Mott the Dog
Star
rating. Not even a glimmer.
In the quest to give the full Canterbury Sound era of
Progressive Rock a fair hearing, I have acquired several albums to see
what this Musical Culture had to offer, mainly on the basis of the
wonderful first five albums that Caravan released between 1968 and 1973,
most noticeably “In The Land Of The Grey And Pink” in 1971 and the
wonderfully titled “For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night” in 1973,
but more of these wonderful albums on another week.
The Canterbury sound was mostly based around a band
calling themselves “The Wilde Flowers’’ who were formed in 1963,
with an original line up of Kevin Ayers, Brian and Hugh Hopper, and
Robert Wyatt. Only Brian Hopper survived the full journey until they
disbanded, but as each flower dropped off they went off to form their
own band.
Richard Sinclair left to later be in “Caravan”,
“Hatfield and the North” and “Camel” before an illustrious solo
career.
Kevin Ayers was a founder member of Soft Machine
before leaving after just one album, having toured the world and
neighbouring planets with the likes of Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix on
one package tour (fifteen minutes each on stage four times a day) before
starting his own band, which gave starts to various lead guitarists
giving their career it’s initial kick start. Kevin Ayers was probably
Progressive Rock’s answer to John Mayall in the world of Blues, where
Mike Oldfield went on to international success, replacement guitarist
Steve Hillage left to form Gong and go and live on the planet Teapot,
whilst his replacement Andy Summers did rather well in the Police after
his time with the band. Ollie Halsall also did rather well for himself
after doing his time with Kevin Ayers.
During this time Kevin Ayers also put out some
extremely good solo albums, the best of which is probably “The
Confessions Of Dr Dream” (1974). I will admit he did also turn out
some dross as well, but for the moment lets be nice.
Hugh Hopper was also to join Soft Machine, replacing
Kevin Ayers. Robert Wyatt, after being unceremoniously fired from Soft
Machine, bit of a bitter pill to swallow that as he had been a founder
member, but he went on to form the band Matching Mole (sneaky dig at his
old comrades as the French for Soft Machine is Machine Moule), and then
onto a highly successful solo career, and to this day he is probably the
most commercially successful of all the musicians who immerged from the
Canterbury scene. This despite the fact that Robert Wyatt was paralysed
and confined to a wheelchair after a fall in 1974, but you can never
keep a good man down.
Canterbury, Kent, and it’s surrounding area was a
positive melting pot for music in the early Seventies with bands jumping
up to have their name associated with the movement. You only had to have
an aunt who had been once to go and wander the gardens of the
illustrious Canterbury Cathedral, and you became part of the scene.
Amongst those not already mentioned were “Khan”, “Egg”,
“National Health”, “Just Us”, “Delivery”, “Quiet Sun”
(who numbered a certain Phil Manzanera who went onto fame and fortune in
Roxy Music) and “Henry Cow”.
The Canterbury sound by definition was a fusion of
all influences and blending them all together, sometimes it worked
beautifully, sometimes it really didn’t, but because it was all
supposed to be a bit on the avant-garde side, you could produce some
absolute rubbish and because everybody was too afraid to stand up and
tell you it was bad, they never did.
Some people actually went out and bought the albums,
taking them home and playing them, at which point the dog would have
probably packed his Winalot in a bag and moved to a new neighbourhood,
and your flatmate or parents would hate it, making you even more
determined to stick by your new found heroes.
It is not as if the chaps from Henry Cow tried to
hide their intent. Trying to explain the racket that comes out of the
speakers when you subject your ears to this nonsense, one of the members
of the ensemble (who with obvious reason wishes to remain anonymous) has
written on the inside sleeve notes of this album:
“After working on our pre-composed material (Tracks
1-4) we started recording studio improvisations onto multi-track tape.
This involved the use of ambient as well as close miking, so that the
whole recording area became to a certain extent, a unified acoustic
space in which people could move around during takes. But we also had
separate channels wherever possible, to maximize the possibilities for
changing things afterwards. These multi-track recordings then became raw
material to be twisted about, using such process as over-dubbing written
parts, editing, looping and mixing down before superimposing other
material, often with the tape running at different speeds. This was a
new experience for everybody (Mott: I bet it was). Because we weren’t
working to a plan, it involved collective decision making. This is why
Phil Becque the producer gave up and left us to it, and why Henry Cow is
credited as mixing engineer for tracks 5-8.’’
What a load of old gobbledygook. They just had not
got a clue what they were doing. You can fool some of the people some of
the time, but nowhere near enough people any of the time for this lot to
make a buck to live on this noise. Showing a remarkable lack of any
imagination, both of the first two albums had a painting of a sock on
the front cover - nothing else, just a woolly sock. Remarkably they went
on to record four albums over their ten year lifespan. This, their first
album, should have been re-titled upon its CD release as Henry Cow, End.
I am going to take the CD off the player now and go
and look for the Dog.
The Culprits in Henry
Cow were
Geoff Leigh: Saxes, flute, Clarinet, Recorder, and Voice
Tim Hodgkinson: Organ, Piano, Alto Sax, Clarinet, and Voice
John Greaves: Bass, Piano, Whistle and Voice
Fred Frith: Guitars, Violin, Viola, Piano, and Voice
Chris Cutler: Drums, Toys, Piano, Whistle and Voice
Music Sections
Nirvana For Mice
Amydala
Teenbeat Introduction
Teenbeat
Extract from “With The Yellow Half-Moon and Blue Star”
Teenbeat Reprise
The Tenth Chaffinch
Nine Funerals Of The Citizen King
This
is the best book I have read in 2006! It is also the only book I have
reviewed this year, so the preceding claim is irrefutable. However, this
book, Boom Boom Baby is one of the funniest and most incisive books you will
read on East-West relationships. It is also a great book to send overseas,
unless their names are Ethel, Florrie, Brian, or Bert.
Mott’s CD review: Henry Cow
