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.
Carly Simon - No Secrets
Carole King - Tapestry
Caitlin Canty - Reckless Skyline
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement
Camel - Moonmadness
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.
I literally have not heard this Gamma album for 35 years. Yet it is amazing how I remember some of the songs. Of course it is very '80s and does sound dated, particularly on the vocal front. But there are some excellent hooks, decent electric guitar from founder Ronnie Montrose, and interesting synth embellishment with even some ELO like vocoder! On some of the more pumping bass tracks they remind me a bit of Budgie.
Carly Simon - No Secrets
Sigur Ros - Takk King Crimson - Lark's Tongues In Aspic King Crimson- Red Harmonia - Deluxe Gamma - 1
I could n't stomach the singing on the Sigur Ros album Takk, their fourth. I was into their break through Ágætis Byrjun album (their second) so it's a mystery to me whether my tastes have changed, or the band, or more to the point, the singer has changed. Or were they just a one trick pony? I had to turn it off about half way through to be fair.
Two superb albums from King Crimson reaffirmed my faith in progressive rock this week. Displaying both power and musicianship these albums are high watermarks in the genre. Whereas the monumental debut and fan favourite In The Court Of The Crimson King was beautiful it is now also a little dated and slightly whimsical. A few years later Robert Fripp's band had come on leaps and bounds - there is less mellotron and more drums and bass (the former so sharp and the latter so heavy in the mix), and sawing violin especially on Larks', and guitar especially on Red.
Red was a fitting climax to the end of the first era of King Crimson ending on perhaps their greatest ever track, Starless, which featured one of the most unique guitar solos in rock history.
Fripp mothballed the band and set out on some solo experimentation and collaborations with the likes of Bowie and Eno. Not until 1981 did he return with a reformed King Crimson releasing the revolutionary Discipline; an album which was most confusing to the early fans but is now viewed as an underrated classic ahead of its time.
ps. What is Aspic? All these years I assumed it was a place, fictitious or otherwise. I never realised it was a foodstuff, which makes sense - something you would serve lark's tongues in.
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Deeper we go into my old heavy rock roots this week. I follow up Led Zep's debut album with another listen of the classic IV. I pick up on a relatively little known Canadian rock band. I reacquaint myself with Black Sabbath's most progressive album, and dive into possibly Hawkwind's greatest two albums. Carly Simon retains some calm from last week's playlist.
Led Zeppelin - IV April Wine - Harder...Faster Hawkwind - In The Hall Of The Mountain Grill Hawkwind - Warrior On The Edge Of Time Black Sabbath- Sabbath Bloody Sabbath Carly Simon - No Secrets
Led Zep's IV has a great balance of heavy rockers and acoustic whimsy. Black Dog is a powerhouse of blues rock - incorporating one of Page's greatest riffs and Plant's call and response moans. I'd never heard anything like it on first hearing. Now, years later, I still think it's pretty unique. Then you've got the Tolkien influenced Misty Mountain Hop and The Battle Of Evermore (with Sandy Denny). The Bonham showcase When The Levee Breaks and the hippie flower power Going To California. And Stairway To Heaven of course which is a little tired but I still love the jaunty middle section with it's "bustle in the hedgerow".
April Wine were alright. Attempting the monumental 21st Century Schizoid Man was probably not a wise move though - it has none of the show stopping power of the original.
Brilliant stuff from Hawkwind. I love both these two albums which both follow a similar pattern with alternate rock anthems and instrumental or spoken word interludes. The rock tunes are often based on just 2 or 3 stuttering guitar chords with Lemmy's heavy bass underlay. The interludes are simple piano figures, crude synthesizer effects, sawing violin, or, in the case of Warrior, spoken monologues from sci-fi writer Michael Moorcock (who also wrote lyrics for The Blue Oyster Cult).
In The Hall Of The Mountain Grill (the band's fourth album) is the more basic and less polished album. Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke) is a classic Hawks tune. There are a couple of tracks on the band's fifth album Warrior On The Edge Of Time that approach some of the best progressive rock of the mid '70s, namely Assault and Battery / Golden Void and Magnu, where the band present monumental walls of sound. One of the most intriguing tracks for me when I first heard this album was the heavy motorik beat instrumental Opa-Loka which foretold my interest in krautrock. Surprisingly the band changed their sound after Warrior choosing to go down a more "new wave" road. The line up changed too with Lemmy, who had described Opa-Loka as "fucking rubbish" and Warrior generally as "a fuck up", moving on to form Motorhead.
A whole raft of new releases this week. When I say new I mean new to me! Nearly all these albums date from the '70s. My listening has been influenced by a documentary I viewed on something called "Yacht Rock" which is basically soft rock by another name. The very heavy Led Zeppelin debut album is an outlier but other than that we cover a soft rock range from singer songwriter Carly Simon, through to prog soft rock band Styx, via the more traditional guitar rock of Bob Seger, Steve Miller and The Climax Blues Band.
Styx - Pieces Of Eight Bob Seger - Against The Wind The Climax Blues Band - Flying The Flag Steve Miller- Fly Like An Eagle Led Zeppelin- I Carly Simon - No Secrets
STYX
Hate is a very strong word but I am actually going to say I hated this Styx album. Urgh, it makes me shudder to think of it again now. Yuck. So naff. I might try another as I recognise some of their other famous covers but I'm 99% certain they will be the same.
