HARD N' HORNY

Before WIGWAM enter the land of the progressive they spent a few songs more in the Psychedelic vein with blues rock influences in many ways not unlike PINK FLOYD. Finland's WIGWAM were an original act from the start lead by Britan's Jim Pembroke's song writing and Jukka Gustavson's organ grinds and compositions. "Hard 'N' Horny" plays actually like 2 separate albums or in this case as 2 distinct sides. The album's first side clearly belongs to Gustavson (credited will all side one song penmanship) with his prog-blues organ drenched pieces and clever song writing drawing on genres of psych/jazz/avant art rock. In many ways I hear strong allusion to PROCOL HARUM with perhaps more of a psych flavour. In total contrast the second half of this album rests in the hands of Jim Pembroke (again all songs credit on side 2 to Pembroke) in a sadly forgotten, side-long, conceptual psychedelic masterpiece about some middle aged fellow named Henry. How this album has not been on more prog/psych rock website I'll never know at it is pure magic and one of my personal favourite WIGWAM albums.

(first in a series of seven)

I will round off the rating to the upper unit for this album. Wigwam is one of the most important Finnish prog group historically speaking along with Helsinki's crosstown friendly rivals Tasavalan Presidentii. Like T P , Wigwam developped a very wide musical scope , almost as to show that they could do almost every style of music. I think that the bond between T P and Wigwam was mostly due to Londoner Jim Pembroke. Pembroke along with drummer Osterberg are the mainstays throughout all of Wigwam albums.

As you can read in other review the parting of the writing credits on two side shows the personnal musical difference between Pembroke (Acoustical and guitary) and Gustavson(definitely bluesy-jazz). There is some Procol influences but I think mostly of early Traffic - most notably the track Mr Fantasy both in the vocal delivery and in soulful KB lines (Winwood was very Motown influenced). The proghead will find it confusing to find Folk , jazzy-bluesy-rock , experimental (Gustavson's compsitions) all on one album but pasted on each other clumsily with more country music of Pembroke (the Band or Dylan-style). The suite on the second side , describing Harry's adventures and misgivings could've been a major work if Gustavson and Pembroke were to find a middle ground (something that they will never really manage while they were both in Wigwam) even though you can hear them collaborating in each other's composition) The suite is clumsy but endearing if listened to with complacency. Same can be said of the first side. Bassist Hulsdon will find himself ousted by much superior bassist Pohjola but will remain friendly with Pembroke (co-writing some lyrics) and will be responsible for the Sleeve artwork of two albums after Gustavson and Pohjola left.

Somehow a very naive but worthy and enjoyable first effort.

This album was included in the double album compilation which introduced me to the music of WIGWAM, and therefore I probably prefer the band's early material featuring JUKKA GUSTAVSON from their later albums, which were commercially more successful. Non-Finnish speaking audience may find the few songs sung in Finnish irritating, but the instrumental "Pidän sinusta" ("I Like You"), and the English sung material might make this album worth of giving a listen. JIM PEMBROKE's "Henry's..." filling the whole B-side of the LP is very good, and this proto prog epic which resembles PROCOL HARUM's "In Held Twas I" is split to nine separate tracks on the CD.

If you collect vinyl seriously, you may wish to try hunt down the first pressings of "Hard'n'Horny", numbered only in 400 of copies (surviving number may be lesser today?). Their record company Love Records didn't have enough money to press the album jackets, as all their available money went to the underestimated studio recording fees of this album! As the solution, band members had to draw personally all the needed 400 covers on freehand. They are not very neat, but at least each copy unique. It would be a nice a project to make a website, presenting pictures of verified copies of these different covers.

I remember to have seen a Wigwam album in a shop in my country in the early 70s. For what i remember of the cover art it might have been Nuclear Nightclub, but the fact that a Finnish band was selling albums in Italy means that their music was able to cross their country's borders. I have rediscovered them while looking for Pekka Pohjola stuff, and even if he's not in this lineup I've become curious about this band.

I don't understand what's the rationale about giving a title to something with a duration of 8 seconds, so let's forget it.

This debut is jazzy. "Pidän Sinusta" with its bass and organ base has a Canterbury feeling. I think to Caravan mainly. There's a similar instrumental on Waterloo Lily.

The organ of "En Aio Paeta", but all the song effectively, is on the same way of Procol Harum. I think that the cold athmospheres of songs like A Salty Dog fit well with a Finnish band.

The things start to be different with the highly experimental "Neron Muistolle; Hyvää Yöt". Free jazz piano, drums and contrabass with two persons having a dialogue in Finnish. It's where jazz meets psychedelia. Just a bit less eclectic than Ron Geesin.

Back to Procol Harum with organ, bass and choir on "Guardian Angel/The Future", the first song with lyrics in English. Respect to the British band the vocalist has a voice similar to Roger Chapman so the result is a nice but very dated psychedelic mix.

"No Pens, El Karsinoit" is a jazz piece with a bit of rock/blues influences. Surely one of the best things of this album even if not the most original, either with the clavinet in the final.

