PROG NOSIS MARCO ROSSI takes on sequels and prequels but not The Equals
It’s an accepted rule of thumb: the very moment a film becomes a franchise, the law of diminishing returns kicks in with much the same wince-inducing ruthlessness exhibited by Shin-Kicker Shug, scourge of the 1971 St Pat’s playground football league. Jaws 2 isn’t even half as good as Jaws, for instance; while Jaws 3 is so mythically woeful that moves are afoot to deploy it as a last-resort punishment for repeat offenders. There are exceptions, of course: you could make a strong case for the second, third and fourth Star Wars movies, while Titanic II – just the title, mind – earns a smattering of solemn applause for sheer brazen cheek. A fascinating wrinkle regarding this entire ethos was provided by my lovely wife, who came home slightly squiffy once from a night out with the girls to find me watching Mad Max. “Is this Mad Max, or Mad Max 1?” she asked. The concept of the series beginning at “Mad Max Nil” makes me laugh to this day.
Anyways, apologies for that lengthy digression. Technically speaking, I suppose you can’t digress if you haven’t actually started your main thrust yet, but we’ll take that
one on the chin. The reason for mentioning all of this in the first place was because of COLOSSEUM II, whose Strange New Flesh (Esoteric) has just been reissued in remastered, augmented 2-CD form – thereby reawakening the age-old imponderable concerning which is best, Colosseum or Colosseum II. For the uninitiated, Colosseum – the original mob – were formed by drummer Jon Hiseman in ’68, and were a cadre of cream-o-the-crop jazz- proggers all playing to the very best of their abilities, all of the time, at hurricane-force intensity. They made an incredible, exhilarating noise, but so relentlessly that it was capable of raising actual bruises and welts if one was too liberal with the dosage. Listening to a whole album in one sitting was like lying at the bottom of a deep well while someone dropped over-engineered Victorian furniture on to your face.
The Mk 1 Colosseum didn’t so much split up as slip the surly bonds of Earth altogether when they attained escape velocity during a particularly rabid improvisation: so when Colosseum II came along in ’75, did they temper their approach to accommodate lessons learnt and socio-cultural changes wrought by the passage of time? Did they fuck. If anything, they upped the ante. Jon Hiseman invited guitarist Gary Moore on board – which is like strapping a supercharger on to the Large Hadron Collider. Fellow inductees were keyboardist Don Airey, bassist Neil Murray and velveteen vocalist Mike Starrs and, as Strange New Flesh makes abundantly clear, they went at it with the monomaniacal fervour of OCD sufferers in the light switch aisle at B&Q.
82
They had admittedly discovered that the accelerator pedal still worked even when it wasn’t buried right into the carpet – witness the comparatively languid ‘On Second Thoughts – but the furious likes of the instrumental ‘Dark Side Of The Moog’ are akin to trying to revise quantum theory while someone repeatedly slams your head in a sarcophagus door. Excellent. Poor Mike Starrs had to try and sing over the top of this kind of maelstrom, and a fine fist he made of it too: even if you get the feeling that he would have been just as happy in a cummerbund and frill-fronted shirt, pointing at the ladies you’d never catch in a trillion years at a Colosseum II gig – “This one goes out to YOOOO” – and launching into a hormonally lubricious, pelvis-grinding ‘Who Loves Ya, Baby’.
Jan Akkerman: brainbox for sale
there, Tull-ites? – and take a richly-warranted bow for Thick As A Brick 2 (Chrysalis). Not only does its title fit neatly into the spurious franchise theme I endeavoured to establish earlier, but it’s also a genuinely inspired piece of work, against substantial odds. I mean, who paints a masterpiece at the age of 64? (Don’t answer: I’ve already short-circuited Google and torpedoed my own hypothesis in the process.)
The idea behind the album is to surmise what may have happened to Gerald Bostock, the fictional eight-year-old credited with writing the lyrics to the original TAAB. Accordingly, Anderson uses this framing device to fuel a wider discourse about the potentially monumental ramifications one’s decisions have, whether they lead you to the frontline (‘Wooton Bassett Town’), the boardroom (‘Banker Bets Banker Wins’), the pulpit (‘Give ’Til It Hurts’) or the village shop (‘Cosy Corner’). Anderson’s lyrics are flat-out brilliant – pointed, poisonous barbs of validated vitriol with a core of bittersweet empathy – and, musically, it’s as proggy as you can get without physically plummeting into a rotating Vertigo swirl. If you were thinking that this kind of loopy intricacy died with the Spirograph, think again.
Now, what did tasty guitar gastronome JAN AKKERMAN do before throwing in his lot with a yodelling Hammond organist and his briar hedge sideburns? Before
even lending his craftsman clout to Dutch uncles Brainbox? Simples. He recorded an album of bluesy, jazzy instrumentals, Talent For Sale (Esoteric) in ’68, then sat back and watched as it did nowt. Sleek, seamless versions of ‘Green Onions’, ‘Ode To Billy Joe’ and ‘What’d I Say’ are indicative of the kind of fare you can expect: no prog to speak of, but the moustache was already in situ.
Strange New Flesh was originally released in ’76: perfectly, poignantly and unwittingly timed so as to attract animadversion, sputum and arse- wafting gestures from punk anthropophagites who gleefully expended a great deal of time and effort in noisily urinating upon prog-rock’s grave. Thing is, if you wait long enough, just about anything will come back round again: or, to continue the previous analogy, just about anything will crawl from the grave, shake worms from its ear cavities and ask what’s for lunch.
For example, who among us could ever have foreseen a follow-up to Jethro Tull’s ’72 anti-concept concept album, Thick As A Brick, appearing a comfy 40 years after its illustrious prog parent?
“Stand up” IAN ANDERSON – hey, see what I did
I leave you with Ariel Pink affiliate GARY WAR and his splendidly unravelled, echo- encrusted hallucinogen blur of an album, New Raytheonport (Care In The Community). Despite the
endearing presence of a sublimely twisted Alan Parsons Project cover (‘Eye In The Sky’), this is closer to psych than prog. In fact, it’s closer to laudanum-fuelled death throes than psych, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. ‘Clouds Went That Way’ and ‘Good Clues’ sound like someone being sick into a Leslie speaker. ‘Obscure Preferences’ sounds like someone being sick into a Flymo. ‘Healthy Living’ sounds like The Police being sick into Andy Summers’ guitar case, watched by The Residents. Blurry marvellous.
www.cherryred.co.uk/esoteric www.careinthe.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100