Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
Moody Blues.........
Posted by marsonator on 7 November 2009 - 4:20am.
......always thought "Go Now" and "Nights in White Satin" but a bit like last year with The Kinks and "Village Green Preservation Society" I have only recently discovered "In Search Of The Lost Chord" and can't stop playing it.
I have found that these late 60s concept/psychedelic albums sound rather twee on first listening but they somehow suck you in and become all consuming.
I tend to find more contempary tunes can be more immediate but have less depth.
Another one that has sucked me in is "The Story Of Simon Simopath" by Nirvana.
Further suggestions welcomed.......
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Ffolly
Yep, now is quite clearly the right time for a toytown pop revival.
Rainbow Ffolly's 'Sallies Forth' is mad as a balloon and more than fits in with those you mention.
Also, 'Mr. Fantasy' (Traffic), 'S.F. Sorrow' (Pretty Things), Tomorrow's brilliant LP, July's LP, The Five Day Week Straw People's LP, The End's 'Introspection'.....
Oh, and The Hollies did two great pysch LP's, 'Evolution' and 'Butterfly'.
Magnificent Moodies
If you like the bonkers fun of In Search Of The Lost Chord I'd predict you'll also enjoy the rest of the core run of seven albums they did for Deram and then their own Threshold label.
I think they work well chronologically, as you can hear them develop musically as they go, so you have On The Threshold Of A Dream, To Our Children's Children's Children, A Question Of Balance, and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour to look forward to before you reach the final part of their purple period, Seventh Sojourn.
You might also like to check out the two Kaleidoscope albums (that's the UK band, not the louder, rougher and even more out there US version) which are compiled brilliantly on a high value single CD called Dive Into Yesterday, on Fontana.
Oh, and ranger's suggestions above are spot on. Wig out.
If you get really hooked, I can heartily recommend you check out both the Esoteric and Sunbeam labels, who have made a lot of good stuff like this available again over the last couple of years.
moodies
On The Threshold of a Dream is my pick, it's magnificent!
As usual, the answer is King Crimson
The first album (In the Court Of The Crimson King: An Observation By King Crimson) is slathered with that Moodies-style Mellotron and has patches of twee whimsicality - I'm thinking especially of 'I Talk To The Wind' and 'Moonchild'
Seconded.
Though I had kind of assumed he'd already heard that one, being as it is the cornerstone of all serious record collections for gentlemen of taste and distinction.
As usual, the answer is The Trees
The Garden of Jane Delawney
Seconded,
fab record.
and a nice early Hipgnosis sleeve
to boot
the MBs
recently got into them via Spotify™, Threshold is the album I keep returning to "Have You Heard" especially
You can always turn to the group
who recorded a track called "Poor Man's Moody Blues"
Barclay. James. Harvest. Titter ye not.
The first four.
The Harvest albums are all worth hearing, my favourite being Short Stories.
They got short shrift from some parts of the press, and that track was a retort to a rather snide remark along those lines made by a journalist in one of the music weeklies I think, probably around the time all the late twenties/early thirties journos were busily reinventing themselves to get down wiv ver kids in the mosh pit of three chord oblivion. I can't remember her name, though I still listen to their albums. Hah!
BJH
or BHS as me and my mate used to call them, depressing little band
sorry - Negative Earth was good 'tho
A tribute to the HJH
Dig those crazy shirts maan!
I'm Surprised No-one's mentioned...
"In The Land Of The Grey & Pink" by Caravan. It's not really a concept album as such, but it is twee-er than Bonnie Langford on helium trapped in a bag of candyfloss, and quite beautiful with it.
Almost any of the DERAM Caravan albums
fits the bill. There's twee stuff a-plenty even as late as For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night, and all of them are worth owning. If you can find a copy for sensible money, the BBC In Concert session from 1974 is excellent too (some of the material is also on the The Show Of Our Lives: Live At The BBC album too I think).
Thank You (another BJH song)
For mentioning BJH. I've loved them since 1972. I agree about the Harvest albums being their best period although Everyone is Everybody Else and Time Honoured Ghosts are classics too.
In 1970 they supported Led Zeppelin in Edinburgh.....That's today's sad fact!
I saw them at Plymouth Guidhall in around 1972/3
and we managed to get seats right at the front.
I can remember thinking three things as they started the gig by howling straight into 'She Said':
Les Holroyd has skinny legs,
Les Holroyd looks daft in those silly trousers, and
Holy Crap this is LOUD.
They were brilliant.
They've gone down
the silly route of existing now as John Lees' Barclay James Harvest and Barclay James Harvest featuring Les Holroyd. Woolly Wolstenholme plays live with John Lees and sadly Mel Pritchard died in 2004.
I have seen the JLBJH version of the band live in recent years and they can still pull a good sized crowd and play all the old tracks that everyone wants to hear again.
East of Eden
Mercator Projected. Another discovery in the Fields of Old.
Egyptian tomfoolery. Jazzy rocky twiddlings. Dave Arbus a long lost Prog legend. Ron Caines - bebop inspired Sax honkings - a wonderful racket.
Dave Arbus
played the violin coda to Baba O'Reilly
Yes - and oops
yes - good fact Lord Stimpington. And oops - I've posted in wrong blog - supposed to be in the "Odessa" one. Sorry
Just as relevant here old bean.
All the East Of Eden albums are worth hearing. Mercator Projected probably has the best cover, although New Leaf runs it a close second.
I think you should...
...also check out "Jazz Odyssey". I hope you like their new direction.
bunch of fat blokes in frilly shirts
some of my mates and I get together every month or so to play music DVDs at volumes ur partners would veto.
Lots of guitar heroes. I put on the mooody blues at montreux circa 1991 and was howled down - bunch of fat blokes in frilly shirts ( the band not the viewers)
quite disheartening it was