"Henry's...Mountain Range Or Thereabouts" starts over the last clavinet notes of the previous song. A contrabass and various percussions put the listener back to the dark and acid world of cold jazz until the song turns to folky. I hear echoes of Pentangle as the melody is folky, but it's the contrabass and the rhythmic section in general that sounds like Terry Cox and co. just more acid.

"Geographical And Astronomical Mistakes" sounds more beatlesian, instead. since the previous track we have just a single "epic" that for some reason is split into different tracks instead of being a single track logically divided in parts. This is particularily bad when you copy it on an mp3 reader.

"Highway Code" is a song of the end of the 60s, so still in the style of Procol Harum or Family. Whoever like this genre will like it. Since now it's a sequel of 2 minutes short songs.

"...Ghastly And Diabolical Mistakes" is beatlesian with a bit of jazz in the piano solo; " ...Cancelled Holiday Planes" is deep in the 60s (Moody Blues), as well as " ...Concentration Camp Brochure" (nice title) and "...Ears, Eyes, Girlfriends And Feet", its follow-ups.

"...Hard And Horny All-Niter" seems coming from Sgt Peppers, as the closer " ...Milk Round In The Morning".

In the end is an interesting document of its age, made more interesting by the fact that the band is not British, but surely it's not essential.

Good enough, anyway.

The Finnish band WIGWAM was formed in 1968 by drummer Ronnie Österberg after his split from the band Blues Section. Immediately he recruited another member Jim Pembroke (a Brit) from the same band and formed a new musical entity that took their name from the famous Native American domed dwelling. The two would be the only constant members for the band's entire first formation from 1968 to 1980. WIGWAM has become famous in jazz-fusion circles for their albums with the adroit bassist Pekka Pohjola on board for his short stint of three albums ("Tombstone Valentine", "Fairyport", "Being") but don't expect any of that on their debut release HARD N' HORNY which sounds more like an album title that would grace an 80s glam metal band. This is a unique beast in the band's discography which displays an album's worth of well-crafted psychedelic and art rock tracks sung in both English and their native Finnish. The album was released in 1969 both with a bland yellowed piece of paper sleeve with the band name and album title sloppily scribbled with an giant exclamation point as well as with the much more appropriate and beautiful crimson based cover with a beautiful maiden depicted in an undefiled pose.

HARD N' HORNY is a testament to just how brilliant the band was before Pekka Pohjola joined the group and quite the surprise for the listener as one track after another is top notch late 60s psychedelic pop rock that delivers strong hooks, heavy doses of groovy freakiness and stellar musical and vocal performances. In fact, at this point WIGWAM was certainly Finland's answer to The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper" days excellently heard on the second side of the album that incorporates a stream of tracks that connect musically and lyrically beginning with "Henry's? Mountain Range Or Thereabouts." The album is a bit strange and not exactly uniform in theme although quite consistent in quality. It begins with the Finnish lyric tracks in a clearly psychedelic and jam band mode with a lazy and chilled bass and drum groove with some swinging 60s organ runs and becomes trapper on the next couple of tracks reminding me a bit of Procol Harum only with a different vocal delivery which in my favorite Finno-Ugric language makes it sound even trippier as the Finnish language has a strange rhythmic flow i'm not accustomed to.

The fourth track " Neron Muistolle; Hyvää Yötä" is the peak of the trippiness on the album as it contains a spoken dialogue of some sort between Marjoritta Gustavson and Jukka Gustavson in Finnish while strange piano rolls create a highly surreal background along with accompanying guitar squeals and slides. As strange as this track is, it does display the strong piano playing skills of Jukka Gustavson as the backbone of the song structures on board. The next few tracks are well-crafted psychedelic pop rock tunes that offer strong melodies, pseudo-classical keyboard parts and mid tempo 60s feeling songwriting with slight touches of progressive behavior meaning a few time sig changes here and there and some slight syncopation and jazzy type of structures. Beginning with "Henry's? Mountain Range Or Thereabouts" it begins to feel like a totally different album which takes on a Beatelesque "Sgt Pepper's" flair although more rooted in a psychedelic Pink Floydian type of space rock. The lyrics are surprisingly very good and one could hardly detect that these guys were Finnish although that may have something to do with Jim Pembroke being an English speaker from the UK. The remainder of the album goes through a few short movements that allow the band to exercise their psychedelic and pop hook chops with slight jazz and prog influences.

I was quite taken back by this debut as it is completely different from what came after and more often than not debut releases by 70s prog bands that debuted in the 60s are steeped in amateurism and banality but WIGWAM hits the ground running having developed a highly satisfying musical interactive experience that shows off their brilliant Finnish take on the British psychedelic and pop rock of the latter half of the 60s. The mix of the Finnish and British influences from the band members blends quite well together and it's no surprise that with the magical ingredient of Pekka Pohjola jumping on board that the band would go on to become one of Finland's greatest prog exports. I find this an excellent listen from beginning to end which more than holds up on repeated listens although it does feel like it is two different EPs strewn together as each half of the album is distinct from the other. Despite the album being slightly disjointed in theme and structure along with a rather misfitting title, i find HARD N' HORNY to be a brilliantly constructed album that with a little help from a musical director in a more connected country could have propelled these guys into the international pop rock scene. That was not to be but on this one we have one of those glimpses of what could have been.