Ten Man Mop, or Mr Reservoir Butler Rides Again (1971)
THE OVERVIEW
Following the new lineup’s first album together (recorded in late 1970) and its surprising chart success the following year, the final album of this box set and the third official Steeleye Span album was made in the fall of 1971. As with its predecessor, it continued to draw on the traditional folk music of England (saves a lot of time when you don’t have to write the material, I guess!).
The stability of the lineup was short-lived, however: founding member Ashley Hutchins would leave the band shortly after this was recorded, feeling that the group was relying too much on Irish folk music when his interest was in English folksong. He was also apparently reluctant to travel to the US, where the band had been invited to tour.
Once again, the cover art is pretty terrible, but once again the music is harmonious and well-performed. The band veers a bit more back into “pure” acoustic folk overall, but the electric instruments continue to make their presence felt right from the get-go, along with spoons, a tabor, organ, timpani, mandolin, fiddle, various banjos, and some dulcimer and various guitars for good measure.
Also again, there’s some terminology in the title that requires a bit of explanation. A “mop” in English slang for a job call, where unemployed men would gather to see if they could gain a day’s work — you might see the modern equivalent of a “mop” outside temp agencies, or construction sites, to this day. Some things never change.
As for the origin of Mr. Reservoir Butler, he was a real person, though unknown to the band — apparently he was the original performer of one of the songs on the record (it’s not mentioned which one, even in the extensive liner notes of the original gatefold vinyl album).
The version of the album on this box set copies the 2006 Castle Music CD reissue, including a smattering of bonus tracks (which we’ll get to), but sadly this collection omits the bonus live show that was included on that reissue’s bonus disc: a September 1971 performance on DJ John Peel’s “Sunday Concert” radio programme. It included a selection of tracks from across their career thus far, including a few songs not yet captured on the proper albums. I really must hunt that one down at some point.
THE ALBUM
The very first sounds one hears are electric, on the Christmas traditional “Gower Wassail,” with Tim on lead and the rest of the band contributing a splendid chorus. Tim Hart gives anything he sings a traditional, old-timey feel, but his vocal “instrument” is best used a bit more sparingly, rather than taking sole lead — at least in my view. It’s not clear when this particular wassail was written, but the standard (sung) version comes from the tradition of wassails from the 12th century, which have come to mean a type of song often accompanied by drinking, rather than “wassail”’s original meaning akin to a farewell greeting.
The band did well with a Chrismassy song on the last album, so why not do one again? And while we’re at it, the pair of jigs on the last album went down well, let’s do that again also! This time it’s Paddy Clancy’s Jig and Willie Clancey’s Fancy, a natural pairing if ever there was one. Dueling acoustic guitars and fiddle with a bit of spoon work is always a delightful thing, but here’s that Irish bent that got Ashley all “bent” out of shape.
The third cut features the funny, clever “Four Nights Drunk,” sung by Martin Carthy. It’s a song about a man who comes home so drunk he sees things that may or may not be there, questions his wife about them (who denies his vision), and begins to suspect that he is actually seeing his wife’s lover as her explanations become increasingly implausible.
Following a straight singing of the lyrics, the band breaks out the song into an instrumental for the last minute or so, and again they are very good at it.
We finally get Maddy Prior back on lead vocal, with “When I Was on Horseback.” It’s a traditional Irish folk song-cum-lament about a soldier and his unfortunate end, even though he brags “wasn’t I pretty/wasn’t I gay” (not like that 😜). Already, a pattern that has brought some criticism of this album is emerging — start a song, sing the lyrics, spotlight the instruments for a minute or so after the lyrics are done, and out.
Side 2 of the original vinyl version kicked off with “Marrowbones,” is a delightful traditional English/Irish song about a woman who loves her old husband, but “loves another man twice as well.” She decides to find a way to blind him so he can’t see she’s having an affair.
A local doctor tells her to feed him eggs and 16 marrowbones, which she does, but the old man knows of her plan and pretends to be blind. When walking near a river, the unfaithful wife decides to push her “blind” husband in, but he hears her running towards him and steps aside, and it is she who falls into the river.
As she cries for help, the husband reminds her that he “cannot see.” She eventually drowns, and the moral of the story is “if you want to murder your husband, make sure you poison him properly.” That’s the Irish for you …
This is followed by “Captain Coulson,” a tale of the war-hero title character and his passengers on a six-week sail across the Atlantic to “Amerikay.” One night, he spies a pirate ship in pursuit, and wants the sailors and men on board that it will soon catch up to them.
This story-song, sung by Maddy, is a nice change of pace from the tales of treacherous/cheating spouses, describes the battle as the pirates board the vessel and demand “your gold and precious loading.” A pitched battle ensues, with the captain and his passengers eventually successful in defeating the pirates, capturing their ship and bringing it with them as bounty with them to the New World.
The odd choice of having nearly every song end with an instrumental break, rather than putting it in the middle, becomes almost comically predictable and borderline annoying.
As with side one, a given song early on the given side of the vinyl is then followed by an instrumental track — either a group of jigs or a group of reels, and this case its the latter: a trio of them, “Dowd’s Favourite/£10 Float/The Morning Dew.” Only carefully listening to the chord changes would reveal to a listener when one part ends and other begins, as the instruments are seamlessly strung together.
This strange habit seems to be intended to showcase Peter Knight’s fiddle playing, and he’s excellent at it — but the repetition factor of the album is starting to really kick in.
Maddy returns to sing “Wee Weaver,” for once a song that has a happy ending rather than, you know, death. It’s a tale of of a weaver who loves a beautiful girl named Mary, much admired around the village. Willie proposes marriage, Mary accepts, and they lived happily ever after.
The Norfolk folk music index calls this song “a rarity,” allegedly written by home weavers … in Ireland. This puts Irish songs firmly in the lead compared to the English entries.
Tim sings the lead on the next track, “Skewball,” which also is an unconventional track for the band to do. This is a song about a horse race, and a fast horse (which can “talk”) named Skewball against another horse named Griselda. It’s an exciting tale, told well.
These two unconventional (for this band) songs would have done better being spaced further apart, but they nonetheless make a welcome change from the fairly repetitious choices presented to this point. That said, it closes the original album on a strong note.
We move on to the first of the “bonus tracks” presented here, “General Taylor (Studio Outtake).” This one also has Tim on lead, but duetting with the other band sings, which really makes Tim’s lead even more effective. The song, also known as “Carry Him to His Burying Ground,” is a fairly recent number for this group, hailing from the mid-19th century.
It’s done here in a “pump shanty” style, though technically it should be considered a “halyard” or perhaps a “capstan” style shanty. The subject concerns the defeat of Mexican general Santa Aña by the American general (and future president) Zachary Taylor in 1847.
The song was likely written by one of the surviving British soldiers who jumped ship to aid Aña in the West Indies. Traditionally, the victor of the battle is reversed to be Aña (as it is in this performance), likely due to British sailors serving with Mexicans at the time and not wanting to cause offense, but indeed it was Taylor who “won the day.”
This first bonus track, along with the start off track “Gower Wassail,” are the high points of the album as presented here. While the original album had fine playing and some strong group vocals, the song choices and arrangements were more repetitious than the previous album, and nothing other than “Gower” really stood out.
The rest of the “bonus” tracks here are various versions of “Rave On” — the original single version with a deliberate “Scratch” sound, which is my favourite of the versions because it must have really messed with the original listeners’ minds — and a “proper” two-verse and three-verse version.
The song is really out of step with the traditionals that accompany the album, as it’s a Buddy Holly song — and its presence “breaks the spell” of the band as wandering minstrels. It was originally recorded as a joke for Ashley’s benefit, and he liked it, but then it ended up as a “novelty” single for the band (and flopped).
To be fair, if you take it for what it is — a modern song done a capella, forgetting about the band’s regular motif — it’s very nice, including their strong harmonies. It’s just a bad choice to include on their Olde Tyme folk albums (and of course it originally wasn’t).
The “Peel Session” version, just for variety’s sake.
THE BOTTOM LINE
This third effort touches on a lot of what makes Steeleye Span interesting, but it’s less imaginative and varied than the previous two albums, with the song choices being more repetitive — though when they do break the pattern, they generally shine.
For me, Ten Man Mop leans too heavily on the lead singers, with the band’s strong group vocals too sparingly used. The arrangements seem less imaginative as well, with a few exceptions.
Knowing that Hutchins left the band after this was recorded, it would be interesting to revisit the fourth album to compare how that affected the group (spoiler: a lot), but that’s outside the scope of this box set review, so we’ll have to leave it there. (Second spoiler: the lineup changes very significantly yet again with the fourth album.)
Ten Man Mop is by no means a bad album, but the feeling that it’s a weaker offering than the two before it is hard to shake. The inclusion of very sparse “bonus tracks” is a mild disappointment, but as an opportunity to study more deeply the albums where I first became acquainted with the band, All Things are Quite Silent is an intriguing box set that I’m glad to have, as it does offer some absolutely stellar gems from the band’s early years.
Next time: Nits! (the Dutch band, not the other kind)
The second album from Steeleye Span is very much “more of the same,” and yet wildly different at the same time. Having found an audience that embraced their mix of modern, classic, and ancient instruments combined with mostly traditional English folk songs, they stuck to their unique “formula” of “traditional folk songs with some electric guitar and bass” doggedly.
So much so, in fact, that the first track on Please to see the King is a re-recorded version of “The Blacksmith” from their previous album! It’s hard to guess at the reasons why, but the new arrangement sets a tone of syncopation and other percussion in place of drums, and involves the reformulated band to a bigger degree vocally.
To the casual listener, this sounds very much like the previous album, with familiar vocalists Maddy Prior and Tim Hart and a similar musical mix of acoustic and electric instruments. The Woods, Gay and Terry, left the band before the group had even played its first live gig, and Gay’s presence in particular is missed.
However, this new lineup (adding friend of the band Martin Carthy, who had originally suggested the band’s name, and fiddler Peter Knight to replace the Woods) is widely considered the “definitive” early Steeleye lineup, with the first album personnel considered an excellent but “false start,” since the band would move into a heavier space with more male voices, percussion but no drums, and more group singing.
The cumulative effect is that this is something of a different band doing things a bit differently, but the additional backing harmonies and similar material helps cushion the changes. It helps that this same lineup stuck around long enough to record the follow-up album, Ten Man Mop, and even tour!
This album did pretty well, reaching #45 on the UK album charts, but died a death in the US on initial release. A later re-release of the album following the band signing to Chrysalis Records the following year sold far better in the US.
THE ALBUM
The title of the album refers to a tradition carried out on St. Stephen’s Day (December 26th), the “Cutty Wren” ceremony. A caged wren is paraded around in towns and villages as if it were the king.
This is directly referred to in the album by the penultimate song on the album, “The King.” The lads who would parade the Cutty Wren were referred to as “wren boys.”
“The King” is often sung around Christmastime, and the band sings it a cappella, which will remind listeners of the “Calling-On Song” from the first album and is every bit as charming as that one.
This album starts with notes from electric guitar and bass that begins with the new version of “The Blacksmith,” with another lovely lead vocal from Prior. The middle eight is an a capella la-la chorus from the whole band, an instrumental break, and then Prior returns accompanied by some backing vocals. Organ can be heard in the background, and another instrumental break finally debuts Knight’s fiddle before wrapping up with another a capella section.
“Cold Haily, Windy Night” is, to be blunt, a song about a soldier begging his lover to let him in to the house on the aforementioned night. After some persuading and the possible detection by her mother, the maiden does let him in and they end up making love.
The soldier turns out to be a cad who, having gotten what he wanted, exits stage left — leaving a angry girl and her furious mum. It’s sung by Tim Hart in his stylised “folk song” manner.
Next up: two instrumental jigs combined into one piece. “Bryan O’Lynn” was a character from Irish folk song who was quite the dandy, though none of the lyrics are sung here. “The Hag with the Money” (Cailleach An Airgid) is another traditional song with lyrics, sadly not sung (as the original song is rather amusing).
We get back to lyrics and Maddy on lead with “Princess Charlie Stuart,” a song about good old Bonnie Prince Charlie. It covers the rebellion led by Charlie to restore the House of Stuart to the throne at the Battle of Culloden in 1745. It was ultimately unsuccessful, and Stuart was exiled first to France, then to Spain, the latter of which is mentioned in the song.
It’s a typically beautiful and haunting Scottish ballad, sung from his love’s perspective and hailing both his physical stature as well as the willingness of 700 highlanders to die in battle for him.
“Boys of Bedlam” is a song that dates from 1618, and is one of the earliest folk songs that deals with mental illness and insanity. “Bedlam” is shorthand for St. Mary Bethlehem hospital in London, now known as Bethlem Royal Hospital, which was an insane asylum. The hospital funded itself, in part, by charging townsfolk a penny to come and gawk at the antics of the unsupervised inmates.
The song starts off as a minimalist duet with Maddy and Martin, with just the simplest percussion. This expands slowly with electric bass imitating a bell tolling, then the pace picks up with guitar, mandolin, and organ and the song becomes a bit more … jolly? Both the object of the song and the narrator describe visions that are fairly described as bonkers.
The song shifts again into its last verse with somber, wailing backing vocals, with the faster pace now seeming more … sinister. A touch of banjo rounds out the finale.
“False Knight on the Road” is another traditional, which might be considered the “original version” of the more well-known song, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Both songs document a confrontation between a mortal and the Devil (the false knight), but in this case its a brave boy who stands his ground during the quizzing and riddles from Satan. Ultimately, the Devil gives up and concedes the contest.
This moves us back to Maddy singing, with “The Lark in the Morning,” which always reminds me of the “argument” about whether it is night or day that Romeo & Juliet have in their bed in the wee hours. The fiddle on this track enhances the sweetness of the melody.
“Female Drummer” also features Prior, singing about a young lass who disguises herself and becomes a drummer soldier in disguise. She maintains the ruse until another girl falls in love with her and “finds” that her soldier boy is a girl, reports the drummer to her superior, who “unbuttoned my red tunic and he found that it was true/‘It’s a shame,’ he says, ‘to lose a pretty drummer boy like you.”
We finally arrive to the finale of the album, consisting of the outstanding a capella song “The King,” and the climax of the entire album, “Lovely on the Water.” The blending of the band’s voices on “The King” is just fabulous.
