High Tide – Sea Shanties
What should we do with the drunken sailor, er-lie in the morning? Answers on a postcard to the usual address please. As for High Tide, well I doubt they ever experienced er-lie morning, though I’m sure they enjoyed the occasional tipple and possibly something a little stronger to take the edge off the daylight. Such is the environment from which they stemmed.
That environment was Notting Hill’s Ladbroke Grove. The epicentre of the British underground during the late sixties and early seventies, where the hair was long, the drugs were frequent and the music was raw. It was a spiritual homeland to such renowned barnets as Arthur Brown, the Deviants, Stray, Peter Bardens and, of course, perhaps the hairiest of them all, the Edgar Broughton Band.
Remaining true to the Ladbroke Grove ethic of too much hair and bruising jams, HighTide’s debut album, Sea Shanties, was released in 1969 and inhabits a place somewhere between the heavy rock of early Sabbath and good old-fashioned, salt of the earth, guitar-led prog.
Except it isn’t just guitar, for what’s that also leading the charge, weaving its lucid magic throughout the mix? Why it’s none other than the weapon of choice of toff and gypsy alike, the humble violin.
In Simon House – a classically trained virtuoso of the fiddle, who’d go on to join Hawkwind in a prime example of Ladbroke Grove incestry – High Tide had an extra ingredient that added a folkish dimension to their sound.
Yes, we have the crunching guitar, the grumpy bass and the powerhouse drumming, so why not throw in a man punishing a fiddle as though he’s just discovered it rogering his wife? Why not, indeed.
So what have we got here? Well there’s the six tracks from the original 1969 release and a further five bonuses augmenting the recent Esoteric CD reissue. Easily the pick of a more than generous crop is the vocally challenged (instrumental) ‘Death Warmed Up’. Riding on a psychedelic riptide of intense sound, its violin fuelled undercurrents threaten to take hold and drag you down for the full extent of its nine minutes. If you manage to keep your head above the waterline for the duration of this lysergic voyage, then there’s plenty more from this hirsute band of bluff old coves to keep the sirens at bay and rocky outcrops on the horizon.
Poorly formed seafaring metaphors aside, Sea Shanties truly is one of the heavier examples of early prog, weightier than a hulk languishing in St. Katherine’s Dock. Oh- there I go again…
Which goes to show that all this pretentious twaddle I spout on regular occasion is a load of bollocks really, when all I’m trying to say is Sea Shanties is a reet good listen. The singing may be a little flat in places; the occasional bum note may be entertained upon the quayside; but such minor insubordinations are easily forgiven when they add to the frazzled approach to music making demonstrated throughout.
Rumour has it that the creative mastermind behind High Tide, one Tony Hill, is authorised to marry couples when on the high seas, but seeing as I just made that up, there’s more than a passing chance it’s completely untrue. What is fact, and completely non-sea-related, is that this is another sterling reissue from the Esoteric team – who, incidentally, seem to be getting a mention every week now – with a cracking set of bonus tracks and, of course, the obligatory booklet.
I could go on, but even a land-lubbing, blinkered old soak such as myself knows when I’ve said too much. Loose lips sink ships, and all that.
As far as jolly Jack Tars go, this rum cluster of Scurvy Knaves is well worth climbing on board and weighing anchor with.
Now then, Squire Trelawny, let’s turn this vessel around and head for home.
Sea Shanties by High Tide is reissued by Esoteric and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk
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