ALL OVER THE SHOW

The correct line up is :

Steffe Sharpstrings - Guitar/Vox Bernie Elliott - Slide Guitar/Sabre Rob Bougie - drums Gav Da Blitz - synths/EMS Keef Da Bass - Nuclearbass/vox

Recorded during the August 1979 Free Tour at several different venues, this set captures Here & Now and their punkiest and most energetic stage, thanks in large to Rob Bougies great drumming. Also of note here is Bernie Eillotts brief appearace on slide guitar with the band, before disappearing into the marshes of the fens. This slide adds a great dimension to the sound and its a shame there was no full studio album with this line up.

The set kicks off with the band "baking hot" and cracking straight into "Think For Yourself", a fast paced number with repeating synth and slide lines drawing you straight in from the off.

Then its into "Open Door" with its thunderous bass line and some great effects laden lead from Steffe who proclaims "an open door, a flaming love - shining like a beacon".

The only familiar number here is "70's Youth" from the Give & Take album, which remains prteyy true to the studio version.

"Surgeons Knife" rounds off side one and captures Here & Now's finest moment on vinyl, all 11.22 minutes of it, which incidentally later found its way into Ozrics set at Stonehenge a few years later in 1984. The synth driven track with a backbeat is pretty straight forward trippy space punk up to about 5 minutes in. The is when the best jamming aspects of the band come to the fore as the song breaks down into some sublime guitar and ems bubbles which slowly build to a crescendo as Keef and Rob start a great simple rhythm that continue interspersed with some amazing lead work from Steffe, simply stunning.

Side 2 bring things back again with "Little Things", a punky back beat affair with Keefy and Steffe ranting about little things that annoy him, featuring some tasy Synths from Da Blitz - sound very 70's Roxy Music in parts.

"Only Way" builds slowly from a melodic guitar line with gentle tribal tom tom work over the top - the mellowest track on the album.

A typical Jam follows built on a powerful punky bass line with phased guitar and all over the place drumming from Bougie - typical of the jams that later appeared on the Off The Cuff release from the same year.

The album rounds off nicely with "End of the Beginning" a simple two chord bash with loads of spcey guitar and synths and he crowd hanging for more.

This album is hard to categorize as it is an almost radical departure from the previous efforts, "Give & Take" and "What You See Is What You Are" and the biggest surprise upon purchasing the album was the lack of familiarity with all but one of the songs - not exactly typical for a live release. Apart from "70's Youth" the only other track to see a studio release was "End of the Beginining", which is a crying shame is this was such an energetic and creative line up that did many gigs during the short time it was together. After 1979, these songs virtually never showed up in their live sets, although Open Door made a brief appearance in the early 90's set. Shortly after this release, Bernie, Steffe and Rob jumped ship whilst Keef and Gav moved away towards a more reaggae/dub/pop sound for their next effort " Stolen Moments" in 1981.

Fear not though (!), as Steffe is currently working on remastering "Off the Cuff" from this and other 1979 shows - all improvised and mindblowing - could be out in 2006 or 2007 - see Planet Gong site for details.

Ah the days when live music really was a gathering of like-minded souls determined to share their political frustrations and let it all hang out. What better soundtrack than Here and Now to the late 70's reaction against the new era of Thatcherdom, and anarchy as peace rather than the manufactured chaos of the Sex Pistols. Originally released in 1979 and newly reissued by Esoteric, it is a live album from 3 gigs on Here and Now's August 1979 tour. In those days they never charged admission to gigs, believing people should pay what they could afford, sometimes with amazing results according to the excllent and informative sleevenotes.

Their brand of `Floating Anarchy' was brought to a wider audience with a brief but brilliant dalliance with the Gong-meister Daevid Allen in 1977 before they took the ball and ran with it alone. This is a high energy live album very much in keeping with the new wave/punk spirit of the times. Songs about thinking for yourself, the crimes of the state against the individual are carried forth with gusto with the Hillage influenced guitar of Steffy Sharpstrings, and synth lines of Gavin Da Blitz to the fore, with spacy high energy jams their brand of dope rock found parallels with Steve Hillage's high energy approach to the end of the seventies' new found urgency.

