Blind Spot
While researching some recommendations from fellow Word bloggers, I found myself sifting through some of those lists that people make on Amazon. Lists like "20 albums I shoplifted as a teenager" or "My favourite marching songs", that kind of thing.
A familiar album cover presented itself on someone's list; the eponymous one from the Edgar Broughton Band, with rows of meat up on hooks. I'm sure any of you who have ever perused a Harvest inner sleeve will know the one I mean.
Now, for some reason lost in the mists of three decades, I never got around to investigating this lot. Perhaps it was the moustaches, I don't know, but I don't think I'd ever heard anything from them except "Out Demons Out".
My curiosity, combined with the fact that the album was only a fiver, led to one of those impulse buys that leave you either chuffed or rueful.
You know what? It's bloody good. How on earth could their work (at least three or four good albums by all accounts) have remained in my blind spot for all this time? They were never Premier League, but they were never really obscure either.
There must surely be others amongst us who have ignored bands for years only to find that there's a whole body of work probably well worth investigating once the blinkers have been removed? Who else has had a similar epiphany, and who were the band?
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Hey
Shouldn't this be under the Lighthouse Family reappraisal blog???
They were good the Broughton's though. Strange fact was that they were managed by their Mum. Awwwwww! Nice woman though.
Caravan
Mine was Caravan - a band I always knew of, but had never heard. I was put off by the frequent juxtaposition of their name and words like "whimsy", "eccentric" etc. Then going back 5 years, a mate gave me a compilation he'd made of Caravan, largely sourced from vinyl - I loved it instantly, wholeheartedly and with a passion which will remain forever. Fabulous. 'Course, now I have loads of their CDs and love 'em all. And Pye is a good singer for the band, BTW.
They fit with the Tull in that they are uniquely English sounding, very few trad blues/rock 'n' roll influences, and always sound unmistakably like themselves and no one else - and no one else sounds like them.
Oh, and Mrs. Twang can't stand either of them.
Triva note - Pye's wife is a lifelong pal of my mate Bob's sister. Not a lot of people know that.
Have two Edgar Broughton Band albums...
...and they are pretty good. I have the first two, 'Wasa Wasa' and 'Sing Brother Sing'. They possibly even pioneered the 'mash-up', you know! They did a track called 'Apache Dropout' which is a composite of The Shadows' 'Apache' and Captain Beefheart's wonderful 'Dropout Boogie'...
Have most Caravan and 'Tull albums; my dad had a few of them and I heard the likes of 'In The Land Of Grey And Pink' and 'Stand Up' whilst growing up and still love them. The early Tull were pretty much a blues rock band, really, but I agree they soon branched out beyond that.
As for my own nominations, I have to say I was surprised by how good those early Simple Minds albums were when I got to hear them last year. I saw them as a sort of faux-U2 based on the hits (and I've gathered that's what they became) but those early albums are pretty innovative.
I had an epiphany with Van Morrison a while back too when I got 'Common One'. I fell in love with that album straight away and spent some time tracking down most of his other albums. Got 'What's Wrong With This Picture' a few days back, though- perhaps 'what's right with this picture' would have been a better title. Not his best!
Fela Kuti
Discovered him three or four years ago, fell in love immediately, still can't figure out how I'd managed to completely miss the biggest name in African music despite being reasonably familiar with a small amount of other stuff from the continent. I've not yet heard a bad album (I now have 49 of them), and charisma-wise I think he's second only to Ali.
His son Seun Kuti is playing at the Barbican in a couple of weeks with his father's band, Africa 80, and I'm more excited by this show than I have been by anything in years. I've even given up my regular seat at Wembley for the England game on the same night (not much of a sacrifice, I know, but still).
Some years back
I remember seeing a really good documentary on the Beeb about Fela and son. It included a lot of footage of the extended band/family at a wedding party (I think) having a blast knocking out extemporised praise/ridicule songs. Awesome, in a word.
Any body got any idea what it was I saw?
