Review of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland

Released 1968

"Starfish and giant foams, greet us with a smile. Before our heads go under, we take a last look At the killing noise of the out of style... The out of style, out of style"


Like any fan of rock music, I was exposed to the iconography of Jimi Hendrix very early. Every music magazine, every music book referred back to his influence. His inimitable presence was so integral to the spirit of rock music, and specifically the rock music of the period in which I was fascinated, and over and over again my heroes would wax rhapsodically about his unique and profound influence, it was inevitable that at some point I would have had to see what all the fuss was all about. In a short period of time, I watched his performances at the Monterey Jazz Festival, at Woodstock and The Isle of Wight Festival, conscious of his omnipresence and seeming omnipotence over the late sixties music scene; an otherworldly being from another time.

However, Hendrix will remain forever imprinted on me as per the image in the wonderful book, Rock Dreams (reproduced above left).
In this incredible book, his unique talent was explained by the fact that he was, in fact a Martian; literally worlds apart from us mere human mortals.

Like many, my first Hendrix album was a tentative best-of compilation. This ticked all the right boxes, confirmed his pedestal placement and whetted the appetite for more.

I probably choose Electric Ladyland as my first Hendrix purchase proper based on the perverse thrill of the melee of naked women adorning the cover. I recognised a couple of the tracks but in the main this was a new beginning for me.

Any doubts that Hendrix had true prog credentials are put to one side from the weirdness of the opening sound scape. It was all backwards vocals, huge drums and effects that were impossible to identify. It set the scene nicely. Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) cemented the theme that this was to be as ambitious an album as I had yet encountered.

Although everyone always (obviously) focuses on Hendrix's guitar ability, I remain continually amazed how little comment is made about his vocal skills. I mentioned in my review of LA Woman that between Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, any aspiring rock vocalist will found all the inspiration they need to perfect natural vocal rock phrasing; unforced and inspired. Listen to all the asides in Cross Town Traffic for many perfect examples.

When I first heard Voodoo Chile, I was unaware that the more familiar 'Slight Return' version was, in effect, a poor cousin of this monster of a jam. The interplay between Hendrix and Steve Winwood on the organ is one my favourite improvisations period. The appreciative audience in the studio adds hugely to the spirit of the age. As Mr Mojo himself would later comment, this really is a 'stoned immaculate' performance; encapsulating the blues and psychedelic influences whilst truly progressing rock music.

That Hendrix passed the vocal duties to Noel Redding for Little Miss Strange, for me didn't detract from the effectiveness of the track at all. This song needed a more 'twee', mid-sixties pop styled vocal, which Hendrix's stoned Southern drawl simply wasn't suited to.

Another attraction of Electric Ladyland was and is the huge diversity of music on offer. There are vast complex meandering jams, relatively simple verse-chorus-verse, etc, pop-orientated tracks, as well as pure blues and some tracks which are beyond genre categorisation, even now, forty years later.

I may have been familiar with Burning Of The Midnight Lamp before Electric Ladyland, but when listened to in context alongside this diversity of musical styles, it was difficult not to marvel at the magnitude of his talent. There is more invention across the four sides of Electric Ladyland than in the entire career of many of his esteemed peers.

When I came across Rainy Day, I had to ask what Miles Davis must have thought looking over his shoulder from the Bitches Brew sessions. Here was psychedelic jazz with horns and organs, influencing the whole jazz fusion movement which would emerge in the next few years. Truly innovative.

For many, the greatest achievement of the album is 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be). It is clearly the most out and out prog track of the album. Beautiful percussion, restrained guitar and ethereal lyrics combine to provide an entirely legal high.

Still Raining, Still Dreaming must have had Hendrix's contemporaries weeping with envy at his dexterity and invention, while All Along The Watchtower is surely a contender for the greatest cover version. Possibly my favourite opening ten seconds of any track, ever.

When I realised that the song I was most familiar with before listening to the Electric Ladyland, was the classic 'Slight Return' version of Voodoo Chile, and that it was at least paralleled in its excellence across almost the entire album, I knew that this was a classic album by any measure.

Utterly unique and all the better for it, this is the one Hendrix album that anyone should own.

Review of Asia

Released 1982

"And now you find yourself in '82. The disco hot spots hold no charm for you. You can concern yourself with bigger things. You catch a pearl and ride the dragon's wings"

When I picked up my second hand copy of Asia's eponymous first album, for one (Scottish) pound, I was unaware that this was a prog 'supergroup'. Although this is my fifty-first prog album, in as-close-as-I-can-manage-it chronological order of purchase, when money changed hands over the counter at Lost In Music in DeCourcey's arcade in Glasgow in 1985, I hadn't heard of John Wetton or Yes' Drama, had yet to hear a full album by Emerson, Lake and Palmer and was unaware of the connection with The Buggles.

