Tag: entertainment

Two Nice Albums and Pictures at an Exhibition, part 1

Thoughts about Keith Emerson’s journey from The Nice to Emerson, Lake and Palmer

The Nice’s Five Bridges was recorded in October of 1969 except for one track, and released in June of 1970. The Nice’s Elegy was recorded in December of 1969 and released in April of 1971. Emerson Lake and Palmer’s Pictures at an Exhibition was recorded in March of 1971 and released in November of 1971.

I’m sure I’m not the first person who has noticed that these albums have some strong similarities in terms of material choices and general sound. They seem to me to document an evolution from one band to another, centered on Keith Emerson. I’ve never really understood how the change came about, except within the idea of “supergroup,” which was a persuasive idea at the time in British rock music. Maybe a review of these three records together will help me contextualize things.

(ed. note: I’ve bitten off more than I can chew at one time, so this is going to be a series of articles. I’m going to write about these as a series of sides, since I have them on vinyl. I will try to post these faster than my usual once-a-week schedule.)

Side 1 of Five Bridges

This is a sidelong epic suite, part orchestral, part solo Emerson piano, part rock band. The work is commissioned for the Newcastle Arts Festival and performances were recorded with the London Sinfonia at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon.

It’s not wrong to say that Keith Emerson overwhelms things. In a way, I can see what he was talking about when thinking of the rhythm section of Lee Jackson and Brian Davison not being “virtuosic” enough for what he wanted to do. But at the same time, I appreciate what Jackson and Davison contributed to The Nice. I think the word Emerson was looking for might have been “too understated,” because I love those rhythm section parts, but yeah. You have to admit that they were simpler and didn’t spur Emerson on to be even more excessive.

photograph of my copy of the lp "Five Bridges" by The Nice.
My copy of the album in question, featuring an early Hipgnosis cover.

KE was an early proponent of the mixing of classical symphonic music with rock, as evinced here. He uses blues and rock motifs in the orchestral arrangements, complexifies the rock band bits. Prog in general was more successful at advancing the rock aesthetic than the classical. The classical stuff here strikes me as being in the realm of the romantic composers, in much the same way as symphonic film soundtracks are. Emerson uses a bit more repetition than most classical composers do.

I will admit that I don’t think original guitarist Davy O’List would have had much to add here… I think Emerson wanted all of that space for himself, and he certainly makes use of it. The last of the five movements of the piece split the difference between the rock and the orchestra by using a horn section in a way that feels a bit along the line between jazz and motown, with a sort of fanfare towards at end. This feels like a blueprint for what would later happen with ELP, but that’s the point, isn’t it — that it feels a bit prototypical of something that would be more fully realized later.

I have no issue with The Nice. I can see the ambitiousness of Emerson and from the perspective of a non-fan of ELP, I can also see that Jackson and Davison are doing a fine job of keeping up with those ambitions.

I’ll talk about Side 2 of this one in a separate post, which should arrive here in the next day or two.

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Steve Hackett – Beyond the Shrouded Horizon

Surprisingly gorgeous, atmospheric rock album

Beyond the Shrouded Horizon was released in 2011 on Inside Out music. It’s Steve Hackett’s twenty-first album.

I love all of the ways this record is its own thing, and yet harkens back to Hackett’s history. It’s very “boomer,” sometimes astoundingly old-fashioned but somehow beautiful even in its most cornball moments.

“Waking to Life” has a harmonic minor motif that’s very nice. I love that he has Eastern European connections in this music.

There are other essays into varied musical styles – The bluesy rock of Prairie Angel and Catwalk, the dense harmonies of Looking for Fantasy – but the central feeling here is mystical, in the same way that blue-hour motif reflected in both the title and the cover photo is.

insert from my copy

One reason this CD appeals is that Karen, my wife, also likes it. She asks me what I’m playing when I put it on, which she doesn’t do for a lot of the music I’m listening to these days. I think she would like Renaissance, which I’m about to start a deep dive into, although she’s aware of Annie Haslam. I think Annie is folk-adjacent enough to appear on her radar.

I love folk too, but I have really felt pulled towards prog and high-energy rock music for the last little while. I think that may have to do with the state of the world. I think i’m hungry for warrior energy, and metal and prog seem to have that energy more than most music.

I do understand “warrrior” energy as “boy music” which I resist on a personal level. I wrestle with that idea a bit, since I prefer to signify on the female side generally, but I feel like this is a time when fighting is the most necessary thing for a world citizen to be ready for.

But a warrior has to be fighting for something, and beauty seems like one of the best things one can fight for. Beyond the shrouded horizon, there may be more beauty to come. I hope there is. But we have to get there.

In the meantime, find beauty where you can.

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Controversial Beliefs

  • Evidently, the most controversial belief I hold is that I am a woman. This one may get me killed at some point, or cause me to move to Europe. And then get me killed.
  • I think I would like to live in a small one-bedroom apartment in Bergen, Norway with Karen.
  • I think Yes’s Fly From Here – Return Trip may be one of the band’s best albums. We’ll talk more about this one at some future point.
  • I think when Donald Trump is dead and gone, all of this crap about him is going to come out and I think the world at large will be collectively mind-blown by the depravity the man has inhabited his whole life.

