medical record on one side and a skeletal
X-ray hand reaching out on the other. It’s not clear which is front and which
is back. The credits list the songs and musicians and the name and address of
someone called Denis James, also mentioned in two song titles and maybe the
suggested subject of the piece. The word “Reality” is attached via a printed
staple, the band name scrawled as Secondhand and the sleeve deliberately
battered and worn like Costello’s “Get Happy”.
In fact the band were The Next Collection, a Mod band
in the mould of The Small Faces. They changed their name to The Moving Finger
before any semblance of fame and fortune could reach them and then had to
change it again but not before some pressings of this album listed them as
such. The final name Secondhand seems to have been used as much as Second Hand.
The sleeve wasn’t deliberately worn it was an uncorrected pressing plant
problem, so original copies are somewhat unique in their range of defects. A
bad day for E.J Day and Sons you might say. And as for the concept of an album
based around a character called Denis James, well that’s somewhat enigmatic
too.
Denis James is a clown no less and may be a cipher
used to illustrate a state of being, namely the carefree days of youth spent
lost in self-absorbed anarchy. For those of good fortune or bohemian
inclination an attitude that aspires to last a lifetime. For the less fortunate
a brief candle that burns all too soon. At least I think that’s the intention.
Secondhand were 15-17 years old. Their back story is
sparse but like so many bomb culture kids they spied a door out of the biscuit
factory, invitingly left ajar by pop music. Perhaps they foresaw a permanent
escape. But Secondhand never began to make it and just before the recording the
young guitarist’s father died soon forcing him to leave the pop dream behind to
keep his family a-float. Perhaps that’s why this recording is tinged with such
desperate melancholy. Though the producer having a breakdown half-way through the
record can’t have helped.
The diagnosis is set out in “Reality’s” opening salvo.
“Fairytale” is a re-cycled pop effort from their previous Summer of 67 incarnation,
but where the demo version uplifts, this one is mired in dark undercurrents.
The conclusion of mother’s swaddling bed-time story is forever threatened and
disturbed by the outside world. “Someone’s knocking at the door, don’t let
them in”, they sing and darker still, “Father comes home late from work,
hard as nails, his stony footsteps on the stairs, ends the fairytale”. Out
of shot we conjure verbals, belt-buckles, tears. But worse than the four walls
of home lie the grinding malevolence and incessant “Rhubarb” of the adult
world. The soulful vocals of Ken Elliot are indistinct throughout this album
and here the words seem to emerge as half-heard mumblings about “The Man” on
high discussing eugenics and “the animal people”. The music is a brutal,
stone-age metal before it had been invented. The effect, not so much background
colour, more flashing lights from a blunt object crashed across the skull.
Enter, “Denis James The Clown”, slipping into proceedings from a side alley; “The
funny man who never lets you down”. A vaudevillian sideshow from a toytown
world that tries to seep into this album, but finds its way blocked. A real
character or an echo of what went before? Then it’s the ironically groovy
“Steam Tugs” and another chapter towards disillusionment. The morning after the
party, the rotting room strewn with dormant revellers. The empty tins of
Watneys Party 7, the broken bottles, the heaving ashtrays, the pimply youths,
the half-dressed girls exposed by the harsh sunshine. A dawn of steam-tug-mugs,
with the cockney rhyming marking your peers as completely lacking when the
drugs wear off. Back in Denis’ barrel organ arcade, “We Are Slowly Getting
Older” pops in to emphasise the point, woozily playing with the stereo
spectrum. Our protagonist is growing up quickly but not quick enough and before
long the dark thunderclouds envelope proceedings and we hear more about “The Man”.
“Some top men got together, what do you think of that?