Finally, the song that truly embodies the best of this incarnation of the band, a serpentine guitar line with rock-solid bass, and Prior’s story-song rendition of “Lovely on the Water.” It is yet another naval-wartime ballad, tells the tale of a couple where the man must leave, and their sad parting dialog.
The middle eight takes a forewarning turn, cleverly using the instruments to recreate the troubles and perils ahead, before he may someday return. Unlike most other songs of this nature, the lyrics do not foretell or reveal a tragic ending, leaving their fate open-ended.
THE BOTTOM LINE
If you’re in for a penny with this band, then you’re in for a pound. While putting more emphasis on the electric side of their musical equation, these remain traditional English folk tunes in both style and subject matter, and are lovingly resurrected for a new generation and a wider audience here.
If you enjoyed the first album, you’ll almost certainly like this one as well, despite the shift towards more male voices; Martin and Tim shoulder most of that burden, and are distinct enough in their styles to add flavour to the stew, and clever overdubbing of Maddy doing background vocals to accompany her leads makes Gay Woods’ departure a little easier to overlook. Martin and fiddler Peter Knight add new sounds to the repertoire, nicely making up for Terry Woods’ departure as well.
The selection of material is also very strong, with one new version of an old favourite to start things off and ending on a tremendously strong wartime ballad, with a variety of tunes and subjects interspersed as they were on the previous album, with only the instrument jig break seeming a little out of step. Now that the Mk II Steeleye has gotten off the ground, we’ll see if they can keep it going for another record before the lineup evolves yet again.
As John Cleese has famously said, “and now for something completely different …”
THE OVERVIEW
I’m more of a dedicated Punk/New Wave/Ska type fan when it comes to rock music, but thanks to good exposure to other forms of music and music analysis, there are other genres of music I also appreciate. One of the oddest (to most people) is my fancy for groups that seek to emulate and put their own spin on other styles once popular in centuries past. Peter Schickele in his persona as PDQ Bach and others who poked fun at oh-so-serious classical, Chuck Jones and his operatic Bugs Buggy films, and for reasons I can’t quite articulate, folk music bands who explored traditional tunes, styles, and instruments.
Two prominent examples of the latter sub-genre I have actively enjoyed and collected include the traditionalist Amazing Blondel, and the more modernist Steeleye Span.
There’s a lot of backstory behind the formation of Steeleye Span, and it is nicely summarised in the accompanying booklet to this collection of their first three albums, completed over the course of just two years, 1970 and 1971.
If you’re not familiar with the band, you’re probably not reading this, but on the off chance someone wants to know more before diving in, Steeleye Span were and are a group that added electric guitar and bass, along and contemporary rock-style drumming to otherwise mostly-traditional songs as pastiches of traditional songs of English folk music, arranged for contemporary (70s) instruments including the banjo, but largely sung in traditional stylings.
Apart from this novel approach, they were also known for periodically having two female vocalists in the band (Maddy Prior and Gay Woods), something of a rarity at the time. A form of the group carries on touring to this day, with only Maddy Prior from the original grouping still involved.
THE ALBUM
Unlike the previous box sets I’ve recently reviewed, two of the three discs in this CD-sized set contain just the straight album with no bonus tracks. A handful of previously-unreleased material exists on the third disc, but we’ll discuss those when we get to that album.
This one was their 1970 debut, Hark! The Village Wait, a title I’ve pondered the meaning of for decades until now. It turns out that a “wait” in Ye Olde Englishe is a group of musicians, usually woodwind players, who would play in the village commons in Tudor times, especially around Christmas.
Most, but not all of the songs are traditionals, with the arrangements by the band themselves. The tone is set on the very first song, even though it’s the only a cappella track on this record. The lyrics for “A Calling-On Song” were written by founder Ashley Hutchings (formerly of Fairport Convention), based on a captain’s song of the Earsdon Sword Dance Team.
From the first notes, you know you are being transported back to the roots of English folk music with a song that acts as an invitation and calling-card to the rest of the album. It would in no way be out-of-place at a Renaissance Fair or SCA gathering. The two women and their respective partners, Tim Hart and Terry Woods’ voices blend well.
Traditional acapella songs of a similar nature were often used to attract an audience to a village-green performance, and the lyrics reflect this: I’ve included the first and last verse here:
Good people, pray heed our petition, Your attention we beg and we crave. And if you are inclined for to listen An abundance of pastime we’ll have.
There’s one thing more needing mention: The dances we’ve danced all in fun. So now that you’ve heard our intention, We’ll play on to the beat of the drum.
And that last verse leads directly into the drum into of track 2, “The Blacksmith,” a traditional song that brings in the musical instruments of guitar, bass, mandola, harmonium, and lovely singing from Maddy Prior. It’s a tale of a love betrayed, of course, but with a bit of a twist. Backing vocals from Gay Woods and choruses with Tim Hart and Terry Woods really take you back in time as much as the first song did, but with enough modern sounds (blended with lesser-heard instruments) to keep the hippies listening.
The next cut, “Fisherman’s Wife,” is as Scottish a traditional as ‘ere we’ll get, with lyrics written by the great Ewan MacColl (father of Kristy) in 1959, and sung by Gay Woods this time. An autoharp and 5-string banjo “enter the chat,” as the kids say these days, atop the electric bass and guitar and drums.
It’s about the hardship of life for a fisherman’s wife, but with a hint of pride in herself and her hardworking husband. The variety of the two female vocalist adds a great tonal quality to the singing. But speaking of variety …
“The Blackleg Miner” gives us a styled nasal and northern voice of Tim Hart on lead vocal. His performance here is tuneful, but absolutely not in harmony with modern rock vocal stylings, and indeed his career-long musical interest lay with old folk songs. Despite his voice being a bit of a jarring break from the previous women-led tracks, his acapella singing really captures the old-timey feel of a song about a scab “blackleg” coal miner. It was strangely relevant in the face of the UK miner strikes going on around that time.
With the next track, we’re back to the ladies, with Gay on lead, singing a beautiful traditional, “Dark-Eyed Sailor.” On my first hearing many years ago I was captivated by this story-song of the pains of loving a sailor who may or may not ever return from the sea, and years later the dusky-voiced June Tabor (who once formed a group with Prior) did a more rockin’ version of the song, and I fell in love with it once again.
A lovely 2000 performance featuring both Maddy Prior and Gay Woods
And not just me: the song was one of the standout tracks off this album, and though there were no singles from the record that I know of, it became a popular part of the repertoire as the band played live. It became more popular once this album finally made its way to the US, five years after its initial release.
Terry Woods also plays the concertina with Hart on electric dulcimer, and the instrumentation just couldn’t be more perfect for this type of folk ballad. It’s a marvel how this weird mix of old and newer instruments somehow makes for such a distinct and original sound.
Side one of the original vinyl closes with “Copshawholme Fair,” with Prior on lead vocals, and includes some mandolin and the sound of the bodhrán (an Irish frame drum), along with some recorded sounds of step dancing by Maddy and Gay, giving the song a even older and more acoustic feel.
Side two opens with a twist: Maddy and Gay singing an original short sea-based ballad of a couple separated by enforced service by one’s “true love” in the Navy, “All Things Are Quite Silent,” which lends its name to the boxset. Songs of sailors separated from their true loves are, as one quickly learns, a really common theme of these traditional songs, so Ashley, Terry, and Tim knocked one of their own up.
This is followed by “The Hills of Greenmore,” featuring Tim Woods on vocals, which is pleasant but unremarkable. The next track, “The Lowlands of Holland,” is a quintessential staple of the band’s repertoire, starting with some guitar noodling before getting into yet another naval press gang tale of separated lovers, this time from Scotland.
What distinguishes this one from the others is Gay Woods’ beautiful vocal, a wistfully beautiful melody, and a splendid arrangement that really works with this “rock style added to traditional songs” angle the band has adopted. Like “The Blacksmith” and “Dark Eyed Sailor,” this one easily rises above its roots and is given new life in this treatment, in part thanks to the addition of traditional fiddle.
Gay in particular sells the lyric of a heartbroken widow telling her daughter she will someday find a man, but “alas there’s none for me/I never had a love but one/and he’s drowned in the sea.”
This takes us to “Twa Corbies” (a Scottish variation on the English folk song “The Three Ravens”), a rare one where Hart joins Gay and Maddie for a nice change of sound. This English folk ballad from approximately 1611, or possibly earlier, takes a delightfully dark turn as the song is an imagined conversation between two ravens about where and what they will eat.
In the Scottish version, the ravens chance upon a newly-slain knight, and talk in detail about how they will make a meal of him, using his hair to feather their nests, and how his mistress has already taken another lover. This is the version the band have chosen here.
Other versions have softened the lyric, having the ravens be unable to get at the corpse because it is guarded by his loyal hawks and hounds. In this version, the knight’s lover comes to get the body, and buries him — so the ravens must move on.
The final song is “One Night as I Lay on My Bed,” with Prior handling the lead vocal accompanied by Gay Woods. It’s a simple song about a young man who has a dream of his lover, so he gets up and goes to her house to speak to her.
She worries that her parents will hear them speak, but the man reassures her they are asleep, and she lets him in. If you’ve ever dated someone whose parents might not approve of you, or tried to have a lover in the home of your parents, you can relate to this.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The novelty of these centuries-old folk songs redone, mixing traditional and electric instruments is the big selling point of the album. It caught the fancy of music fans to a sufficient degree that further albums were made with an ever-shifting lineup, and we’ll get to explore the band’s development in the next two of their albums.
As for me, some of these songs are much-beloved, as I had the good fortune to be exposed to some traditional English folk songs early in my life, so this album was a new take on a few old favourites and a chance to explore the style further. It is no accident that I came to Steeleye via my fandom for The Amazing Blondel. Speaking of them, now there’s a box set that’s begging to be made for this same select but enthusiastic audience.
Sadly, we’re coming to the end of the Toy Box set with Lene’s final album for Stiff — No Man’s Land from 1982. As usual, it’s a another album choc-a-bloc with catchy tunes, including one of my favourites of hers. Unfortunately, as I wrote many years ago in a review for a newspaper, “it sounds like they didn’t really have enough material for a full album, so they threw in what should have been the b-sides to the five potential singles, and called it day.”
Kind of a brutal assessment, in retrospect, but not wrong. The album is thin on fully-fleshed-out songs and heavy with other tracks that are quite good musically but light on lyrics with much meaning. The “A” material here is pretty strong, particularly the two lead-off tracks — both of which were in fact singles that found some traction — “It’s You, It’s You (Mein Schmerz)” and “Blue Hotel.”
I also very much liked “Special Star,” “Sister Video,” and “Maria,” and I remember all three getting some college/indie radio airplay at the time. Most of the rest of the tracks, while catchy, seem seriously undercooked lyrically. This could have been papered over with more of those great “Slavic male chorus” bits that made the first record so entertaining, but after the original band broke up, we only ever get (double-tracked) Les handling that — and just him is kinda thin and too sparsely used.
Starting with the New Toy EP, most of the background vocals were done by Lene herself — which is not by itself a bad thing because she’s awesome — but the call-and-response you got on Stateless and to a lesser extent on Flex has gone, and the songs sound less varied as a result — even as the production work improves.
Speaking of production, the fact that this album has more engineers/studios listed (eight!!) than it does musicians adds to the inconsistency factor. The truth is that this record was cobbled together from the multiple smaller sessions with various producers and studios by order of Stiff Records’ Dave Robinson, who wanted another “hit” from Lene, which he eventually got in the two lead tracks — at least in the US.
This one also had the most “writers” on any of Lene’s 80s albums, with “It’s Only You” and “Sister Video” both being written by others, and “Blue Hotel” using a co-writer (Maruo Goldsand). While still equal parts hit and miss, No Man’s Land is still a better record than most acts at the time were putting out, but it misses the high bar Lene and Les set for themselves on the two previous albums, and is very symbolic of their deteriorating relationship with Stiff.
Lene writes about Stiff a lot in the booklet, and is generous with her thanks to Dave Robinson and the other people who worked there, but from her perspective Dave was growing increasingly disenchanted with the lack of UK hits (she did better in the US, particularly on this album), and eventually lost interest, making No Man’s Land the last album on Stiff.
It’s still an enjoyable album, make no mistake, but even the bonus tracks are (mostly) extended or remixed versions of the album tracks. Speaking of which, the legend that is Bob Clearmountain did the remixing on the album (with assists from Lene and Les and Dick Wingate), so from a high-fidelity perspective this is the best-sounding album to date.
THE BONUS TRACKS
Just for variety’s sake, we finally get the two “missing” tracks from the “New Toy” EP that was release prior to the album here: the original studio version of “Savages” and the original “Special Star,” which both ended up in extensively reworked (and superior) versions on the album. Likewise, the “Single Version” of Blue Hotel is a pretty different version to what ended up on the album, though it does actually have Les and Lene singing together on the chorus, which is nice.
We then move on to the “Remixed, Extended Version” of “It’s Only You,” which you might be forgiven for thinking is actually the “Instrumental Version” for the first 1:06 before Lene finally comes in. The vocal and Lene’s background vocal are the same, but quite differently mixed from the album version. This bonus version uses more of Lene’s own bv’s and so I kinda like it better, though the album version swings more.
This is followed by a wholly new song, “Blue,” (no hotel involved). It’s rather frantic, and will remind listeners of “old” Lene, even though the vocal is a bit sparse. It probably should have been on the album proper, but its a lightweight effort despite the speedy 50s overtones.
Next up, a very remixed and mostly instrumental “dub” version of “It’s Only You,” with Lene only providing bv’s and sound effects here and there. It’s not really suitable for your own karoke version, since it wanders off from the better-known version of the song, but for anyone who wants to hear Les’s isolated contribution to a given Lene song, this is a good example — and it runs nearly two full minutes longer than the album version, so there’s some great noodling going on here.
Oddly, this is followed by the “US Extended Dance Mix” version, which is nearly as long as the Instrumental Version at 5’39”, but hurrah, we have Lene’s vocal back in. The lengthening comes in the form of a long mid-song instrumental break that gets sparse at the beginning and end, but is very effective and makes you all the more thrilled when the vocals return, and we even get some extra vocals.
From there, we go on to a “US Dance Mix” of “Blue Hotel,” which adds a minute-and-a-half to the song more cleverly than it was with “It’s Only You,” by keeping the instrumental extensions, mostly quite short until the mid-point. These two “US” extended versions are the most successful of the bonus tracks, since they simply give us more of what we love in the respective songs … and by that of course I mean “more Les Chappell croaking like a frog.” Bonus points for the fake-out false ending before the real ending!
