Showing posts with label camel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label camel. Show all posts

Sunday 25 October 2020

Log #213 - The Mahavishnu King

Eddy Bamyasi

I dip into two stalwarts of jazz fusion this week - two bands I know very little about despite having tried half heartedly to acquaint myself with their charms in the past: Weather Report and The Mahavishnu Orchestra both make their 6 Album Sunday debuts. 

Checking out the forums I alighted upon the apparent best albums of both bands: Heavy Weather and The Inner Mounting Flame respectively. Both entirely instrumental the two albums nevertheless have quite different feels. Heavy Weather from Weather Report is very easy listening as demonstrated by the opening hit and jazz standard Birdland with its chirpy melody and squishy fretless bass. To be honest it doesn't really grab me on first listen and I'm surprised at the critical acclaim bestowed on the album and the band generally. But that is the case, so it must be me? 

This is always a question in the back of my mind at Bamyasi HQ? 

Just because something is universally critically acclaimed (whether a book, film or album) must we all like it? 

I realise this is different from "popularity". I'm not talking about commercial acclaim as demonstrated by popular sales - that's something else entirely. But then we are moving towards controversial territory by implying that critical acclaim is superior to popular acclaim.

The correct answer to the question is of course no and all art appreciation is personal...

... (but the nagging feeling remains that to not appreciate something critically acclaimed may imply something lacking on one's own part).

Anyway, honesty, is the best policy, generally, and the counter argument to one's implied deficiency is the calling out of a "sacred cow" and there are many of them in my (honest) opinion (IMHO). Actually that's a good idea for a blog post Ed. 

That's a long way of saying I don't really get the Weather Report album, but I will try again. This album is from 1977, and the band's 7th, by which time I imagine much of the rough and exciting edges from the jazz fusion movement had been honed down.

No such navel gazing and self reflection with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. This is amazing music. It's a full on assault on the senses - brilliant musicians playing progressive jazz rock at breakneck speed. I would venture it is more rock, or progressive rock, than jazz, and that must for a large part be due to the brilliant electric guitar work of John McLaughlin.

McLaughlin redefined the role of guitar in jazz, Cobham the drums and the band set new standards in ensemble cohesion. They did it without sounding glib, a trick their legion of followers never fathomed.

Jazzwise

The progressive rock comparisons lead me to realise how much they sound like King Crimson in their heavier instrumental passages - both from that band's prog rock heyday circa 1973/4 and in their most recent reincarnations as detailed in log #208. Listen to the start of The Dance of Maya for instance and tell me that doesn't sound like a Robert Fripp riff (indeed the music-map does show a connection):


Brilliant stuff, but not for the faint hearted. I will explore further albums from The Mahavishnu Orchestra although I think they only made very few (certainly from this era - The Inner Mounting Flame was their debut released in 1971).


THIS WEEK'S SELECTION:

Camel - The Single Factor
Asia - Asia
Weather Report - Heavy Weather
Depeche Mode Violator
The Mahavishnu Orchestra The Inner Mounting Flame
ABC Beauty Stab

The Single Factor from Camel was the band's 9th album, released in 1982. Apparently there was pressure from the record company Decca to produce a hit single (where have we heard that before?) and there are plenty of candidates of which Camelogue was probably the best (I've literally only just realised the name of the album may be a reference to the need for a single).

Were there any singles, hits or otherwise Ed.?

Yes, two singles with A sides of Selva and No Easy Answer, and B sides of Camelogue and Manic respectively. You're welcome, Ed.

ps. No hits.

Manic is a powerful instrumental and the lovely guitar instrumental Selva is a homage to Ice.

Outside the single material Heroes is pretty epic.

But generally a fairly so-so album from the erstwhile prog rockers. I am tempted to declare the previous album Nude was probably the group's last great album. One more album followed, Stationary Traveller, before Decca were off.

Asia were one of those "supergroups" formed out of the ashes of various '70s prog rock bands - Yes, ELP, King Crimson, and err... Buggles. And, not surprisingly with its vintage (1982), it's the Buggles influence that is writ large across this album of easy listening AOR: The keyboards dominate and you rarely hear Steve Howe's guitar.

As far as it goes, in terms of catchy hooks, it's fine pop rock, in the vein of US acts like Journey or Styx - indeed the lead single Heat of the Moment was a massive hit in the US. 

Amongst the pap there are a few decent tracks - Time Again hints at what the band could do sounding like a rocky King Crimson a la The Great Deceiver.

