Bonnie 'Prince' Billy at Peace? Master and Everyone

The voices in Will Oldham's head that speak to us via his Bonnie 'Prince' Billy incarnation are not peaceful ones. This is an album of universal questions, asked on a personal level. What role does traditional love hold in the modern world? How does one reconcile the undeniable evil in us all? Heavy stuff - but all these questions relate to Oldham alone. The outsider looking in.

It's a long decade since, as a post-rock contemporary of fellow Louisville legends Slint, Oldham (along with sibling Paul as Palace/Palace Brothers/Palace Sound) started searching for a new American music. With an exponentially decreasing brouhaha, successive releases have shorn slick production values until he reached the zen-like clarity of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. Last album, Ease Down The Road was a far jauntier trip, but this time it's all ambient foot-tapping, sighing electronica and hushed harmonies. This is hardly suprising as Master And Everyone was produced by Lambchop's Mark Nevers, whose Is a Woman had the same whispered vibe.

This gorgeous album however replaces Kurt Wagner's pantheistic joy in small things with a more carnal slant on life's mysteries. "Let your unloved parts be loved" he mutters in the opener, The Way. Previous reviews of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy seem to have downplayed his influence on master magpie, Beck, yet it's this track that proves the fact irrefutably.

Like Beck he's not frightened of mixing bluegrass religiosity, slacker nonchalance or even English folk rock. Duetting with Nashville professional Marty Slayton on several tracks, they summon the ghost of Sandy Denny. The title track even resembles a stripped down reel. Yet it's the ambivalent lyrics that draw you in - balancing tender love songs (Ain't You Wealthy, Ain't You Wise?) with explorations of biblical evil, only to deflate the whole enterprise with a song like Maundering (it means talking drivel - look it up). It tells you straight that he's just a very flawed man, on the lookout for redemption - and with a tendency to ramble. In the end it's all about infidelity and indifference.

Even a song called Joy And Jubilee hardly convinces you that this is a happy world to visit. As American gothic goes, this is far more compelling and convincing than, say, Nick Cave's cartoon baptisms of fire.

Finally, the key track seems to be Wolf Among Wolves, with its plea to let Oldham/Billy be loved for what he really is. The biggest question seems to be; if we are evil, why can't we accept it? This is a peaceful album, but it contains very little peace.

Review by Chris Jones (2003) shared by CC http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/2pqv/ with scoring by E.B.

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Log #186 - Two Hermetical Geniuses - Hollis and Sylvian

Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring

Nitin Sawhney - Beyond Skin

Talk Talk - The Party's Over

Talk Talk - Spirit Of Eden

Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go

David Sylvian - Everything And Nothing (CD2)

“I want to write stuff that you’ll be able to listen to in 10 years’ time”.

Mark Hollis

Notwithstanding the slightly overbearing 1986 drums Talk Talk's The Colour Of Spring was a groundbreaking album for the band signalling the way towards the two jazz rock ambient classics that would follow.

They only made 5 albums but 3 of them certainly achieved Hollis' aim and more.

The Party's Over (1982)

It's My Life (1984)

The Colour of Spring (1986)

Spirit of Eden (1988)

Laughing Stock (1991)

Not a bad discography for a band who were compared to Duran Duran when they first started out (although this was more a marketing ruse than on account of any wishes of Hollis and his bandmates). Indeed many of the closest neighbours on the Talk Talk music map do relate more to their inception than their later albums:

Interestingly though David Sylvian does sneak into the chart over on the left hand side. I hadn't really related the two before this current run of magazine playing but the connection is now very obvious to me - Sylvian's Everything and Nothing is a brilliant retrospective which manages to cover many of his greatest and best known tunes up to the year 2000 (just before he started going much weirder) including some collaborations and Japan pieces, plus some outtakes and unreleased tracks for the dedicated fans too.

The Nitin Sawhney album (his only I possess) makes fleeting appearances at the blog, mainly on account of the marvellous Tides piano track.

