Review of The Nice's The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack

Released 1967

"I'm going back, going back to be young again, to find the time to develop my mind and be kind".

This was very much an impulse purchase. I say that not by way of apology, or to intimate that I'm embarrassed to own an album adorned by four young men wearing nothing but cellophane. No, indeed I only mention it as this impulse was further evidence to show that often, the best record buying decisions are those made on on the spur of the moment.

The market which visited our local town on a Tuesday and Saturday over the course of perhaps two years fuelled my record collection with some of the very best (and very cheapest) albums I have ever purchased. If I knew then what I know now, I'm sure I would have swept up many many other similar gems, if only I'd recognised them at the time.

The Nice were completely unknown to me. I was attracted by two things: a) that this clearly originated from the period of music in which I was interested and b) the thickness of the record sleeve. Some original editions of late sixties and early seventies albums were presented in incredibly thick, almost industrial strength cardboard. Forty years on, most people, I think, consider these to be aesthetically unappealing and cumbersome. For me they have a glorious charm and are infinitely more appealing than a CD jewell case.

Turning the record over I noted the band members names, and consequently the logic behind the albums title. I was familiar with the name Keith Emerson and I thought I knew one of the other names: was it from Roxy Music?

Seeing that this was from as early as 1967, I paused, suddenly unsure that this would appeal to me. As this was the first time I had encountered the band, and although I knew Keith Emerson's name and was aware of ELP's stature in the prog rock genre, at that point I had only heard Fanfare For A Common Man and was sure that this wasn't entirely representative of their 'oeuvre'. Could it be that this was a more pop orientated group which Mr Emerson had been glad to leave behind?

Then again, this was another £2.50 proposition. If I hated it, I could always pass it on to one of my younger brothers.

I groaned as soon as I heard the opening of the first track. This was very firmly rooted in the sixties, both in terms of production and it's nonsensical "pa,pa,pa,pa, pa, pa..." refrain. But then the pace and the time signature changed and (as I later learned) the very distinctive keyboard sound takes the lead and dominates everything from there on in. I could identify this as a prog record within the first minute of the first song, simply due to the keyboards. There were classical leanings and manic, furiously fast runs interspersed with more delicate but still decidedly odd signatures.

The other three band members struggled to keep up. The guitarist was equally manic and, in my opinion, very underrated, but was constantly in the shadow of the flamboyant keyboards. For the first time with any album I had owned up until that point, I found myself preferring the instrumental tracks: the vocals jarred badly with me, suiting neither the instrumental ambitions nor the genre itself.

Whilst I was mildly intrigued with the album as a whole, considering it not to be the embarrassing intrusion in my collection which I had expected, I was overawed when I heard Rondo. There were very strong similarities with the Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore dual at the climax of Deep Purple's Child In Time, except the pace of this was yet more frenetic and unhinged.

In 1967, from what I knew about The Nice's contemporaries, this must have received an explosive reaction, such was their energy and willingness to explore uncharted territory. This must surely have been one of the very first prog offerings. But what was the first? I had to go back to my books and find out.