I had no idea the band were still going, with 2 original members (Carl Palmer and Geoff Downes) and 13 albums to their name now.

Finally to round out this week's post the best two albums from my '80s retro last week are retained - Beauty Stab from ABC and Violator from Depeche Mode (although the latter was actually a 1990 release but you know what I mean). Really enjoying both these albums although Violator is the one that will have the greater longevity.



Sunday 11 October 2020

Log #211 - First Ladies On The Moon

Eddy Bamyasi


Lots of female singers in the magazine this week - Carly Simon continues her great form with No Secrets which is proving very popular at Bamyasi HQ, and on the road - Carole King makes a re-entry with the similar Tapestry - Caitlin Canty lays down some Nashville country rock - and Nina Persson of The Cardigans sings some quirky pop.

  1. Carly Simon - No Secrets
  2. Carole King - Tapestry
  3. Caitlin Canty - Reckless Skyline
  4. The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement
  5. Camel - Moonmadness
  6. The Cardigans - Life 
On top of that we have, in essence, a missing Arctic Monkeys album from The Last Shadow Puppets and some smooth prog from Camel in the form of their 4th studio album, Moonmadness.  The latter is many fans' favourite from the Guildford prog rockers, although not for me. I notice it was produced by Rhett Davies who I hadn't heard of before but his name cropped up in my recent King Crimson listening having produced that band's 1981 comeback album Discipline. My edition of Moonmadness comes with some excellent additional live and demo tracks.

Sunday 4 October 2020

Log #210 - A Heavy Rock Crossword Puzzle Circa 1983

Eddy Bamyasi


I recently came across an old photo of my album collection from when I must have been about 18 years old. I had laid the albums out in the garden and taken a photo from an upstairs window:

My LP collection - circa 1983?

It's interesting to track my taste through a photograph like this. Considering I only bought my first proper album around the age of 15 (ELO Out Of The Blue on blue vinyl!) I had amassed a decent collection by the time I took my box of records off to Uni. 

From ELO (Face The Music and Discovery lie prominently above) I moved swiftly into heavy metal (Rainbow, AC/DC, Black Sabbath and The Scorpions), and then more considered rock like Led Zeppelin, Santana and Deep Purple, then more synth and spacey rock like Hawkwind and BOC, prog rock like Jethro Tull, BJH and King Crimson, some first excursions into electronics (Tangerine Dream), first singer songwriters (Neil Young - Van Morrison and John Martyn came later) and then finally Krautrock (I can see my first Can album on the top line). 

Like everyone at that time I also had a lot of cassettes (mostly home recorded) as I know there were bands I had discovered by then that don't appear in this photo.

How many of these albums did I reinvest in as CDs later on? Probably about two thirds of them?

This week I've revisited 6 of these albums from my teenage years:

Saga - Worlds Apart
Camel - The Snow Goose
Sammy Hagar - Danger Zone
Barclay James Harvest - Eyes Of The Universe
Jethro Tull - 
A
Moody Blues - Seventh Sojourn


SAGA

To be fair it's quite hard to listen to some of these albums now. The Saga (5 down 4 across) is a case in point. It was a struggle to get to the end of the album. I just don't have any interest in this sort of keyboard soft rock music any more (and probably only a very fleeting interest at the time - nice cover though). My reaction to hearing Worlds Apart mirrored my reaction to the Styx album I played a few logs ago ie. not positive. 

I fail to see how this music was ever categorised as prog rock. Great cover though, although more recent versions have different artwork.


CAMEL

Nothing wrong with the great Camel and Snow Goose (4 down 6 along) (their third album from 1975) is one of their best. Save for the odd bit of chanting and humming this is an instrumental concept piece displaying the full range of the band's prog rock tendencies and musical talents - keen guitar, melodic flutes, and bubbling keyboards. 

The concept is loosely based on the wartime novella The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk. Very loosely based really as the album is instrumental, so there were no lyrics, just song titles. Nevertheless the author sued the band for copyright (seems odd really as surely such exposure would only increase his readership). 

Snow Goose has remained in my collection and I know it well, along with their best album in my opinion, Mirage. I see I also had The Single Factor, one of their later albums, at the time of this photo and that might have been a more interesting album for me to revisit - one for next time.


BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST

Eyes Of The Universe (5 down 2 across)- starts of with a gated keyboard rhythm. The best tracks, like this opener, and Capricorn do remind me of Octoberon, personally my favourite BJH album. AOR, or yacht rock if you like, but a good version thereof. 

