Yes indeed. This Sunday (May 31st 2009) sees the two main men from Shindig! magazine invading the studios of BBC 6 Music. Editors Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills and Andy Morten join Stuart Maconie on his weekly Freakzone show, where the weird, the obscure, the underground and the unnaturally freakish collide head-on in a cloud of phased guitars, far-out sounds and communal hairiness.
Topics of discussion are, naturally, Shindig magazine, its origins as Gravedigger fanzine, its more recent history and rise to being the magazine for people in the musical know to be seen with. Also the plans for the future and the road down which Shindig magazine is headed.
Howlin Rain, the 2006 debut album by the San Franciscan band of the same name, is like the return to civilisation of an old friend who has spent a week wandering California’s Death Valley, with nothing for company other than a guitar, a quart of Jack Daniels and a boot-heel full of mescaline.
Yes indeed, setting aside an inveterate prejudice of this writer and breaking the cardinal rule within the HFoS camp, we once again take tentative steps into the often seizure-inducing territories of “modern music”. But hang on just one ruddy minute there. It appears that in our eagerness (honest) to sample some of this so-called “modern music”, we’ve caused a Doctor Who-style rift in time and space and landed right back in the altogether more pleasing era of the early-70s.
“… like Pink Floyd and Miles Davis jamming at a 13th Floor Elevator’s party …”
Mixing a variety of styles including the blues and elements of psychedelia into one progressive rock melting pot, intodown paint musical soundscapes that bring to mind early Pink Floyd, post-Dark Side of the Moon Floyd and the 13th Floor Elevators in varying degrees.
The story behind the rather radio-unfriendly Rolling Stones song, ‘Cocksucker Blues’ – sometimes referred to as ‘Schoolboy Blues’ – is slightly more interesting than the purposely offensive curio itself.
In 1970, between the releases of Let it Bleed and Sticky Fingers, the Rolling Stones, looking to go it alone and handle their own business affairs, finished with both their record company Decca and their manager Allen Klein. The contract with Decca required the band to deliver one more single.
In its original form, Procol Harum’s second album, Shine on Brightly, is – to coin a football pundit’s favourite phrase – a game of two halves.
Virtually scythed down the middle, the first side consists of five tracks of a more conventional (for the time) psychedelic/prog rock standard, which wouldn’t seem out of place on their debut, Procol Harum. The second side, however, is made up of just the two. The exceptional ‘Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)’ and weighing in just shy of 17 minutes, the hugely influential, genre-breaking ‘In Held ‘Twas In I’.
Yes, as we’re commandeering bad phrasing without due care and attention or regards for human life, with the release of Shine on Brightly back in 1968, Procol Harum had thrown the rulebook well and truly out of the window.
The master class in how to reissue an album continues with Fly Records’ and Salvo’s Procol Harum releases. Yes, the label and distributor behind the recent Move reissues have come up trumps again, putting to shame the first round of Universal’s Rolling Stones ’71-onwards remasters.
First one out the trap, the group’s debut from 1967 (though not released in the UK until January ’68) simply titled Procol Harum, which arrived in the wake of the record breaking success of ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’. Recently named number one in a BBC Radio 2 chart of ‘Most played songs in public places’, the “Summer of Love” favourite was left off the original album – as was often the case with singles in those days – but is restored here as one of the eleven bonus tracks in all its classical, Hammond organ-soaked psychedelic glory. The rest of the album’s not half bad either.
Throughout the history of music it’s generally out of the norm for a band to change their name, while remaining the same band. It happens when a band splits, or the creative force buggers off and takes the name with him. Or it happens in the early days when a band’s still finding its musical feet and they’ve yet to hit the big time. The Move falls into the category of “band that changed their name but retained the line-up” when they became the Electric Light Orchestra (for the first album, anyway), as does Fairfield Parlour.
Fairfield Parlour had already released two albums as psychedelic-folk rockers, Kaleidoscope (not to be confused with the American psychedelic folk-rock ?!?!? band of the same name), and it was under this new name, in 1970, that they put out From Home to Home.
During the late sixties and early seventies, each and every rockstar worth their salt considered themselves to be the new Che Guevara. They communicated with the masses via soundbites of revolutionary rhetoric -- more often than not from the comfort of their three storey mansion or tax exile in the South of France -- and once the imminent uprising that had been promised burned itself out, they retired to count their money.
Revolution was, after all, big business.
So in honour of some of these Che charlatons who turned tail and fled as soon as the going got tough, Head Full of Snow brings you 5 songs with which to spark a revolution (or not).
The Rolling Stones -- Street Fighting Man
An absolute stormer of a track and one that was written at a time when the anti-Vietnam war protests had spread as far afield as London, sparking riots and encouraging Mick Jagger himself to take to the streets and… stand on the sidelines taking photos of the ensuing chaos. Jagger was perhaps the biggest pretender to the revolutionary throne, toying with the imagery during the era of Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed, but soon getting bored and leaving it all behind to concentrate on becoming the mucky little devil we all know today. ‘Street Fighting Man’ appears on 1968′s Beggars Banquet. Read more…
Further news on the the Fly Records and Salvo reissues of the first four Procol Harum albums as mentioned on Wednesday. As said, the first two, Procol Harum and Shine on Brightly are already out, but the classic A Salty Dog and Home are to be released on May 18th (2009).
As with all these superlative Fly reissues – the recent The Move ones being textbook examples of how these things should be done – they come with a host of bonus tracks to keep the connoisseur and completist happy.
Fairfield Parlour were once the psychedelic-fairy-tale-folksters Kaleidoscope and this song, ‘Aries’, is bob, and indeed, on. A quiet lament for times gone by and gentle reminiscence, it is a simple thing of beauty.
In June of 1967 when The Beatles released the now defining Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, swinging London was in the kaleidoscopic throes of a psychedelic haze. This was the summer of love for those that could afford it and a hippy ideal of “peace and love”, culminating in the naive Flower Power movement shipped over from San Francisco, was rife amongst those fortunate enough not to have to work for a living.
Not to be outdone amidst this polychromatic swirl, The Rolling Stones, who all things aside were the only real contenders to The Beatles crown (justly or otherwise), recorded their answer – what was anticipated to be their very own Sgt. Pepper – Their Satanic Majesties Request.
Expectations were high and amidst such hopes it was a dead-cert that a certain faction would be left disappointed. Unfortunately for the Stones and the public at large who took press response as being gospel, the hostility from the critics was almost universal. For an album that kick-started The Rolling Stones’ golden period, its reception left a lot to be desired. Which is completely unfair.
Following the recent reissues of the first two Procol Harum albums, Procol Harumand Shine on Brightly, the next two are scheduled to make an appearance on May 18th.
First the good news. Polydor reissued digitally remastered and enhanced editions of The Soft Machine’s first two albums, Volume 1 and Volume 2 early last month (late to the party, I know). The inevitable bad news is, horror of horrors, they were released solely as MP3 downloads!?!?!
At the risk of sounding like some Luddite with his head stuck in the late 60s and 70s – though I’m sure I probably do – I must ask the question, WHY?
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