Prog Britannia - Album Reviews

Thanks! I'll review Deep Feeling's album in my next batch of reviews.

4,500 vinyl albums! That's very impressive. I have around 2,600 CD's and around 160 of those are prog. Here's a link to my entire Prog-Rock CD collection which I've just updated to include the prog CD's I bought recently:-

 

Probably one of the most obscure and rarest of the Spiral Vertigo releases..

Three Parts to my Soul (1971)

Mr Fox; a Folk rock outfit from Yorkshire formed around Husband and wife duo of Bob & Carole Pegg plus a backing band of excellent musicians.. not quite as dark as Comus but dirtier and grittier than Fairport or Steeleye and subsequently shunned by the folk and rock world for being too much of both and not enough of either (if that makes sense). Bob Pegg's lps 'Shipbuilder' and 'Ancient Maps' are worth a listen..

Nirvana's second album with the VERY long title is the only Nirvana CD I have in my collection and I bought it mainly for the song "Rainbow Chaser". I prefer the second album to the first album too.

 

Album Review #101:- NIRVANA (U.K) were around long before the Seattle grunge rockers of the same name first emerged onto the music scene in the late 1980's. A dispute over the use of the name "Nirvana", led to the American band settling out of court in the early 1990's. The British Nirvana were formed in swinging London back in 1965. Their first album of Proto-Prog "The Story of Simon Simopath" was released in 1967, and their second album - released in 1968 - deserves a place in the annals of rock history for having probably the longest album title of all time. Here it is in its entirety:- "The Existence of Chance Is Everything and Nothing Whilst the Greatest Achievement Is the Living of Life and So Say ALL OF US". Wow! That's quite a mouthful! The long- winded album title is not easy to remember at the best of times, so for the sake of brevity, the title is usually shortened to "All of Us". The album contained Nirvana's best-known song: "Rainbow Chaser". Three further albums followed:- "To Markus III (Aka: Black Flower)" (1969), "Local Anaesthetic" (1971) and "Songs of Love and Praise" (1972). Nirvana were led by Patrick Campbell-Lyons's, who released his first solo album "Me and My Friend" in 1973. Nirvana had one more album up their sleeve with the release of "Orange and Blue" in 1996, a collection of unreleased material from their earlier years. It's time now to delve into the mysterious world of Simon Simopath and find out what's the story, morning glory.

We're taking off and flying on the "Wings of Love" for our opening number. This delightful and unashamedly twee-sounding Pop tune could only have come from England in the late-1960's. The story concerns our hero schoolboy, Simon Simopath, who dreams of sprouting wings so he can fly away - just like Peter Pan - and escape being bullied at school. He later suffers a mental breakdown in adulthood and ends up in a lunatic asylum, but escapes after getting aboard a rocket and meeting a centaur and a goddess who take care of him in a place called Pentecost Hotel, where they presumably live happily ever after in a state of heavenly bliss and spiritual Nirvana. Yes, the Story of Simon Simopath really IS that wacky, and yes, you've guessed it, it's a proggy concept album before prog-rock or concept albums had even been invented. Simon Simopath is just a lonely boy at heart, and "Lonely Boy" is the title of the second song where all he wants to do is cry. The mournful lyrics might tell a sad tale, but the music is bright and uplifting as it romps merrily along on a wave of joyous hope and exuberance. There's a rousing chorus too in this lively Pop song, so it's not all doom and gloom, despite the lyrics. There's a healthy burst of optimism on the way with "We Can Help You", a bright and sparkling burst of golden Sunshine Pop which sounds as quaint and quintessentially English as a thatched cottage in the Cotswolds, or a game of croquet served with tea and crumpets on an English summer lawn. We have lift-off, because next up is the bizarrely-titled "Satellite Jockey", the most commercially appealing song on the album, which could potentially have gone into orbit and risen up into the Top 10 of the Hit Parade, back in the days when the chart placings still mattered to Pop pickers. Space: the final frontier. We're "In the Courtyard of the Stars" now for this out-of-this-world 1960's sci-fi Pop hokum. It's Proto-Prog, Jim, but not as we know it. This is a lovely jazzy Pop tune that's light years away from classic 1970's Prog-Rock.