The Song (They Love To Sing) sounds like Genesis. But then a song like Skin Flicks demonstrates all the schmaltz of the era (a waste of 7 minutes to be fair). The album is redeemed by the final track Play To The World which is classic BJH - an epic moving mellotron drenched ballad.

All in all a pretty good album from BJH, considering they were well passed their best by 1979. Great cover too.


JETHRO TULL

Jethro Tull's A (7 down 9 across) came out just a few months after Eyes Of The Universe. What to think about this? Mmmm, it's almost good. I like the fundamental Tull sound which is still intact - Anderson's voice, the catchy melodies, the harmonies, tinkly piano, guitar breaks, and of course the breathy flute. 

Already having moved on (Songs From The Wood, Heavy Horses) a fair bit from their earlier rock and prog days (Aqualung, Thick As A Brick) the songs on A are not a massive departure from what the band were already doing in the late '70s. Just a little bit more synthesized. 

In fact this album reminds me a lot of the more popular The Broadsword And The Beast album (also in the picture) which followed two years later - possibly their last good album before declining into an '80s mire? I can't comment to be fair having not heard anything post Broadsword apart from Thick As A Brick 2 which I now learn is credited as an Ian Anderson solo record.

My interest waned a bit on side two where there are quite a few throwaway tunes like 4.W.D. and The Pine Marten's Jig.

An odd cover, related (by UFOs?) to the Eyes Of The Universe one come to think of it, and also the recently reviewed Levitation by Hawkwind (also in the photo). Apparently the "A" derives from the fact that the album was originally conceived as an Ian Anderson solo record.


THE MOODY BLUES
 
The Moody Blues never seem to be mentioned in the same breath as other prog rock (and mellotron heavy) bands of the late '60s and early '70s. They were never on my radar like Genesis, King Crimson and Yes. 

There is some nice stuff on Seventh Sojourn (1 down 4 along) and some tracks like When You're A Free Man have elements of Nights In White Satin with some nice acoustic and electric guitar. It's all nicely played and produced but is just a bit too easy listening - and for a 1972 album it even sounds more dated than that when compared to what their rock contemporaries were producing by then.


SAMMY HAGAR

Heavy rocker Sammy Hagar enjoyed a solo career through the late '70s (after leaving rock group Montrose) and early '80s (before joining Van Halen). Danger Zone (5 down 9 along) was released in 1980 becoming his fifth solo album. 

It's exactly what you'd expect - heavy rock guitar in the mould of a Ted Nugent. Nothing too fancy or ambitious - just good old straight forward rock music which hasn't aged as poorly as some of the more progressive music above.



That was a fun trip down memory lane. I'll be returning to this photo for some more listening inspiration in the future.

Sunday 11 February 2018

Log #72 - Genesis Chapter One and a Half

Eddy Bamyasi


I like a bit of honky tonk (we're talking Exile on Main Street or Little Feat here) so thought I'd try some Chicago hearing they were a rock band with a brass section. It is a bit too easy listening for me, but there are plenty of famous tunes on this compilation that I hadn't realised were Chicago.

~

1. Chicago - The Heart of Chicago
2. Genesis - Nursery Cryme
3. Genesis - And Then There Were Three
4. Genesis - Wind and Wuthering
5. Camel - The Snow Goose
6. Camel - Moonmadness

~

The meat of the magazine this week is Genesis again. What a late blossoming of interest I've enjoyed this last month culminating in the procurement of two of the three Genesis (what I call) Mark 1.5 (post Gabriel, pre Duke) albums. The music is sumptuous, and, get this, the Collins singing ain't too shabby either.  Bigger fans than me tell me that Gabriel had the greater emotion (and I'd say the stage presence as a band leader) but Collins the greater vocal range. In actual fact they both have very similar voices.

The music is sumptuous, and, get this, the Collins singing ain't too shabby either.

The albums And Then There Were Three and Wind and Wuthering are a little more focused and succinct than the sprawl of Nursery Cryme or Foxtrot but hardly less progressive. Perhaps just the final track on And Then There Were Three, Follow You Follow Me, signposts towards the pop to come.

Missing from the trilogy is Trick of The Tail which I will probably review in a later retrospective together with these two again, once I've obtained the album which many consider their best.