I must have seen the Broughtons 15 times or more
Not because I ever wanted to, especially, but simply because they were the support act at 80% of gigs in the North West back in the day. (The other 20% were, of course, contractually reserved for the Sutherland Brothers & Quiver.)
They were always workmanlike, never objectionable, but not particularly entertaining either.
I suppose I should pay them a revisit. . . but who's on after them?
That'll be
Stray.
The Broughtons
They were almost the house band at the Magic Village club in Manchester for some time - they seemed to play there every Friday night.
Jazz.
Um, the whole of it. I know this has featured frequently within this pages as an alternate source of pain or pleasure to various Irregulars, but I had always dismissed it as all so much parping, whether by banjo strumming tradders, or free noise squeakers. I had never liked jazz-rock or fusion back in the days of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, so I was never going to like jazz-jazz or unfusion, was I?
Then, like so many, I was played "Kind of Blue" and got it. Then my son started getting into such as "Headhunters"/Herbie Hancock and it slipped insidiously into my ear. 2 years down the line, aided and abetted by the excellent recommendations placed on this site some weeks ago,and I have been on a catch-up frenzy, even picking up The Best of Eric Dolphy, in a second hand CD shop in Lille. And enjoying it.
I was just as resolutely anti-jazz as some of those who say so here whenever the topic comes up, but wait and see, say I, to them.
Worrying thought. My existing blind spot is labelled Classical..... Should I stay or should I go?
Start with
The Planets Suite, it's an easy transition. Then some Beethoven. Bit of Wagner, then slide sideways into the moody buggers, Mussorgsky, Greig, Mendelsson, Tchaikovsky and so on, oh, and get the Brahms violin concerto, the lead break, er, I mean the violin solo bit, in the final movement is stunning. Once you're suitably familar with that lot, try Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring for some Classical art-rock. Then you can relax into the enormous realm of the earlier chaps; Mozart, Bach, Handel, Schubert and so on. Pop a 20th Century disc in every now and again, bit of Gorecki for late nights, bit of Binge for Sunday mornings.
Remortgage alert.
Binge?
Surely not Ronald Binge of Elizabethan Serenade "fame" (later covered as Elizabethan reggae by some scamps initially unwilling to recognise the originator of their borrowed tune)?
Ok, Ok,
I like "Sailing By", OK? Strewth, I'm a Supertramp fan, whatdya expect?
I wasn't dissing you......
....or I wasn't until I googled him, reading that he is deemed responsible for the cascading strings sound made famous by Mantovani.
My interest was that I went to school with his son, Chris, who, at that time, was a big fan of Chris Wood in traffic, and played quite good wah-wah pedal assisted sax. That was 32 years ago, so for all I know he is an accountant, drug-runner or professional gambler, being, if I recall, good at sums.
Ye Gods
The "M" word.
Nurse, the screens. Bring me my headphones and a supply of Fall CDs, the mere mention of that name has brought on a severe blanditis attack, I need the finest treatment money can buy.
Try edging across the jazz/rock/classical divide via Zappa
There are some stunning interpretations of Frank Zappa's music that bridge the jazz/rock/classical divide.
Try
Ensemble Ambrosius - The Zappa Album - Zappa played on baroque instruments
Concert Impromptu and Bossini - Prophetic Attitude - absolutely beautiful arrangements of Zappa's music played by a woodwind ensemble
or
Strictly Genteel - a selection of Zappa's own classical recordings, though be warned, some of them stray into his favourite Varese/Stravinsky/Stockhausen territory
By the way guys - why no articles about Zappa? Been buying Word for quite a while now and he's never showed up on the radar....
And here's another one.
Rory Gallagher. Not ashamed to say my conversion has been entirely due to the enthusiasts here, having dismissed him in 1973 as a raucous manic strummer, mainly thru' his mandolin based ventures, tucked indiscreetly into most of his output, or so it seemed. Despite my later great love of the mandolin as employed in country and folk, I could still not see fit to give him a second chance, even when the plaudits started re-appearing, upon his early demise.