They came to the conclusion we’re getting far too fat”
What exactly are you supposed to think when told some
top men get together? The dark psych into prog spiralling backward guitars and
rumbling explosions suggest nothing good. “The World Will End Yesterday” seems
to bring side one to a close in a mood of mutually assured destruction and the
untold terrors and corruption of a post-apocalyptic year zero. Heavy shit... and
err… “the same thing applies when the old man bought a hat, he put it on a
chair where a fat old lady sat”
- the infantile and profane, the marriage
of heaven and hell…Beano and Bosch. I see the sleeve of the band’s follow-up
album as painting the picture of this song. This Zappa meets Vincent Crane
Prog-out was memorably titled “Death May Be Your Santa Claus” and was
accompanied by a short film of the same name. The film contemplates religion,
marxism, race relations…cannabilism and as with the scene in which the band are
seen jamming in a rotting Notting Hill street, it has little and long lost
purpose.
Flip “Reality” over and “Denis James, Ode to D.J”
carries a most bizarre almost Catholic, bridging narrative. It recalls an
innocent time where Denis is just one of the crowd of happy sunny Sunday kids
on the cusp of life. However, due to the lack of a sixpence to use the
chocolate machine his fate is disastrously determined. It leaves us to
speculate that the machine is but a metaphor for virtue itself and if denied
access then… where do you get your kicks? In this case it turns out to be hard
drugs.
“Now he’s gone, won’t see him no more.”
And at this point the album reaches its zenith in a
staggering 15minute death-dream through the addiction of “Mainliner” into the
stark and long overdue realisation of the adult “Reality”. The church organ on
the former is blasted out from St Gabriel’s, Cricklewood, opposite Melrose
Avenue, coincidently the site of another Denis…Nilsen’s, first torture
chamber. This harrowing song lurches between grandiose funereal pomp and sombre
reflective guitar arpeggios. The lyrics may be the Ghost of Christmas Yet
to Come; a prediction of an imminent and desperate future.
Then as though gasping into fitful consciousness from a coma, the machines
spark back into life, the head shakes, eyes open and a final moment of
realisation unfolds.
St Gabriels, Cricklewood
“When I was just a little boy
My father said to me
He said Son when you grow up
You have to face reality
I travelled round
from town to town
I never thought
I’d ever have to settle down”
The song drives on growing more urgent with its intent
“I travelled in
A dream of ecstasy
But now my dream is gone
I’ll have to face reality
I’ll have to face reality”
Then a key change, like gears shifting on a sharp
incline,
“The dream is gone and I can’t carry on
Time is right and there’s a light
Everything is shining, what a beautiful sight
Reality, the dream has gone away
Re-ality, everything is shining”
A chorus of flutes sweep by, like a celestial choir
overseeing mankind’s folly, shrieking stridently above a maelstrom of gun
shots, grinding tanks and overhead fighter plane duels. The passage slows to
bluesy guitars then the string quartet requiem of “Mainliner” ominously
returns, setting proceedings to their inevitable close. A furious march of
drums and strings develop, spinning and spiralling to a slowly elongated groove
with the piercing cellos clawing to the heavens like damned souls escaping from
the mire.
The dream is gone and I can’t carry on
Until the time is right
And there’s the light
And everything is shining what a beautiful sight
Off a side street from Clapham Common…52, Elms Road to
be precise, the “Bath Song” concludes proceedings with Denis overdosing during
ablutions. “Well If you’re feeling down come on and get happy!!” toots the
Radio London jingle hot on the heels of the DJ’s stark announcement of Denis’s
demise. A DJ announcing the death of DJ, another clue or joke or an accident,
like the sleeve pressing?
Post release the departing guitarist Bob Gibbons would
never recover from the stress of trying to support his family and took his life
before the 1970’s were over. Recorded in a small studio on the Old Kent Road (now occupied by an Asda) ,
the producer Vic Keary would recover from his breakdown and continue to use the
band on other projects. Indeed this collaboration pre-dates the LP and there is
a connection between the band and an obscure singer-songwriter called
Denis Couldry. The Next Collection’s first credit was backing Couldry’s,
Keary-produced solo single “I Am Nearly There”, a brooding meditation
on…something or other. Flip the single over and you have “James in the Basement”
and though the music is Schlager-lite sing-song stuff the connection of Denis
and James may have provided some inspiration. The song fades out to tell us “he’s
quite insane…he’s quite insane” and Couldry would ultimately spend the 70’s and
80’s in and out of psychiatric institutions. Prior to this he’d been lead
vocalist of Felius Andromeda who warmed up by backing comedy clown Harry H. Corbett on his psychedelic piss-take “Flower Power Fred” before releasing the superb “Meditations/ Cheadle
Heath Delusions” 45. The organ recorded by Keary at that same
Cricklewood church used on “Reality”.