Plenty more charity purchases this week too which will be featured in coming weeks. I have a new contender for Most Frequently Found Album In The Charity Bins, along with Texas White on Blonde: It's this one from Catatonia:






Sunday 4 February 2018

Log #71 - Two Camels and a Dummy

Eddy Bamyasi

~

1. Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
2. Genesis - Selling England By The Pound
3. Portishead - Dummy
4. Camel - The Snow Goose
5. Camel - Moonmadness
6. Iron and Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean

~

Two Classic Camels


While rediscovering Genesis over the last few weeks I noticed the band that resembled them the most to my ears was Camel. Both proggers are quite keyboard heavy but not in the mellotronic string backing style of King Crimson or The Moody Blues. The keyboards in Genesis and Camel are much more to the forefront of the music often taking up the melody lines. In Genesis this seemed to be to the detriment of guitarist Steve Hackett who is barely heard on many recordings. In fact, famously he was not even replaced on leaving in 1977. No such chance with Camel as guitarist Andy Latimer was most definitely the leader of the band both musically and spiritually (and now the only remaining original member).

Andy Latimer and Pete Bardens of Camel -  they could have been brothers?

Two classic mid 70s Camel albums in the player this week. If you like your prog melodic and at the easy listening end of  the heavy and challenging scale then you'll enjoy Camel. 

Consummate musicians with an ear for a heart wrenching melody the majority of both these albums is instrumental. In fact Snow Goose is entirely so. Both the recording and live performances featured the services of The London Symphony Orchestra. 

Beginning with Latimer's famous Rhayader flute riff the music on Snow Goose flows and soars continuously, essentially one symphonic piece with repeating themes that weave in and out across the fifteen tracks. The prominent organ and synthesizer arpeggios recall Genesis and when Latimer lets rip on the guitar over one of Pete Barden's organ grooves he sounds like Dave Gilmour or Carlos Santana - Rhayader Goes To Town is a Pink Floyd Echoes in miniature, the beautiful Snow Goose title track sounds like Santana's Samba Pa Ti.

(Im)famously the concept album was based on a novel of the same name by Paul Gallico who threatened to sue the band on copyright (I don't understand why fellow artists do this when the only effect the music could possibly have had - and it did become a popular record - surely was to increase the exposure to the source material?). 

The 1941 novel is a love triangle of sorts featuring a young girl who meets a reclusive artist living in an abandoned lighthouse on the Essex marshes. Together they nurse an injured bird back to health which subsequently returns each year during its migration. After the man is lost at sea during the Dunkirk evacuation the symbolic bird returns to the girl one more time.

Interesting Trivia Fact: Paul Gallico's other famous story was The Poseidon Adventure

In fact to avoid the copyright claim the album was originally entitled Music Inspired by The Snow Goose. Whatever, Paul Gallico did not live long to benefit or otherwise from the success of the record, dying in 1976 only a year after it was released.

Moonmadness, Camel's 4th album, followed Snow Goose in 1976. Following the extended concept of  the instrumental Snow Goose, Moonmadness saw a return to the more defined track based writing of their first two albums. Most of the 7 tracks are lengthy with extended instrumental passages of keyboard, guitar, and flute, and minimal, often distorted or mixed down, vocals (the band had literally yet to find it's voice with the understated vocals shared across all members). Sudden changes in direction are less bewildering than some employed by their prog contemporaries like Yes or Genesis but this does mean the music does verge upon the easy listening spectrum sometimes. What elevates Camel above that slightly anaemic diagnosis though is the sheer melodic beauty of the music. 

Camel are touring Moonmadness this year ending with a September gig at the Royal Albert Hall. I'm very tempted, if tickets are still available. 

Dummy


I had a gap year travelling in 93/94 and when I came back there were two new albums out on the UK streets that everyone was talking about. These were the debut albums by Oasis and Portishead. I was completely unaware of either having spent most of my time in Whitney Houston and Bob Marley obsessed South East Asia.

One was very old fashioned and derivative (not that there is anything wrong with that) and the other sounded futuristic and out of this world. I liked the latter, by Portishead, the more, but have to say I play neither very much any more. In fact I don't even own the Oasis one. But at the time Dummy, from the initial eerie strains of Mysterons, sounded amazing being one of those records the like of which you have not heard before. Someone posted a clip of a live track performed with orchestra on facebook the other day encouraging me to dig out the original album just to remind myself how fresh and original it was 24 years ago. Then I was watching the film Wild the other night with Reece Witherspoon (in the film, not on my sofa, obviously) and the soundtrack included Glory Box ("give me a reason to love you").