I recently, courtesy of Vulpes and Twangers, I think, started musing on whether his so-called folk retrospective, as collated by his brother from existing tapes, Wheels within wheels, was any good. So I bought it. And, whilst it is in no form shape or way a "folk" album, even if if some trad arr themes creep in. But it isn't half good. Especially the raucous mandolin strummers.
Fainites, guys.
Welcome back to my ears, Rory.
Deuce
As your next step I'd recommend "Deuce" - a lovely album with a good percentage of acoustic stuff, and some of Rory's best songs. You can't beat "Irish Tour 74" or "Live in Europe" for high energy guitar hero stuff; "Deuce" is a very tuneful song orientated set, naturally with fantastic guitar playing throughout. And at £3.98 from Amazon Marketplace it would be positively impolite not to.
(** Locates "I'm not awake yet" on iPod**)
Got three...
...Rory albums on CD in a charity shop today, £1.25 each! The aforementioned 'Wheels Within Wheels', 'Fresh Evidence' and 'Tattoo'. Am familiar with the latter from the old vinyl I used to have but I think anything with Rory's name on it is a pretty safe bet- not heard anything bad from him yet.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
I had In the Ghetto on 7", but the first album I bought was Murder Ballads. I have them all now, and if I have a fave group, then it is surely they. Not sure why it took me so long - guess I just wasn't ready.
Nick Cave also
I ignored the Birthday Party during their lifespan and also the first few Bad Seeds albums, having dismissed Cave as a goth miserablist and of no interest to me: never bothered to actually listen to them. A chance hearing "The Mercy Seat" changed my opinion to the extent that he is now my all-time favourite artist.
Me too.....
Ignored Cave until I heard "The Ship Song". That was the one for me. Bought all the records etc etc. Up there with the very best IMHO.
And me
Couldn't stand him until I saw him do The Carney, Up Jumped The Devil and From Here To Eternity at a festival while a storm raged. It felt apocalyptic.
Johnny Cash
He has an amazing cover version of "The Mercy Seat" on the "American III: Solitary Man" album.
Babybird
When I heard 'you're gorgeous' I immediately hated babybird / Stephen Jones. I completely missed the irony of that tune & when years later I heard Bad Old Man I had to admit defeat, I now own pretty much everything he's done & I can even listen to youre gorgeous now!!
I also disliked The Divine Comedy, Gene, Leonard Cohen & many more on my first listen only to be proven wrong further down the line....cant see this happening with the kooks though!!
Pet Sounds
...took me years.
I always heard it was the best LP ever, etc and refused to believe it. I thought it would be two good singles and the rest dreary nonsense, and never thought it would be a cohesive album.
Suddenly about seven/eight years ago, I heard 'Don't Talk, Put Your Head on My Shoulders' on Jonathan Ross' Radio 2 show and went out and bought it that afternoon.
Edgar Broughton band
are class and the first song on the 'meat'cd is excellent - Evening over rooftops i believe.
My most memorable epiphanies have been Jackie Leven - own most of his official and unofficial albums and then this year Elbow - bought all their albums in the space of a month.And yes have to agree that Caravan are a rather wonderful English band.
Joni Mitchell
just stayed away until the documentary on the LA singer/songwriter scene last year. It suddenly occurred to me that she might actually be the most talented of the lot of them. I've been catching up ever since.
Late Entry
Willard Clark Conspiracy. I had read loads about them and took young Mrs Path to see them, at the Ceol Castle, in Brum, when we were courting some 4 or so years back, an arguably brave choice.(The band not Mrs Path) Still more distressingly and possibly even more strangely, she loved them and I was indifferent.
Move on a year or two, and I gave the large Mr Fisher a 2nd go, buying "Regard the End". And what a corker it is. Beautifully distressing and depressing stuff.
Today I bought their latest "Pilgrim Road" and it is better still, a majestic and truly gothic (Edgar Allan Poe not black lippy) masterpiece: if you think Nick Cave on "Into your Arms" sounds regal, Robert Fisher on the opening track makes that song sound like the Archies.
BUY THIS RECORD TODAY!!!!!!!!!