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Log #185 - A Wonder Of Mood, David Sylvian's Wandermüde

Last week, although I liked it, I bemoaned the fact that David Sylvian's experimental Manafon album might have been better without singing. This week my wishes were granted with his 2013 follow up Wandermüde which turns out to be a pure ambient piece, with indeed no vocals. 

David Sylvian - Wandermüde

David Sylvian - Manafon

Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go

Talk Talk - Laughing Stock

Talk Talk - Spirit Of Eden

Bonnie Prince Billy - Pond Scum

This instrumental collection is blended throughout and delivers cascades of haunting tones, flooded with pools of tranquil retreats and gentle showers of suspense.

igloomag.com

Wandermude (literally translated as "tired hiking" - not google translates finest hour Ed.) is indeed a gem of ambience, one of the nicest I've heard actually. The record is extremely still, consisting of percussion less drones that hardly change at all, just in very subtle ways. Most movement is heard on the final track Deceleration which is quite startling in comparison with its distorted guitar chords that sound just like Fennesz's work on Endless Summer. I've heard Sylvian has collaborated with the Austrian electronic maestro so no doubt it is him here too although it's very hard to find any information about Wandermüde anywhere.

The album is actually a collaboration between Sylvian and German sound artist Stephan Mathieu and I wonder how much Sylvian was involved actually as apparently the crux of the record is reworkings of Sylvian's Blemish album from 2003. Sounds intriguing and Blemish will definitely be one I'll be checking out next.

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Log #184 - Sylvian Span

Steeleye Span are another band, new to me, that cropped up through reading the excellent Electric Eden anthology of English music. A shout out on Twitter suggested Below The Salt was a good place to start.  At first it sounded a bit too folky for me but it gradually started to resonate as I tuned in to the Sandy Denny era Fairport Convention vibes.

Steeleye Span - Below The Salt

David Sylvian - Manafon

Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go

Talk Talk - Laughing Stock

Talk Talk - Spirit Of Eden

Bonnie Prince Billy - Pond Scum

Manafon (a place in Wales) is a very unusual album. Top marks for David Sylvian doing something so left field it defines categorisation. But is it even music? It sounds like improvisations. In fact it sounds like avant garde ambient minimalism (with a jazz flavour) but with singing. Make of that what you will!

The parish of Manafon, Wales

For the first few listens I didn't really like it. But after a while I started to enjoy it, not in the sense of listening to music, but as an... experience.

But I wonder if it would be better just as instrumental music, like previously reviewed avant garde ambient albums by sound artists like Keith Berry and James Joys? Sylvian's very low key singing is sort of superfluous and distracting.

An interview with Sylvian reveals my impressions were well founded: "There was nothing written when we went into the studio – this was very much free improvisation. So, the selection of the group of musicians for each improvisation was paramount. I recognized on the day which pieces could work for me. The process was that I took the material away and then wrote and recorded the vocal line over in a couple of hours. So I couldn't analyze my contribution and that in a way was my form of improvisation – and I enjoyed the rapidity of response."

It sounds like the approach Van Morrison took with Astral Weeks. 

Genius or pretentious? I can't decide - it's certainly no Astral Weeks but nevertheless an intriguing listen which I will return to, along with some of Sylvian's other recent albums (Manafon dates from 2009).

Not a huge leap from David Sylvian to Talk Talk, especially when we are talk talking the band's final two albums; the "post-rock" masterpieces Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock - two albums of beautiful shimmering magnificent music topped by the late Mark Hollis's sensitive vocals.

More Bonnie Prince Billy listening in the player here with Pond Scum the 2016 offering of  BBC John Peel sessions, reworkings and covers, from this prolific artist aka Will Oldham. The renderings are stripped right back and thus even more relaxed and morose than usual.

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Log #183 - Two Sides Of Bonnie Prince Billy

Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Union Cafe

Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Music From The Penguin Cafe 

Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go

Soft Hair - Soft Hair

Jerry Paper - Like A Baby

Bonnie Prince Billy - Summer In The Southeast

Bonnie Prince Billy's The Letting Go album fondly reminds me of his Lie Down In The Light album (which followed). Fairly down tempo and relaxed, as with most of his albums, The Letting Go contains one of my favourite Bonnie songs, the haunting Cursed Sleep, with its amazing video...