The album ends with a genuine B-side: “O Seasons, O Castles.” It’s a slow-moving but another colourful, well-performed theatrical number with a sudden ending.
THE WRAP-UP
If you like Lene Lovich’s work beyond just any singles you might have heard, you should pick this box set up (if you can find it — it has sold out from Cherry Red!). The remastering work really adds spit and polish to the sound of all three albums, and the plethora of bonus tracks get as close as anyone outside hardcore Lene artifact collectors are likely to come to “everything” she recorded for Stiff.
It’s clear that the “project manager” for this box set, Michael Robson, really cared about the material and getting the look of the set and booklet right. Scott Davies of Rubellen Remasters did a fabulous job of remastering, and the previously-unseen (by me, at least) photo taken in Boston in 1983 just perfectly showcases the amazing look and talent of Lene, alongside other rare photos within the booklet. Best of all from a collector perspective, the box is the same size as the CDs, making for easy storage (waves to fellow obsessive-compulsive collectors).
Lene’s written comments, supplemented by Robson and Davies, do a good but brief job of telling the story of the albums from her perspective as well as some historical background. The booklet also touches on some other things Lene did (including “Mata Hari” and her pre-Stiff musical escapades) and places those events into the timeline succinctly. Lene’s post-Stiff career and home life is also mentioned, which is nice.
Cherry Red have been a winning streak of late, and this is another gold star for them for getting this out. I hope they will continue to work with Robson and Davies on other projects that the pair are passionate about, since they love they have for Lene and Les shows through every aspect of the care evident in this package.
The only downside to Toy Box is that I am now hungry — nay, starving — for Super Deluxe Editions (SDEs) of March and Shadows and Dust, but in the meantime, get the single CDs of her later albums — they’re also great!
Lene’s second album is, in my view, just about as delightful as her first — more strong songs, even more great singing, and more of the great sound and mainstream-friendly yet angular pop music that charmed the listener with the last album. There’s still nothing quite like the formidable combination of Lene and Les and their original band lineup of Nick Plytas, Jeff Smith, Ron François, and Bobby Irwin.
There’s also little bit of further growth in the songwriting, performance and art direction, continuing to define goth before it was cool. Throw in another batch of similarly great tunes, even more professionally produced, and a smattering of big-time commercial success (more on that shortly), and you basically have the perfect sequel record.
THE ALBUM
Flex opens with a low-end sonic hum you could easily imagine Kraftwerk employing on one of their earlier albums, with just a hint of actual birdsong before Lene brings in her incredible birdsong call before launching into the song (called, of course, “Bird Song”) proper for the first verse. This is followed by the signature male chorus’ sonic wall over the lyrics of a spurned lover, and lovely “organ” to add to the Goth atmosphere. “Bird Song” would have been right at home on the first album, and closes with more of her incredible bird vocal.
One thing you notice immediately is the improved sound and more sophisticated production, which I’ll credit to Roger Bechirian and Alan Winstanley, both of whom were names frequently seen on many great New Wave records of the era, especially on Stiff and Sire. The pair really “get” what makes Lene and the band great, and plays up their strengths for maximum possible radio- and headphone-friendliness.
“What Will I Do Without You” continues the heroine-as-victim motif, this time, worrying what might happen if her love ever left her. The song replaces the organ with some piano and more of Lene doing more of her own bv’s, but that Slavic-style male chorus is still present. This is another contribution by Chris Judge Smith, and it has “single” written all over it. It really focuses on Lene’s performance, and throws in some strangely underrated (synth) horns here and there that probably should have been played up a bit more.
The first hit single for this album was “Angels,” and it keeps that Goth-y Eastern European vibe going but not focused on a specific lost love and yet still fixated on potential death. This of course contrasts with the uptempo, upbeat and generally danceable groove. This is where the band starts to branch out (a little, and I mean just a little). The contrast between Lene’s swooping vocals and softer, more vulnerable verse singing is quite seductive and effective.
“The Night” was a cover from other songwriters and a sleeper hit for Lene, not really coming into its full appreciation until years after release, with some help from a Marc Almond cover of the song, which refocused some attention on the original. There is also “US mix” of “The Night,” but we’ll come back to that later as it is included here as a bonus track. This one features a really great, short chorus that contrasts so well with the dark and eerie mood of the verses and sub-chorus.
In the hands of any other artist, the first four songs being about a love falling apart would have been repetitive. Lene manages to find different viewpoints to cover such similar topics, and with Les carefully giving each song a different feel with the same players really pays off. This one has some bells and sax to throw into the band’s bass-leading, synth-augmented sound.
That said, the fatalistic theme does start to wear a little on the fifth song, “You Can’t Kill Me,” again by Judge Smith, but it is buoyed by some funny lyrics and a more novel arrangement. The vocals and bv’s are really front and center on this one, and it also has a little nod to Japan — a second gesture to that country after the Japanese version of “I Think We’re Alone Now.”
The mortality subtext doesn’t let up on “Egghead,” with its very sing-song style, but the enthusiasm of the vocal style and upbeat music, as with many of the songs we’ve heard thus far, keep the listener entertained and holding despondency at bay.
Finally, on track 7, “Wonderful One” breaks the mold and finds Lene in a happy mood, sort of. This one features a more jaunty riffs, nice organ fills, and more birdsong-like Lene bv’s. It’s a close as Lene gets to a straightforward love song.
“Monkey Talk” follows in its official recorded version, which the live takes elsewhere in the box set follow closely. I’m still not sure what the song is actually about, except that she seems to be comparing mankind and monkeykind as closer cousins than even the Leakeys would have it. There’s plenty of “monkey chittering” from Lene, and a great Soviet-style “worker’s playtime” chorus.
This takes us to “Joan,” which keeps up the relentlessly catchy dance-tempo music even as Lene sings of the obsession and sacrifice of the historical subject of the song. “Like Joan of Arc, you must be brave/and listen to your heart/Imagination is essential to creative art” is a great twist on persuing your vision at all costs, though of course it didn’t pan out so well for Ms. d’Arc …
The album closes with “The Freeze,” which uses a sonic moonscape, and rather different two-tracked vocals from Lene in what is the spookiest and slowest song on the album. My joke about this when the album originally came out was that this could easily be the Soviet Union’s national anthem.
That said, if you’re old enough to remember the Soviet Union — and the threat of nuclear war that hung over the world in the closing decades of the last century (and now trying to stage a comeback …), you’ll get the vibe the band was going for on this one.
BONUS TRACKS — FLEX
“The Night (US mix)” — in addition to a slightly different mix, the record company (or someone) added ska horns to the sub-chorus, which works well.
“What Will I Do Without You (single version)” — the name implies that this is just a different mix of the album version. It’s not — it’s the demo (generally referred by this box set as the “original version,” but not in this case). Among the many differences is Lene’s singing (a half-octave lower!), very restrained bv’s, more reliance on synth, bass and drums, and generally a far more basic version.
“Bird Song (edit)” — by contrast, this single version of “Bird Song” is identical to the album track except it’s 30 seconds shorter. They cut the vocal birdsong intro and went straight into the song proper. It also fades out quicker then the album version, but keeps some of Lene’s haunting angry birdsong at the end.
“Details (Original Version)” — Having these demos scattered around the set is interesting, since they are usually located close to the finished versions, but two things come across very well in these cruder, less polished version: that Lene is an incredible vocal talent even without much in the way of polished production, and that Les and her bandmates can put together extremely good demos that communicate the design of the song very well. I love their use of occasional bits of stopping cold as a musical punctuation mark.
As for the song itself, its a jaunty number that misses out (in this version) on the trademark Slavic male supporting vocals. It features a dreamy lyric where Lene laments her fate and demands the “details” of the plan for her life.
“New Toy” — this was another song, this time from new (but sadly temporary) band member Thomas Dolby that was a popular (irresistible more like) single on original release, and the extended version we’ll get to in a minute was a solid club hit, and once again found a second life later when US retailer Target licensed it for a massive ad campaign and millions of people said “What is that song and how can I get a copy?!”.
This one is solid gold from the first note, focusing on a mostly-straightforward but perfectly-put vocal from Lene and incredibly solid bv’s from the boys (though less Slavic in style) and music from the band, including more excellent piano and synth work brought more to the fore by Dolby, who had joined up with the band for a brief time.
Flawlessly mimed version for UK TV (with Dolby on keyboards)
“Cats Away” — another energetic instrumental, but this time with some snazzy (synth) horn sounds to jazz it up.
“New Toy (Extended Version)” — The intro, first verse and chorus (sans vocal) serve as the “extension” before the vocals get underway. Thankfully they kept the saucy sound effects of the first lines (Les’ purr, and the whip sounds). The middle-eight gets and “breakdown” type selection of isolated instruments and bv’s are added before Dolby’s keys come back into play. An even longer version of the first and best song about conspicuous consumption and consumer capitalism run amok
NEW TOY (US MINI LP)
It’s quite peculiar that for this box set, the New Toy “Mini-LP” as they call it took the title track and put it among the Flex bonus tracks, leaving us without the title track to this EP here, where it belongs. Instead, we only get the second side of the original record, and slightly out of order to boot.
“Cats Away” — a gentler intro that ramps up to speed real quick and a punchier sound with real horns (played by Lene!), it’s still a heckuva swinging number, but an instrumental is a strange choice for the first track on this altered version of the US “mini-LP,” which Stiff/Epic issued to play for time while Les and Lene took a rest (losing the band in the process, regrettably). Lene writes in the booklet that they felt under pressure from Stiff, like some of the other artists, to come up with more “hit singles.” Lene says that they then did a lot of short sessions with different producers.
The lack of a regular band did result in Lene’s work getting some fresh new sounds, but sadly a lot of eclectism that characterized her previous work was reduced, though of course you can’t eliminate it entirely.
“Details” — The polished version of “Details” gets a glow-up from the demo, and makes for a nice change of subject matter. This is a far more polished production as you might expect, but still sticks pretty close to the original.
Boring video, but you get the song as it appeared on the EP
“Never Never Land” — a song from Jimmie O’Neill, but certainly Lene makes it her own (as she generally does with all her covers). It’s a lovely song, not single material but a well-chosen addition that also features stronger vocal contributions from Les.
Because the final two tracks of the five-track “New Toy (US mini-LP)” were just demos that got revamped later on, only the three songs from Side Two of the record were included on this disc, with the two “Side One” tracks saved for accompanying Disc 4, the No Man’s Land album, as bonus tracks.
Next time: The Wrap Up, and the breakdown of the Stiff relationship
Having directly compared the albums, let’s move on to the bonus tracks, which are different for each version of the album.
BONUS TRACKS(DISC 1)
“Lucky Number (Early Version)” — three things leap out at you immediately from the beginning notes of this: a) holy crap these drums are terrible! Actually, the whole thing is pretty crudely done. b) Lene’s performance is still great, but far more straightforward. Still, this has “hit” written all over it. c) definitely cruder in most respects, with lots more background “humming.”
“I Think We’re Alone Now (Japanese Version)” — I’ve always loved this version, identical to the single version except for the vocal. I doubt it’s a direct translation, but I can’t imagine that this wasn’t a rare treat for Japanese fans of UK music, even if the title (only) is still spoken in English.
“Monkey Talk (Early Version)” — Compared to the demo of “Lucky Number,” here we start to get closer to “the full Lene” in terms of her unique vocal styling, including lots of “bird call” she would put to better use later. This being the demo version of this song, it’s heavier musically but similar to the studio version that appears on the Lucky Number/The Best Of album that came from Oval in 2005. One interesting difference — the bv’s are almost all Lene on the version here, which lays down a marker we’ll come back to later.
“Be Stiff” — The A and B side of this single are back-to-back here, with the A side being Lene’s version of the song, originally written by Devo. Practically everyone who was on Stiff Records at the time recorded a version, but in my opinion Lene’s is one of the truest and best. The B-side version includes “the entire ensemble” (ie every Stiff artist they could get in the room) live at Leeds University. This remastered version of the supergroup beats the crap out of the original single version, even if its from the exact same tapes. Hats off, Scott.
“Lene Lovich Speaks (1)” — part of an interview record sent out to radio stations where the live DJ was supposed to ask the question and then play the track with Lene’s answer. As I discovered when I acquired the interview disc, it’s disarming to hear Ms. Lovich speak in her original midwestern American accent. It’s a very short piece where she explains how to pronounce her name.
“Lucky Number (Instrumental)” — perfect for your next karaoke party, this includes some of the vocal “effects” from Lene, but no lead singing (well, a trace here and there — they didn’t do a perfect job removing her vocal, oddly enough). It’s also a great chance to study the construction of the song and it’s various components.
“One Lonely Heart/Big Bird” — a pair of non-LP songs where “One Lonely Heart” feels like an entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, while “Big Bird” is just a synth-based instrumental — perhaps originally intended as the music bed for a future full song. This feels like a bit of a “contractual obligation” release to meet a deadline, since it’s pretty obvious that it was just her and Les in the studio mucking about.
“Lene Lovich Speaks (2)” — Lene tells the story of creating “Lucky Number.”
“Lucky Number (Slavic Dance Version)” — It’s the same version of the song as the single version, except it has a new 1’20” instrumental section in the middle.
BONUS TRACKS (DISC 2)
“Trixi” — This is quite the oddity. Roger Bechirian’s sole producer credit with Lene during this period, it’s a lovely Victorian-era type instrumental with Lene doing various odd vocal muttering and other sounds that seem like singing along, but are indecipherable.
“The Fly” — A more interesting effort in the department of “lyric-less music with vocals,” in part due to the presence of both Lene and (presumably multi-tracked) Les — it’s another catchy mostly-instrumental with another great sax solo from Lene. This time, the word “yummy” can be deciphered, and some convincing “fly” noises as well, reminding us that Lene is incredibly varied in her vocal use.
Most of the live tracks that make up the rest of the bonus tracks are taken from a live promotional EP called 1980 Global Assault — Recorded Live in London and Boston, with the exception of “The Fall.”
“The Fall (live)” — this performance is from the Live at the Lyceum gig, which took place exactly 44 years ago as I write this on 02-March-2024. I mention this song specifically for three reasons: first, it was not included in the 1980 Global Assault album, most likely some kind of rights issue.