I had, of course, heard Heat Of The Moment, a huge single from three years previously. One of my favourite albums of my late teens - long misplaced, I'm sad to say - was an AOR compilation called American Heartbeat. Most of the classic expected usual suspects were there, from Journey to Styx, Kansas to Quarterflash, Boston to Foreigner etc, and it also contained Heat Of The Moment. Therefore, I associated Asia with laid back American driving music rather than with the prog rock scene.

If truth be told, for some time, I actually listened to the album as an AOR album, seeing it as light relief from the existential angst of Van Der Graaf Generator or the complex signatures of Rush, not realising that Asia's band members had been responsible from some of the defining tracks, side long suites and triple live albums of the classic prog era.

Of course, I should have known better. Roger Dean's artwork for Asia is arguably amongst his most well known, due in no small part to it's huge commercial success.

The title track is one of the most ubiquitous AOR songs from the eighties. Wonderful big fuzzy riffing, stadium sized drumming, an echo laden vocal with remarkably catchy lyrics all combine to make a song which is very difficult not to sing along too and be impressed by. When I finally made the connection and noted that Steve Howe was on this record, I was stunned. I couldn't reconcile this aggressive, commercial style with the intricate playing I was so familiar with from Yes. Was there another great guitarist called Steve Howe?

Only Time Will Tell turns the commercial pop sensibility up to eleven. The keyboard intro (and repeated motif) could so easily have been from a track by Europe or Bon Jovi a few years later. It softens to a very Journey-esque, verse-chorus-verse structure, interspersed with another stunning thick powerful guitar and wave after wave of several different keyboard effects. At the time, I pictured John Wetton as a Jon Bon Jovi or David Lee Roth type poseur rather than an elder statesman of prog, with a track record in Family, King Crimson, UK et al.

Given that I had a tremendous dislike for Yes' broadly contemporary foray into commercial success with 90125, I can only put my enjoyment of this similarly styled effort down to my ignorance about Asia's pedigree. Sole Survivor would have been equally at home on 90125, which is amusing given Steve Howe's obvious displeasure in later years, when pressured into playing Trevor Rabin's 'licks' live.

The lack of variation on Asia is a bit wearing. Where there are a (very) few obvious prog moments on 90125, for example, hearing tracks such as One Step Closer in isolation, one would be mistaken for it being anything other than a straight forward pop song. An obviously well played pop song for sure, but not much more.

The intro to Time Again however, sounds like it could have been an outtake from Yes' Drama. It then veers oddly from by-the-books AOR to leaping between time signatures, never quite sure with it is pop or prog.

I think it is the eighties drum style employed by Carl Palmer which grates and frustrates: it is so formulaic and incredibly pedestrian when compared to his past performances. This is certainly true of Widest Dreams. It is clearly catchy. Catchy and horribly dull.

Without You has the same effect. It is intoxicating in its commercial sensibility, has stunning playing by Steve Howe, stupidly infectious lyrics and a keyboard accompaniment designed to get the zippos waving in the dark of an enormodome. It is impeccably done, but it still is prostituted by the nasty, nasty drumming, which, whether you like it or not, it is impossible not to tap your feet or thrum your fingers to. Before you know it, you are playing air guitar and swaying from side to side, singing along to the closing versus and chorus, thinking; "Stop it! This is silly! Where's my copy of Foxtrot?"

In short, it is an album of great contradiction: impeccable pop played by prog maestros, creating songs with hooks that you'll be singing the next day against your will.

Review of The Moody Blues' In Search Of The Lost Chord

Released 1968

"Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in. Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in. He'll fly his astral plane, Takes you trips around the bay, Brings you back the same day, Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary".

This is another album which, although I first encountered it a couple of years before, I didn't fully appreciate until it it was on one side of a C90, (I think the flip side was On The Threshold Of A Dream) and playing in the background whilst studying in Glasgow.

Before fully falling under the spell of The Moodies, I was hooked on their sleeve designs. I've mentioned in previous postings that I was long term caretaker to a friends box of vinyl. This contained an almost complete set of the 'classic' era ie: prior to Patrick Moraz joining them, fresh from Yes. There were very few of their contemporaries who could out prog The Moody Blues during this period. On many levels, they were in a league of their own when it came to full-blown concept albums; terrific artwork, lyrics that rivalled Jon Anderson's in terms of outright unintelligibility, scope of ambition and in terms of progression in its truest form. Although often scoffed at by many, The Moody Blues did a huge amount to actually 'progress' the pop/rock music form between 1967 and 1972/3 in particular. Certainly more than they are usually given credit for.