With the band tight after "God knows how many tours of England" this is a reminder of just how central live music was to the cultural fabric of the UK at grass roots level a long way from the nightmares of corporate sponsorship. The music is direct, well played and the lyrics heartfelt. There's a sophistication beyond punk's 3 chords, a belief in self expression and communal living and search for a soloution to living in a country going through irrevocavable changes. It speaks of an alternative lifestyle of cheap dope, squat living, not having a television and helping each other through dark days by creating good times for yourself on a dole budget. It will of course be very nostalgic to those who were there living it, and really is a snapshot of the times. "It's the little things...like getting busted on the street" indeed.

This new issue comes with a bonus pair of 7" tracks, a studio version of stand out track `End Of The Beginning' and the obligatory studio jam `Choke A Koala'. Ozric Tentacles would make a career out of carrying on the bloodline here, while Here and Now would continue to have their ups and downs, but as Keith Missile says "it really did change the people inside the bubble,and that is priceless".

Progressive Punk!

Every now and then there's a thread in the forum about progressive punk, does such thing exist? and who's playing it? well I always give this album as one of the best and fitting examples. Here & Now must be one of the most interesting and intriguing bands I have come to know, while the band's core style, which is psychedelic/space rock, is always present, the overall shape of the music can be very different and change pretty drastically by each year of their playing, their persistence on evolving and changing is very admirable. 1977 saw them collaborating with Daevid Allen on the legendary Floating Anarchy album and releasing their debut album Give & Take in the following year. Their style was mainly a mix between Daevid Allen's Gong and more long psychedelic improvisations with tasty synths and guitar playing, reminding me of how Ozric Tentacles would have sound if they had been recording in the 70's, this style is captured by many live albums released from that year. 1979 saw the band taking in pure punk and reggae influences while still keeping their space rock trademark, this can be seen in their singles released that year "Dog In Hell" and "End Of The Beginning". "All Over The Show" is one of the very few striking documents of their punkish influences from that period.

Their sound is not as slick and smooth like before but very distorted, powerful, raw and heavy (this is also due to the raw sound quality of the recording itself), I guess some would not appreciate how this recording sounds, but I myself have grown to like it, there are shows recorded when you can't hear the guitars or the vocals, but here the problem is that you can hear everyone, too much!! so the outcome is a little chaotic. The songs have taken a turn and now are relatively short, gone are the long improvisations (almost) and in comes very powerful outbursts of punkish space rock. Because of not releasing any material except for one album and two singles, like always is the case with Here & Now concerts, most of the show contains material that was never recorded or was improvised, only two songs were released before. The album starts with a bang, "Think For Yourself" is like beginning from the middle of the song, with everyone plus vocals bursting out from the speakers uncontrollably, it's a hard rocking punk song featuring a second guitarist playing with a slide, a very good addition actually, the slide guitar and synth really prevents from this song being too straight forward. "Open Door" is another exploding punk rocker with some ass biting guitars both from Bernie Elliott and Ol' Steffie. "70's Youth" is the only song appearing from their debut, and was massively overahauled, this rendition is a more ballsy short version of that trippy song. "Surgeon's Knife" is I guess the main piece here and of course the longest, clocking at over 11 minutes, it can single handedly sum up this show. The first half contains a relentless synth line over the pounding rhythm and it is quite straight forward but nice, it then calms down and changes to the best moment on this album I guess, a spacey long improvisation which evokes the first version of the band. This part really cooks with tasty synths from Da Blitz and some excellent guitars from Steffy, later on it picks up and becomes more hard rocking, Damn I like this one! The flip side is just a little progier, "Only Way" is a beautiful atmospheric and calm tune with excellent singing, which gives you a nice break from the pounding rhythms. The simply titled "Jam" is no more than an old fashioned powerful and upbeat jam, more hard rocking than spacey with very nice solos as expected from them. Very enjoyable.

I wouldn't recommend this album to anyone who's looking for a full on prog rock album, since the punk influences kinda keep it closer to the ground, but still I believe after a few spins the progressive features are starting to become clearer, because they are there. But I think any fan of the band might find this document very interesting in the overall evolvement of the band. 3.5 stars really but not enough to be rounded up to 4.