The beauty and eccentricity of The Letting Go doesn't provoke deep absorption or self-reflection so much as a kind of fond familiarity.

Pitchfork 

Indeed, perhaps not Bonnie Prince Billy's most daring album but he is effortlessly great in almost anything he does. I haven't yet come across an album that has disappointed...

Which takes me on to the live album Summer In The Southeast. This is stunning. Not least as it was so unexpected. Whereas The Letting Go's easy vibe is typical Bonnie Prince Billy this noisy heavy warts and all rock gig from 2005 is a new Bonnie Prince Billy to me (in fact I'd never heard of the album until it popped up on a youtube feed I was listening to one evening).

Boosted by electric guitar from collaborator Matt Sweeney BPB reinvents his back catalogue with "a delightfully drunken racket of tangled guitars and thunderous percussion" (Pitchfork). The sound verges on grunge or even punk and reminds me of The Velvet Underground. So hardly representative of any of his albums I've heard, or I imagine most of his gigs, nevertheless an exciting addition to the Bonnie catalogue. A great find. 

The other new entry this week comes from LA producer Jerry Paper. This came on to my radar via the unusual Soft Hair album. I was in a Brighton cafe one afternoon and this music came on and the weird distorted electronica sounded to me just like Soft Hair. I asked the patron and he told me it was Jerry Paper. Name lodged in notebook and album investigated forthwith.

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Log #179 - What Next? Heaven Or Las Vegas

Another clean sweep of the magazine this week: everybody out, new lot in please (often precipitated by a visit of friends over the weekend).

Next is many fans' favourite Alex Harvey (SAHB) album. I have it at no. 3 in my personal rundown.

Next from 1973 was Harvey's second album with the Sensational Band although he'd made solo albums before teaming up with the former Tear Gas band who became SAHB. Here he reveals more cabaret than on the rockier debut but there’s also rockabilly and plenty of glam.

The Jacques Brel title track is one of Harvey’s most loved covers perhaps made most famous following a literally disturbing appearance on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test — many people’s first introduction to SAHB:

Yet the band showed they could still rock out with the best of the heavy metal bands of the day with Faith Healer which, with it’s hypnotic pulsing build up, became the band’s live opener, the Led Zeppelin like shuffle of Vambo, and the latter half of album closer The Last of The Teenage Idols.

I don't know if there is a fans' favourite Bonnie Prince Billy album but mine is this one, Lay Down In The Light. Maybe he should be the subject of a forthcoming ranking. I see he has a new album out right now and I will procure it shortly - I'm fan enough to get pretty much anything he does and I very much liked the very low fi solo sample track I heard somewhere. 

I haven't yet caught him live but we're both young enough to have plenty of future opportunities!

SAHB - Next

The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams

Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas

Bear's Den - Islands

Bonnie Prince Billy - Lay Down In The Light

Randy Newman - Sail Away

Randy Newman is a classy performer who I'd also love to see live. Not right up there as a favourite of mine but a reliably great song writer. Another Elton John sort really. I always think of the Toy Story films (for which he wrote many of the songs) when I hear his voice. This 1972 release is a pretty good primer for new Newman fans containing several of his best known songs: Sail Away, Lonely At The Top, Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear and You Can Leave Your Hat On.

Heaven Or Las Vegas is my equal favourite Cocteau Twins album along with Four Calendar Cafe. A brilliant album from a unique band doing something different in the relatively barren '80s musical landscape.

Regular readers will know all about the Erlend Oye project The Whitest Boy Alive, one of the tightest, funkiest pop bands out there. Only two albums, this and Rules, both great.

Last but not least we have the lovely folk harmonies of Bear's Den. I know what you are going to say - "Isn't this like Mumford & Sons?" (after all they co-founded the nu-folk Communion Records label with Marcus Mumford). Well no, it's much better. Islands is a consistently excellent album throughout.