That's another thing. With the artists I like, many many of their albums are different. I just know all Styx is going to be the same. Go on, surprise me! I'd never consciously heard any Styx before but one of the big disappointments was it sounded just as I expected. There was no surprise at all.
And they are (or were?) hugely popular in the States. Maybe they filled a gap between that middle of the road cruising rock like The Eagles for instance, and more challenging rock or prog bands like Rush and Yes, both of whom I can hear slightly in this record (that's not surprising really though as they throw everything into the music, and then when its done, they add another fatuous vocal or keyboard track).
THE CLIMAX BLUES BAND
I love the cover of the Climax Blues Band album - it was probably the reason I bought it in the first place (I don't think I'd heard of the band formed in 1967 and still going today with 19 albums to their credit).
I saw a BBC documentary the other day on something called "Yacht Rock". No, I'd never heard of it before either - I guess just a recently made up term in order to sanction another documentary on '70s West Coast music. Well although not released until 1980 and from as far away from LA as you could get, in the midlands British town of Stafford, this is pretty much Yacht Rock and hell, there's even a yacht on the cover.
You don't need me to describe what Yacht Rock is do you? The documentary featured The Doobie Brothers, Michael MacDonald, Toto, Tom Petty and Steely Dan, but it could have been a number of other bands.
Hang on, let's see if there is an actual definition on Wiki...
Yacht rock (originally known as the West Coast sound or adult-oriented rock) is a broad music style and aesthetic commonly associated with soft rock, one of the most commercially successful genres from the mid-1970s to early 1980s. Drawing on sources such as smooth soul, smooth jazz, R&B, funk and disco, common stylistic traits include high-quality production, clean vocals, and a focus on light, catchy melodies. Its name, coined in 2005 by the makers of the online video series Yacht Rock, was derived from its association with the popular Southern Californian leisure activity of sailing.
Funny how they say sailing like it's an unusual activity, and perhaps one confined to Southern California only. Marginal yacht rockers and Laurel Canyon residents Crosby, Stills and Nash, could certainly be linked by this association. Several of their songs and album covers refer to (I refuse to use the new term "speak to") sailing and David Crosby famously spent much of the '70s stoned on his beautiful schooner, The Mayan:
BOB SEGER AND THE SILVER BULLET BAND
Another 1980 release was Bob Seger's Against The Wind. With that title it sounds like this could be another Yacht album. Actually it's not. It's much more gritty guitar based rock than the "Yacht Prog" of Styx.
Yacht Prog?: Rock music that has progressive pretensions but is actually just middle of the road soft rock with high sheen production values, and lots of instruments.
I made that up.
I know Seger is famous and has a much revered Live album to his name but this, again, must be Stateside only as I've never heard anything by him, nor am I aware of any of my UK friends having any of his albums - that's quite a statement in 40 years of listening to rock music on my part.
So anyway, it's fun to try new artists for the first time. Perhaps not always fun (Styx), but revealing in any case. I liked Against The Wind - some of the tracks reminded me of Thin Lizzy strangely! I'll follow up with some further listens, probably should check out that live one.
LED ZEPPELIN
Led Zeppelin I must have been an eye opener on its release in January 1969. Playing it again now I wonder if it hasn't aged so well as I used to think. Sure there are some classic hits on here - the opener Good Times Bad Times (famously also the opener again on the band's comeback O2 gig as long ago as 2007 now!) and Communication Breakdown. But also a fair bit of blues derivative filler which if you compare with what The Beatles (or even more comparable bands like Jimi Hendrix or Cream) were doing at the time was perhaps unremarkable relying mostly on power and volume. Rolling Stone agreed at the time:
Two much-overdone Willie Dixon blues standards fail to be revivified by being turned into showcases for Page and Plant.
However the combination of blues influences and originality come together brilliantly for the final track How Many More Times which points the way towards what they would become. The follow up II coming only 9 months later represented a huge leap forward.
THE STEVE MILLER BAND
[Initially] I was surprised how synth led this album was (but in a good Hawkwind-y type of way). I was expecting lots of guitar but the album [initially] features keyboards, synthesizers and effects [first three tracks].
It's also pretty mellow and laid back. If I'd heard this on the radio without any warning I would not have guessed it was Steve Miller (not that I've really heard much before, but I had pre-conceived ideas)....
...Actually Stop Press - the second half is much more guitar led, and more what I was expecting. It's quite yacht-y actually in a boogie/blues/JJ Cale/Beach Boys way. Tracks like Rock 'n Me and Mercury Blues are pretty lightweight. Perhaps this is more road rock, Californian driving music, with the yacht in tow.
I'm gonna buy me a Mercury And cruise it up and down the road
CARLY SIMON
No Secrets is one of those classic famous early '70s female singer songwriters' albums like Tapestry or Blue. It has that West Coast Laurel Canyon vibe but was actually recorded in London (where the iconic cover photo was shot).
It's pretty good. Not particularly surprising or unusual but good at what it does. Easy listening and melodic, what's not to like really? I even like the very very famous You're So Vain. The subject of that song has been debated for years and is rumoured to have been Warren Beatty or Mick Jagger (who guested on the album - the two oddly look very similar, Jagger and Simon). In truth Simon has never publicly confirmed the identity of the subject matter suggesting it was written with several people in mind.
