= June 2010 = |
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Written by: |
Robbie Basho tribute | |
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Sendelica | |
Simon Lewis (Editor) |
Wigan Casino | |
Ian Fraser |
Carole King | |
Jeff Penczak |
Rick Bockner | |
Nigel Cross | Mooch | |
Arch Garrison | ||
Chris Bramble | ||
The Ingoes | ||
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VARIOUS – WE ARE ALL ONE, IN THE SUN (A TRIBUTE TO ROBBIE BASHO) www.importantrecords.com
I have to admit to having known little about the late Robbie Basho before setting down to review this exquisite and affectionate tribute to the pioneering American guitarist, composer and arranger. On this evidence and that of several subsequent forays through streaming sites it would seem I have been missing out on something important all these years.
This compilation was put together by an old friend of the Terrascope, Buck Curran, who together with his wife Shanti performs as the duo Arborea - and who feature here. The international roll call of musicians chosen to interpret Basho’s music or to pay tribute to him though their own Basho-influenced compositions reflects the latter’s passion for the music and culture of all nations (the self-chosen name Basho was chosen in honour of a Japanese poet of the same name). Hence we are treated to sterling contributions by, amongst others, a Grammy Nominated Iraqi master of the Persian oud, a Swedish cellist, a German guitarist and painter (Steffen Basho-Junghans – check out his website in tribute to the great man) as well as homespun US talent such as the wonderful voice of the ever dependable Meg Baird.
Basho-Junghans kicks off proceedings with “Rolling Thunder Variation II”, inspired by one of Basho’s compositions and beautifully played in the style of the man he has spent the last 20 years emulating. If as they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Basho’s memory must be very honoured indeed. Cellist Helena Espvall’s haunting “Travessa Do Cobral” gives way to Meg Baird’s cover of “Moving Up A Ways” and as usual La Baird does not disappoint. The lightness of touch here compared with the brooding “Travessa” displaying thoughtfulness to the running order. You get the impression that all this was put together out of love and not out of hand. Glenn Jones – an old friend of Basho’s is up next. His “1337 Shattuck Avenue, Apartment D” is another “original in the style of” composition and again showcases the dexterity of the steel-string acoustic guitar, an instrument that Basho seems to have spent several decades championing as a dignified concert instrument. Arborea, featuring Mr and Mrs Compiler, is one of the real gems amongst what is a real embarrassment of riches. Their version of “Blue Crystal Fire” is actually one of the more straight-ahead offerings here but is handled with grace and beauty redolent of superior acid/wyrd folk, although such a tag seems somehow rather frivolous. This is good stuff. Ireland’s Cain Nugent returns us to recital mode with more nimble guitar playing on another composition influenced by our muse. Rahim AlHaj takes us down another avenue altogether with his Persian Oud although you can somehow imagine Basho knocking this out on some celestial 12-string guitar by way of a posthumous duet. Another female vocal led track, and another definite highlight comes courtesy of Fern Knight and her gorgeously ghostly take on “Song For The Queen” before Basho-Junghans brings things to a fitting close with a 10 minute “Rocky Mountain Variation”.
One of the joys of reviewing for the Terrascope is that you absorb new music and ideas all the time and I am grateful for the opportunity that this fine tribute has given me to check out Robbie Basho. This CD is also dedicated to the memory of Jack Rose who died recently and who I know was held in high esteem by many reading this. I have another confession to make - I know little about him either, so that’s where I’m headed next. ( Ian Fraser ) |
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SENDELICA – STREAMEDELICA SHE SIGHED AS SHE HIT REWIND ON THE DREAM MANGLER REMOTE
A big welcome, then, to the latest and typically flamboyantly titled offering from Sendelica, a Welsh based band of English space rockers recording on a Russian record label. That kind of appeals, doesn’t it? Well it ought to because this is very good indeed.
