|
Even in an era of dazzling debuts
Television’s 1976 “Marquee Moon” album stands
out in the way that it was both of it’s time & somehow
timeless, still sounding fresh today. All the more so for it’s
remastering, additions & bonus booklet in the recent re release.
Back in an era when the weekly NME was essential
reading for any hip music fan & right at the crest of the punk
/ new wave with some incredibly vital & gifted journalists writing
obsessive amphetamine fuelled prose about the veritable explosion
of new bands from everywhere, Marquee Moon got a full page review,
almost unheard of even for the rockgods let alone a debut album,
written by Nick Kent at the peak of his Byronic powers .I had to
have it. But come to think of it I still didn’t really know
what it sounded like, more what it didn’t sound like .That
is 98% of the irrelevant dross then released by record companies.
I sniffed out a copy at a shop in Glenferrie Road,
it had apparently been locally released, along with the other disc
I bought that day Ian Dury’s “New Boots & Panties
“. Back on the tram I gazed at the wonderfully frozen moment
Robert Mapplethorpe cover shot of the band, these guys didn’t
even look like they belonged in a band together, but they somehow
looked guilty of some thought crime in the bleached out & sickly
neon. And it was on the Elektra Records label, no one was on Elektra
except for The Doors, Love & the Paul Butterfield Blues Band!
Cool.
Got home, put it on & it sounded so different from everything
else, instead of aggression it boasted passion, their order was
deliberately shaped into chaos rather the other way around, they
had control & surrender. Their music sounded like the perfect
soundtrack to a couple of stoned friends creeping back home in the
early morning hallucinatory New York light. There was the jittery
angularity to the guitar, the vocal came out in a speak /sing /
chicken squawk / white boy voice that sounded as if at times it
couldn’t get passed the singer’s lips, a kind of slurred
stutter that caught the nervousness at the heart of urban life.
The vocals & words came from movies, diaries, pieces of poetry,
other songs, junkie slurs, a sense of almost narcotosized semi coma
delirium hanging off every note. Guitarist singer songwriter Tom
Miller had after all changed his name to Verlaine. And against this
was a surprisingly fluid lead guitar that crawled across the melody
line and rubbed up and down on the rhythm before it uncoiled itself
into the belly of each song. Most surprisingly, they had a twin
lead guitar attack that actually didn’t suck. Television had
economy, they managed to sound concise & free blowing like a
sax player all at the same time. It was the perfect balancing act.
They had actual songs that were constructed rather than torn down,
while the hooks & melodies insinuated themselves rather than
battered you with their presence. This was not pop music, but it
damn well should have been!
The staccatto rhythms played off against the fluid
guitar melodies over side one’s first 3 tracks before the
sprawling white light psychedelia of the 8 minute plus title track
simply bowled me over (& still does!”) Not since Mike
Bloomfield’s similar in length modal guitar snaked it’s
way across the monumental Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s “East
West “ a decade before had an almost raga like approach to
the instrument been taken into hitherto uncharted territory so masterfully.
It was like architecture for the guitar. Side 2 maintained the tension,
swinging from the geeky to the threatening with ease, the dynamics
of each track setting you up for the next one .It instantly became
my favourite record.
And here it is again in remastered glory, sounding like the band
is playing at the end of the room in every nuanced detail. The re
release also features an alternate version of the tensile swagger
of “Friction “ & the loose stagger of “Prove
It “, a throwaway instrumental & the title track played
in a parallel universe to the original that demonstrates Tom Verlaine’s
inability or ability if you like to play the same lead guitar part
twice. He was always improvising & developing his material.
A bonus B&W booklet charts the band’s development &
their experience of the times & the making of the disc. My only
criticism of the package is that they should have put the extras
on a separate disc, the original album seems so complete in itself,
a perfect statement made & not reiterated.
Along with Paul Weller, Joe Strummer always seemed
the most likable of the punk generation, his enthusiasm, energy
& commitment fired The Clash to burn with a savage fire, an
album, a double album & a triple album written & recorded
in 2 years, his body positively vibrating with barely contained
energy & drive in live performance, taking the band into experiments
with reggae (Police & Thieves), past punk (“I Fought The
Law “) & good old rock n roll (“Brand New Cadillac”).
He rocked harder & was older than the other so called punks.
So it would be easy for
sentiment to cloud our judgement of his posthumous final album “Streetcore”,
I have so much affection for the man that I sort of wanted it to
be great, perhaps in spite of itself. Relax, it is his best solo
album, certainly better than “Cut The Crap” the last
Clash release & much of the material here could easily have
sat with the best performances of that band. What a relief!
Two of the songs here were recorded at Rick Rubin’s
studio, a reverent cover of Bob Marley’s “Redemption
Song “ & a demo for Johnny Cash of Joe’s “Long
Shadow “, on both he surprises with a gentle heartfelt delivery
& an almost spartan arrangement that exposes his mature vulnerability.
But the real treats are scattered across the 7 originals that finds
his Mescaleros digging deep into a rambunctious musical gumbo that
touches on reggae, soul, folk & punk & mixing them all in
the one song, the live in the studio approach bringing an intimacy
& energy to the material minus the gloss. “All In A Day
‘ & “Midnight Jam” veer into relaxed psychedelia,
while “Get Down Moses “ & “Coma Girl ‘
rank with his rocking best. He sounds like he’s having great
fun. It’s a celebratory wake for a great soul that will be
sadly missed.
Even though Siouxsie Sioux
was part of the hardcore Bromley contingent, a brat pack of punks
who hung around the Pistols & formed bands, she was actually
on set when the Pistols outraged the nation on the Bill Grundy TV
show, by the time she made her recorded debut she had developed
a more refined art/ punk sound that gave “Hong Kong Garden”
such an exotic appeal compared to it’s peers, a dedication
to one of the Futurist group on “Metal Postcard “ on
the Banshees ‘ first album pointed more to the gallery than
the garret. The band developed an increasingly ornate textured sound
that saw them become more arthouse than shithouse as their career
progressed. In recent years Siouxsie & Banshees’ drummer
Budgie, her husband, have released a series of adventurous albums
under The Creatures moniker, the latest, “Hai” returns
her inspiration to the mysterious east & adds percussive fireworks
to the potent mix. And what powerful & dramatic dynamics they
are. The tracks are based on Budgie working with a Japanese taiko
drummer & are recorded so that they sound HUGE coming out of
the speakers, working from the trance like to the dramatic on what
sounds like one long suite of duets for the drum. And on the top
Siouxsie’s vocal floats & is buffeted by the thick minimalism
of mix, reciting lyrics that sound like they’re caught in
the space between sleep & dream, where reality & imagination
collide.
back
to top
|