And finally. Felius Andromenda’s final single
“Funeral” was actually credited to Second Hand on a 1972 release with a line-up that
seemed to merge the remaining members of the two bands, even though Second Hand were calling themselves Chillum at this point. My head hurts.
(LK)
Real Gone Kids
There is an old
quote, the origin of which I am unable to recall, that goes “I don’t suffer
from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.”, and although I cannot remember
where I heard that particular aphorism, it is most definitely brought back to
the forefront of my mind by listening to Second Hand’s debut album Reality.
There are albums that you listen to once and they become a favourite and albums
that you listen to once and smash with a hammer, but there are the rare albums
that don’t necessarily impress on first listen, or perhaps even the second, but
gently creep into your mind, slowly releasing their quality as you provide them
with a little space and Reality is one of those.
Second Hand were
formed by a couple of teenagers in South London in the mid-60s, who were
members of one of the first truly post-war generations, but still lived very
much in the shadow of the second world war. Though they themselves had not
experienced the privations and horrors of the conflict, they would have lived
with the effects of those years all around them. The people that raised them
and with whom they would interact may well have seen the effects of war up
close, who carried the physical and mental scars of combat or the psychological
effects of living in fear of bombs raining from the sky. Why is this of note,
other than from a historical perspective, because this album is a horror show,
not in the sense of it being a disaster, but in the actual sense of a
theatrical performance of fear and dread.
Just to indulge
in a slight digression for a moment, the fact that this band and this album
were created by a couple of teenagers is something that should be kept in mind
when listening; it’s not because the album is bad, it most certainly is not in
my opinion, but rather because of something that becomes obvious the further
you delve into this record, which is that the music displays its influences
like a large neon sign. It’s not particularly strange for a debut album,
especially one created by a young group of people, to be somewhat obvious in
its influences, one only has to think of Led Zeppelin’s debut or The Doors
first album, but Reality does not even bother to try and disguise the music
that contributed to its realisation.
The opening of
the very first track should be recognisable by any fan of The Who, and several
tracks show strong influences from The Kinks and Pink Floyd, but that is not
all there is to this album. It would not be unreasonable to ask whether Jimmy
Paige owned a copy of this album, before forming Led Zeppelin, and if someone
told me that it had been an influence on Pink Floyd when writing The Wall, I
would have no problem in believing them.
The reason being
that this album has a lot in common with the aforementioned work in terms of
narrative and structure. Though Reality is not a concept album in the true
sense, it does have a strong sense of narrative within each song, except for
those which demonstrate a strong sense of eccentricity and whimsy, and even a
sense of overarching narrative across the whole album. From the protective
mother in the opening song, to the death from a drug overdose in the final
track, there is a consistent sense of fear of missed opportunities and passing
youth, of failure and excess. This is a horror story of an album, but not of
ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, there is no pricking of the
thumbs, this is the sheer dread of life and the horror of existence.
Upon hearing this
album for the first time it’s easy to dismiss it as just another mildly
eccentric prog/psychedelic rock album, just another, albeit a good one, entry
in the panoply of such albums of the period, but there is something, even on
the first listen, which tempts you to listen to it again; something beyond the
eccentricity of the music in parts. When you
do listen to it
again, and you absolutely should do so, it starts to reveal something about
itself. This album has some dark corners in which horrors lie, and those
corners are the ones in the room you are sitting in
(PS)
Isn't it funny how
some LPs are so evocative of the year they were released? This came out in
1968, and to me it absolutely screams of that year: too heavy for 67 but
without the higher production values and techniques that many bands and
producers had started employing the following year.