The cornerstone of “Streamedelica” is the 25-minute “Day of the Locust” a titanic-wig out of jaw dropping, or should that be brain melting intensity stretching out over 25 minutes. I would defy Acid Mothers Temple to come up with anything more full-on and it’s worth checking “Streamedelica…” out if only for this killer of a centrepiece. However lest readers be tempted to think that this is just another bunch of paid up members of the Space Ramblers Association, I should point out that “Locust” is bookended by two sublimely dreamy numbers, the first of which features The Venerable Nik Turner on flute (“Carningli”) and the second (“Power of the Sea”) highlighting Virginia Tate’s dexterity on the same instrument. Both tracks also feature the only suggestion of vocals here, a breathy and ethereal cooing that complements the mood of each composition beautifully.
Elsewhere the opening track “Song of the Seidr” (Cider) sounds more like “Song of the Madarch” (mushrooms), but then what are different poisons between discerning listeners? Imagine a chamber orchestra of goblins tuning up at twilight in your local wood and you’re about there. “Dream Mangler” is a respectable enough space jam, whilst “Screaming and Streaming into the Starlight Night” is probably the most all-round accessible track on the album showcasing Lee Relf’s sax to excellent effect over a Pink Floyd groove. Substitute a violin for the sax and you wouldn’t be a million miles from Hawkwind’s “Wind of Change”. The last track “Spacehopper Blues”, again featuring sax and also violin, distils “Day of the Locust” down to about 8 minutes -searing stuff and a great way in which to wind up a most enjoyable hour’s listening. (Ian Fraser ) |
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Tony Palmer‘s Classic Film About THE WIGAN CASINO
Tony Palmer’s short film, originally commissioned for Granada TV in 1977 (its 26 minute running time fitting nicely into the half-hour minus commercial break format), is more than a music and lifestyle documentary. Filmed at the height of the “Northern Soul” dancehall craze it is just as notable for its bleak and rather poignant portrayal of a once prosperous manufacturing town by now on its uppers and just a couple of years before the election of Margaret Thatcher’s government put paid once and for all to the old industrial order.
The Northern Soul movement that thrived in the North of England at the time, with its epicentre in unfashionable Wigan, can be viewed as a key point along the continuum of a working class hedonism based around dance culture. Much as the Mod scene defined the early/mid 60s and “Madchester” came to represent the acid house/rave generation circa 1990, so Northern Soul and the Wigan Casino dance hall was the focus for those who preferred to dance all night to two-minute US soul singles than nodding through “Tales From Topographic Oceans” or slam dancing to the new punk sound. To the uninitiated it must also seem like a precursor to corny old formation line dancing, notwithstanding that the dancers, mostly young white men it seems, were superbly athletic, all kicking, flipping and spinning like hyperactive break dancers. Watch it boys, you’ll have someone’s eye out you know.
The backdrop to the film, though, is that of industrial decline and the main soundtrack is not so much the clap-happy soul of Dean Parrish or Jimmy Radcliffe but Edward Elgar and the folk music and biting lyricism of Leon Rosselson, whose “The Ugly Ones” plays ominously over the shots of decaying factories and shots of grimy faced men, women and children from yesteryear. Meanwhile the two main interview subjects, a machine worker who also kept a record stall and a young woman working in the hospital laundry convey that for they and thousands like them Wigan Casino on Saturday night was what they lived for – an escape from dreary, humdrum existence and the vestiges of old-school working class parental disapproval. These are contrasted with interviews with old timers from the “golden age” of full manufacturing output and who were used to more simple pleasures in their youth mainly due to having no money. Thankfully this stops short of descending into Python’s “Three Yorkshiremen” sketch territory.
Of course it couldn’t last. The authorities suspected (but never proved) that Wigan Casino was a drug haunt. A minor fire was sufficient excuse for the club to be closed down in 1981 bringing an era to its end. Such is the fate of so many iconic venues for popular music – one cannot imagine any of the bastions of high-culture being treated with such wanton contempt and disregard or their more influential patrons ever standing for such a state of affairs.