In 1995 I was in the acoustic tent for Portishead's long awaited set (long awaited as I recall there was some delay to do with Evan Dando of the Lemonheads failing to show, and then much consternation that it shouldn't take two hours to plug a synthesizer in, even if this was supposedly the acoustic stage). This is the story taken up by Paul Stokes writing in the NME:

‘Dummy’ had sneaked out in August 1994. By the end of the year word of mouth was spreading fast: Portishead’s debut album finished at or near the top of all the end of year polls and was hailed as the most brilliant, original album of the decade. The hype snowballed into 1995. Radiohead expressed admiration; Noel Gallagher declared that it had been an influence on ‘The Masterplan’; soon it would win the Mercury Music Prize, and bands imitating its cinematic sound – trip-hop – started to spring up everywhere. For Portishead, hailing from Bristol, Glastonbury was something of a homecoming show. Yet having been offered the pick of slots and stages, they opted for a low-key billing in the small Acoustic Tent on Saturday night. When it finally came, however, there was nothing ‘acoustic’ about this performance: their set crackled with electricity. Little was said onstage, yet the ever-shy Beth Gibbons bewitched the crowd, and every song from everyone’s new favourite album was cheered like an anthem on a football terrace.

In front of Portishead, it was total chaos. Sweaty limbs slid against each other and one moment you were capsizing to the right, before pressure came back the other way and the ripples started swelling again. Briefly, the band left the stage, allowing just enough time for word to skip around the crowd that, outside, 15,000 others were trying to squeeze in. The scrum had been worth it, though, and, as ‘Glory Box’ rounded off the encore, the mass of bodies who’d been squashed together all night were suddenly able to part. For those of us who endured the wait, the crush and, worst of all, Dando, a bond for life had formed. We are the ones who can say: Portishead at Glastonbury 1995, I was there…


Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Glastonbury 1995

1995 was hot. I went back in 1997 which was a quagmire. Another thing I remember about 1995 was bumping into a friend I'd met in the Philippines the year before. Imagine that - randomly meeting again in a field of 100,000 people in Glastonbury.




Sunday 14 May 2017

Log #33 - Camel's Nude - a remarkable guitarist, a remarkable story.

Eddy Bamyasi

Synthesizer Rock Confusion

I was a bit of a music snob when I was younger and liked to know about bands that others hadn't heard of. So when I was a student in the 80s and everyone was playing Led Zeppelin, Genesis and Pink Floyd, and little else, I liked to branch out a bit and take risks on less well known bands.

Sometimes I had no idea what I was buying when I walked away from a second hand record store with a tatty LP, just because I liked the name, or the cover (very important), or the instruments listed on the back. I had many friends in my school sixth form who were into the new synthesizer bands of the time - OMD, Depeche Mode, Ultravox, Visage, Gary Numan, and the much older Kraftwerk of course, they being one of those rare groups that bridged the synth/rock gap somehow and had fans from both genres. I was always looking for a rock band that used synthesizers, not in a bland over produced backing fashion adopted by many bands in the 80s, but up front and in your face, not afraid of a gated rhythm or Philip Glass like loop.

Hawkwind - The Synth/Rock Fusion

The closest I found was Hawkwind. So in misguided attempts to be cool with the synth boys I would share my Hawkwind albums highlighting for them the synthesizer dominated tracks and hoping to surprise them (I don't think they were particularly impressed, after all if you like synth pop, old rock bands dabbling in synthesizers are not going to over excite you - I read a live review of Tangerine Dream once saying that a modern synth pop band like Depeche Mode could generate more excitement from one cheap keyboard than Tangerine Dream could from their banks of electronics, although I don't think that was the point really).

So Hawkwind then were my favourite band for a year or two around the age of 18 - the must have albums of the time being Sonic Attack and Levitation, the latter which I had on blue vinyl. These two albums were a pretty good fusion of rock and electronics with excellent musicianship at least in the studio (read my Night of the Hawks live experience here). Some of their other albums especially from the Robert Calvert mid 70s era were a bit more random with a mix of pop, rock and novelty keyboard instrumentals, and their much loved early psychedelic albums are nuch more on the raw rock spectrum with occasional synthetic weirdness.

Camel - On the Prog Rock Fringes 

On the prog-rock scene a very underrated band in my view was Camel who I would share with friends who liked Pink Floyd and Dire Straits. In particular I liked to argue that Camel leader Andy Latimer was possibly the best guitarist in the world, even better than Dave Gilmour and Mark Knopfler, two contemporaries his playing was often compared with (and maybe a bit of Alex Lifeson from Rush too?). Listening back to Nude now the guitar really is very similar to Gilmour's - Latimer certainly produced a rare thick luscious tone with the touch of a classical guitarist and a fine ear for a heart wrenching melody - witness a track like Ice from their I Can See Your House From Here album (what is the meaning of that cover by the way?). It is also so nice to hear an electric guitarist play with depth and feeling rather than all out shredding!