Secondly, it’s the first of at least three cover songs written by Judge Smith, an interesting artist in his own right, that Lene has committed to record over time (the other two are on the album Flex). “The Fall” first appeared on a three-song single taken from the Stateless album, but wasn’t included on the album or anywhere else until the German CD reissue of Stateless in 1991 as a bonus track, and of course Stateless … Plus, the European reissue from 1993.
Stateless … Plus was, quite possibly, the first CD I purchased that I got specifically because of unheard “bonus tracks.” The song was also included as a b-side from the extended “Angels” 12-inch single, which of course is taken from Flex.
And finally, because unlike the other tracks, they Lyceum performance of “The Fall” really doesn’t sound like a live recording at all — there’s no hint of audience noise throughout.
As for the song itself, it’s easy to see why Lene wanted to record it: it’s definitely not as upbeat and poppy as her own material, but does give her a chance to do something really dramatic in song. The tale told, of a battle raging and city falling in some bygone war, is rendered with the appropriate amount of agony and woe from Lene’s stunning vocal performance, which includes a dog barking near the end. It’s something different from her, and darker than she’s gone thus far.
Turning to the three tracks that make up the EP version’s A-side/Lyceum performances — “Monkey Talk,” “The Night,” and “Too Tender to Touch,” the audience sound is very limited to mostly just applause at the end of the songs. except for the clap-along at the start of the (bonus bonus!) “You Can’t Kill Me,” which wasn’t included on the vinyl version of Global Assault. As with the previous tracks, it certainly does show off how tight the band has gotten by this point. Live, Lene, Les and the band were a pop music machine that were clearly firing on all fronts.
The three songs from the Paradise Theatre in Boston (“Angels,” “Lucky Number,” and “Home”) also included here are considerably extended “jam” versions with long instrumental breaks. This may just be me, but that sort of practice is rarely exciting in my view, though I acknowledge it gives the singers a chance to relax a bit, and it sure sounds like everyone involved was having a great time.
Toy Box: The Stiff Years is a four-CD box set covering everything (or nearly so) Lene and her band recorded for Stiff Records, which amounts to three albums, two “mini-LPs,” and some odds and sods, all of which have been gathered up together. For me, who has collected Lene faithfully for decades (and once did a lovely interview with her and Les in Atlanta), there’s not a lot here I hadn’t already heard or own, except for one pretty significant thing (which we’ll get to shortly).
From her 70s and 80s peak years, most everything is here apart from the brilliant 1989 album March, but of course it wouldn’t be — it didn’t come out on Stiff. Each of the albums are supplanted with bonus tracks, including a lot of “early versions” (home studio demos), instrumental versions, variations, remixes, live versions, and promo or b-side type stuff.
As with these sorts of “everything boxes,” as I like to call them, it’s really great having this all in one place (super handy when storage is tight, eh, fellow collectors?), and while I’m sure there’s a few oddities missing — for example I have the full Lene “Interview Disc” on vinyl where the DJ would ask questions and “Lene” (on the included record) would respond — but this is as complete a catalog of the Stiff music from her as we’re likely to get. Plus, it’s Cherry Red — there’s a fabulous booklet that includes Lene’s own memories and comments, plus some supplemental information from Scott Davies (of Rubellan Remasters, who handled the audio remastering for this project) and Michael Robson (who sheparded the project and designed the booklet and box).
One last thing before we dive in: It wasn’t originally my intention to do another artist who rose to full prominance in 1979 this soon, I had actually picked out another quite different artist boxset to do; but I was joking to some friends one day last month that it would be ironic if I covered three of Lene’s four 70s/80s albums in … wait for it … March, and so here we are.
STATELESS — BACKGROUND
A two-CD version of Lene’s debut album, you ask? How can this be, even with bonus tracks? The original album was barely longer than 30 minutes! This is the “pretty significant thing” I alluded to earlier — both the US and UK versions of Stateless are present here, and as I’m embarrassed to admit (having owned a vinyl UK copy of the album for decades but never actually listened to it because I also had the US version) — I was unaware of just how different the two versions were/are until now. So, for me at least, there’s a brand-new record in here.
Consequently, this calls for a side-by-side comparison of each album track. We’ll also review the non-album bonus tracks — all 21 of them! — and pick out the gems.
The short story on the two versions is that after the record originally came out in the UK (with the pre-release hit single of “I Think We’re Alone Now”) in October of ’78, the US label felt it needed some further cooking, and had Roger Bechirian (well known among New Wave et al album collectors) remix and re-record some parts for the US release, which made “Lucky Number” a minor hit in the States as well.
The US version used a different — and frankly better — cover shot as well, though I like the way Lene (in the booklet) refers to the UK cover as “like ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch.” When the album was re-issued in the UK in ’79, some (but not all) of the Bechirian versions were included, so getting to hear the original mix is a treat.
The Bechirian version of most of the songs was then used for the subsequent rest of world versions, which along with the US version came out in April of ’79. The full story on this is a bit more complicated (variations on how many Bechirian remixes were used on different countries’ album version, plus a couple of mis-stamped pressings), but to consolidate matters Cherry Red has Disc 1 as the original LP mix (only a little Bechirian) and Disc 2 as the “US/UK remix” version (tracks 1-8 and 11 were “Bechirian’d”). For the bonus tracks it is not spelled out, but our Roger is also credited with production as well as backing vocals (for “Trixi,” meaning that song was likely created during the re-record sessions).
The album did pretty well: while it didn’t chart in the US, it went Silver in the UK (250,000 sold) and did well all over Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The first single, a remake of Tommy James and the Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now,” reached #3 in the UK. It had the “early version” of “Lucky Number” as the b-side.
The subsequent single, the revamped “Lucky Number,” went to #2 in Australia and #3 in New Zealand, and also charted elsewhere. In the US, the song was a sleeper success, never hitting the Top 40 but it was an early video and club hit.
Before we get to the UK vs US compare, I do want to mention my general feelings for this album: obviously I liked it at the time, but this revisit has reminded me of how much I adore this record. It’s a rare album where 100 percent of the songs are strong, polished, and timelessly enjoyable, and of course Les and Lene’s talents mesh so beautifully here that the whole thing — UK or US version — is just a joy. It’s one of the very best albums Stiff ever put out, and was by no means a one-shot wonder.
STATELESS — SONGS SIDE-BY-SIDE
These will be comparisons of the “UK original” and “US/remixed” versions of each song, acknowledging that having an experienced engineer remix/redo some stuff is bound to sound better a lot of the time. We’ll use the original UK running order for the album.
Lucky Number Winner: US/remixed Bechirian knows what he’s doing when it comes to mixing: this has a brighter tone and a more swinging tempo; beefier drum fills; more manly background vocals; a slightly more “quirky” lead vocal, and the brilliant addition of the monk-like “number” chant for the outro.
A slightly different, live (?) version from Top O’ the Pops
Sleeping Beauty Winner: US/remixed The US version has a new vocal (this will be a theme in many of the US/remix wins), but the UK original is clearer and more natural — Lene doesn’t fight the instruments to be heard as much. That said, the US version is better mixed throughout, and adds more bv’s and stronger bell sounds. It also has a new guitar solo, and the song cuts to the ending much quicker, losing 30 seconds of repetitive vamping from the original version, which gives it the win.
Home Winner: UK original Some may disagree, but I think the UK original mix retains more of that surfer/psychedelic feel. This seems like the first song were Lene’s vocal wasn’t re-recorded in the US version, but then again, the US mix adds some new guitar twang and louder FX during the middle eight.
Lip synced version from Dutch TV
Too Tender (to Touch) Winner: UK original The US version features the bells much more prominently, which is an improvement on the UK version, but oddly tries to bury Lene’s vocal under a significantly louder piano (excellent work by Don Snow) and some organ bits. Again, it’s the same vocal on both versions, but Lene never really comes to the fore in the US version until the bridge, and even then a new and different piano solo gets thrown in for no clear reason.
Say When Winner: US/remixed Conversely, on this one it’s not even close: Bechirian’s significantly re-mixed and re-recorded version is just vastly superior. It’s a fun song either way, but Lene’s terrific new vocal contrasted with more male bv humming, and a far more prominent organ, some nicely-placed reverb and other touches just make this one the definitive version (plus an extra count-up!).
Lip synced for Dutch TV
Tonight Winner: tie Nick Lowe’s “Tonight” gets a really nice 1950s treatment in both versions, but each one drops the ball in one way or another. The UK version puts Lene front and center vocally throughout, as it should, but it criminally dwells on the sax (which is very good, don’t get me wrong) at the expense of not bringing in the crucial supporting background “echo” bv’s until the song is more than half over. While the US version corrects that mistake, Bechirian piles on all the instruments too much, frequently drowning out Lene’s climatic vocals in the choruses.
Writing on the Wall Winner: US/remixed Another 50’s influenced number, this time the tragic story-song that skirts doo-wop territory at times. The US version brings in sax, better mixing for the organ, and adds more male bv’s to give the song more atmosphere.
Telepathy Winner: US/remixed A very funny song, which backs off the 50s influence somewhat but still has an echo of it. Once again, the US version brings in the background vocals right away and keeps them around throughout, and Lene’s re-recorded vocal actually improves on the UK original. The better mixing and more vocal power wins the day.
Momentary Breakdown Winner: UK original We’ve now moved firmly (with “Telepathy” and now this one) into early 60’s (fake) girl group sound. This time it’s the UK version that gives the “girls” plenty of spotlight, and Lene’s incredible, four-octave finale is just … (chef’s kiss). The US version mostly buries the bv’s until the middle eight, but does offer better separation for the instruments, and the end of Lene’s octave stunt isn’t the end of the song this time, she just descends and starts over (briefly).
One in a 1.000.000 Winner: UK original This song always reminds me of “Say When” in its franticness, strong vocal, and playful arrangement — you could image a chorus line of western burlesque dancers high-stepping this number at an old west saloon. The US version again puts Lene back a little in the mix (with bv’s more prominent, but to be fair they’re very good), but the two versions are by far the most similar between the two releases, with only a slight change to the sonic staging on this one.
I Think We’re Alone Now Winner: tie Bewilderingly, the US version on this song flips the typical script on the way it’s mixed, with the instruments nicely separated from Lene’s vocal, with the bv’s a little less prominent and her own background sounds getting some of that spotlight also. The difference between the US version and UK version is still a little subtle and for me, either one is the best version of this song I’ve ever heard.
The final disc in this three-CD set feels a lot like someone spent a lot of time on the first two, then realised “oh crap, there’s a mountain of stuff I haven’t even gotten to yet!” and tried to cram as much of it in at the last minute — which reminds me of me and my suitcase packing. There is a marathon 27 tracks here (literally hitting the 80-minute CD limit), and as with the other two discs, the “hits” are in the minority and the also-rans are in the majority.
Much of the fun of this set is discovering some lost gold, but also this whole set paints a picture of both the fall (but lasting influence) of punk and the rise of post-punk, which dominated ’79 until fashion (and better/more affordable synthesizers) entered the picture, whereupon it evolved again into New Wave. Some acts were more forward-looking (XTC, Human League, The Monochrome Set, The Vapors, The Wall), some weren’t (Swell Maps, Disco Zombies, The Regents, Notsensibles) but most were just taking advantage of the spirit of the times to either play at being a rock star (The Zipps, The Monks, The Freshies), or seriously explore their own creative path (The Mekons, PiL, Scritti Politti).
What I like about these sorts of “specific year, period, or genre” comps, at least the way Cherry Red does them, is that they make you a true Whitman’s Sampler of the subject, rather than focusing on the most memorable hits like most labels would — thus grossly misusing the term “Best of.” Instead, we get a marbled slice of the whole cake — nothing truly terrible, but the gamut of acts that got to the record-cutting stage who ended up being run-of-the-mill at worst, and gloriously daring and original at best.
One thing I noticed about the third CD was that the famous/infamous “two minutes-ish” standard was really starting to slip – most of the songs here are over two minutes, many are over three minutes, and a handful sail right past a scandalous four minutes!
At a total of 76 tracks, “Revolt Into Style” is probably best suited as the soundtrack for a 1979-themed party, with prizes for those who can name the more obscure tracks, but … as a snapshot of a moment in music, it is far better and more representative of a time where the “next big thing” wasn’t yet clear, and popular music was open to more possibilities than had been there for a while.
THE MUSIC
Disc 3 starts off with a strong set of four songs — one from the quixotic XTC, who managed to become a minor but mainstream success with a number of charting hits; two from bands that are beloved by their fans (which include me), but all but unknown to everyone else (The Revillos aka Rezillos and The Monochrome Set); and a oddly attracting but utterly obscure song about driving habits (!) from a band that sank without a trace (Passage).
★“Making Plans for Nigel” is one of Colin Moulding’s unlikely hits, which must have confused the heck out of main songwriter Andy Partridge (who had to wait quite some time for one of his to climb the charts. It is, as is a theme throughout the entire boxset, not a love song — and showcased their angular soundscape and unconventional vocals, yet still managed to become their first Top Twenty single and bring more attention to the band. Happily, they kept following up with strong choices for single and album material for quite a while.
★“Where’s the Boy for Me?” is a brilliant mod-ish parody of teenbeat songs (like those of Lesley Gore, whom I adore) and those boy-crazy beach movies. It features the best damn fake Farisa sound around, plus the requisite twangy guitar solo, great garbage-can-lid drums, and starts frantic and builds up to a sudden hard stop. Not the first band to create a warped image of the 1950s, but one of the best.
★“The Monochrome Set” by The Monochrome Set is, surprisingly, not the only self-named single on this disc (!), but in this case it’s a manifesto of wit and whimsy from the point of view of the bored, cynical offspring of the rich — one of those things Noel Coward might have tossed off if he’d been a pop star. The single version included here was reworked a bit for the album version (found on Strange Boutique), but its the blueprint for Bid’s entire ouevre of smart, humourous songwriting.
★Passage were the first band on the disc that were utterly new to me, and the song “Taking My Time” is … odd … in its subject matter, but it has lodged itself firmly in my head for some reason. I mean, who writes a song about bad driving? It really makes me curious to explore whatever other music they put out. Perhaps the fact that it was produced by David Cunningham of the Flying Lizards gives it a touch of commerciality (with surprise cello at the end), coupled with a simplistic chorus and odd subject.