Palmer’s film provides a good introduction to the Wigan scene without really doing much more than scratching the surface in the time available. A shame then, that there are no outtakes or additional material here, and that a lot of the dance scenes that are featured are repeated during the course of less than half an hour. Whereas the social commentary could easily have come across as patronising it actually works well, juxtaposing old world conformity, but relative security, with the hopes, fears and uncertainties of the new. The sum of the parts is at once humorous and life affirming but also dark and depressing. Unfortunately harder times were just around the corner. (Ian Fraser) |
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CAROLE KING / VARIOUS ARTISTS – THE ESSENTIAL CAROLE KING (2xCD on Ode) (CD/DVD from Hear Music) The 'Essential Carole King' 2-disk compilation doubles as a Greatest Hits package, pairing 18 of King’s most popular tracks (aka “The Singer”) with a second disk containing the original versions of some of her finest songwriting triumphs (“The Songwriter”). I’m glad the compilers went all the way back to King’s demo for “It Might As Well Rain Until September” (originally written for Bobby Vee), as this gives the listener some perspective on what she sounded like back in the time period covered on Disk 2. (Although, for historical purposes, it would have been nice to hear the precocious 16-year old’s 1958 debut “Right Girl.”) King’s brief stint with Danny Kortchmar in The City is also bypassed, but we do get a sample from her 1970 solo debut, Writer (the tender “Child of Mine”) before launching into four selections from her finest hour, the incomparable Tapestry, which everyone should own in its entirety anyway.
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RICK BOCKNER -
Live in London, May 2010 Coming into the UK again with little fanfare, guitarist Rick Bockner, still best known for his involvement with 1960s Berkeley band, Mad River played a couple of exceptional shows in London in early May. Nowadays a consummate solo performer with a number of fine albums under his belt, Bockner dazzled old and new fans alike playing at a private party on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon. Always forward-looking, Rick is nevertheless proud of his heritage and in between songs talked at length about his days in San Francisco, the characters, the politics and the crazy, supercharged times at the end of the 1960s before the Vietnam War draft forced him to head to Canada where he settled in 1970 (as he has dual Canadian/US citizenship). Rick’s in-between song banter was littered with references to the likes of Pete Seeger, Richard Brautigan, Allan Ginsberg and the Beat poets, and the revelatory performance the Jimi Hendrix Experience gave for free in Golden Gate Park, literally yards away from the Mad River communal house! After a sparkling support spot from ex-Starry Eyed and Laughing front man Tony Poole and his Byrdsian electric 12-string Rickenbacker, Rick got proceedings underway with a version of Joseph Spence’s ‘Great Dream of Heaven’ that set the tone and standard for the rest of the set, Rick proved that he has developed into a player of jaw-dropping talent. Picking on a 1956 Gibson LG-1, with a Highlander pick-up in it - he usually plays a guitar he built in 1978, which is a copy of a 1934 OM Martin, but he don't like to travel with it.- the number quickly established his credentials as a guitar player’s player. Introducing it as a song he felt he’d written himself, his masterly performance of ‘Beeswing’ taken from Richard Thompson’s 1994 ‘Mirror Blue’ LP really hit the spot and went down well with the knowledgeable audience, many of whom had cut their teeth on early Fairport. Other highlights included ‘Police Dog Blues’, Skip James’s ‘Special Rider Blues’ and ‘Rainy Night in Chinatown’, a smoky self-penned blues for the wee small hours, already regarded in some circles as a classic. To the delight of the Mad River fans present he announced that he and his former band mates are to have an informal reunion at his house on Cortes Island in British Columbia in June and then delivered a polished version of his instrumental ‘Equinox’ which had graced their second LP and was recently redone for his new solo album. Later on in the afternoon, a hugely enjoyable sing-along version of that record’s country-flavoured title cut, ‘Paradise Bar and Grill’ had many of the audience grinning from ear to ear. To whet our appetites even further he also announced the band’s