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An Organic Ambitious Work Of Great Depth - Bonnie "Prince" Billy's Beware

Following hard on the heels of 2008's Lie Down In The Light, Beware is Will Oldham's alter-ego Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's eighth solo album. It is – unsurprisingly – an organic work of great depth and texture. The melody and sense of acute longing that has infused Oldham's work since his earliest days with Palace is very much present and correct. Beware is an intimate album, full of strong emotion and underlying hope.

Oldham has been reported recently as being obsessed by late-period Elvis Presley. The King's spirit seems to drift across Beware. It is found in the depth and hopelessness of songs such as I Won't Ask Again or the drama and flurry of Heart's Arms.

Occasionally, Oldham’s work can be somewhat remote; as he is playing a character, you feel sometimes as if you are there to admire his art rather than fully give yourself over to it. Well, Beware has added accessibility and warmth, given that is so frequently gloomy.

The swelling fiddles and female chorus of opener Beware Your Only Friend are complemented by its follow-up You Can't Hurt Me Now, which sounds as if it is an unearthed country standard, complete with gospel flourishes topped off with some Roxy-style sax. For contrast, You Don't Love Me is playful and tongue-in-cheek.

Beware is an ambitious record, with a list of special guests such as ex-Mekon Jon Langford and one time Wilco multi-instrumentalist Leroy Bach supporting Oldham. It is also one of the first highlights of 2009. For those unsure of what genres such as alt.country or Americana entails, this is a marvellous place to start.

Guest Review by Daryl Easlea https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/6gcz/

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Log #97 - A Gang Of Dead Bees

The Guardian's readers recommend series, which I only discovered two weeks ago, is now being withdrawn after 13 years! This was a disappointment for both new contributors like me who was hoping to curate a playlist myself in the future, and stalwarts who have kept the concept going all this time. They will now be congregating over at the similarly formatted song-bar.com .

The final topic was on the subject of The Influence of India and I was chuffed to have one of my nominations (out of over 600) selected for the final play list of 13. It was Krishna Blue by David Sylvian which appears on his Dead Bees On A Cake album.

Here's the Guardian write up:

I certainly couldn't have described it better.

David Sylvian got so good after he went solo with a string of excellent albums. The first one I discovered was (ironically also on a bee theme) Secrets Of The Beehive which I remember most for the stunning acoustic guitar as on this track below.

It's a truly beautiful album and for a few years probably my favourite album of all, and not something I would have expected from the ashes of a pop band like Japan. I am shocked now to remember that that album came out in 1987 as it is one of those I remember clearly where I was at the time on first hearing.

Dead Bees was the follow up coming 12 years later!

1. Bonnie Prince Billy - Master and Everyone
2. David Sylvian - Dead Bees On A Cake
3. Efterklang - Springer
4. Mojo Presents - Return to the Dark Side of the Moon with Wish You Were Here Again
5. Fairport Convention - The History Of
6. Gang of Four - Entertainment!

The Gang of Four album isn't my usual sort of listening. Why have it then? Well, several reasons - I like to try all sorts of new music all the time. And the second reason is it literally fell into my lap. I found it in a bush on my walk home from work the other evening - along with three other Cds - REM's Automatic For The People, Cast's All Change, and Echo and the Bunnymen's Killing Moon The Best Of.

On first listen, as expected, I didn't like the simple Jam / Ramones post punk ranting and scattered guitar strumming over pumping bass. It was made in 1979 and so sounds like it. A few more listens and I am beginning to appreciate the Wilko Johnson like staccato guitar. Late in the album there are even a few variations on the theme.

Gang of Four - mostly like Dr. Feelgood but a hint of new romantic dress sense too

How about this for plaudits though - the album was ranked as fifth Greatest Punk Album of All Time and at number 483 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album was listed by Pitchfork Media as the 8th best album of the 1970s. Kurt Cobain listed it as his 13th favourite album!