THE BEST OF THE REST …
★Other winners on this disc for me included “Empire State Human,” which is technically the very first Human League single (the one before, “I Don’t Depend On You,” was done under the name The Men). Of course Human League were one of the bands that took their very forward-looking sound and made commercial hay with it, but this one stands out even on this disc the way Gary Numan did on Disc 1. It’s a story-song, which I always like, plus its really funny.
It didn’t actually do well on initial release, what with being a song about a man who is deteremined to become the tallest person in the world (and succeeds), but was re-released later and became a hit. The segue out of the song features the lyrics “fetch more water, fetch more sand/biggest person in the land,” which somehow works with the whole bizarre thing. I love it.
★“Kiss the Mirror” by The Wall is an early dark-rock song that predates the big obsession with that genre as we suffer through the Thatcher reign of austerity in the UK, followed by the election of war-happy Ronnie Ray-Gun in the US. While this particular track suffers from some poor production or mastering, it can’t hide the band’s talent — and made me go look up some more of their scattered discography, all of which I sampled was in much the same solid vein.
Their first single, “New Way,” was another John Peel favourite (as you may have gathered, his opinion was very important to the compilers of this set, as it was to most young people in the UK at the time). “New Way” borrowed a chorus from the Sex Pistols, but they’re forgiven because the song was produced by former Pistols Paul Cook and Steve Jones. Beset by personnel changes, the band split up in 1982, but have had at least one reunion (in 2007), and their two studio albums have been augmented by a live album in 2009 and a compilation of the Ian Lowry material that came out in 2021.
★Public Image Ltd’s lesser-heard single “Memories” is an other example of a band that doesn’t sound like everyone else (often a problem for the also-ran bands, on this disc in particular). Long-forgotten but brought to my attention in this track is the repeated use of the phrase “I could be wrong” — which he used again to even greater affect on the band’s biggest hit, “Rise.” Feeling nostalgic after hearing this, I went to look up their latest album (End of World) and sampled the song “Car Chase” — yep, still Johnny, still unique, still great.
The very next track on the disc is the compilers sneaking in a musical joke. “Johnny B. Rotten” by The Monks, who have no aspirations of imitating either the Sex Pistols or the former Mr. Rotten; it’s just a fun pop song taking the piss — or maybe it’s meant as the flip side of “Johnny B. Goode.”
★Then we come to a breath of fresh air with The Vapors’ first single, “Prisoners.” In many ways, it’s the same old “three chords and a cloud of dust” approach so many of the other bands use, but smart backup vocals and the stylish interplay between David Fenton and Ed Bazelgette really shows off their talent. It can’t have hurt that Fenton borrowed a musical phrase from Bruce Springsteen’s 1975 hit “Born to Run,” but I love how he used it here.
★Finally, we get to a ska song (sort of), and it’s Madness’ “Bed and Breakfast Man,” a very mainstream hit from the Nutty Boys, again in the tradition of a Kinks-ian story-song but with that ska influence. This was the one that proved the band wouldn’t be a one-hit wonder, and that they could grow and embrace other styles as well.
★There’s also a single by the emerging Dexy’s Midnight Runners called “Dance Stance” (originally called “Burn It Down” when they were still a punk band, and that titled returned for the album version). Singer Kevin Rowland and guitarist Al Archer had soured on punk, rethought their goals, and came up with Dexy’s style of northern soul.
This was the first indicator of their new direction, and it’s thus rougher than what they would become, but it still captures that rebellious spirit the fuelled punk, addresses an anti-Irish sentiment that was prevalent during “The Troubles,” and takes it in a different direction (including a litany of Irish literature legends name-checked in the song). Thankfully we get the demo version here, rather than the official single (which stripped out the remaining punk element and just wasn’t as good).
★Another keeper was The Lurkers with “New Guitar in Town,” which does a lovely job with what would later be called “jangle pop.” It closely follows the style of drum-and-guitar driven fast pop that dominates the sound of ’79, but good vocals and agile play make it work.
★The last of the highlights for me was the inclusion of the perennial post-punk novelty number, “Where’s Captain Kirk?” by Spizzenergi. You gotta love a man (Kenneth Spiers) who has made an entire career (still going!) out of a single song (okay, that’s not quite true … have you heard his cover of “The Model” by Kraftwerk?), and ever-changing band names on the theme of “Spizz.” Fast, fun, whacky, excellent guitars and gratuitous vocal effects (plus a human farisa organ!) … what’s not to love?
… AND THE REST OF THE REST
Another wrinkle that occasionally gets into the music here (and throughout the collection) is the introduction of sax and occasionally other horns to add some soul and punch to the guitar-heavy sound. In the earlier discs, bands would often lead with the bass and drums, but by Disc 3 bass has been mostly pushed into the background in favour of more guitar. We’re also sloooowwwwlllyyy getting back to love songs, which isn’t a bad thing — but we were enjoying the break and the variety of other subjects that dominate this compilation.
As we’ve noted across these discs, there was (and still is) a tradition of the occasional single (that sometimes does rather well) of a bunch of lads on a musical lark (see also “Zip Nolan” by the Cult Figures on Disc 2). These days its mostly the realm of novelty Xmas singles or forcing the tournament football team to make a loutish charity record, but a … let’s call it “project” … called Swell Maps managed to make a career out of it for a while.
The example given here, “Real Shocks,” will remind listeners of the Cult Figures, but to be fair one can detect more musicianship than is immediately evident in this basement-studio type sound of young men having a good time, semi-melodically. Having sampled them a bit more (going back to 1972!), I acknowledge that they didn’t always sound like this — in their early days they were more acolytes of Can and Faust — but I doubt any of their output will ever make it into my collection except by means of a compilation like this.
That said, it is similarly paired well with the next track, “Friends” by The Zipps, who really were a group of students from Belfast who recorded exactly two songs and then went back to school and the rest of their lives. Even though there was only this one single from them, it actually ended up as a pretty good effort — but lead singer Mel Power just wasn’t lead-singer material (though I think it could be a hit if some more-talented group covered it).
Next up is “Disco Zombies” by the Disco Zombies. Now, I’m kind of a sucker for bands that write songs about themselves (see also “The Monochrome Set” and “Hey Hey We’re the Monkees”), but this one is a bit on the meh side, relying like many of the songs here on a limited set of guitar chords. As with The Zipps’s effort, the song isn’t actually bad, just poorly produced — and without the spark of much talent.
“Number 12” by The Pack is, as you’d expect from a Rough Trade release at this point in its history, pretty “yelly” and punky. It’s actually the b-side from the “King of Kings” single, but ultimately The Pack went nowhere. The lead vocalist Kirk Brandon and Simon and Jon Werner (guitar and bass, respectively) got together years later as Theatre of Hate, which was a more successful effort.
The Mekons, who are still active (but slowing down) to this day, are represented by “Work All Week,” a pre-album single not included on the album until a 1990 reissue. Given that they came from the same group of students that formed Gang of Four and Delta 5, and that the band used Gang of Four’s instruments to record it, as you can imagine it sounds a lot like them.
The musical style is still gelling on this one, but the lyrics make a good comment on the price of love under capitalism. This really should have been paired with “You Got to Pay” by The Only Ones from Disc 1.
Following this we have a deliberate attempt to be “commercial” by punk band 999 after various singles and a couple of albums failed to interest the public — they did better later — and this didn’t move the needle for the band. It’s pretty meh, to be honest, but astonishingly they are still together, playing and releasing albums as recently as 2020.
The Outcasts were an interesting story: a decent band, you might like them if you only listen to the music, but apparently the members were all hooligans who constantly got in fights and other such shenanigans. The song included here is called “Self Conscious Over You,” and it’s not bad at all, and it’s one of the few songs about love on this disc. It’s a pity they self-sabotaged themselves out of a potential career.
“Children of the World” by The Freshies changed up the mood as a middle-of-the-road pop band with a nice sound but un-followable lyrics. Chris Sievy had (and still has) a propensity for silly titles, and indeed in 1981 he had a hit with this band with a cute song called “I’m in Love with the Girl on the Virgin Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk,” which a glorious title for a single. These days, he’s better known as Frank Sidebottom, another odd but enjoyable cult thing.
Secret Affair, a “mod” revival band with punkish leanings, are also still around — having taken a long break after the third album — and this song, “Glory Boys” was indicative of the direction they would take for the rest of their recording career.
“7 Teen” by The Regents shows up on a lot of post-punk compilations, and is the only song on this disc explicitly about sex. Cleverly put together with a female backup crew that gave them a strong faux-50s vocal sound, the single version used here includes the lyric “a permanent reaction” rather than the original “a permanent erection.” It hit #11, but The Regents never had a successful follow-up.
The Boys (formerly the Choirboys) are up next with “Kamikaze” — a hard-rocker story-song that has a low opinion of Japanese-made motorbikes. It would be seen today as a bit racist, but I can testify that this was “a thing” back in those days, with Harley fans spitting on Honda and Kawasaki bikes for being small and fuel efficient.
“Easy Way Out” by the Carpettes is an enjoyable but kind of a fatalistic punk number. They eventually went full-on New Wave (with Mod influence) later on in their career and for me were more interesting in that period.
This brings us to an early Scritti Politti single “Messthetics,” of which the clever title is the best thing about it, apart from Green Gartside’s fine (and slightly lower register) vocal. The song itself is a bit of a mish-mash, but you know — refer back to the title!
This brings us to the very last track and that feeling you get where you’ve completed a very long, somewhat grueling yet pleasant journey. The Notsensibles (who might well be Swell Maps collaborating with Cult Figures, they’re that similar) bring us “I’m in Love with Margaret Thatcher.” Have I mentioned the influence she had on most of this music? That said, I suppose we do have to “thank” her for a lot of the protest content that came out in these years.
She was a very hated woman in many quarters, and remains so to this day — as is only right and proper. Sadly, the Tories learned nothing from this, then or now. Even worse than that, it’s no longer too fashionable to craft protest songs about bad government policies on either side of the Atlantic, and that’s a damn shame. As Johnnie B. Rotten himself once said, “Anger is an energy.”
THE WRAP UP
Even though this set covers a tremendous pivoting year in music, it’s frankly not for everyone — or even most people. They’ll want “the hits” or at least more familiar songs from 1979 from bands they recognise, and that’s fine … but it’s not this box set’s purpose.
As I mentioned previously, it’s more like a candy box — there’s (almost) nothing here that isn’t sweet and nice, but if you’ve ever gotten a box that has no “map” of what’s inside the chocolates … there’s a few you’re sure you will like, but the others are a little bit of a gamble.
Thanks to the thoughtful curation, a wide gamut of power-pop tastes are catered to, and for those who like a bit of adventure and are open-minded, this is a fun journey. It’s augmented nicely by some brief but informative notes about each release that occasionally shine a new light on the music you’re hearing.
1978 through the early 80s was a period where record companies really had no idea what was going to “hit” with the public, and with the birth of the indie label, almost anyone with a interesting sound or look had a shot. Those days seem long gone now, and music is likely to be done by “AI” in the near future with minimal human involvement (or emotion), so enjoy some passionately hand-crafted <s>pottery</s> music that may or may not be very good, or is good but not to your taste, or is familiar and fun, or is utterly fantastic and right up my alley and why have I never heard this before?
If you’re up for a little musical spelunking, you’ll hit the highs and (relatively soft) lows with this set, and maybe open up your tastes a little bit more. Can’t ask for much better than that.
Moving on to disc 2, we find a higher ratio of commercially-successful singles, but still a fair selection of “who?” bands and also-rans. For me, at least, the ratio of obscure bands dropped considerably, and the number of tracks that actually charted went up.
Sadly, this disc also features a couple of tracks I’m not inclined to listen to again. I didn’t hate anything here — the tunefulness of this collection, along with the humour evident in even some of the “bad” songs is one of the hallmarks of 1979 (the year we could make fun of punk, apparently), but we’ll come back to some of those later.
That said, it also has a higher ratio of “add to playlist” songs (11 out of 24 tracks) and a bit more variety. The brash, angry influence of punk is starting to fade, but thankfully not the sense of urgency: most of these songs hover around three minutes, with some closer to two minutes (and one that’s even less than that!).
THE MUSIC
The disc kicks off with “Up the Junction,” a really clever composition by Squeeze from their second album that pulls off an entire UK kitchen-sink drama told within a song of love won and lost without using any repeated lyrics or offering a chorus. As I listened beyond this story-song, I kept coming back to it to check that it really did sound as muddy from a production standpoint as I initially thought it did, and indeed its true; very muffled drums and bass, and the vocal was a bit understated but at least properly recorded.
After a few re-listens to be sure, I decided to check my copy of the album — only to find that the entire Cool for Cats sounds pretty bad, even by then-contemporary standards. Producer John Wood (and the band), for shame!
Just for the record (heh), Squeeze’s first album (titled U.K. Squeeze outside the UK) did not have this problem, even though the band itself produced two of the tracks, with John Cale producing the rest of the album. Although the band didn’t like working with Cale too much (he wanted “tougher” songs than they had been doing), I think the debut album holds up pretty well, and the two tracks the band produced themselves slot nicely into their general ouevre.
The very next track on Disc 2 is also by a band that went on to bigger and better, so let’s take a look at all the best-known tracks here first. “Groovy Times” by The Clash was an interestingly off-beat choice for this comp, as it comes from an EP released after the second of their influential “punk” albums.
It’s an alarmingly relaxed and amiable single, with Joe trying to croon as best he can, but the lyrics are a bit snarky still. Hard to believe this is on the same EP as their blistering cover of “I Fought the Law,” which for me is the definitive version of that song.
Track 3 is a rougher single than you might expect from The Records, who hit it big right out of the gate with their first single, “Starry Eyes.” Good to hear them doing something a bit harder, but this track reminded me that I haven’t listened to the band’s non-singles output in years, and that I should rectify that. “Girls That Don’t Exist” is a song that grows on you, though it is less than their best.
Other notable tracks I enjoyed on the disc from the “name brand” bands include Skids’ “Masquerade” (very anthemic, but I’m still not quite sure what it’s about); Gang of Four’s “At Home He’s a Tourist” because it’s still brilliant; “Disorder” by Joy Division (for being the most New Order-ish of the JD songs); the Jags’ best-known song “Back of My Hand” because it’s a damn-near-perfect pop single; “Kid” by The Pretenders because “first and best” lineup doing a different sort of ballad; and The Jam’s energetic “When You’re Young” for its less-chosen single status and teen-life subject. There’s also the Echo & the Bunnymen version of “Read It in Books” as an alternative to Julian Cope’s version — long story short, McCullogh and Cope (and Pete Wylie) were once in a band together, and they wrote this back then.
