Teenbeat Reprise

So it's 1974 and I'm way past Glam (or at least I think I am until I hear it all again in the 1990's). So it's lucky that Virgin records are around to satisfy my cravings for something a little more esoteric. I think this is how it went:

- bought Rock Bottom by Robert Wyatt and completely fell in love with it.
- oh, he's on the 1st Rotter's Club album. So I got that as well and, wow, someone from Henry Cow (what a great name!) is playing on it.
- so I bought Leg End and that's all I really needed to become completely obsessed for quite a few years.

mp3: Nirvana For Mice

It's the duelling horn arrangement that always drags me in. And then the slightly weird way they initiate changes - by a handclap. Sure, it's got a lengthy jazz style sax solo but the music behind it seems so off kilter that I can forgive dear old Tim Hodgkinson. And then it ends on an unexpected vocal refrain of "sweet mystery of life i will remember". I never knew what it was all "about" (songs were supposed to be about something, weren't they?) but that hardly mattered.

mp3: Bittern Storm Over Ulm

As soon as I saw the blackened sock of their 2nd album "Unrest" I anticipated something stranger. It starts off with this Fred Frith extrapolation of The Yardbirds' version of "Got To Hurry" and it remains one of the tracks I constantly go back to for a bit of quick energy. More handclaps, lots of guitars and poop-de-doop saxes ending on a sharp violin squeel. It still sounds like the same band but skewered on a sharp stick. Unlike this track, half the album is improvised in the studio with lots of overdubs - influenced entirely by hearing The Faust Tapes.

mp3: War

A side on the Greasy Trucker compilation followed and then they backed Slapp Happy for "Desperate Straights" (another of my favourites). But then the supposedly combined bands produced "In Praise Of Learning" - their most obviously political record : "Art is not a mirror - it is a hammer", indeed. And, ofcourse, the red coloured sock is a major giveaway. This 1st track sets the tone with a heavy prominent bass line, Dagmar's throaty yelping and a more strident instrumental section. The LP then goes on with the daunting, lengthy "Living In The Heart Of The Beast" and I wonder whether I'll still like this in 30 years time (apparently I still do).

mp3: Udine (edit)

So Virgin kick them off the label and they release a double live cd "Concerts". Most of it is like this track and it became an imprint for the kind of improv I continue to love. A gorgeous descending bass line with scratchy organ, marimba, vocal and guitar overlays. One man's noodling, I suppose...

mp3: No More Songs

Without a recording contract they continued to play live to pay the bills: this is a bootleg recording from a 1976 radio concert in Stockholm that I hadn't heard until 2 years ago. They'd just learnt that Phil Ochs (who wrote the original) had died so they decided to end the concert with this hastily practised version. It shows up Dagmar's lovely Slapp Happy style voice and the complete professionalism of the group.

mp3: Gretel's Tale

So eventually they haggle and haggle and haggle and go and do the Art Bears thing and right away record their last LP "Western Culture". One side is a piece by Tim H. and the 2nd is (mainly) by Lindsay Cooper of which this is a small track. It's very reminiscent of the 1st album again but without a lot of the grace that "Leg End" had. It's many people favourite but definitely not mine. By this time I'd moved onto This Heat, The Pop Group and Pere Ubu so it barely rattled my cage.

Once again - go to Chris Cutler's terrific website for the complete lowdown on the band's history.

You can buy all of the remastered version of these wonderfull albums (bar "Concerts" - apparently an enlarged version will happen sometime) from ReR.