Month: October 2014

Whilst playing Bull of the Woods at record club I postulated that, in this day and age, it is unlikely I would ever have got my grubby mitts on 13th Floor Elevators’ third and final album…not because acquiring music is any more difficult now than it was back in the late 80s – it’s not, it’s easier – but because information is so easily accessible (and because I am such a sucker for it) that I would have read one too many lukewarm reviews and dismissed the album as not worth owning. I would have also have been pushed into buying one of The Elevators’ first two albums, seeing as popular opinion would seem to suggest that these are far superior. Just in case any of you reading this have those first two albums and don’t really like them…well…don’t give up on Texas’ finest purveyors of acid fried psychedelia just yet as, to my ears, Bull of the Woods is by far the best record of the three and I enjoy it as much as pretty much anything else from that era.

Note that I haven’t made any grand claims for Bull of the Woods’ greatness as yet. And I’m not going to. After all, the record has all sorts of flaws that, to many, get in the way but to me makes the thing even more intriguing and captivating. I love the fact that the album sounds like it was recorded in a swamp, I love the fact that the vocals come and go in and out of the mix as if the singer (mainly Stacy Sutherland I believe) was moving from one room to the next. And I absolutely love the fact that Tommy Hall has ditched his bloody electronic jug in the canal! Listening to the ‘classic’ first album and then to this, I was struck at just how different the two records are. Whereas The Psychedelic Sounds Of…is all spiky, jangly and wobbly, Bull of the Woods is a true blues groove swamp monster. Obviously Roky Erickson’s lack of involvement in Bull of the Woods makes a big difference and the two tracks he had a hand in writing – Never Another and May The Circle Remain Unbroken – are probably the albums two most distinctive songs, the former veers all over the place in much the same way as, say, Love’s The Daily Planet and the latter is a weird mantra type coda, shimmering away like the sun setting as if on the bands’ very own career (seeing as it is the last song on their last album).

But surrounding these two cuts are nine songs that show a side of the guitar driven sound of late 60s US rock’n’roll like little else I’ve heard. I remember listening to Bull of the Woods for the first time having bought it on impulse, being vaguely aware of the name of the band from a Melody Maker interview with Spacemen 3 or Loop, and being held spellbound for the entire sitting; from the first murky blues riff of Livin’ On slithering into view to the last heartrendingly fragile vocal of May the Circle slipping out of reach. And for a while, Bull of the Woods was my favourite album, supplanting the House of Love’s eponymous (sort of) debut album and Spacemen 3’s Playing With Fire.

On the night Nick asked me if I still loved this record. I took a while to answer because I really wanted to take the time to differentiate between the love of nostalgia and the love of something you truly cherish for what it is, unencumbered by the warm glow of memories of times long gone. Well, it will come as no surprise to my fellow record club chums that in light of Graham’s theme for our next evening together I have been listening to another album I held in high regard from that time in my past and, inevitably, I have compared the two records. Nostalgia pah! I can now say Nick, with utmost confidence, that my love for Bull of the Woods is as strong as it ever has been (the other record sounded dated and somewhat adolescent in comparison). I think it’s a great, great record warts and all and I wonder just how many other ‘disappointing’ third albums I’ve let slip through my grasp over the years!

Rob listened: This is a great call by Tom. He and I, in our own very different ways, are constantly having our musical choices curated by taste-makers or, more often in this age of democratic star-ratings, the masses.

Tom is a student of discographic lists. Name any artist and he will be able to tell you which album is supposed to be their apogee. He has an extensive mental list of records he is looking out for, and these are always winnowed down to one or two from any particular artist. How many potential connections has he missed out on this way?

I, meanwhile, am just gullible and act under the constant sense that others know what’s good for me much more than I do. A score below 7.0 is enough to strike a record from my ‘listen-to’ list, whilst a negative review of a record I have already become pleasantly acquainted with is all that’s required for me to question my own response. If that guy says it’s bad, it must be bad. What do I know? How much great stuff do I miss out on by allowing others to act as arbiters for my own taste?

My musical journey never took me to the 13th Floor, and therefore I never got into the Elevators. I did come to feel great affection for Roky Erickson when I reviewed his 1995 album ‘All That May Do My Rhyme’, a sweet collection of naive universal folk boogie that was very hard to resist. In common with most bands I would have had no idea at all which of the 13th Floor Elevators records was supposed to be the best or worst, other than recognising the iconic cover of the first album. In general I guess this gives me slightly better odds of picking out the hidden gem in any particular band’s back-catalogue. I have a list of bands I fancy, but rarely specific records although this does sometimes lead to record-store paralysis (“Hey, I always meant to try The Byrds. I wonder if this record is one of the good ones or not? Perhaps i’ll just leave it…”).

On the night ‘Bull Of The Woods’ more or less passed me by, but listening back to it now on headphones, i’m loving it. Groovy, direct, sharper than i’d expected and packed with great tunes. It sounds more than a match for any of those other records by big names of the 60s that I have no idea I’m supposed to own. For this band at least, I now know which album i’m looking out for.

Graham Listened: Opening signs weren’t good for me and researching the construction of Electric Jugs (take care when googling) was a welcome distraction. After a while I began to get past the mess of production and recording and actually started to “hear” it! Although far more bluesy, I picked up on some notes of early Barrett era Floyd in its psychhier moments and by the end, quite enjoyed the groove.