As I stare at the
last few Christmas chocolates in the Quality Street tub, it strikes me that
this LP is just as mixed a bag; there are so many styles crammed into a
relatively short space, and I wonder if the overall feel suffers a bit as a
result.
The opening track, A
Fairy Tale starts off as a proper mod rocker: a punchy four chord Small Faces-y
guitar riff after the initial piped organ suspended chords is as impactful as
you could want, and the D# after the G/F/C is also nicely non-standard... then
it switches into full Ogdens psych mode before picking up the riff again to
close.
Rhubarb! is a wilder,
blues riff-based thrasher that made me think more of JD Blackfoot than anything
else, but I'm searching for a better comparison. It's frenzied and loose, just
as a blues rocker should be - but I'm not sure that Ken Elliott's vocals suit
this type of wild abandon, it highlights the weaknesses in his voice more than
anything for me.
Then we get to the
thing that so many bands of the era regrettably took from Sgt Pepper: Denis
James the Clown (Arthur Kitchener) is pure vaudeville, like Bonzo Dog
Doo-Dah Band aping up the old cockerney music hall songs from battered 78s
found in flea markets. It's irritating and for me, it's the toffee penny in the
Quality Street tub (ie still hanging around in late April). A complete
turn-off.
Steam Tugs gets
things back on track; it's a funky white soul number which makes me think of
Mark I Deep Purple. but unfortunately, Bob Gibbons was no Ritchie Blackmore, so
there are no guitar pyrotechnics or virtuosity to light things up and make this
something extra special.
For Good Old '59 I
get the Kinks, all quirky and eccentric, tugging on the nostalgia strings. The
World Will End Yesterday with its backwards guitar has a much more psych
feel... I get strains of Tomorrow here, but a bit dirtier. Again, Gibbons was
no Steve Howe, so there's some flair missing from the guitar lines for me.
Denis James the Clown (Ode to DJ) is one of the few occasions on this LP
where a musical style is almost revisited; this is more like Steam Tugs, funky
but with a slowed down riff, which goes into more of a Traffic sound after a
while, a la Paper Sun.
Mainliner is a
slower, more introspective track with its phased guitar chords, but I don't
think the bass and guitar work together. This disconnect is possibly
deliberate, as it appears to be an elegy for a drug casualty, a bit like Procul
Harum's Nothing That I Didn’t Know, but more stark. It evolves with church
organ and string quartet and becomes something rather more interesting and
progressive towards the end.
The title track is
the standout for me - the Purple One in the tub, if you like - but the bass
lines often don't follow the melody or the chords which is frustrating. It's a
slow, pulsing, groovy rocker with a nice bit of flute and added apocalyptic
explosions. The middle eight (if you can call it that) is another string
quartet break which modulates to some very unexpected chords, never seeming to
resolve, lingering on sweet dissonances - then ending with a heavy section of
everyone together, combining orchestral and pop in a much more satisfying
result than Deep Purple's Concerto for Orchestra from the following year ever
did.
The Bath Song is more
Procul Harum to my ears, but hammed up and I think the melodrama spoils it for
me - and again, I don't think Elliott's vocals are strong enough to carry the
higher ranges, and it's a shame that this track closes the album.
There is much on this
LP which is fantastic, interesting, challenging... but sometimes I fear it's
let down by limited musicianship, and possibly even the overall sound. I think
in the hands of a better producer, this would be a far superior album for me;
but it's still one I will definitely keep coming back to.
What can be said about Eno that
hasn’t already been said? Glam Rock Icon turned Musical Chameleon, National
Treasure, Inventor of the Skullet (possibly), Patriotic Millionaire and
Godfather of Ambient.
In the mid-70s prog was
becoming a parody of itself with its overly complicated, intricate noodling in
27/13 time. The yoof response to this public schoolboy frippery (which I’ll
admit, I do have a sizeable soft spot for) was punk: pick up a guitar, learn 3
chords and write a two-and-a-half-minute song… and it was a hammer blow to the
capes & keyboards merchants and their side-long epics.