Our silly but charming story continues with "You Are Just the One", another pleasant Psych-Pop diversion in an album full of sparkling good Pop tunes, and there's a gorgeous Baroque Pop song on the way with "Pentecost Hotel", a magnificently ornate grand hotel featuring a lush string symphony. We're getting all romantic now with "I Never Had a Dream Like This Before", a lilting piano ballad with rich orchestration, where Simon Simopath dreams of being carried away to distant parts of the universe, or failing that, watching the latest episode of Star Trek. Beam me up another great Pop song, Scotty! There's the sound of wedding bells in the air for "Take This Hand", as Simon Simopath prepares for his betrothal to his loved one, so it looks like we're headed for a happy ending to our story with this gentle Folk Pop refrain. There's a complete change of musical style for the final uplifting song "Nirvana", which sounds like a good old-fashioned knees-up in a pub. It's a Dixie-land-jazz-style number, featuring a honky-tonk piano and with the singer sounding in a merry and jubilant mood, which indeed he would be if he just got hitched to his romantic love interest. All's well that ends well in the weird and wonderful world of wacky 1960's concept albums.

This cheerfully zany slice of sixties sci-fi hokum is a Psych-Pop album that's in another universe altogether from Prog-Rock, and it's barely even Proto-Prog, but if you're in the mood for some jolly good English Pop tunes from the Beatles' era, then "The Story of Simon Simopath" might just be the album for you. The twee music is joyful and exhuberant with a bright message of hope for the future, but if you hope to attain a state of spiritual Nirvana from listening to this album, then it's best to look elsewhere - back to the future of the proggy 1970's perhaps.

The one and only Peggy's Leg album Grinilla was added to ProgArchives very recently, so I'm looking forward to hearing that one.

 

I'll add Curved Air's Phantasmagoria to my long list of albums to review, and by pure coincidence,  I used a word similar to that in my last review for The Ghost.

 

101. Nirvana

102. Darryl Way's Wolf

103. High Tide

104. May Blitz

105. Peggy's Leg (Irish)

106. Gilgamesh

107. Steel Mill

108. Budgie

109. Refugee

110. Brian Auger & Julie Driscoll

111. The Sallyangie

112. Demon Fuzz

113. Velvet Fogg

114. Tudor Lodge

115. Turning Point

116. Zzebra

117. String Driven Thing

118. Patto

119. Marsupilami

120. Writing on the Wall

The full YouTube album isn't currently available, so here's the stunning highlight of the album instead as a temporary substitute: "Season of the Witch"

 

 

Album Review #99:- PESKY GEE were a seven-piece Jazz-Rock band who first emerged from Leicester, England in the late 1960's. Their one and only self-titled 1969 album added an exclamation mark to the band-name. Pesky Gee didn't disappear from the music scene altogether after 1969 though, because they re-invented themselves as the scary Black Widow with their stunning and controversial debut "Sacrifice" in 1970, but that's another story for another album review.

We're off to foreign parts with the album opener "Another Country", which is apparently a cover version of a song by Demon Fuzz, another equally obscure English band. It's a stirring saxophonic Jazz-Rock refrain, very similar in style to some of the other British Jazz-infused rock bands of that era, such as Affinity, Audience, Mogul Thrash, Skin Alley, Tonton Macoute and many other obscure English bands of that ilk too numerous to mention. "Another Country" is a lively up-tempo opening number to set the optimistic mood, in what promises to be a solid Rock album of Jazzy tunes, some of which may be worthy of an exclamation mark! Who knows how Pesky Gee came up with the title of our next lively instrumental Jazzy number "Pigs Foots" (also known as "trotters"), but one presumes it's because it's groovy music you can *trot* along to and jump and jive along with. Anyway, you're unlikely to sit this one out because it's a real lively foot stomper, or a toe-tapper if you're reclining on the sofa and not in the mood to get up and dance. There are spooky goings-on for our third song "Season of the Witch", a moody and hauntingly-atmospheric, bedknobs and broomsticks witches brew that's just as scary as a hollowed-out candle-lit pumpkin on the night of Halloween. "Season of the Witch" represents an eight-minute-long eerie ghost train ride that's a "phantasmic" stunning highlight of the album. It's a nightmarish cover version of the well-known 1967 song by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity and it was also covered in magnificent style by the U.S. band Vanilla Fudge, who recorded their own inimitable and unforgettable version of the song in 1968. The splendid female vocalist Kay Garrett deserves a mention here too on this spooky Halloween song because this is her bright shining moment of glory in the spotlight. It's a devil of a great song too, worthy of at least two exclamation marks!! It's time to take a trip back in time to the Heartbreak Hotel now for "A Place of Heartbreak". It's a storm and thunder, all-out stratospheric rocker barrelling along at lightning speed, featuring some simply sublime harmonising from the whole septet of singers in glorious unison. This is fantastic!!!