WAS THIS COVER REALLY A REFERENCE TO THE UN-PC JESUS JOKE?*

The music on Nude is a bit middle of the road and verging on that 80s over produced synth backed watered down rock mentioned above, but there are some good rock tracks on there like Lies where Latimer displays his trademark Q and A, vocal/guitar, call and response (have a listen and see what I mean about the Gilmour/Knopfler comparisons).

LATIMER WRINGING EVERY OUNCE OF SOUL FROM HIS GUITAR

Camel's best work had already come and gone by the time of Nude, with classic albums like their eponymous debut, the popular Snow Goose, and my personal favourite Mirage. I saw them at Portsmouth Guildhall in the 80s on the Stationary Traveller tour which must have been just after Nude. They'd gone further down the keyboard route (they had two keyboardists on stage I seem to remember!) by then but did encore with Lady Starlight from Mirage. It was one of those gigs where I was right at the front resting my elbows on the stage (rarely possible these days). Someone threw Andy Latimer a red rose. I hear he has had a serious chronic illness and has not been able to play much in recent years but has been making a tentative comeback with a reformed Camel - I would certainly go and see them again if I had the chance.

The Nude Concept

The most interesting thing about the Nude album is the story behind this loose concept album. It relates to a Japanese soldier who was separated from his unit while on a mission to a tiny Pacific island during World War II. Unaware that the war had ended he lived a Robinson Crusoe existence for 29 years on the island until eventually being "rescued" and returned to "civilisation".  Unable to make the adjustment back into mainstream life back in Japan he disappeared again shortly afterwards. A fascinating mystery and one of those stories you are surprised is not more well known although a few articles did surface about the apparent real life "Nude" after his death as late as 2014.

Nude's story as retold by Camel - lyrics and sleeve notes reproduced below:

1942 saw a world torn apart. Daily routines had been taken over by a harsher order that drastically altered the lives of millions of people.

Based on fact, this album tells the story of NUDE.

City Life

Wake-up,
Wake-up, wake-up
Signs tell the time
you're wasting.
Wake up
wake-up, wake-up
Life you will find
is changing.
O the city life,
endless confusion.
Hanging on too tight,
to this illusion...
I'm not what I appear to be.
I couldn't take the honesty,
It seemed to be...
too easy for reality.
O the city life,
what have I come to?
Faces in the night,
friendly to fool you.
I always try to justify,
the way I am and wonder why
I couldn't be...
the same to you I am to me.

Drafted

Nude's thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. The postman muttered something about wishing he could go too and handed over a yellow envelope. It was a command long overdue that called for healthy, young men.

In reply to your request,
please find...
I hereby protest.
To the ways and means you use
you know...
I cannot refuse.
So I'll take this vow
of Loyalty.
Fight for the right,
You have said,
To be free.
When this time has run its course,
I must...
Live without remorse.
For the deeds I'm bound to do,
I know...
it's all the same to you.
But I won't forget
the memory...
Taking a life,
for a life...
to be free.

Nude's life revolved around orders. He found himself pushed and pulled onto a crowded deck of uniformed figures who shared the same expressionless faces. Loved ones stood anxiously on the pier as the transport faded into separating mist. Water and night seemed one. Nude was going to war...

Thunder cracked. Ramps hit the beach and countless boots assaulted the shore. His heart pounding, Nude stumbled headlong into the undergrowth in a desperate search for refuge. Sheets of rain drenched the sunless forest as the skies opened raging down on the tiny island. Panic-stricken, Nude staggered forward and fell unconscious.

Raindrops spattered from the trees onto Nude's face. Startled and confused, Nude listened in the humid silence; he was alone and had no idea where he was. Worst of all, he didn't know what had become of his Regiment.

The setting sun left Nude with the growing darkness of his fears. He made camp and slept with dreams of a dawn rescue, unaware that his Unit had already left the island. In wartime, one less soldier is hardly noticeable.

Seasons turned with time. Nude had given up the search for his Unit but continued to move through the jungle, bayonet poised, as if a thousand eyes were upon him. Home was a cave in a hidden lagoon with abundant vegetation and fresh springs. The highest point of the island provided shelter from annual monsoon floods and sanctuary for his soul.