Eno had a different approach
though: strip away the clutter and take a step back, give the musical theme
space and time to breathe, to imprint on the listeners’ brains; and while the
impact was perhaps not as immediate as punk, its aftereffects were arguably far
deeper and longer lasting.
In late 1975, Eno released
three LPs back-to-back: Another Green World, Discreet Music and Evening Star,
the latter a second collaboration with Robert Fripp after 1973’s (No
Pussyfooting). The last two of these were significant steps away from Eno’s
previous work, dispensing with the 3-minute song in favour of more expansive
soundscapes with simple themes being repeated over extended, searching guitar
and synth lines. To my ear, these sound very much in the same vein as works by
Krautrock pioneers Tangerine Dream, Harmonia, Neu! & Cluster; perhaps not
quite finding his own voice yet, but still interesting works worth exploring.
After a collaboration with
Cluster in the Summer of 1977 and a brief (but unsatisfactory, IMHO) return to
the 3-minute form with Before and After Science, we get the release of Ambient
1: Music for Airports; and this is where I think Eno’s hallmark sound is truly
born. Here we still have the simplified form, extended pieces… but it’s even
more stripped back than before. There’s more space between the music, more time
for the themes to float and find a place to land softly before picking up
again. Even between the 2 pieces on each side, there’s a substantial silence –
a palate cleanser almost – to allow the listener to reset and return gently to
square one.
In 1/1, I get Echoes of Erik
Satie with the beautiful ostinato piano theme, written by Robert Wyatt;
lilting, melodic, wistful, played on a seemingly endless loop. There are synths
underneath this, but they feel like occasional supports or tethers, gently
grounding or propping the melodic line up but only when necessary. It’s a
wonderfully understated piece of music, and Eno’s Kandinsky-esque graphic score
on the reverse of the LP sleeve gives a hint of what to expect: the measured
repetition of simple, uncluttered musical ideas in a minimalist frame.
Eno’s own inner sleeve notes
state that “Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening
attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is
interesting” and on those terms I’m not absolutely convinced he’s succeeded
with 1/1, the principle feels more applicable to the previous ‘discreet’
releases. When I listen to this, I want to put everything to one side to devote
all my attention to it, to be immersed by it as if in a hot bath, letting the
glorious hits and decays of the notes fill the room and disperse through the
keyholes and cracks in the doors. I feel as if allowing it to be ignored would
be a terrible waste somehow.
Less is more.
(LK)
I first heard Ambient 1: Music
for Airports when I was in college; picking up an album in what was an
extensive music library because of the name attached to it, Brian Eno, settling
down to listen to it with headphones on and then emerging forty minutes or so
later not really sure what I had listened to, or whether what I remembered
hearing is actually what I had experienced, because that is one of the inherent
features and charms of ambient music.
Released in 1979, Ambient 1:
Music for Airports is the album that is generally considered to be the album
that created an entire genre of music, that being, somewhat obviously, Ambient
Music; a genre that almost defies description, though when most people try it
is through the idea of what it isn’t rather than what it is and there is good
reason for this. Music is generally discussed in terms of rhythm and metre, of
verse and chorus and in some cases even meaning, ambient music has none of
these and quite deliberately so.
The story behind the creation
of the album is that Eno was inspired by a wait of several hours at Köln
airport, the banality of which was in counterpoint to the happy and pleasant
music that was being pumped into the building. Eno, who was by his own admission,
not the most confident of flyers, felt that this was trying to create a sense
of forced happiness, something that could raise tension in people that were
already in what he considered to be a stressful situation. He conceived the
idea of a style of music that would simply exist, not asking anything of the
people there and allowing them to be as involved as they wished to be.
The opening of 1/1, or track
one side one, begins with the sound of individual piano notes being played, a
beginning that would fit any piece of traditional classical music as a theme
that might go on to be developed, but doesn’t, and that is almost the point.
The phrase is repeatedly played over and over again, never developing or
changing; but just as important in these repeating phrases is the negative
space in musical terms, the silence that accentuates the notes and allows them,
and the listener, the time to breathe. Nothing is forced here; there is time
and space in the music to appreciate it and the space around oneself.
