» Listings for 2024

1. 2023/4 Albums Thing 249 - Eat “Epicure”

   Posted on 9:50am Saturday 6th Jan 2024

   Finally I managed to snag myself a copy of Eat’s magnificent second, and sadly final, LP on vinyl for a price that didn’t look something like a mortgage installment ! 

   Sometime between the release of “Sell Me A God” (https://www.whiterabbitrecords.co.uk/blog/read_204118/2023-albums-thing-127-eat-sell-me-a-god.html) in October 1989 and the end of 1990 relations between various members of the band (Singer Ange Dolittle, Bass player Tim Sewell and Drummer Pete Howard on one side and the two guitarists, brothers Paul and Max Noble on the other) got so fractious that the Noble’s departed and Eat were in limbo during 1991 and 1992, although my diaries tell me they were gigging again by mid-92. To do that means that new guitar players Jem Moorshead and Max Lavilla were onboard by then.

   As two fairly important members of the band had changed Eat’s sound necessarily changed with them. “Sell Me A God”s groovy swamp blues became “Epicure”s groovy pop-psych. When you have a rhythm section as tough and tight as Sewell and Howard groovy comes as standard.

   For his performance on opening song “Bellytown” alone Peter Howard should be being hailed daily as one of the greatest drummers this little island of ours has ever produced. What he does sounding effortless while driving the whole band along and being groovy as f*ck, all at the same time. Pete has found his way into my collection with Eat, Vent 414 and latterly The Wonder Stuff and Miles Hunt’s most recent albums (sorry mate your tenure with The Clash ain't for me). It’s never less than thrilling to hear him play. Pete is right up there in my affections with Martin Gilks, The Groove Controller, as two of the best I’ve ever had the pleasure to know and work with.

   Tim Sewell steps up to the front line on “Fecund” with a bass line that carries the whole song and has you wondering how his right hand didn’t cramp up and fall off playing like that. Ange Dolittle’s voice is imperious throughout, he really was one of the best singers and frontmen I’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering, and still is. Jem and Max add a whole different dynamic to the songs on this album but when I saw Eat live were equally able to play the “Sell Me A God” songs with all the swamp that was required.

   “Golden Egg”, “First Time Love Song”, “Tranquilliser” and the closing “Epicure” are all majestic songs, this album is full of them. It’s one of those where I am still, 30 years after the fact, flabbergasted that this record isn’t held up as an absolute gem and lauded over like some a few years later have been (the Emperor’s new clothes of “OK Computer” and “Screamadelica” for instance). Eat (to my thinking) were one of the great bands of the early 1990’s and the fact the likes of they and Jellyfish disappeared in the face the slop now known as “Britpop” is a real indictment on the “great” record buying public…Eat shoulda been massive.

   Bellytown - https://youtu.be/qplUHGgwACE?si=Consl0lfNSkWQlSX

2. 2023/4 Albums Thing 248 - Various Artists “Eddie Piller Presents British Mod Sounds Volume 2 (The Freakbeat & Psych Years)”

   Posted on 9:40am Friday 5th Jan 2024

   Mr Piller’s 2nd Volume of “Mod Sounds” from the Sixties. I don’t own the first volume as, after reading the track list, and with all due deference to Eddie and his impeccable Mod credentials, it struck me as a collection of stuff that someone looking back from the 2020's imagines as Mod sounds of the period rather than it being what London’s 60’s Mods we’re actually listening to back then (I’m pretty damned certain there was no Tom Jones, David Bowie, The Hollies, Dusty Springfield or Manfred Mann getting spun by DJ Guy Stevens at the Scene Club in Ham Yard). Now I understand that when you are compiling huge collections like this you can't get everything you want and have to fill the gaps, but still I gave Volume 1 a miss.

   Eddie Piller is a broadcaster, DJ, compilation compiler and the head honcho at Acid Jazz Records. As I said earlier his Mod credentials are impeccable (his Mom ran the Small Faces Fanclub !) so I expected better of Volume 1 but thankfully he redeemed himself with this one. We all know what is meant by Psych, right ? But Freakbeat is a somewhat more esoteric genre to nail down, we talked about it a little back in July when we were looking at Les Fleur De Lys (https://www.whiterabbitrecords.co.uk/blog/read_204279/2023-albums-thing-140-fleur-de-lys-circles-the-ultimate-fleur-de-lys.html). It’s a term coined in the 1980’s to describe records made by exclusively British (I think I’m right there, I can’t think of any US records described as Freakbeat) Beat combos who had discovered the fuzz pedal and were transitioning between R&B rooted beat music and Pysychedelia/Prog between 1965 and 1967. A perfect example of Freakbeat would be Les Fleur De Lys “Mud In Your Eye” which appears on this comp and you can listen to at that link just a couple of sentences back.