Here's his Top 20 for passing interest:

1. Iggy & The Stooges - Raw Power 
2. Pixies - Surfer Rosa 
3. The Breeders - Pod 
4. The Vaselines - Dying for It 
5. The Shaggs - Philosophy of the World 
6. Fang - Landshark 
7. MDC - Millions of Dead Cops 
8. Scratch Acid - Scratch Acid
9. Saccharine Trust - Paganicons 
10. Butthole Surfers - Pee Pee the Sailor 
11. Black Flag - My War 
12. Bad Brains - Rock for Light
13. Gang of Four - Entertainment! 
14. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols 
15. The Frogs - It's Only Right and Natural 
16. PJ Harvey - Dry 
17. Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation 
18. The Knack - Get the Knack 
19. The Saints - Know Your Product 
20. Kleenex - "anything by" 

...interesting, not many I'm aware of there.

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Log #96 - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - A Master For Everyone

I do love Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. Every album I have heard of his is class. This one Master and Everyone is short and soft - it's effortless lo-fi, mostly just acoustic guitar and his whispered voice with occasional fiddle, bass and backing vocal accompaniment. I would imagine the 'Bonnie Prince', real name Will Oldham, is an interesting chap judging by his lyrics and music videos. There is one video in particular that reminds me of one of the scariest scenes in the brilliant first season of True Detective. It's not a track from this album but I'm going to find that video now and compare it with what I recall in True Detective.

And then there's this beauty Hard Life from this album:

Youth and Young Manhood is the debut album from Kings of Leon released in 2003. It's a good rock album with 4 or 5 catchy numbers and a singer in Caleb Followill who possesses an unusually gruff and slurred vocal delivery sounding like someone twice his age. I guess that's the band's main USP albeit not being able to decipher most of the words leads to faint annoyance. They also looked unusual with their long hair and big beards recalling other Southern rock stalwarts like ZZTop and Lynyrd Skynyrd (Kings of Leon hail from Nashville).

Later on the Kings hit the big time, cut their hair, smartened up their look and sound, and lost a bit of their original mystic but with this debut album you can see why they made such an impact early doors.

We all know The Dark Side of the Moon of course, which remains a great listen even given its ubiquity. But less of us have heard the brilliant Easy Stars All Stars reggae cover of the album Dub Side of The Moon or this compilation of covers presented by Mojo magazine.

This Mojo compilation has some really interesting interpretations of these well worn classics like this one from Matt Berry...

Or this back to basics cover of Money by The Pineapple Thief...

Additionally the CD also collects covers of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here too... Lia Ices interpretation of the title track is particularly impressive breathing new life into this well known song:

Efterklang remain one of my favourite bands despite their latest album taking them a bit off the rails in my opinion. Tripper is officially their debut album from 2004 although it is now often twinned with the earlier (and now extended) EP Springer released originally in 2003. It is full of interesting electronic clicks and beats. Parades, their follow up album from 2007, I have always had trouble fully appreciating with it's ambitious arrangements. For new listeners I'd recommend the more fully rounded experimental pop they produced on Magic Chairs and Piramida.

~

1. Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood

2. Bonnie Prince Billy - Master and Everyone

3. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon

4. Mojo Presents - Return to the Dark Side of the Moon with Wish You Were Here Again

5. Efterklang - Parades

6. Efterklang - Tripper

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Log #95 - Another Year Of The Cat

A masterful album that seems to transcend all personal tastes - Al Stewart's 1976 masterpiece Year of the Cat is universally loved by all.

1. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 2
2. Richard Hawley - True Love's Gutter
3. Al Stewart - Year Of The Cat
4. Roni Size and Reprazent - New Forms
5. Other Lives - Tamer Animals
6. Bonnie Prince Billy - Lie Down In The Light

Just the one Black Sabbath CD retains its place this week - the second half of We Sold Our Soul... this covers tracks from all of their first six albums (strangely the first half of the partly chronological double album only covers their first two albums). Enough said on Black Sabbath for now pending release of my album ranking shortly for which this compilation has been good research