This piano phrase forms a
through line to the piece, the element that allows the listener, if they so
wish, to focus on what they are hearing as, slowly, the parts of the whole
begin to build with the addition of the third element of the piece, the synthesizer,
which works in counterpoint to the piano. Whereas each of the piano notes is
distinct and separate and even the phrases themselves exist in a minor
isolation, the synthesizer provides a sustained, elongated, almost drone-like
effect in the music, reminiscent of Buddhist chants or Tuvan throat singing.
The combination of these
elements, the distinct piano notes, the silence that defines them and the
elongated synthesizer notes combine to create an aural space into which the
listener can enter and indulge in an almost physical pleasure, or stand outside
of and appreciate as a calming, almost spiritual, piece of music. The title is
quite apt, though it could just as easily be titled music for sitting, though
that is something one does a lot in airports, or music for cooking, as it is
easy to imagine this music filling the cavernous buildings that are modern
airports, existing as part of the background of noise and motion and yet there
is also a genuine pleasure in just sitting back and letting this music wash
over you as you contemplate the meaningless nature of the music and the universe.
(MS)
I’ve listened to it. I keep listening to it. In the bedroom. In the kitchen. Washing up. Traipsing up and down the river. In
the background when I’m working. In the background when I’m thinking about
working. In the background when I’m not thinking about working. In the
background when I’m not thinking. Not thinking. Just existing. Just breathing.
Just living and sensing that I am still alive. Forgetting that I am alive. I
want to say something about it. I want to say how it moves me, how it changes
my mood, how it stirs in me some emotion. Most
recently I tried it out on an ordinary Thursday morning and I think it did.
I turned it on from my phone. YouTube.
On the bed, lying still I let it drift about with my eyes closed. But it set
off my tinnitus so I got under the covers to muffle it. Then I started thinking
about Dobrochna and those long gone days. But I got up because that’s not
healthy. Looking for my socks I found a lot of dust under the bed so started
brushing it out with my paws. Then putting the dust pan down I picked up my
jeans and straightened them out on the back of the chair. There was a big brown
mark on the seat which I smelt then licked and found to be chocolate orange. In
the lounge there was more on the settee and a discarded wrapper stuffed into a
whisky glass. What was I watching? “The Satanic Rites of Dracula, yes”. I must
have dropped it down myself as I was eating it. I had a shower and though I
couldn’t really hear it from the bedroom, I knew it was still going on. Towel
round my privates I nipped back into the bedroom and… yes it was still going
on. “New undies today” I said. Fully dressed, I stood up, blew my nose and
grabbed my wallet and keys. As I reached for the phone it stopped and went
straight into an advert for a Black Friday deal.
10 minutes later I tried again
and turned it back on from the start, this time through earbuds with bus trip
visuals. Bit of a rotten film though. Miserable looking girls in big coats
shuffling up the stairs into their seats. Pitch back street scene beyond,
orange lights, tree branches crashing against the window like skeletal
Nosferatu fingers. Like the piano in my ears. “Christopher Lee was always a
good Dracula”, I mumbled. Bermondsey to London Bridge. Brightened a bit as we
crawled through Borough. School kids trooped off and more workers got on. Then
I focussed on my fellow passengers. No one looks at anyone in the eye these
days. The isolation of our daily commute, it’s an intense time. And yet if we
could see from the side, everybody is looking at everything and everybody.
Blackfriars zoomed by. Stand up to get off. IMAX blocks the horizon at Waterloo
when approaching from the East. On rushing bodies splashing over the pavements.
If I could just see this scene from the side, I’d see that everyone is looking
at me but skilfully so as not to be seen doing it. We’re all doing it. I’m
looking at some people more than others, I must admit. Another bus over the
river as I can’t walk over it. The music stopped at Aldwych… and another deal
for Black Friday boomed out. That’s a problem with YouTube. It breaks such contemplative
moods.
I’ve listened to it lots of times in lots of
places but I’ve not listened to it in an airport. Maybe that’s it.
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