   This is a huge 91 track collection across 6 LP’s pressed on (deep) Purple vinyl with an extensive booklet filled with notes and pictures (of record sleeves and labels mostly which I find fascinating). I do own many of the tracks included already on CD box sets like “Nuggets” and “Acid Drops, Spacedust And Flying Saucers” but the chance to get some of these on (purple) vinyl was too tempting to resist. Of the Psych tracks some to look out for would be Dantalion’s Chariot “Madman Running Through The Fields” (featuring a pre-Police Andy Summers), Kaleidoscope “Flight From Ashiya” and “Rainbow Chaser” by Nirvana (no, not them !).

   If you’re looking for further examples of Freakbeat then look no further than Wimple Winch and the raucous “Save My Soul” 7” copies of which start at around £1000 theses days, Tintern Abbey’s “Vacuum Cleaner” (the B-side of their only single whose A-side was titled “Beeside”), the John Peel endorsed Misunderstood and their “Children Of The Sun”, The Mickey Finn’s rollicking “Garden Of My Mind” and the Apostolic Intervention with “Tell Me (Have You Ever Seen Me)” including a not at all disguised Steve Marriott on backing vocals.

   The songs by The Action, with the superb “In My Dream”, Timebox and “Gone Is The Sad Man” plus The Move with “Disturbance” are all great 60’s pop songs with a sprinkle of the flower power that was heading this way. Times were changing, music was changing and it’s all charted in these songs. It’s been said that you can chart the changes in British music by which drugs were popular at the time and the amphetamine rush of the Mod days is definitely ceding ground to the psychedelics of the later 60’s and you can hear it in these records. 

   There are things here you’ll all know too, The Who “I Can See For Miles”, Keith West “Excerpt From A Teenage Opera” and Staus Quo “Pictures Of Matchstick Men”. There are bands here containing names we’ll get to know better in a few years time, we’ve already mentioned Dantalion’s Chariot, John’s Children “Midsummer Night Scene” features the unmistakable vocal stylings of Marc Bolan, Sam Gopal (formerly Sam Gopal’s Dream) had a singer name of Ian Willis aka Ian Fraser Kilmister who became better known as Lemmy when he joined Hawkwind, Tomorrow’s guitarist Steve Howe would go on to find fame with Yes, the guitarist in The Birds was one Ronnie Wood, The Idle Race was Jeff Lynne’s home before he skipped across town to join The Move and we have a solo Alex Harvey before he hooked up with his Sensational band. I’m sure there are others. 

   It’s a huge collection, beautifully compiled and presented marking a changing time in 60’s music. Good work Mr. Piller. 

   Wimple Winch “Save My Soul” - https://youtu.be/gi9GXxVDJQg?si=RwLQrTxi11xBTn6T

   The Action “In My Dream” - https://youtu.be/pFm2wyGQWgY?si=0_a37MDZhI_h8AUZ

3. 2023/4 Albums Thing 247 - “Mr. Joe Jackson Presents Max Champion In What A Racket!”

   Posted on 9:30am Thursday 4th Jan 2024

   Now here’s something different. Released in November 2023, the claim is that these are songs written in the late 19th and early 20th century by Music Hall artiste Max Champion. Max’s burgeoning career was cut short by the First World War, and his songs faded into obscurity. That is (it is claimed), until 2014, when Max Champion sheet music started to surface, first in Malta, then in England, and, intriguingly, in Belgium, where Max probably met his end in the trenches. By 2019 enough songs had been found for Joe Jackson to take it upon himself to record these “lost” Max Champion songs for posterity which is how we come to have this album. Jackson said of the songs “These were wonderful songs in their time, but they're surprisingly modern, too. Sometimes it's almost as if Max is speaking, from his London of the early 20th century, directly to us in the early 21st.”…wink-wink…

   Now then, track 5 on side 2 is entitled “Health And Safety” and I can’t imagine that a songwriter whose career was cut short before the start of the 1920’s was writing odes to health and safety rules back then, we’re there any? Which kinda puts the kibosh on the idea that these are period songs…or does it ?

   Whatever the authenticity questions, Mr. Jackson has conjured Max Champion to existence and has written him a pretty convincing set of early 20th century music hall tunes, from songs about how much he hates participating in sports to the maudlin tearjerker about his dear old Mum and ribald ditties jam packed with double entendres (a “French” phrase which hasn’t been commonly used in France for centuries BTW). The only thing I can liken it to is Tommy Steele belting out “ Flash Bang Wallop What A Picture” in the musical “Half A Sixpence”.

   If you’re expecting “Is She Really Going Out With Him” or “ Steppin’ Out” then forget it, that Joe Jackson ain’t here. The cockernee accent is turned up to 11 (which is weird as he’s from Portsmouth) and if you were played this without being told who was singing I’m pretty sure Joe’s name wouldn’t even cross your mind. 

   The Sporting Life - https://youtu.be/5WGQjNXxDT4?si=AGjnxpo1YhbDoHa8

   WHAT A RACKET! - The Documentary - https://youtu.be/sLN9OehqnrY