1. Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick
2. Barclay James Harvest - The Harvest Years
3. Barclay James Harvest - The Harvest Years
4. Barclay James Harvest - Gone To Earth
5. Eilen Jewell - Sea of Tears
6. Paulo Nutini - Sunny Side Up
Head album this week is the Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick opus. This really was a concept album - deliberately so. Leader Ian Anderson, in response to the critics calling the Tull's previous album, Aqualung, a concept album (wrongly in his view - "it was just a bunch of songs") decided to deliver the mother of all concept albums.
...We were spoofing the idea of the concept album.
Hence we have Thick as a Brick which is essentially one composition spread in two parts of 20 minutes each. The concept as it were wasn't anything grand. It told the story of a schoolboy who was disqualified from a poetry competition. The schoolboy in question, one fictional Gerald Bostock, is pictured on the album cover which doubles as the St. Cleve Chronicle newspaper.
What of the actual Gerald Bostock? He was child model Andre C Le Breton who 45 years on works as a music engineer and record producer whilst dabbling in his own compositions which he describes as weird German underground trance blending light and dark electronic noise. Sounds great!
Apparently the design of the album cover took more time than the actual music. As for the music I can't say I've studied it as a whole much before this weekend. I'm familiar with the opening acoustic riff and Anderson's proclamation:
Really don't mind if you sit this one out. My word's but a whisper - your deafness a shout!
...and other passages are very catchy and like all good concept albums weave in and out at various points. As a whole opus it actually rocks - with loads of excellent Hammond organ and harlequin / renaissance court type one-legged flute.
I would never compare what we did back then to jazz rockers like Weather Report or the Mahavishnu Orchestra - they were really amazing musicians - but we were a little more sophisticated than the usual riff rockers you'd find on the scene.
Ian Anderson
A few years ago I saw Jethro Tull at a festival down in Devon where they were showcasing not only the original Thick as a Brick, but also a new follow up album TAAB 2 - it sounded pretty good although not so holistically well rounded. The live show was excellent too, part drama with a young actor, dressed in overalls holding a broom, taking on most of the singing. Anderson's strum on his miniature guitar of the opening of the original was one of my most exciting gig experiences ever!
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| The giant Ian Anderson today with tiny guitar |
I do love the lengths people can go to on the internet - I'm a bit of a sucker for conspiracy theories for example which are rife. But isn't it great how people find worth and meaning and inspiration in such things. So by way of example someone has gone to town on Thick as a Brick. Check out http://thickasabrick.net for a comprehensive interpretation of the album. The writer of that website Paul Tarvydas makes an interesting point by way of explanation of his (over?) analysis:
"I don't actually think that an artist consciously decides to write with the detail I've expressed. A true artist feels certain emotions and convictions, then writes/paints/composes items which 'go with that flow'. It is up to us, the appreciators of this art, to parse the original intentions of the artist and to express them in more rudimentary terms. To make them more accessible to the masses (including myself). A truly good artist will make his/her expressions interpretable in more than one way."
Yes and no. I think there is a lot of over interpretation in art. In many cases I think the author is being more random than they are given credit for. Anderson actually admits this in his Aqualung quote above. Ironically a piece of art that is open ended usually benefits from multiple different interpretations - a hallmark of great art in my opinion.
I have really enjoyed rediscovering Barclay James Harvest this week. That goes for both their old stuff as showcased on the Harvest Years double compilation (covering most of their first three albums) and even the more soft poppy Gone to Earth. As with Afro Celt Sound System earlier in this annual log they were a band I was not expecting to be playing this year. Pleasant surprises.
Eilen Jewell is just great at what she does - which is Americana/Country. I've seen her a few times and the live band - guitar, double bass, and drums, is so tight. The guitarist Jerry Miller is particularly fantastic in that hard to define efficient musicality way - ie. not flashy but with a superb feel for melody. Check them out live if they come to a venue near you.
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| The Eilen Jewell Band - guitar legend Jerry Miller in customary Stetson |
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