His military duties consisted of a monthly visit to the mountain top whereupon he ceremoniously croaked the national anthem and fired one precious bullet into the air.

In the loneliness he endured, Nude found an inner strength that flowed with the rhythm of instinct.

Please Come Home

The 29th monsoon had finally dried when a distant buzzing sent Nude scrambling for cover. A tiny plane dipped and swerved, filled the air with swirling white and disappeared.

He cautiously approached one of the scattered pieces of paper:

We've been writing letters each day
hoping that you'll come home.
And we're wondering if you're okay.
As you're not on the phone.
Face the facts now
Take a chance.
Come on back now.
Fast.
Please come home,
Please come home.
Everyone cares for you.
Please come home,
Please come home.
Everyone cares for you,
Everyone.
We've been writing letters each day.
Hoping,
that you'll...
come home.

As the sky turned to afternoon gold, Nude picked up the rest of the envelopes and carried then carefully up the mountain.

For a long time afterwards he sat rocking gently. The letters fluttered... the war was over. Long ago. But it seemed of little consequence to Nude. For him, it had never started.

In the days that followed, Nude was no longer at one with his environment. He was now burdened with the need to explain what could not be explained to those who would never understand.

With the air heavy and his instincts dulled by the preoccupation of his thoughts, he failed to heed the warning silence of a normally busy afternoon. With a gasp and a grunt he was wrestled to the ground. A sting in his skin and he was released. He reeled around to stare into the eyes of familiar uniformed figures. The sudden weight of his head plunged him face down into sand denying him protest or the right of a farewell glance at his island...

The band marched beneath a banner that read WELCOME HOME SOLDIER. City streets were littered with cheering crowds entangled in the paper streamers that filled the air. Hailed for his 'unquestioned patriotism' and 'heroic bravery' Nude was unable to respond. The tidal wave of publicity that engulfed his life had a devastating effect after 29 years alone.

Lies

Tell me no lies,
has peace arrived...
Or, is this some kind of joke?
What a surprise,
you don't realise...
There's some things you don't own.
Can you disguise,
can you simplify...
This change you put me through?
Can you revive,
and will I survive...
This life you've brought me to?

Physically and emotionally exhausted, Nude was confined to a sea-side resort nursing home.

His war had finally begun.

Weeks of monotony filled his life with an opposite extreme. No longer pursued by opportunists who disguised themselves with good intentions, his body regained strength. The government arranged his back-pay. The mass of generation-removed relatives ceased their dutiful visits and eventually no one came to see the hero who had fought the longest war.

For his 50th birthday, the nursing staff organised a small party. To make him feel at home, the festive cake has been decorated in the form of a tropical island. Nude was visibly moved by the occasion and yet he seemed strangely distracted.

They thought it best to leave him alone.

Nude was last seen on a summer evening in 1972 talking to a small group of people just before he sailed out of the harbour.

In the morning paper, buried within the articles about Asian, Middle Eastern, Irish and American conflicts, was a short column on the disappearance of 'The Island War Veteran Who Could Not Live in The Civilised World.'

All lyrics by Susan Hoover
except "Please Come Home" (Andrew Latimer)

The Real Nude

The story is apparently based on the life of Hiroo Onoda and as you would expect is slightly embellished but in many respects true to life.

Onoda was enlisted in the Japanese army and sent to the Philippine Island of Lubang in December 1944 - a tropical island in the South China Sea just 100 miles to the south west of Manila. With a population today of 30,000 the island is not entirely deserted or remote.



Onoda and his unit were tasked with protecting the occupied Island from allied attacks and sabotaging any invasion attempts. Under no circumstances must they surrender.
It may take three years, it may take five years, but whatever happens we will come back for you. 
Major Yoshimi Taniguchi

When the Americans invaded the island in early 1945 Onoda took to the jungle remaining there in hiding with three comrades. Believing the war was still on the soldiers lived on bananas, coconuts, rice and the occasional cow, and continued their covert operations carrying out guerrilla raids (these were inflicted upon the post war civilian population after 1945).

One of the soldiers gave himself up in 1950 and another was killed four years later by a search party.

Onoda was actually only completely alone for the last two years. His last surviving colleague, Private Kinsichi Kozuka, was shot by police in 1972 as the pair raided a local farm.

The leaflet drops over the jungle described in Please Come Home above did happen but Onoda and his colleagues, still believing the war was on, assumed they were tricks and ignored them.