Having just mentioned Julian Cope, I should add that the “original” (aka demo) version of “Bouncing Babies” is here, and like the Squeeze song the sound quality pretty bad compared to the tracks around it — Cope (whose vocal is nicely clear) is pushed back in the mix like he’s singing from inside a wardrobe. The drum sound is akin to someone beating on carpet rolls with an exhaust pipe, and the bass isn’t much better — and yet you still can’t hide what a good song it is.
The Undertones may be a band you’ve not heard before, but I’ve been a fan from the debut of their first album from the moment it was available as an import. It showed some fresh-faced Irish lads on the cover, it was a Sire record, and their logo had an arrow pointing forward in it. I was sold, and even more delighted to hear its light, happy pop-punk sound (remembering that “The Troubles” were still going on when this came out), complete with the most Irish vocalist you could hope to hear this side of the Rovers in Feargal Sharkey (also a very Irish name, to be sure!).
“Here Comes the Summer” isn’t their best song, but it’s very representative of that early-era sound they had, and is just naturally infectious. Happy, cheerful Irish people? Don’t breathe a word of this to James Joyce!
The first real clanger you come across is track five, by Clive Langer (and the Boxes). “The Whole World” features some nice guitar work by Clive, but is otherwise pretty undercooked and unmemorable, and we’re back to “working class” accents with not much to say. Thankfully he became a producer (along with Alan Winstanley), and was responsible for a lot of great stuff from other artists.
As for the other “lesser” tunes on this disc, “Burning Bridges” by The Cravats wasn’t a bad song per se, but it had a really bad vocalist. Spat-out and snarled spoken lyrics work well in punk songs, but less so in hooky, sax-driven, upbeat frantic rock. It’s short (2’27”), which musically is a shame … but vocally, it’s a relief.
Speaking of bad singers, “Citinite” by Fashion is represented here, featuring short-lived original vocalist Al James. The rest of the band are pretty good, but oh my gosh he’s terrible. I’m so glad they dropped him, and the promise you can hear musically on this song is more fulfilled by the time we get around to their best-known album, Fabrique.
Rounding out the “crap singer” trilogy, we have the Teenbeats with “I Can’t Control Myself,” that pairs a really catchy riff with a singer who only occasionally delivers a smooth vocal — the rest is pretty rough, and sounds put-on, like someone told them to sound “edgier.”
“Alternative Suicide” by The Numbers isn’t actually bad, but it just doesn’t gel. It’s a dark rocker with an amusing viewpoint, but if I’m being kind I’ll say that it’s ahead of its time with its Mopey Goth Kid style.
It does pair well with Adam and the Ants’ “Whip in My Valise,” though … a slow-burn ode to the “pleasures” of BDSM with very arch, darkly campy vocals from Mr Goddard. It’s really more notable for featuring the original Ants — guitarist Andy Warren went on to the Monochrome Set (where he resides to this day), and the bassist and drummer were stolen away by Malcolm McLaren to form Bow Wow Wow.
A special mention of badness has to be given to The Stranglers, and it’s astonishing to think that their song “(Don’t Bring) Harry” was ever considered a single, when in fact it may well be the worst thing they ever recorded (and certainly the worst song on this disc). As a big fan of the original lineup and early albums, the slow pace of the song doesn’t throw me off nearly as much as Hugh Cornwall’s attempt at a whispery “dreamy” vocal featuring a lot of low notes he doesn’t quite hit, in a song about heroin that has some fine musicianship but a vocal that sounds like Cornwall was on heroin when it was recorded.
The remaining songs on this disc range from “meh” to “good, but not quite there,” and there’s only a handful of them, thankfully. Ruts’ “Something That I Said” is a fully competent rock song that moves along well but repeats its title way too many times, covering up for a lack of lyrical meaning. Plenty of tasty guitar work for you to pump your fist to, though.
Likewise, “There Must Be Thousands” by The Quads was a nice find, a working-class club-friendly band pouring out the earnest rock with above average subject matter, with feeling. “Radio-Active” by The Cheetahs is a pretty pleasant slice of power-pop, but its anti-radiation theme (admittedly a significant topic of the times) wears a bit thin now, and this one is a forerunner of the many songs of the 80s that were also had that (less obvious) fretting about the potential for nuclear attack.
Cult Figures’ “Zip Nolan” is kind of funny if you’re drunk (as the band seems to have been); it comes across as an improvised theme song for a fictional action hero put together at the pub that’s barely coherent and sounds like frat boys having a laugh at karaoke.
Another dumb/funny song is the final track on the disc, “I Want My Woody Back,” by The Barracudas. It starts off as a lament, but like it’s a double-entendre for … something … so the band feel the need to explain in the song that a “Woody” is a wood-paneled car you take your surfboards and girlfriends to the beach in for a day doing beach stuff. Unlike “Zip Nolan,” though, this one is well performed and might make a cute girl blush, and thus it brings the disc to a gentler, lighter-hearted end.
If you were a young person in the very late 70s, but old enough to be really into music, then you’ll be aware that 1979 was a pivotal year in the aftermath of the punk revolution in the UK. Where 1977 saw punk “die” (not) and fall off radio’s radar, it diversified and injected fresh excitement into ska and mod music, and 1978 was where punk-influenced music began to chart again, becoming a lasting influence in popular music.
Witness for the prosecution, exhibit 1: Cherry Red’s “1979: Revolt Into Style,” a three-disc buffet of singles both famous and completely obscure that collectively represent what I would call the DIY-versification of rock and pop after the kick in the nads the corporate-label acts got from punk. The youth of the late-70s, who saw little to no future and what might be coming under Thatcher looked pretty bleak, protested in the form of their own contributions to sound and culture.
Importantly, punk (and let’s not forget The Velvet Underground) taught a LOT of artists across genres that it was okay to write political songs, angry songs, message songs, and really just anything that was on their minds more so than just love songs. It also took from punk rock the idea that your message should be important, so get to it quick and don’t hang about — plus it wore Lou Reed’s “not a trained singer” influence as a badge of honour for quite a number of the vocalists.
Punk’s most direct musical mutation was collectively known as New Wave, but a fair amount of it was just pop and rock underneath a studied anti-style — or as Bowie would phrase it just a year later, “same old thing in brand new drag/comes sweeping into view.” Following the punk explosion of musical rage, David seemed to be signaling that being too political and serious all the time might make Jack a dull boy before too long, and Scary Monsters was the proof.
Bowie needn’t have worried. As a new decade containing a fearful future foretold by Orwell loomed, the forces of traditional pop put up a brave fight to hold on to their power and popularity. As Bill Nelson puts it in the lead-off track, “Though I know the time is nearly 1984, it feels like 1965.” The song in which he sings that takes its title from a poem about Elvis (Presley, not Costello) that includes the line “he turns revolt into a style.”
And that’s exactly what was happening by the time 1979 rolled around. The songs in this compilation — which showcase that half-way point between wanting to change the world and the more traditional rock-band path of wanting to get rich & famous & groupies — range from deadly serious to clearly taking the piss, using whatever sound and vision they had to hand.
The accompanying booklet for the set contains bits of background info about each song, which provides for a list of interesting tidbits. The journey through the sets themselves provide all the variety of a musical rollercoaster, and even the hit-and-miss parade of songs do succeed in painting a picture of the emerging “new normal” for bands and artists.
Though still bound musically by the traditional rules of rock music, the new “wave” here comes to the fore in singing styles, subject matter, arrangements, and a sense of urgency that gives a lot of the music its power. In a few cases, the mastering for these records sounds as though it came from the 45s themselves, as undoubtedly the master tapes in some cases couldn’t be located.
As with all samplers, whether music or chocolates, it’s all basically good — and half the fun is finding new gems. We’ll highlight our previously-unknown best cuts, and what we thought was the worst songs on each given disc.
DISC 1 – THE MUSIC
As mentioned, every disc in this set has a mixture for familiar and “new to my ears” material, which keeps things interesting (another key rule for the post-punk set: don’t get too formulaic). While there were only a handful of tines on Disc 1 that I’d keep on rotation (nine or 10 songs out of the 24 on this disc), not a single song rated a no-star or one-star rating from me, and you gotta love a disc with a packed 77 minutes of runtime and little filler.
Among my favourites on Disc 1 was the lead was the lead off, “Revolt Into Style,” by Bill Nelson’s Red Noise — very much ahead of its time and probably would have been a bigger hit if Nelson’s vocals were more prominent in the mix. Other four- or five-star efforts in my opinion included:
★ “I Feel Flat” (Andy Arthurs and the Rock-Along Combo), which showcased the adenoidal style singing that was briefly in fashion, paired with a very catchy tune and “not a love song” lyrics about loneliness.
★ “Rhythm of Cruelty” by Magazine, which — alongside “The Staircase” by Siouxsie and The Banshees, “Rebellious Jukebox” by The Fall, and “Sink Your Boats” by Ian Dury and the Blockheads on this disc — showcased bands that emerged into the public consciousness fully formed, like Zeus’ children, and already sure in their trademark sound.
★ “Stop Being a Boy” (the Squares), which may or may not be an ahead-of-its-time song about gender identity but with a hefty dose of irony in the way it is sung versus its lyrics. I don’t want to spoil it, but I could imagine the late Tiny Tim having a go at a song like this (!).
★ “Me I Disconnect From You” by Gary Numan is far and away the most original song, both musically and lyrically, on this disc — and as anyone who knows Numan’s second album (as Tubeway Army) can attest, this single served as a powerful advance scout for the synthesizer armies already assembling, that would come into their own with the 80s. Young Mr. Webb had some money and skills behind him, and it really stands out in the context of this mostly bass/drum/guitar driven disc.
★ “Highly Inflammable” by X-Ray Spex, by contrast, shows off more range that they had previously been known for — hinting at a future new direction — but became their farewell single when singer/songwriter Poly Styrene (Marianne Elliot-Said) left.
There were a few ties for two-star rated tracks, but for me the single worst song on this disc was by Toyah (the band, starring Toyah Willcox) with the “why on earth is this here” prog-rock track “Victims of the Riddle (Part 1),” which the influential New Musical Express (NME) accurately dubbed “theatrical froth.” She’s a strong singer in the Kate Bush mold, but let’s just say I’m in no rush to hear Part 2.
Another noteworthy “odd man out” is Eddie & the Hot Rods’ song “Media Messiahs.” They were a traditional power-rock band (hence the name) that got the memo and tried gamely to go with the flow, reasonably successfully.
This was an unsubtle but relevant “message” song about the existing mainstream media of the time. The band never quite cut it with me, but at least they were reading the tea leaves of the times and trying to become (stay?) relevent as the world temporarily moved on from crotch-rock, and as a result they have managed to wangle their way onto quite a number of “New Wave” samplers, and even made the soundtrack album to Rock n Roll High School.
The other tracks here range from “Not bad, not great” to “amiably forgettable,” and quite a few of the artists not singled out in the list above still went on to bigger and better — but again the important thing is not just the songs you find you like and/or are familiar to you from way back then. It’s the journey of hearing these artists working with their new insights, new rules, and new sounds is itself a revistation to a time, place, and political reality that had a profound effect on what had been, to this point, a more easily-defined decade of mainstream entertainment.
Picking up this deep dive into Bowie’s inadvertent audio diary of 1970 after two years (!) away, it is finally time to examine the second disc. As mentioned, not many artists can claim to have a single year of artistic development so thoroughly documented in CD form as young Master Bowie did here, but thanks in large part to a new band member — Mick Ronson — alongside bassist and collaborator Tony Visconti, we get the rough with the smooth of that year as Bowie evolved through it.
This first disc showcased that growth, with an eclectic but intimate radio concert, sampling from across Bowie’s two-album career thus far (minus his hit single). In a way, it also illustrated the progression he was making from Newley-influenced story-songs from the first record to the better songwriting and more “hippie” influence of his time at the Beckinham Arts Lab.
The second disc of The Width of a Circle is more the “odds and ends” one. It features a set of tunes accompanying a Lindsey Kemp mime performance (one of them soon to be recycled), the singles from this period, including some alternate and/or stereo mixes are used — and in one case, the lead-up to the next album, and a (shorter this time) radio performance for DJ Andy Ferris, wrapping up with some 50th anniversary remixes by Tony Visconti.
The Andy Ferris show appearance, just six weeks after the one that makes up Disc 1, shows Ronson settling in nicely. It more strongly hints at Bowie’s latest change of direction under Mick’s guidance — including a telling cover song.
There’s a little overlap from the concert on Disc 1 to the March 1970 Ferris show, but the feel is quite different musically — and continues to help paint the picture of how Bowie got from his first two albums to his third LP, The Man Who Sold the World. Bowie and band were preparing to go into the studio the following month to record it, and the resulting album came out in the US in November of ’70 — capping off this extraordinarily transformative year.
Although the UK release had to wait until April of 1971, it was already clear by then that this new album was also to be a sales flop — but this time, the critical reviews were much better on both sides of the Atlantic. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and let’s instead check out this second disc of 1970’s activity, section by section.
Songs that turn on a mime
A still from the TV version of “Pierrot in Turquoise.” David is on the right.
Disc 2 starts off four songs from “The Looking Glass Murders (or Pierrot in Turquoise),” which was a filmed version for Scottish Television of a mime show Kemp staged from late December of 1967 into the spring of the following year under the Pierrot in Turquoise title — the colour being suggested by Bowie, who was studying Buddhist lore at the time, where the colour is associated with the quality of “everlasting.”
In the original stage show, David sang three songs from his first album, accompanied on piano, and performed the role of “Cloud,” a kind of a minstrel narrator who helps bedevil Pierrot. In July of 1970, Kemp got in touch with Bowie to ask him to reprise his role and write some new songs for the now-reworked show, as it was being filmed.
The TV version starred Kemp as Pierrot, Annie Stainer as “Columbine” (Pierrot’s love interest), and Jack Birkitt as Harlequin (the threat to Pierrot’s romance), along with Bowie and pianist Michael Garrett. The new songs included “Threepenny Pierrot” — using the music of “London Bye Ta-Ta” — and two others, “Columbine” (which borrowed bits of “Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed”), and “The Mirror,” a fully original number.