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The Texts of Yesterday

A show-and-tell by Diane Griffin

Mick Farren published a dystopian science fiction novel called The Texts of Festival back in 1973. From that vantage, he saw a doomed, far-future world where people worshipped Gods with names like Dhillon, Djeggar, and Morrizen the Lizard King.

When I was a kid back in Yuma, Arizona, there were some of my brother’s friends who had both a cover band and a Kiss tribute band called “Kiss Theatre.” The cover band was the thing they cared about, but on occasion, for parties, they would wear all black and put on Kiss makeup and play a set of Kiss’s songs. When they did that show for the first time, people talked about it for weeks afterwards. The Yuma Daily Sun wrote about them.

 It seemed to me that these guys in Kiss Theatre considered it a schtick. It was too unserious for a band with larger ambitions. Even playing a set of hits-of-the-day was more dignified and relevant than pretending to be a famous band and doing a knock-off of their whole concept, regardless of the extra attention it garnered them.

I agree with them. If I were to start a band now, I think I would want to do mostly or even all cover songs, but I would not want to pretend to be someone else. I understand that people want familiarity, but I think – maybe I only hope – that they also want authenticity, some kind of connection to the artist they’re in the room with.

I’m not a purist about this, however.

Standing just on this side of the line is the band Beat, which is half members of the 80s version of King Crimson, half the two highest-level “ringers” there could possibly be. I saw Beat last year and found the show transcendent. They don’t call themselves King Crimson, as lead guitarist and founder Robert Fripp is not involved.

They ‘re often called a “tribute band” in the press, even with the involvement of two original members. Guitarist Steve Vai – one of the ringers — has taken great pains to learn Fripp’s original parts but adds as much of his own style as he can without breaking the vibe. Is this a tribute to or a continuation of King Crimson? I’m hoping for a CD of new original music, which would tip the scales away from “tribute band.”

Let’s move a little closer to that line between “tribute” and “continuation.” You may have heard, in a previous rant of mine, that the current touring and recording version of Yes has no original members. Another whole band playing this music exists. Jon Anderson, founding member of Yes, has done a couple of tours, a live album, and an album of original music in the 70s Yes style with a youtuber band called The Band Geeks. I think Jon and the Band Geeks are much truer to the spirit of Yes than Steve Howe’s band. So which is the tribute, really?

There are ways to put a twist into the notion of a “tribute band” without crossing the line. For example there’s Lez Zeppelin, the all-female Led Zeppelin tribute band, who play faithful renditions of the Zeppelin catalogue, without switching the gender of the original lyrics or toning down the cock-rock attitude.

I have friends who do a B-52’s tribute under the name Bikini Whale. They’re a straight-up note-for-note copy of the original, entirely competent and, to be fair, as high energy as the records. I roll my eyes at them, though. I’ve also talked to guitarist Kevin Coombs about some of the more technical aspects of what he does, and it’s clear he’s done quite a bit of research into the peculiar alternate tunings and gear the original guitarists – Ricky and then Keith – used to get the distinctive, and not-as-simple-as-you-might-think sound of the B-52’s. I admire the effort involved, but it makes me wish they would devote that energy to putting something new into the world.

Surprisingly, there are still a lot of rock music fans. However, what used to thrive on adventure and innovation seems to be made for comfort or identity confirmation now. The biggest touring bands have been around for forty, fifty, or sixty years. The guitars still scream, the singers still smile or snarl, with dentures to fill in for all the missing teeth.

Soon, there won’t even be that. All that will be left is the texts, the worshippers, and the tribute bands.

Barrett by Syd Barrett

A reminder of what might have been

Syd Barrett was the original leading light of Pink Floyd, but succumbed to debilitating psychological issues that began around the time of the release of the band’s first album. He left the band under a cloud after a short struggle to continue contributing, and after two erratic solo albums, left the music business entirely. Barrett, his second solo album, was the end of the road for Syd as a recording artist.

It’s sssssooooo wwwwweeeeiiiirrrrrddddddddd, but it’s also surprisingly good considering the problems involved in making it, and different from anything else you might care to name in rock music.

The first thing I think of with Syd’s solo stuff is wild tempo shifts and a casual attitude towards pitch, but there’s less out-of-control-ness than you might think on Barrett. I mean, it’s loose, at times almost chaotic, but I think Syd was a lot more on top of things for this record than his rep might suggest.

“Gigolo Aunt,” for instance is prime late-sixties pop rock, as is “Baby Lemonade.” The shuffling beats, the psychedelic brightness, the unique phrasing and viewpoint — all are trademark, and testament to Barrett’s distinctive creativity.

The band is Syd on vocals and guitar, Richard Wright on keys, Jeff Shirley from Humble Pie on drums, and David Gilmour on bass and backing vocals. Gilmour and Wright are the producers. At Gilmour’s insistance, Syd plays all the guitars.

Ultimately, it’s both its own thing – loose and immediate, quirky and streamlined – and a reminder of what might have been.