I recently read a review on Guardian Music for a Belle and Sebastian album. It was in a series on favourite albums from staff writers and possibly the public too at the time (the article seemed to suggest that, but on visiting the links the opportunity to write your own reviews had long disappeared - I think this review was posted in 2011). I did however discover Readers Recommend where readers can recommend tracks on a particular subject for potential inclusion on a playlist. This week's subject was "Obsolete Items". I nominated Triumph '73 by The Felice Brothers and Highwayman by Jimmy Reed but actually covered spectacularly by US grunge rockers Arbouretum. I also nominated (Straight to Your Heart) Like a Cannonball by Van Morrison but that offer was removed for some reason. I doubt either remaining nomination will make the shortlist. All 3 tracks are contained in this embedded mini playlist below. By the way most the obvious ones have gone before and you can't renominate any song that has appeared already in the series - this is known as a "zedded" song. What fun these private members' clubs have.

Anyway from that site I also discovered a parallel project at www.song-bar.com. Over there they were inviting nominations for songs of "Remaining or Staying". I nominated Stayin' Power by Neil Young and Soldier On by Richard Hawley. And that's how, to cut a long story a bit shorter, I came to have True Love's Gutter in the series this week. It's a beautiful record - possibly Hawley's most intense and atmospheric (this clip of the epic Soldier On also features a beautiful video):

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat

And that's how Al Stewart's great Year of the Cat track begins. This album was doing the rounds when I was a young student and was one of those soft pop records that seemed to transcend all personal tastes being universally loved by all.

It is simply a masterful collection of great songs - lovely melodies and excellent musicianship. But playing this again this week what struck me most were the lyrics. Each song tells an evocative story that takes you to a place and time.

Great lyrics of exotic escapism run like a thread through this album.

Lord Grenville:

Go and tell Lord Grenville that the tide is on the turn
It's time to haul the anchor up and leave the land astern
We'll be gone before the dawn returns
Like voices on the wind

On The Border:

The fishing boats go out across the evening water
Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border
The wind whips up the waves so loud
The ghost moon sails among the clouds
Turns the rifles into silver on the border

If It Doesn't Come Naturally Leave It:

Well I'm up to my neck in the crumbling wreckage
Of all that I wanted from life
When I looked for respect all I got was neglect
Though I swallowed the line as a sign of the times
But dealing a jack from the back of the pack
They said - You lose again

Flying Sorcery:

With your photographs of Kitty Hawk
And the biplanes on your wall
You were always Amy Johnson
From the time that you were small

Broadway Hotel:

You told the man in the Broadway Hotel
Nothing was stranger than being yourself
And he replied, with a tear in his eye
Love was a rollaway
Just a cajole away

This album came out in 1976 and became Al Stewart's go to record. I don't know if he had much success elsewhere but is still touring today playing to dedicated fans in small venues. I saw an amusing clip of him at a backstage signing where a fan said he was surprised he was still going and doing "this". He quite rightly said, "Of course, what else would I be doing?". When you think about it that makes complete sense. It's not like he would decide to give up and become a plumber or school teacher.

One minor gripe on my CD reissue. It has a couple of live tracks, fine, but also an interview. This just disrupts the flow of the music and doesn't have a place here.

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Log #11 - Who Were Those Roxy Music Cover Girls?

Back to some basics this week with some (mostly) unplugged Americana albums from The Felice Brothers and the incomparable Bonnie "Prince" Billy, plus a unique fusion of country and acid (yes, you read right) from Brixton's Alabama 3, and a look at the 70s album covers of a classic glam rock band.

Last week I mentioned The Felice Brothers in the same breath as Wilco, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. Since listening some more and reading a bit more about them I revise that to stand in agreement with the frequent comparisons with The Band (Music From The Big Pink era), Neil Young (Tonight's the Night era), and yes, Bob Dylan (Basement Tapes era). You couldn't ask for more really could you? Lead singer Ian Felice name checks Tonight's the Night in an interview about their new album, Life in the Dark (straight on the Christmas list), and his singing and lyrics are both very Dylanesque (in reference to the extended narrative songs and punchy nasal delivery of Dylan's early years, more than the inaudible bark of now).