I consider the artwork for this record to be one of the defining icons of the classic psychedelic prog era. Anyone dabbling in Eastern Philosophies or transcendental meditation for it's own sake - and that accounts for a significant number of students, especially in the late sixties and early seventies will have been drawn both by the artwork and the sentiment expressed by the album's cunning title. It may all be seriously daft and utterly up itself, but why not? If it's accomplished, which I believe it is, then ultimately it will stand the test of time and gain respect, at least amongst us sad prog rock musos.

Like several of The Moodies albums of this era, it kicks off with a manic spoken passage. In this case, there is the brief strumming of a harp, a sustained mellotron chord growing more aggressive as the narrator speech descends into diabolical laughter. Ride My See Saw is played by the band in concert to this day, 200 years later. Taken by itself, it could be mistaken for a classic single by any of their contemporaries. I personally hear a lot of The Yardbirds in this. As with the rest of the album - and many from The Moodies collection - the production on the vocal is horribly dated and takes some getting used to.

This morphs into Dr Livingstone, I Presume. The esteemed Doctor-explorer is used figuratively: after all the album is about searching in all its manifest ways. Grand harmonies, very Ringo-like drumming (that's a compliment, by the why). The guitar solo is very Roger McGuinn; again another compliment. So far, largely pop orientated.

House Of Four Doors, Part 1, is the album's first real high point with the mellotron taking a more important role. The tapping tambourine ties it back firmly to the sixties, while the use of sound effects, the flute passages, the numerous changes in tempo and the lush harpsichord, all lean firmly towards a very progressive new decade. The emphatic orchestral break at around three minutes in, is as effective a progressive interlude as anything Yes or early King Crimson achieved a year or two later.

Legend Of A Mind 'borrows' very heavily from George Harrison eastern influence on The Beatles. Justin Hayward plays the sitar, mimics Lennon's vocal delivery whilst espousing the virtues of every one's favourite pharmacist, Timothy Leary.

The gorgeous second part of the last but one track, remains bewitchingly beautiful. As a quick aside, listening to an album whilst reviewing it is not to be recommended. I am an unashamed sentimentalist who often wells up when confronted with much of the masterful moments I am proud to listen to.

Voices In The Sky may be a (relatively) well known pop single, but both as part of the album and as a stand alone track, it is one of the earliest examples of The Moodies excellent knack for a simple timeless classic.

Again, The Best Way To Travel owes a large debt to The Beatles, although, and this may be somewhat contentious, it succeeds for me as pure prog, where John, Paul, George and Ringo, in my humble opinion held back in this regard.

The last four tracks of the album up the prog anti further, with more flute, layer upon layer of mellotron, harps, sitars and more sound effects. It would be very difficult for Barclay James Harvest - the eternally tagged 'Poor Man's Moody Blues' - to defend their protestations that they weren't blatantly copying harmonic structures and mellotron motifs wholesale from TMB on the basis of this side of vinyl.

The Word (unsurprisingly, perhaps) is another spoken word passage is straight out of the book of pretentious album structures. Not a track you'd listen to in the company of anyone who owns anything by Dido, Coldplay or Travis, for sure.

Om is pretty much what you'd expect from a late sixties album by The Moody Blues. It does fall apart in the middle and it is the only part of the record where you'd be forgiven for looking at your watch or peering over your shoulder in shame. Bless them.

As a whole, it is a really very good record. I am willing to forgive them the odd indulgence. Or three.

Review of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffitti

Released 1975

"Down by the seaside
See the boats go sailin'
Can the people hear, oh
What the little fish are sayin'
Oh, oh, the people turned away
Oh, the people turned away"

I'm stepping temporarily back, out of my chronological retelling of my first encounters with classic prog albums, to about eighteen months before University, to include Physical Graffiti. There is some logic to this. Before leaving for University, I spent an inordinate amount of time transferring a few dozen of my favourite vinyl records to a large pile of C90 cassettes. I'm fairly certain my entire Led Zeppelin collection (excluding In Through The Out Door) travelled with me.

My interest in Percy and Co was born out my adolescent predilection for classic rock music. In my mid-teens, I saw Led Zeppelin as predecessors of ACDC and Whitesnake et al, rather than contemporaries of Pink Floyd and Genesis. As such, I suppose I had more affinity with Black Dog and Heartbreaker than with Misty Mountain Hop or No Quarter. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the more mellow or experimental moments, just that I had yet to develop my love of prog and didn't recognise the less metallic tracks as 'progressive'.