Nick listened: I own the first two 13th Floor Elevators albums, but to be honest I’ve never got past the (really) tinny, uber-cheap late-60s garage production on them. Or the incessant wibble, which is, on first encounter, kind of like an awesome sampled loop that would be a great big irresistible insistent hook if it were in a piece of techno, or something. I do adore the original version of “Slip Inside This House”, though. This, shorn of so much wibble, and with slightly meatier sound, I thought probably was better. I’m not sold on the “Roky Eriksson is a genius” myth, though.

When the history of British music is written there’s a fair chance that Cornershop will be forgotten. That’s a shame, a crime perhaps. Many, many bands have made much bigger splashes but much smaller contributions.

Cornershop, like XTC before them, came out of a scene which they soon transcended, going on to make truly original music, blending influences in new ways, testing the limits of their talents and steadily finding sounds that others were missing. In doing so they made their way out into territory that they alone mapped and colonised. This left them seeming outliers when in fact, again like XTC, they are, at their heart, a deeply British band. In their records can be found a sound collage of the last 40 years of at least one, if not more, of Britain’s histories.

By the time they reached ‘Handcream For A Generation’, their fourth album, they were at their most confident. They were buoyed by the success of ‘When I Was Born For The Seventh Time’, a record that had perfected the loose-limbed groove they had been working out over the preceding two and, thanks to a Norman Cook remix, rode it all the way to number one. Four years later, with ‘Brimful of Asha’ still echoing through playlists up and down the nation, they returned with easily their most ambitious album. Whilst it may not have captured anything like the attention of its predecessor, for me it’s their definitive statement, or at least my favourite. It’s a record of pure and flawless pleasure and always the record of theirs I choose, always without hesitation and never to be disappointed. It’s never not a pleasure to hear.

Which is not to say that the pleasures herein are steady and consistent. The wild variety of ‘Handcream’ is confounding, but ultimately one of the reasons to love it. It swerves fearlessly from lazy funk to pulsing trance to pastiche 70s cock rock to playground singalongs to 15 minute Eastern bliss-outs with apparently no grand purpose or scheme. The whole collection wears a huge smile on its face and, like a stick of rock, this attitude is evident wherever and however you slice it. Each song does something different yet all retain a hazy upbeat vibe and none fail to get fingers, feet and heads moving happily.

Zoom in even further and the detail is a microscopic treasure trove. There’s the three different telephone tones used to propel ‘People Power’, the repetition of song titles across several tracks as if political slogans, the moment in ‘Motion the 11’ when the MC stops the session just to make sure the engineer is recording because “this might just be the one”. ‘The London Radar’ straps flight announcement samples together, Avalanches-style, and gets the whole thing airborne like a 70s British Airways advert. Then there’s the simple pleasure of the opening track ‘Heavy Soup’ which introduces the main players and trails several of the tracks they are about to perform, as if this were live at the Harlem Apollo. It’s playful, endearing and pulled off with just enough verve and attention to detail.

Those who waited five years for ‘Handcream for a Generation’ to land seemed to struggle to know what to do with it. The trick was simple, just enjoy it. For me, it’s much better than ‘When I Was Born…’. Here they combine not just happy grooves, but 70s rock, 90s electronica, millennial hip-hop, timeless dancehall and sunrise mantras and the whole melting pot thing has more spike, more juice, more joy, more thrills.

In the midst of all this there’s a subtle, oblique politics at work. Even post-millennium there seemed to be something of an open challenge in the seamless combinations, as opposed to clashes, of sounds, cultures, languages and styles in this record. Although the band make no direct claims herein, the album stands as a state of the sound of the nation address more freewheeling and convincing than any others I can recall from the period.

It’s the Cornershop album I always reach for and in the 12 years since I first heard it, I’ve reached for it a hell of a lot.

Tom listened: Before this evening my knowledge of Cornershop did not extend beyond Brimful of Asha. I liked that single well enough, kind of in the same way as, say, Wake Up Boo, it cheered me up to hear it on the radio, gave me hope that all was not lost with chart music (unlike nowadays, I have to say) but it didn’t occur to me to delve any deeper into Cornershop’s music – I always thought it would be a case of ‘more of the same but less so’.

I certainly never imagined that Cornershop would cover the breadth of musical landscapes in evidence on Handcream for a Generation. In scope it reminded me of In a Bar Under the Sea era Deus and the Beastie’s Check Your Head – high praise indeed. As Rob has suggested, it is charming and fun, like the kid in school that makes everyone else laugh just by showing up, it all seems effortless.

My only gripe was the 15 minute Noel Gallagher sullied jamathon. Some long songs seem vital (Marquee Moon, Halleluwah, Sister Ray), others outstay their welcome. This one could have ended after 5 minutes!

Graham listened: What a revelation this was. I just about knew that Norman Cook had reinvented Brimful of Asha in to a hit but suppose I just thought that might be the only interesting thing Cornershop were capable of. No need to study to hard on this, just sit back and enjoy a groovy, funny, cultural mash-up that ensues from the beginning.

A real, between the eyes reminder, of the value of DRC!

Nick listened: I actually really liked the 15-minute Noel G-powered ragga-drone-groove-thing. As an album this was all over the place and difficult to get hold of mentally, but thoroughly enjoyable. I vaguely recalled a couple of the singles from the time it came out, and recalled it being moderately well-received, but it had pretty much evaporated from my memory over the intervening years. I own When I Was Born… (and recall the shop assistant in Northampton Spinadisc being visibly pleased to sell it to me when I was at university) but have barely listened to it in 15 years, which makes for a weird kind of ‘what if’ sensation with the band when presented with later work which is just as good but not blessed with a seismic hit single (or three; “Sleep On The Left Side” and “Good Shit” were all over the radio way back when, too, if I recall).