CURVED AIR

mandrake wrote: In fact, I recall Record Collector looking into this very issue a while back and I think the VERY first Picture Disc was a collection of speeches from.....no lessa folk that ADOLF HITLER himself - dated from the late thirties I think. It wasn't in a krautrock stylee I bet!!!

 

Curved Air are a truly Great Band though - Second LP is amazing. Does anyone have the Sonja Kristina solo Lp - something about Acid Folk - "here Come the Acid Folk" or something like that - I believe its meant to be a forgotten folk-prog classic (or Acid-Folk)

Hi I've been able to complete a comprehensive research of CA and Sonja and I can now answer the above question...

The name of Sonja's solo album is called "Songs of the Acid Folk" check out here website

www.sonjakristina.com for more details

 

There does exist a black vinyl edition of the first CA LP - I have it - on Green Warner Bros. label K56004. I think this is a pressing contemporary with the pic disc (i.e 70')- the green WB label would suggest it is. I think they moved from Orange in 69' or 70' onto green for a couple of years. They moved to the "tree-lined avenue" label in 73 I think, just in time for The Exorcist soundtrack!!!!

Saturnalia's "Magical Love" was only a pic disc (apart from test pressing on black vinyl - booked at 70) - the original came with a booklet - and is booked at 100 with the book - and the repress on pic disc is from 73 and is the one I have - its quite common this pressing and you see it around for £10-20 - at least up-north you do - I don't know about inflated London prices!) - however the cat no is the same - so there is no way of knwing whether you have a 71 original without the book or a 73' pressing.  Or does anyone know if there were slight design differences. - its a surprisingly good early proggy LP Magical Love - a true cult obscurity.

Curved Air are a truly Great Band though - Second LP is amazing. Does anyone have the Sonja Kristina solo Lp - something about Acid Folk - "here Come the Acid Folk" or something like that - I believe its meant to be a forgotten folk-prog classic (or Acid-Folk)

Edited by mandrake

Dick Heath wrote: I think CA only had their's at the centre of the LP, not into the microgrooves.

Dick,

Curved Air's definately covered the entire record, not just the centre portion. The later standard black versions of the LP had actual size (12") pictures of the front and back of the LP on the cardboard sleeve. The printing on the record made spotting the track bands difficult, especially on side two which was predominantly white. I'm not sure how the pictures were applied to the vinyl, but after repeated playing they started to wear off!

Curved Air's Second LP is their best in my opinion - "Piece of Mind" alone stands up with anything from the 'accepted' greats.

Not sure if Saturnalia's Magical Love LP picture disc preceeds Curved Air's First( both 71' I think) BUT its a moot point as picture disc's although certainly not numerous have been going since the mid-30s!!!

In fact, I recall Record Collector looking into this very issue a while back and I think the VERY first Picture Disc was a collection of speeches from.....no lessa folk that ADOLF HITLER himself - dated from the late thirties I think. It wasn't in a krautrock stylee I bet!!!

Dick Heath - can you tell us anymore on this issue????? What was the first 'Rock' Piccy Disc????

Any Idea????

I was lucky enough to catch a Curved Air reunion show in London back in 1990 (or thereabouts), with Ozrics offshoot Noden's Ictus as support. It was a fantastic show - I've always liked their first three albums, though their later work lost the edge a bit - I mostly preferred Daryl Way's contributions. Wolf are worth checking out, not premier league prog but good first division material, particularly their instrumentals.

Try their CD, Live for a very good cross section of their music played by the original line-up:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000000136/qid=1109 759139/sr=1-14/ref=sr_1_2_14/026-4013407-5278830

I heard the album version of It Happened Tonight on a jukebox in the ealry 80's (the jukebox played 45rpm singles in those day), which eventually inspired me to go find this CD (Decca Deram released back in the late 80's - but it seems Repertoise now distribute).

Darryl Way formed Wolf (sample track on  Legend Of A Mind sampler issued by Decca 3 years ago). Involved with a electric violin concerto and Julian Lloyd-Webber in the 80's

Francis Monkman (who does a fabulous 30 sec segment from A Rainbow In Curved Air in the tune Propositions on Live), moved to Sky lead by classical guitarist John Williams, via a brief stop-off with Phil Manzanera's 801  (you must check out 801 Live).

Eddie Jobson forced CA to hear him do an audition at  the infamous Redcar Bowl (near Middlesbrough) when Way left, and they hired him on the spot - so the legend goes.

Stewart Copeland played drums in the last edition of CA and moved on to Police. [Off at a tangent:  Andy Summers had played with Soft Machine on one of those Hendrix package tours of the USA. Sting, heavily influenced by Jack Bruce, had been playing jazz rock in Newcastle before moving south and eventually forming Police.]

And Sonja is still going.................

 

i have air cut: powerful sound, razor guitars, beautiful piano and violin  played by......

EDWIN JOBSON

''Air conditioning''album.

mirco wrote: I have one recopilation album. The most remarkable song on it is Vivaldi, beautifully played by Eddie Jobson. I don't listen much at the rest of it, so I can't tell.

I made a mistake: although Jobson joins CA at some point, te song Vivaldi isn't played by him 'couse it was recorded on the first album. The song is great, anyway.