The first song in the STV version was “When I Live My Dream,” a holdover from the first Bowie album. While the melody shows off an above-average musical skill, the lyrics are a really mixed bag — combining a schoolboy-like fantasy romance with some dark underpinnings of bitterness as the hero laments the loss (but hopeful return) of his “princess.” The reprise is just as wincing to listen to as the first time round.
In between is “Columbine,” written to establish the object of Pierrot’s desire and featuring equally theatrical lyrics, the more eloquent “Harlequin” (originally called “The Mirror”), and “Threepenny Pierrot,” performed in a music-hall style with simplistic lyrics. These songs should be considered a side-alley in Bowie’s career, as he was already starting to work on The Man Who Sold the World at the time, and had moved on in every artistic sense by this point.
The Singles of 1970
Tony Visconti, left, and Marc Bolan, right.
From here we move into the singles from this year, and the first is of course “The Prettiest Star,” one of Bowie’s rare flat-out love songs, created to flatter Angela ahead of their marriage. In all honesty, though, Biff Rose should have gotten a co-writing credit, as his influence is all over it (go listen to Rose’s “Angel Tension” if you disbelieve me).
That said, it features Bowie’s first recorded collaboration with Marc Bolan, who played electric guitar, Rick Wakeman on organ and celeste, and of course Bowie on acoustic and vocal. It got great reviews in the UK music press, but was ignored by the record-buying public in the UK, US, and everywhere else it was released.
The singles at this time came out in mono rather than stereo, because AM radio was so dominant. The version here is an alternative mix (still in mono) created back in the day by Visconti for US market promotion, but apparently (and audibly) wasn’t different enough, so it was forgotten about until now.
The “stereo” mix of the original version didn’t appear until The Best of David Bowie 1969-1974 album came along in 1997, and the artificial separation is very obvious. David re-did the song with a doo-wop/50s styling and Ronson rather than Bolan (but at least it was in stereo finally) for Aladdin Sane in ’73.
For my part, I’m delighted “The Prettiest Star” didn’t initially do that well. Yeah, it’s a lovely song — but if it had been another chart success like “Space Oddity,” he might have decided to work in the more conventional vein of love-song writing, because at this point he was still laser-focused on becoming a star. The fact that the song flopped so hard meant he had to find another way to become a rock god, and — thank heavens — he soon did.
“London Bye Ta-Ta” had been originally recorded as a potential single for Space Oddity back in ‘68, but was rejected (Deram dropped Bowie from the label after this). It was re-recorded in January of 1970 at the same time as “Prettiest Star” and with the same all-star guest cast, and was again supposed to have been a single, but got bumped by “The Prettiest Star,” which ended up having “Conversation Piece” as its b-side.
Consequently, this mono version of LBTT too was thrown into the vaults, and didn’t turn up again until Sound + Vision came out in 1989. The 2003 reissue of S+V included a previously-unreleased stereo mix of the song from 1970, which also turned up on the 2009 reissue of Space Oddity, and now appears here next to the mono version. There’s also a 2020 mix later on in the disc.
The final single from Space Oddity was a re-recorded electric version of “Memory of a Free Festival, Part 1” with the b-side being Part 2 of the same song, and they are both here in the 2015 remastered versions made for the Five Years Bowie box set. As the liner notes in the accompanying book for The Width of a Circle point out, this single not only featured Mick Ronson’s recording debut, but also the first use of a proper synthesizer on a Bowie record — no, the Stylophone on “Space Oddity” doesn’t count.
This electric version is also the first hint of Bowie’s stronger and more exuberant voice, hinting he will soon be leaving behind his more boyish and folkier tendencies that dominated the first two albums. This improved vocal style will serve him well on the harder Man Who Sold the World. This, though, is where he starts sounding like a real rock star.
The Hype, L-R: Bowie, unidentified man in stripes, Tony Visconti, Woody Woodmansey, Mick Ronson
Even though that single didn’t do well either, the new growth in David was spotted, and while Mercury had pretty much given up on Space Oddity at last, they seemed to be more impressed by his demo of a new song, “Holy Holy.” The first studio version of it was recorded by Bowie’s former bassist Herbie Flowers rather than Visconti, and released in January of ‘71 but went nowhere — as usual with Bowie singles up to this point.
The song was important, though, as the first indication that Bowie had taken on some influence from Bolan, and was starting to read a lot of Alastair Crowley, which greatly coloured The Man Who Sold the World and, eventually Ziggy Stardust. The first version heard on Width is the original version, produced and played on by Herbie Flowers (but remastered in 2015). You’ll immediately notice how oddly prominent Flowers’ bass is in his production of it …
We’ll be coming back to these records — plus “All the Madmen” — when we get to the all-new 2020 mixes of these singles by Visconti done for this project, and found at the end of this disc. All I’ll say for now is that technology — like Visconti — has come a long way in the interim.
Four singles (almost a fifth, even!) and all were flops. I believe it was The Curse of the Perm.
The Sounds of the 70s: Andy Ferris
Short version: what a difference not-quite-three months makes. Recorded on March 25th of 1970, from the very opening notes it is clear that Mick Ronson has taken over all electric guitar duties, and the band (Tony on bass, John Cambridge on drums) have really gelled — freeing David to be a true R’n’R frontman, pushing his voice and only playing acoustic guitar as needed.
Going back to Disc 1’s live performance for John Peel, you’ll recall that it started with a lengthy solo performance from “troubadour” David before slowly bringing on Cambridge and Visconti for another two numbers, finally adding the just-met guitarist Ronson on for the second and more rocking half — slowing moving from acoustic, to soft-rock trio, and finally to a rock band.
This time, the very first notes we hear are those of Ronson, teasing out the intro to a muscular cover of Lou Reed’s “Waiting for the Man.” As Bowie struts his now completely fey-free vocals, Ronson plays over, under, and all around the band’s music bed like a kid at a new playground. Taking a short break for some noodling, the band pulls it all back together for a hell of a showy finish that only sounds odd because of the lack of 10,000 screaming fans cheering in the stadium that the band are all playing for in their minds.
The session was produced by a man named Bernie Andrews, who had previously helmed a couple of Radio One sessions for what was now (and only briefly) being called David Bowie’s Hype. The next number, “The Width of a Circle,” is one of the overlaps between this radio session and Peel’s live session from January, and the comparison is pretty jolting, even though the same lineup played on both.
To be fair, the previous version was when Ronson had just joined, still dominated by acoustic guitar, and Bowie’s definitely struggling a bit to sing over the band. For this Andy Ferris performance, the songs were recorded ahead of the show’s airing on April 6th, and treated like a studio recording, with overdubs and tracked vocals.
This time, Ronson leads the way, seconding himself on guitar. Bowie’s using copious echo, and this time has no trouble at all with his range and sustains. Following the first voice, we get multiple-overdubs of Bowie accompanying himself, for a better finish — though we’ll have to wait for the album version on the forthcoming Man Who Sold the World to hear the complete, eight-minute version, which was recorded just a few weeks after this.
Next up was a very restrained but definitely electric take on “The Wild-Eyed Boy from Freecloud,” where Ronson and the boys play it pretty safe and let Bowie take the lead. Ronson does take some time near the end to borrow a hook or two from Visconti’s symphonic album version of the song, which appeared on the Space Oddity album.
As the book notes, the song was one of Bowie’s favourites for a long time, and also appeared (in an acoustic version) as the b-side for that album’s title track, which of course became Bowie’s first hit. But the really interesting track here is what I think might be the world debut of “The Supermen,” which as it turns out was a brave thing to do.
Just two days earlier, the book tells us, the band attempted to record the song in studio, but weren’t happy with it. The version we hear on this performance is a re-do of that failed version, and although it is carried off successfully this time it does have some distinct differences to the slightly-rewritten version that made it onto MWStW.
Ronson’s guitar growls angrily on the rhythm track, allowing him to overdub the occasional leads, Bowie also doubles himself on the wailing “So softly, a supergod cries!” refrain, and the whole thing is Very Serious and Nietzchian. “The Supermen,” more than the other tracks in this performance, previews where Bowie’s head was at for the forthcoming third album.
Still images from the Sounds of the 70s sessions.
The 2020 Mixes
For this box set and the 50th anniversary of The Man Who Sold the World, Parlophone went back to Tony Visconti in 2020 and asked him to create new mixes of the singles of 1970 detailed earlier, as well as “All the Madmen” which was almost … but then not … issued as a single in that year in advance of the forthcoming MWStW album. As it turns out, “Holy Holy” came out in its stead, but we’ll get to that.
Naturally, Visconti took full advantage of the masters as well as the latest in technology to create these new mixes. For this portion of the essay, I’ve opted to compare these new mixes to the original single version only. How do they compare?
Starting with “The Prettiest Star,” the immediately noticeable thing is the natural-sounding stereo, again drawn from the original mono recording. Listening to that original single, Bolan’s guitar is also more balanced and less pronounced, but still prominent.
Bowie’s vocal is right in the center as it should be, and echoed slightly in the run up to the title refrain. Everything sounds smoother, more polished, and in particular the synth, background vocal and strings get to move and sway around the channels, giving it the dreamlike effect that was clearly intended.
Ronson’s guitar, which replaces Bowie’s vocal for the break, also stays in the center — but unlike the original single, doesn’t play through to the end. Instead, Visconti gently fades Ronson’s last notes and extends the synth and strings combo to give the finale the same dreamlike quality they’ve had throughout the song — a really nice touch, in my opinion, and of course a huge improvement.
And speaking of huge improvements, the 1970 stereo mix of “London Bye Ta Ta” gets a massive makeover here, starting right with the opening. In the original, you opened with the acoustic in your left ear, followed by a blast of the rest of the band coming in a bar later on the right.
The 2020 mix offers a softer acoustic intro, followed by the band coming in more naturally on both channels. Bowie’s vocal is a little less pronounced, but smoother with just a slight reverb added, and broadly this version is much less “dynamic” and separated than the original single, but it’s also less “busy” — for example, the entire first verse and bridge loses the background singers, known as Sunny and Sue.
You can actually hear the piano work more clearly thanks to their omission on the bridge, but don’t worry — they show up fully on the second verse and bridge. Visconti has added strings, which feels added, but second time around they don’t diminish the BVs and other sounds.
There are some strings in the original, but only near the end, and for the 2020 version they’ve been balanced in nicely. Visconti adds a small bit of studio chat to the very end of the new version that wasn’t present on the single, but it’s contemporary from the original recording. On balance, I have to say I slightly prefer the original 1970 stereo single version, ham-fisted channel separation and all.
Now by contrast, Visconti’s 2020 mix of “Memory of a Free Festival” is a bloody masterpiece compared to the original single. The version of it presented here is the “single version,” running 5’23”, compared to the original single from 1970 which split the longer, 7.5-minute album version into two parts, with part 2 being the b-side.
As with the original, the lovely memory-song of the festival shifts gears halfway through, and becomes the “Sun Machine” jam mantra. But in this new version, every element is so sharp and gorgeous, with Bowie’s vocal so astonishingly clear. Every instrument, every note is so beautifully present and 100 percent mud-free, even with all the overdubbing of vocals in the second part.
On the original version, Bowie and the organ were mostly on the left, other elements mainly on the right until certain points, where both channels are used to full effect, and it was a very effective audio “special effect.” In the 2020 mix, Visconti creates a new version of the same trick: this time, everything is in full stereo, but the moments between the verses (and at other strategic points) are double-tracked and more separated at a higher level. It is a magical effect on headphones, maaaaan.
If you love this song like I do, this version feels like Bowie’s vision for it has finally been realised at long last, and it may even bring a tear to your eye. It makes the original single version sound like an 8-track tape that’s been left out in the rain.
Penultimately, we get to “All the Madmen,” which was intended as an advance promotional single (with the same song on the b-side) from the forthcoming MWStW album, but it never actually got released. The single (in mono) was supposed to be released on 4 November 1970 — the same date as the US album release — but visa problems meant that Bowie couldn’t “work” (perform) on a three-week tour of US radio stations, which didn’t help matters.
Some copies of this truncated version of “All the Madmen” were pressed, and a few still exist — they’re now rare collector’s items. The single edit runs just 3’15” compared to the album version’s more leisurely 5’43”, and really suffers for it.
It misses the eerie spoken word intro, for a start, and skips the first sub-chorus outright, leaving us with a sudden change in vocal mid-song to the “darker” styling more in line with his recent “rock star” singing ahead of the chorus. The intro starts off rather gently — with its intricate arrangement of acoustic guitar, gentle voice, and discant recorder duet (by Visconti and, surprisingly, Ronson).
Pay attention to that opening, because it’s important; it’s Hippie Bowie with a Perm leaving the building for good, even when David revisits his softer side on future albums. Just compare the sing-song ending of “Memory of a Free Festival” from Bowie’s second album with “Madmen’s” chant of “Zain, Zain, Zain, ouvre la chien.”
It’s just mind-boggling how different this same artist has become in under a year. More books, more sex, and maybe some drugs are about the only explanation for such a sea change that I can come up with.
As for the ending chant on “Madmen,” yes it’s willfully obtuse, but definitely sounds secret and potentially sinister. The first part of the chant on “Madmen” may refer to the Sword of Zain from the Qabalah, while the second part literally translates to “open the dog,” or more poetically, “release the hound.”
Bowie had been reading a lot of spiritual works around this time, including Thus Spake Zarathustra, which leads me to believe it’s a reference to Nietzshe’s idea of acknowledging and dealing with the dark side of one’s mind — which Bowie appears to now be embarking on.
This interpretation is reinforced by Bowie’s own experience with mental illness in his family, especially on his mother’s side. “All the Madmen” is, according to the man himself, about David’s brother Terry Burns — who spent most of his adult life in an insane asylum until his suicide in 1985.
According to a contemporaneous interview Bowie gave in ‘71, the song reflects Terry’s attitude that he preferred living in Cane Hill Hospital because the other patients there were “on his wavelength,” as he put it. The reason this unreleased single appears on Disc 2 is because it was created in 1970 and therefore should be included, and because Visconti has gone back and updated it here with a 50th anniversary mix.
The new version does a nice job of creating an excellent new stereo mix of the elements, starting with the open-string acoustic guitar (which seems like it’s been EQ’d for more bass). The second verse, with the recorders coming in and Woodmansey’s cymbal bell, are considerably clearer here than they were on the single, and the transition to electric with Ronson’s guitar and Visconti’s bass right on the phrase “such a long way down,” comes over much more smoothly in the new mix.