Bizarrely after years of fruitless official searching for Onoda it was a student traveller who discovered him in early 1974 after only 4 days trekking in the jungle. Norio Suzuki had set out to find "Lieutanant Onoda, a wild panda, and the Abominable Snowman, in that order."

SUZUKI WITH ONODA 1974

Onoda told Suzuki that he would only surrender if ordered to by his superior officer. Remarkably his superior officer Major Tiniguchi, who had issued his original orders back in 1944 with the promise that he would come back for him one day, was still alive and was tracked down by Suzuki working in a bookshop in Tokyo. He was able to travel to the Island in March 1974 and relieve Onoda of his duties.
We really lost the war? How could we have been so sloppy?
Onoda on hearing the news

Onoda, still wearing immaculate uniform, finally surrendered to the Philippine President and was given a pardon for his actions over the previous 29 years on account of his belief that the countries were still at war. Reportedly Onoda and his colleagues had killed up to 30 people during their operations!

"NUDE" FLANKED BY SUZUKI AND TANIGUCHI ON HIS EVENTUAL SURRENDER, 1974

Onoda did return home to a hero's welcome and an emotional reunion with his parents but was reportedly unhappy with what Japan had become.
There are so many tall buildings and automobiles in Tokyo. Television might be convenient, but it has no influence on my life.
The album suggests that he stayed in a nursing home and then absconded back to his desert island but in fact he emigrated to Brazil living there as a cattle rancher for ten years. He then returned to Japan and established a group of wilderness training schools. He died in 2014.

THE HERO RETURNS
See remarkable footage of Onoda's return to Japan here >>.

Why the name "Nude"? 

Contrary to some suggestions that the jungle dweller forwent clothing the patriotic Onoda seems to have religiously worn his uniform throughout his mission. The "nude" may just be a reference to the invisibility of the disappeared man and themes of loneliness, loyalty, survival, displacement, alienation, and honour, which seem in keeping with the cover art depicting an empty suit standing on a desert island with Mt. Fuji in the distance.

It is indeed very strange to put yourselves in the shoes of Onoda. 29 years abandoned on a tropical island without all the usual trappings of "modern" life and company through friends, family and relationships (he did marry shortly after his return). What would you have missed between 1945 and 1974? The atom bomb that ended the war and basically flattened the country, the post war industrial and technological growth under US occupation, the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, JFK and the moon landings. Would you have gone mad or would you have adjusted to an idealic simple lifestyle living in paradise? What would 29 years even mean or feel like if you were just living day by day with nature and the sun and the seasons without any man made method of time measurement. Would time have passed quickly or slowly. Would you have got bored? What were your routines?

As Onoda still believed he was actively fighting a war it is likely he was on constant high alert living a fairly stressful life but in a very different way to the population in his homeland. Even so there must have been days and weeks where he did not see or speak to anyone. Footage of Onoda on his homecoming suggest a well adjusted happy and healthy man but it is unimaginable the underlying psychological effects of his experience and the subsequent adjustment. Remember too he, with his comrades, was responsible for killing and injuring many islanders - why and how and in what circumstances? Apparently this detail was not revealed in his ghostwritten book.

Lubang Island


And What of Norio Suzuki?

In a fateful aside Norio Suzuki did succeed in his quest for both Onoda and the panda but was tragically killed in an avalanche in the Himalayas in 1986 presumably while still looking for his Yeti.


***********


Finally the full magazine this week for the record was:

1. The Doobie Brothers - The Captain and Me
2. Budgie - The Best Of
3. Camel - Nude
4. Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can
5. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
6. Rautavaara - Canctus Arcticus/Symphony No. 3


* The Peter and the Cross joke:

Jesus, on the cross, in his waning moments of life, calls to the crowd below, 'Peter!' The apostle Peter hears the call and moves closer to his liege. 'Yes, my Lord, he says. Jesus calls again, 'Peter!' Peter approaches the base of the cross, 'Yes my Lord, it is Peter, I am here for you what do you need?' Jesus calls, 'Come closer Peter.' Peter is beside himself, wondering what the son of God might have to say to him alone... He climbs the cross. Jesus calls 'Peter, come closer.' Peter replies that he is coming. At last, Peter reaches Jesus on the cross, and says, 'I am here my Lord, what can I do?' Jesus says 'Peter? Peter? Is that you Peter?' 'Yes my Lord, I am here for you.' Jesus says 'Peter, I can see your house from here....' 







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