Side Two opens with another stunning album highlight, "Where is My Mind", another great cover version of a Vanilla Fudge song. The song title sounds like a bad LSD trip, but the music is a tremendously rousing excursion which takes the listener on a soaring magic carpet ride back in time to the psychedelic sixties. In an album that's choc-a-bloc full to the rafters with great cover versions, the next "Poptastic!" classic is "Piece of My Heart", a fabulous cover of the well-known Janis Joplin and Dusty Springfield number. There's another lively Jazzy instrumental on the way with "Dharma for One", a sensational saxophonic blast from the past with the Hammond organist and pounding percussionist going hell for leather in an all-out sonic assault on the eardrums. It's Jazz, given a heavy infusion of Rock, in similar fashion to those other British Jazz-Rock greats, the Graham Bond Organisation and Ginger Baker's Air Force. There's no peace for the wicked, so they say, and there's no way you'll sleep through the next stormy breeze, "Peace of Mind". It's another sonic outburst of no-nonsense Jazz-Rock with attitude! EVERYONE will be familiar with the rip-roaring Easy Rider song to close the album, because it's one of the most famous Hard Rock songs of all time - Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild!" ..... so if you're in the mood for some "Smoke and lightning, Heavy metal thunder, then "Get your motor runnin', Head out on the highway", and if you're "Lookin' for adventure, Take whatever comes your way!"

This relentless non-stop artillery barrage of great cover versions of well-known songs is a real blast from the past worthy of four exclamation marks!!!! - or four stars ****

 

The album highlight and longest track: "Son of Moonshine"

 

 

Album Review #98:- BAKERLOO (previously known as The Bakerloo Blues Line) were a Proto-Prog fossil first discovered in Staffordshire, England in 1968. The band were a short-lived power trio of Blues-Rock musicians in similar style to the legendary Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Clapton/Baker/Bruce trio of Cream. Bakerloo's one and only self-titled album emerged like a progosaurus rex from the sleepy town of Tamworth in the heart of England in 1969. It's time now to head on down to the Bakerloo Line station and get onboard the tube-train, ready to begin our musical journey together.

The first stop on our musical tour is the curiously-titled "Big Bear Ffolly", a fairly typical heavy Blues-Rock excursion into the realms of Cream and other heavy British blues bands of the late-1960's era, so there are no real surprises in store here. The same goes for "Bring It On Home", a dirty-low-down, plodding bluesy harmonica number, that sounds a long way off the beaten track from the London Bakerloo Line. This bluesy Louisiana Swamp Rock sounds like it could have emerged straight out of the Missippippi Delta. We're not going anywhere with our next stop on the journey because we're "Drivin' Bachwards". That's no spelling mistake or typo error in the song title, because this is a Jazzy instrumental inspired by Mr. J.S. Bach no less, so you can expect to hear some very familiar-sounding classical motifs in this free-style jazzy jam session, demonstrating that Bakerloo have more diverse musical strings to their bow than just back-to-basics British blues. The fourth stop on our tour is "Last Blues", so it'll come as no surprise that this seven-minute-long piece is another (lower case) moody blues number. The music begins as a slow lament, but the band really crank up into high gear at the midway point for a full-blown psychedelic acid trip in true Jimi Hendrix style. Even more surprising is when the song returns to a sedate leisurely pace for the conclusion, so it's really a three-piece suite. Bakerloo are proving to be far more versatile than first appeared. The next song "Gang Bang" sounds rather rude, but it's really all about percussion, because the fired-up drummer bangs away manically on his kit here as if his pants are on fire, featuring an almost obligatory very long and very impressive drum solo in the style of legendary Cream drummer Ginger Baker.

There are just two tracks on Side Two and the first seven minute song "This Worried Feeling" is very reminiscent of the early blues of Eric Clapton and Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. It's a real raw and earthy, S--L--O--W plodding blues number, but don't let that put you off, because there's a truly awesome virtuoso performance to enjoy from the talented blue guitar player. If you don't know the song, If you can't put the words to the tune, Tell the rhyme from the reason, What should it matter, To the fool or the dreamer? ..... but that's another moody blue guitar song altogether. And so, we've arrived at the final terminus on the Bakerloo Line with the 15-minute-long "Son of Moonshine", a spirited wild ride along the illegal U.S. moonshine trail, featuring a manic outburst of heavy guitar riffing in an all-out psychedelic freak-out to take you to flower-power hippy heaven and back again.

If you're in the mood for some heavy British Blues-Rock, then get onboard the Bakerloo Line. It's going to be a wild ride, so fasten your seat belts and hold on tight to your dreams.