After the sub-chorus, Ronson bridges with dual harmonized guitar alongside Woody’s urgent drums, and the atmosphere change of the original is really “amped up” now. When we finally arrive at the chorus, Ron Mace’s strings-like Moog comes in to add the finishing touch, finally fusing with Ronson’s guitars exceptionally well.
Again, Visconti makes you feel like you’re listening to the master tape, rather than some nth-gen repressing. The handclaps, background vocals, and “secret message”-style refrain are truly present even as they slowly fade away, and overall it’s a big improvement to even the remastered version that appeared on the Five Years compilation.
Disc 2 ends with one last single in November of 1970, a non-album A-side of “Holy Holy,” backed with “Black Country Rock” from MWStW for the b-side, both in mono, again for the US market — since the new album was already out there, but wouldn’t be released in the UK until April of ‘71.
This is one of Bowie’s lowest-quality singles, given the repetition of the one-and-a-quarter verses he bothered to write (which are then repeated to fill the time, though less often as the album version), and the rather overwrought Nietzchian “Sex Magick” subject. That said, the chorus and Bowie’s vocal are pretty good, and the “Jaws” opening (predating that movie by a few years!) always brings me a smile.
But the big problem with the original single is the band Herbie Flowers put together for it (not Bowie’s band at all). They are just way too heavy-handed and, as is typical with Flower’s production, bass dominant. But that’s not to say there’s nothing interesting going on: there’s some vocal doubling with Bowie’s vocal, but it cuts out on the sub-chorus.
Naturally, Tony’s first job is to make this into stereo and clean things up, so naturally even just that makes it sound much better. Cheekily, he reprises the “Jaws” opener after the first verse, rather than the original’s guitar rise. Bowie’s doubled vocals are way clearer here, and are swapped for an all-new echo effect on the run-up to the chorus.
On the original, there is a single guitar “pluck” in between the line “I feel a devil in meeee” and the chorus, but in the new mix there’s a portion of a guitar slide that abruptly cuts off — not sure what Visconti was going for there. The first chorus downplays the original’s background vocals (but they are still there), and instead brings out a little bit of guitar noodling that had been buried in the original single.
The repeat of the half-verse just outright removes the (uncredited) background vocalist and instead doubles Bowie again, right through the chorus, throwing some echo on the guitars on the bridge before we go into a now-third repeat of the half-verse. Following that, Visconti moves Bowie singing “lie” a dozen times into an echoey background while more guitar fill, previously buried, is now clearly over the repetition.
As with the original single, the “lie, lie, lie (etc)” repetition simply alternates with the “to be a lie, high, high, high … oh my” to fill the remaining time till the fade out. One gets the feeling that this isn’t Tony’s favourite single then or now, and both the original and the new mix come over as very slight and full of filler … a sub-par production from a different producer then, and nothing Visconti really wants to reimagine now.
The “Digibook” and final thoughts
Despite the lacklustre final track on the second disc, The Width for a Circle as an overall project is both an excellent excavation of everything that was going on with Bowie and company in a particular year, an excellent “appetizer” before one dives into The Man Who Sold the World, and an attempt to document the transition from pop performer to (eventually, but not quite yet) rock god. Only in the pages of Nicholas Pegg’s outstanding “The Complete David Bowie” will you find more minutia and tracking of each and every appearance, song, and other public effort the man and his band put in to trying to make it big.
The book portion of the box set features a few rediscovered photos from the Haddon Hall sessions that produced the “Man Dress” cover of TMWStW for the UK version. In the US, Mercury’s cover was a nonsensical comic-book style cartoon with a cowboy holding a (holstered) rifle walking past what to Americans would look like some kind of mansion, but was in fact the insane asylum where Terry resided. Interestingly, the cowboy has a word ballon coming out of his mouth, but it’s blank … make of that what you will.
Famously, not only was the cover changed for the US market, the title of the album was changed for both the US and UK editions. Bowie wanted it called Metrobolist originally — some kind of play on the title of the 1927 film Metropolis — but Mercury changed it without consultation. In protest, Bowie hired photographer Keith Macmillan to do the “Man Dress” session for the later UK release.
Original UK coverOriginal US cover
In addition to mostly-unseen photos from that period, we also get pictures of the original handwritten lyrics to some of the songs, a bit of correspondence around the single releases, a couple of contemporaneous DB quotes from interviews about the songs, the various covers for the singles, and (best part) extensive liner notes and backstory for the radio shows and singles. Although the text is spare compared to the volume of music on the discs, it’s micro-focused on relevant details about the radio shows and singles, and very informative.
My one and only complaint about the book (called a “digi-book” because it’s part of the “digi-pack” packaging of the discs) is that that type is damn small and hard to read. As I said when summarising the first half of this package — if you love pre-Ziggy Bowie, then you might need this. Plus, it’s very highly-rated by buyers, and damn cheap, and you almost never see those two things together anymore.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Bowie in his early career as a songwriter/performer, it is that he was very heavily influenced at different parts of his first two decades on the scene by either other performers that he liked (particularly for his pre-first album singles), and by musical people — sometimes musicians, but also producers — that offered him new directions and inspirations. This 2CD book set, a great companion to Bowie’s second self-titled album and a fascinating look at things to come, is a little miracle that documents the in-between period that would profoundly change his musical direction and life — primarily thanks to Tony Visconti and Michael “Mick” Ronson.
Although it will likely never be in my top 10 Bowie “albums,” the purpose of The Width of a Circle is to document much of what Bowie was up to in the first half of 1970, starting with an appearance on a now-lost BBC radio “in concert” type programme called “The Sunday Show” hosted by the legendary BBC Radio One DJ, John Peel. The fact that we can hear this at all is a gift from the aforementioned Mr. Visconti, who taped the show because of his appearance playing bass for David. The original cassette has been cleaned up as much as possible, but it is still a radio broadcast originally preserved on home taping equipment, and there’s not much getting around that.
The show was actually recorded on the 5th of February, and was a rather long day — rehearsal started at 3:30 in the afternoon and the show was recorded at 7:30, with the band finally leaving at midnight. What makes this particular radio appearance so uniquely important to Bowiephiles — and make no mistake, this set is aimed squarely at that market and is likely to be of lesser appeal to the casual fan — is that this marks Mick Ronson’s debut as Bowie’s new guitarist. As evidenced by the very marked change of direction taken for his next album, The Man Who Sold the World (aka Metrobolist) Ronson went from having only been introduced to Bowie two days before this radio performance to effectively becoming Bowie’s musical director in very short order.
Although he was now a public name for the Top 5 single “Space Oddity” from his second self-titled album (something Peel seized on with his typical droll humour), the album had not actually done especially well. Thus, the second reason why this set is important to fans: it is a truly illuminating document of an artist in transition, not sure of where he’s going (yet), but perceptive enough to know that things had to change.
Funnily enough, Bowie got this BBC Radio gig because the “Sunday Show” producer, Jeff Griffin, had attended one of Bowie’s “An Evening With” cabaret-type shows in London. At this point Bowie was already crafty enough to mix some selections from his first, more pop/Anthony Newly-style album and his markedly more “hippie” stylings to make for a decent show, but for the radio gig he chose to mix it up even further — throwing in some covers alongside mostly songs from his second album (pointedly omitting the hit single), with only brief nod to his past (the unused song “Karma Man,” from his flirtation with Decca, which now fit in better with his current hippier material).
Those in attendance for the recording heard largely different versions of Bowie’s selections, including the very beginnings of the more electric-led sound Ronson would bring to the table, plus a bit of Jacques Brel and a sampling of Biff Rose, and even the not-yet-finished “Width of a Circle” for which this collection is named, along with a preview of his new “next single,” which turned out to be “The Prettiest Star,” the official single release of which featured Marc Bolan, rather than Ronson, on lead guitar. The only song in the “Sunday Show” set that really sounded like the recorded version was “An Occasional Dream.”
As if to highlight that he was aware of the ch-ch-ch-changes he was going through (sorry), the show opened with Bowie alone on 12-string for the first four songs, then joined by Visconti and Cambridge to put some meat on those acoustic bones for a couple of numbers before finally adding Ronson, who started off subtle and gradually took the musical spotlight off Bowie, allowing him to sing harder and louder as the set got progressively more rock-orientated.
Ronson later said that he had had to learn the songs reasonably quickly, and mostly by just watching Bowie play and improvising complementary sounds. That he could do this as well as he managed (though the whole band still sounded a bit rough on most numbers) speaks to Ronson’s remarkable ear for music and foreshadows the huge contribution he was yet to make to Bowie’s songs, style, and arrangements. The gig must have greatly impressed Bowie, who asked Ronson — during an interview portion between songs — if he would join the band for the upcoming tour.
Cambridge, Bowie, and Ronson rehearsing for The Sunday Show concert
Bowie cheekily opened his set with a cover of “Port of Amsterdam,” which today is recognised as one of Brel’s classics but at the time wasn’t as widely known. This and the other solo numbers were the sort of stuff David was doing in the “Evening With” show, and showed off his strength as a player and singer. The second number was particularly well-suited to the format, “God Knows I’m Good” from the second album. It’s a classic Dylanesque story-song format that Bowie would revisit periodically, particularly in “Life on Mars,” but in both this busking version and the album version, the song remains a poignant portrait of the difficulties of working-class like in the UK at the time, as well as a sly comment on religious quandaries.
Bowie then briefly explains to Peel and the audience who the heck Biff Rose is, and embarks on one of Rose’s more eccentric tunes, “Buzz the Fuzz.” It feels out of place with the rest of the show but I’m sure Bowie found it funny, and his performance is enthusiastic. This is followed by “Karma Man” which wouldn’t have been out of place on either the second album or Hunky Dory. The studio song got a proper release (of sorts) on Decca’s too-soon compilation The World of David Bowie later in the year, and was finally properly appended to the Space Oddity album (as we often call it to avoid naming confusion with the first album) for its 2010 reissue.
Cambridge and Visconti then come on stage to accompany Bowie on “London Bye Ta-Ta,” which still feels like a holdover from his first album in its mix of whimsicality and sixties-style Kinks-ian melody. The addition of bass and drums really add to the sound after 15 minutes of only guitar. Next up was the most “rehearsed”-sounding number, because this was the band that recorded it for the album — “An Occasional Dream,” with a nearly-identical performance. Not the only ode to his failed relationship with Hermione Farthingale we’ll be hearing in this box set!
Ronson then joins the band to take lead on “The Width of a Circle” — an incomplete calling-card for the direction of the next album, which turns Bowie’s folkie and spiritual tendencies into a dark and foreboding inward journey, as much inspired by his brother Terry’s seizures as it was by Bowie reading too much Nitzsche. While far shorter and far less hard-rock in this performance than it would become on MWSTW/Metrobolist, it was still a hell of a gear shift on this performance, dealing as it does with hell, Buddhism, a battle with one’s subconscious “monsters,” homosexual encounters with a demon, and other dark themes.
The song, interestingly enough, is named after the title of a painting Bowie’s childhood friend and former band mate George Underwood did based on his impression of a rough mix of Bowie’s second album (it appeared as the rear illustration on the finished release). Bowie for years referred to it as one of his most personal songs, “really reaching into myself” to document a period covering his late teen years, his dabbling in Buddhism, and his fears stemming from the mental illness tendencies within his family.
Sneak preview over, the band play some rough-ish takes on a few songs from the Space Oddity album, starting with “Janine,” a song of some disapproval towards Underwood’s then-girlfriend. Although far lighter with its Elvis Presley type style, there’s still some dark undercurrents cutting through it — after all, who writes a song attempting to convince a pal that his girlfriend isn’t who she seems?
Then came a pair of disturbingly violent Bowie anthems, “The Wild-Eyed Boy From Freecloud” and “Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed,” the former of which is a sort of Buddhist-based fable dealing with the quest for the true self — with a dose of saviour complex to be explored more fully later — while the latter more explicitly deals with the singer’s battle with his inner anger and his bitterness over the Beckenham Arts Lab. This was a theme which would also resurface in future albums, and which definitely found an outlet in Ronson as the pair’s relationship progressed.
Wisely changing tack, it was time for another Biff Rose cover, “Fill Your Heart,” which was an upbeat number with no unsettling portents whatsoever (and thus had to wait until Hunky Dory before finally getting on a Bowie album), and it paired perfectly with the next song, the world debut of “The Prettiest Star” — primarily because several ideas were lifted from Rose’s “Angel Tension,” from the same album Bowie had covered “Buzz the Fuzz” and “Fill Your Heart” — clearly The Thorn in Mrs. Rose’s Side made a huge impression on young Davy Jones, and went on to deeply influence Hunky Dory.
“The Prettiest Star” is an unabashed love song of the calibre not seen since he was swooning over Hermione Farthingale in Feathers or writing about their subsequent breakup — only this time his inspiration was his new love, Angela Barrett (whom he would marry the following month) and the use of a catchier style. The concert finished up with a full performance of “Cygnet Committee” and a rather loose (and truncated for time, but still enjoyable) version of “Memory of a Free Festival,” both of which fall firmly into Bowie’s growing stable of “bitter songs with lovely tunes and singing.”
The performance taken in full really shows off Bowie’s talent in singing and songwriting, albeit it also inadvertently showcases his unsettled and somewhat bipolar mental state (he was 23 at the time of this recording). Some of the more charming moments come during some of the repartee between him and Peel as the latter tried to kid around with David regarding album names and song titles. Once the full band were onstage, Peel asked Bowie if he would tour with this group, and the reply was a dry impersonation of Peel’s voice and humour with a witty “looking at this lot, no” — which he quickly dropped and answered “yes,” then proceeding to invite Ronson officially onboard. To all and sundry’s good fortune, Ronson said yes to Bowie’s proposal — and a real match made in rock-n-roll heaven was born.
We’ll take a look at the second disc and the accompanying “book” next time — which is more of a mixed bag compared to this one — but if you consider yourself a Bowie fan, particularly of his pre-Ziggy albums, then you want this. This first disc is “just” a live radio concert with a small audience, but the start of many great things. For fans and collectors, the alternative versions from the Space Oddity (aka David Bowie/Man of Words, Man of Music) album — as well as the other material, and the band that did them — makes this an important document of an important year in Bowie’s life.
The Chasbah 
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