It's nice when an album grows on you. I've had The Felice Brothers for a few years but hadn't played it more than half a dozen times up until last week. Playing it more and sampling the new album the decision to get a ticket for next month's show became an absolute no brainer. It's gonna be a real stormer. The songs are naked and authentic with super melodies and devastating lyrics of sex, booze and guns.

The Brothers then - in The Band gear

The Brothers now - more rock indie

1. Arbouretum - The Gathering
2. The Felice Brothers - The Felice Brothers
3. Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
4. Alabama 3 - Exile on Coldharbor Lane
5. Steely  Dan - Aja
6. Bonnie Prince Billy - Beware

The Alabama 3 album is absolutely brilliant. Great songs, great grooves, and oodles of humour. I saw them at a festival once and assumed they were a genuine American gospel band from the deep south. They are actually from the deep south... of London... and the preaching, Texas drool and stage names are all in parody. They actually started out under the name of The First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine with an ambition to fuse country music with acid! And it works with great melodies and pulsating electronic gated rhythms. This album should have been massive but it's little known and the band have pretty much sunk without trace despite some commercial fame when their Woke Up This Morning featured on The Sorpranos credits.

Please be upstanding for Reverend Dr. D. Wayne Love and his Alabama 3

After hearing them at the festival and buying the album I went to see them a second time at our local Concorde2. This time around they were a disappointment with a chaotic set hampered by technical problems and bad tempers - The Very Reverend Dr. D. Wayne Love (front left) inviting a heckler outside for a fight! You never really know what you are going to get live especially with bands like this infamous for outrageous performances.

The Arbouretum album was a favourite of mine for a period of time when it came out in 2011. Their music is slow and heavy grunge with distorted guitars reminding me most of The Foo Fighters or Neil Young. Most of their tracks are quite lengthy with thick guitar melody lines. They can also do sweet and lovely as heard on the gorgeous cover of Jimmy Webb's The Highwayman. I haven't heard many versions of this famous song but this has to be the best cover out there and jumps straight on to my playlist. Great lyrics too:

I was a highwayman
Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive

I was a sailor
I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still

I was a dam builder
Across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around
I'll always be around, and around and around and around and around...

I'll fly a starship
Across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again...

Bonnie "Prince" Billy, real name Will Oldham, is the embodiment of laid back, low-fi, americana/country. I don't know this 2009 album too well in comparison with some of his earlier Palace Brothers music and solo albums. This one seems more country than usual with plenty of pedal steel. I love his fragile voice and gentle guitar strumming and he is top of my gig wish list (he played a small church in Brighton a few years ago but the gig was sold out immediately before I heard). Much more on Will will follow.

Girls Girls Girls... Those Roxy Music Cover Girls

Even after listening to music for 40 years there are still new "old" bands to discover. When I say "new" I actually mean new to me as obviously Roxy Music are a very old band, but one I've never listened to before. I knew a bit about singer Bryan Ferry of course, and quite alot about knob twiddler Brian Eno, but had dismissed them as one of those throwaway glam rock pop bands of the early 70s like T-Rex or Slade. Then I got talking to someone in a pub about music (I can't even remember who now) and he recommended I take a listen to them, and to this album in particular.

There is some great rock on For Your Pleasure (their second album) and some interesting extended electronics which I feel is foreshadowing Eno's Berlin work with David Bowie moreso than his ambient solo albums. Probably only Do The Strand is a well known single, certainly the only one I recognise and as often the case that's probably a strength of the album.

Like a number of bands, including Little Feat mentioned in an earlier log, Roxy Music were famous for their album covers which featured various glamour models, some of whom were Bryan Ferry's girlfriends.

The artwork for their early albums imitated the visual style of classic "girlie" and fashion magazines of the time, featuring high-fashion shots of scantily-clad models.

The model for the debut album was Kari-Ann Muller who was reportedly paid £20 for the assignment. She also appeared in the Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service and is now a yoga teacher living in London with husband Chris Jagger, brother of Mick.