intention to release a recently-found outtake from Mad River, intriguingly entitled ‘Jersey Sloo’, as part of a CD that would also include tracks from the band’s self-released 1967 EP. No Bockner performance is complete without him doing at least one song by the Reverend Gary Davis, a father figure and mentor to many of the young aspiring guitar players coming of age in the Bay Area in those late 60s years and he treated us to ‘Going to Sit Down On the Banks of the River’, one of several numbers he performed from his new CD Regeneration. Equally impressive from that album was a self-written song, he explained he’d like Mad River to take a crack at if the projected reunion gets as far as the studio, the edgy ‘Men with Guns’. Indeed his new LP is worth checking out if for no other reason than to hear the remarkable voice of his daughter Amy, who sings lead on a couple of numbers – in the tradition of Bessie Smith, Mother Earth’s Tracey Nelson and the late and sorely missed Karen Dalton, Amy is a real find, and should hopefully be making records of her own one day soon. His set was warmly received but due to time restrictions, he was unable to appease the crowd’s demands for an encore. He did, however, reprise his solo set the next evening at the Plough in Walthamstow opening for ex-Help Yourself members, Richard Treece and Ken Whaley’s band, the Green Ray. Most impressively and with only a 10-minute rehearsal, Rick then sat in with the Ray for the whole of their set and played on a borrowed electric guitar. This guy’s chops are formidable and Treece, no slouch himself as a lead guitarist, really tested his mettle – he may have been unfamiliar with a lot of the Ray’s repertoire but by the time they launched into the final number, their inimitable version of Emmylou Harris’s ‘All My Tears’, the two guitarists were trading licks as assuredly as Weir and Garcia used to do in the Dead. Just a shame Rick hadn't brought his Rickenbacker 1942 lap steel then we might have been in for a twin steel attack worthy of Man or the Allman Bros! Rick is hoping to return to the UK next year – on this evidence, miss him at your peril! (Nigel Cross) |
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MOOCH – THE PAGAN YEAR
Having explored the music of the late sixties on his last three albums, Stephen Palmer returns to more familiar Mooch territory on this sprawling double album that features eight long ambient psych tracks, the music filled with swirling synths, sequencers, effected guitars and a host of guest musicians.
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ARCH GARRISON – KING OF THE DOWN
Featuring Chris and Sharron Fortnam (North Sea Radio Orchestra), This album is filled with the same melodic inventiveness and charm that characterises that bands work. Opening with the twinkling melody of the title track, both brief and delightful, the album settles quickly with the wonderful “Here's to the End of the Road”, the combination of guitar and voice suggesting a familiarity with the Fence Collective, the glorious harmonies only adding to the experience. The same feel is evident on “The Days Don't Feel the Same”, the upbeat tempo getting your feet tapping whilst the lyrics betray a slightly more uncertain feel.
ower and atmosphere, the band pulling out all the stops to convey their message, the instrumental passage swirling with sixties energy and passion.
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THE INGOES – BEFORE WE WERE BLOSSOM TOES (Sunbeam)
Godding and Sunbeam have been going steady for a number of years, resulting in numerous exclusive archival releases supplementing the reissues of the two seminal albums and the BB Blunder offshoot. Here we go back to the rough and tumble beginnings via Godding’s personal tape collection, along with all their official releases (a French EP and, count ‘em, two versions of The Beatles’ ‘Help’, one in French, the second in Italian – despite the fact that, as Godding points out, the lads couldn’t speak either language!) Toes’ fans will surely identify the band’s pop leanings that manager/producer Giorgio Gomelsky exploited on their debut album.
With a little pop, a smidgeon of soul, and some proto freakbeat, The Ingoes were poised for the big time, and a return to London from the high life in Morocco precipitated another name change and the rest is, well, you know…. All in all, a marvelous archival release, especially for fans of the Brians’ myriad offshoots and other stepping stones to the big time. (Jeff Penczak) |
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