It wasn't until I sat in my room at University a couple of years later, with my headphones, metaphorically hunched over Descartes, that I listened with a more mature comprehension of Led Zeppelin's legacy.

I think I requested Physical Graffiti as a birthday present. Either way, I recall being mightily impressed with the package. I was fortunate enough to have a vinyl copy with the original artwork: it had the holes in the outer sleeve windows, with the various window dressing graphics on the inside sleeve. I loved the drama of the actual Swan Song label on the record itself. So much so that I had a tee-shirt made up replicating it at some point.

By the time Led Zeppelin's only double studio album was added to my shelves, I already owned all the preceding albums and was intimately familiar with every nuance of the band's infamously debauched career and discography. Thus I had already invested this record with great importance, and, like many coveted albums, actually put off my first listen to the record both for the fear of disappointment and the knowledge that you can only play a record for the first time once. It had be right. Funny, I still feel that way now.

One of my preconceptions about this record was that it was their 'serious' album. After all, it was a huge behemoth of a record across four sides with a number of lengthy prog-tastic workouts.

From the first notes of Custard Pie, I knew two things: firstly that I was going to love it in its entirety and that this was a wonderfully produced album. Although many will cite the recording techniques on their fourth album as revolutionary, have you ever heard a more authentic drum sound? Perfect. It was obvious that the band had reached the peak of their powers as a very tight cohesive unit.

The Rover feels like an instant classic from the first listen, with a outrageously catchy riff and Percy expounding his hippy: "If we could just join hands" lyrics, reminiscent of much of the fourth album.

If push came to shove and I had to nominate my favourite Led Zeppelin track, it would be In My Time Of Dying. Although prog purists may argue that it is too heavily stepped in the blues to be prog, I would counter claim that it qualifies on the strength of the musicianship alone. I find it utterly hypnotic, not least for Mr Bonham's contribution: there appears to be a form of telepathy enabling him to mirror Pagey's riffing and soloing so precisely. Remember this was in the days when many bands recorded live, without multi-tracking. I'm not saying that it wasn't tweaked on the mixing desk, but having read copiously about the session in question and from the unintentional sound effect at the end of the song, I am continually stunned by what is, in effect a live performance.

Houses of The Holy sounded as though it could quite easily have slotted onto the album of the same name. It may not be a highlight of the album, but this is largely due to the high quality of it's accompanying tracks.

I loved Trampled Under Foot, having heard it for the first time on a re-run of The Old Grey Whistle Test, it's defining moment being a sterling JPJ keyboard solo. Gorgeous.

I believe that I may be in the minority in that I think Kashmir is overrated. I don't think it is a bad song. Clearly it isn't, but it has yet to 'click' for me, despite several hundred plays. Sorry.

Physical Graffiti is nicely balanced in that the first two sides are predominantly more rock orientated while the second two have more acoustic, mellow, stoned and chilled out vibe. Man.

In The Light begins with another JPJ keyboard theme, this one being eerily like being stalked on a nocturnal walk on a rainy foggy night. Bron-Yr-Aur is very Led Zeppelin III; brief, acoustic and beautiful. The slide guitar of Down By The Seaside and the lazy dragged out beat for the first part of the song again maintains the summery hippy feeling. It is easy to picture Percy doing his teapot impression in the studio to this one. I love the tempo change in the middle of the song. The intonation of "You still do the twist...etc" is perfect archetypal rock vocal phrasing. Again, perfect.

The mellow feel continues with Ten Years Gone built around a very MOR guitar solo from Jimmy and a lovely echoey drum sound with fast / slow passages. Night Flight ups the pace somewhat with spirited Pyrex-shattering delivery from Robert and an irresistible start / stop drum motif: both deeply bluesy and highly individualistic at the same time.

The fourth side of the record is probably the weakest. The Wanton Song starts it off pleasantly enough with a very aggressive guitar sound, flushed with sustain and feedback, but Boogie With Stu is execrable nonsense. Both Black Country Woman and Sick Again have their moments, but, personally I usually start to get itchy fingers over the eject button by this stage in proceedings.

It's a shame that the ending isn't great, as the remaining eighty percentage of the album is unrelentingly excellent.

It may be because the are both weighty double albums purported to the pinnacle of their respective artists careers, but I think of Physical Graffiti in much the same way as Pink Floyd's The Wall: I have a huge amount of respect for both, but I play them less often than other albums in their band's discography's. However when I do, I always do so with great admiration for the breadth of the music and the brilliant inventiveness therein.