It was very ... ice-creamy, in a way. The colours remind me of a marshmallow, like something really delicious.

Amanda Lear appeared on the cover of our featured album walking a blank panther and is perhaps the most mysterious of Bryan Ferry's muses. She was reportedly a mistress of Salvador Dali and Rolling Stone Brian Jones before having affairs with both Ferry and David Bowie. Bizarrely there were also persistent rumours that she was actually a transsexual man!

But what of those rumours?

Hah hah! That was bullshit, a phony publicity stunt in order to sell records. No-one wanted a boring girl like any other. But it was the time of the Rocky Horror Show, and I was around, looking glamorous, and people always dream, don't they? The lady is a girl, and that's it.

To read more about her fascinating life (you couldn't make this stuff up) please have a look at https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/dec/24/focus.news

Marilyn Cole was the girl on the album Stranded. She was a Playboy model and eventually married Victor Lownes, president of Playboy Enterprises, after a brief involvement with Ferry.

Perhaps many people's favourite (certainly of teenage boys) is the Country Life cover which features two random German fans the band met in a bar in Portugal, (l to r) Eveline Grunwald and Constanze Karoli. I don't know how rare a name Karoli is in Germany but it always surprises me how often a common name does indicate a blood relationship and in this case Constanze was Can guitarist Michael Karoli's cousin, and Eveline was his girlfriend. It continues to be a small somewhat incestuous world.

Roxy fans Eveline and Constanze looking surprised on the cover of Country Life

Without looking too closely I always thought this was a shot of the girls lying flat on the grass but they are actually standing against a pine tree and posing as if suddenly caught in the glare of car headlights.

We just had to look weird and surprised.

Some album covers of the 70s (particularly of heavy rock or metal bands - Blind Faith, Whitesnake, The Scorpions etc) were pushing the sexual boundaries and this cover was banned in many countries on release which was actually saying something in those days. Incidentally does anyone remember those truly awful Top of the Pops compilation albums our parents used to buy?

Where have the girls gone? The censored version of Country Life.

I often think it must be strange to be remembered for one tiny (insignificant at the time) thing in life that happened forty years ago – literally a "15 minutes of fame".  Neither Country Life girl went on to become models. Eveline became an art teacher and Constanze is a practising psychotherapist. Rather cool to have such a dinner party subject to bring up though. Imagine flicking through a host’s CD collection and chancing across Country Life and revealing your secret!

Without doubt Jerry Hall is the most famous of the Roxy models and appeared on the Siren cover literally as a siren washed up on some rocks in Anglesey, North Wales. One of the original, if not the original, super models, Texan Hall dated Bryan Ferry for some time before meeting Mick Jagger. Her recent marriage to Rupert Murdoch was a surprise to many.

Love on the Rocks - Hall and Ferry in Anglesey

Again not looking closely enough I thought the model on the front of Flesh and Blood was one person but it actually shows Aimee Stephenson and Shelley Man casting javelins. Aimee Stephenson (the nearest to the camera) later worked in film (script writing and production). She tragically died in 2001 from burn injuries sustained from exploding fireworks on a bus in Peru (I know, it sounds so unlikely but when your time is up, your time is up, and as I said above you couldn't make this up - the bizarre and random twists of life). As for Shelley Man she is literally residing in the "where are they now" file, gone and forgotten at least as far as the internet is concerned - hopefully this indicates she is enjoying a quiet happy family life somewhere in the Cotswolds, free from controversy, rumour or tragedy.

Once more initial appearances can be deceptive with the realistic dancing "models" on the front of Manifesto actually being mannequins.

Having spent the 70s enjoying many a tryst with his band’s cover stars, Bryan Ferry finally made a long-term commitment to one of them in 1982, when he married model Lucy Helmore who starred (albeit anonymously with back to camera and wearing a medieval helmet) on the front of the Avalon album.

Ferry with Avalon lady Lucy Helmore

The above owes a debt to an interesting article on the subject from https://threeinacrowd.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/roxy-music-cover-model/

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