THE METRONOMICAL SOCIETY

Even though much of this material has been available in the trading community for some time, this is a must for any EGG fan. Here you have upgraded quality (pitch-corrected, probably from original or low gen source tapes) of BBC sessions and live gig recordings of classic songs from all three Egg studio albums, including most of the epic Long Piece #3 from The Polite Force. The real bonus is an 18 page booklet that has previously unseen photos and detailed recollections from each band member about band history, gigs, and of course all those glorious and bizarre Egg songs. You can read, as I did, with great amusement what Aaron Copland said about 'The Polite Force'. That he even heard the record and had anything to say about it at all is quite amazing I think. While its interesting to note that the band (most of the time) played live exactly what we all know from the recorded arrangements, they did throw in just enough 'off-roading' activity to show us they were indeed quite human, something that I for one doubted when I was listening to the album versions of this stuff back in the early 70s. This new disc of archive recordings shows that Egg did play with metronomic precision but also with great imagination, humour, and passion. They could and did kick some ass. And, on occasion, with no little amount of humour, as Mont Campbell's mock American-accent narrative demonstrates on the spoken intro for There's No Business Like Show Business. Yes, right along with Long Piece #3. Since there's plenty more good archival material out there that didn't make this compilation, one can only hope that there will be a Vol. 2. Many of us would like to sit front & center at a live gig and be transported back to 1971 for a Visit to Newport Hospital.