Album: Cockney Rebel – The Human Menagerie

As I have said before Cockney Rebel played just FIVE gigs before being signed up by EMI Records

If their playlist consisted of songs from the subsequent debut album, “The Human Menagerie”, you begin to understand why. Every one of them is from the pen of a VERY confident 23-year-old. Steve Harley seemed to be a songwriter ‘old before his time’ if these songs – and those that popped up on his other 1970’s output – are to be believed.

His EMI recording career kicks off with “Hideaway“, which, with more of a whimper than a bang, leads in with a simple acoustic guitar lick, swiftly accompanied by a violin. Light drums appear and soon Harley is singing “let them come a running, take all your money and hideaway, let them come a running, take all your money and flee“, a strange, defensive lyric given the circumstance.

“What Ruthy Said” feels FAR more like an album opener, driven by manic drums and distorted organ, and more reminiscent of Roxy Music’s debut album than I’m sure Harley would have preferred.

“Loretta’s Tale” has always been one of my favourite Cockney Rebel songs. Musically it’s very simple but lyrically – and the way Harley uses those lyrics as another ‘instrument’ – has always impressed me…
Watch Loretta taste the wine,
kick the actor from behind,
sprawl across the sofa, then
speak of foreign towns again,
like the loner, seek Marlene,
ask the waitress: “Where you been?”
She says: “Don’t give me no lies,
I’ve been inside your head at least three times…”

This song is also the first of studio engineer Roy Thomas Baker’s impressive quasi-orchestral arrangements for Rebel, something Harley call on again and again in future work. (Yes, the same Roy Thomas Baker who would later be responsible for producing “Bohemian Rhapsody”, much of Queen’s other output and albums by artists as diverse as The Cars, Ozzy Osbourne, Devo and a band who my wife HATES so much I can only type their name using asterisks; Jo*rn*y)

“Crazy Raver” is an over-the-top bar-room rock’n’roll song, but it is the first on the album where you suddenly realise Harley does not use a lead guitar. He uses pal Jean-Paul Crocker’s electric violin as the primary instrument. I think it was this element which made Cockney Rebel stand out from the crowd back in the day, at least for me it did. Just like Roxy Music’s refusal to be ‘ordinary’, Harley felt a little more ‘exotic’

I think every artist has one KILLER moment in them, one which elevates them from the mundane to the mandatory. Steve Harley’s grand opus is the awesome “Sebastian“, a song which absolutely everyone should add to their music collection.

It’s rambling, contrived and audacious in equal measure, 7-minutes of orchestral pop that sounds as fresh to me today as it did 36 years ago when I first heard it. At every Steve Harley concert I went to, it provided that “lighters in the air” moment, sending aural shivers down everybody’s spine. Love it, love it, LOVE it!

Just in case you didn’t ‘get it’ with that last YouTube link, here’s another version by Steve taken from a gig in 1989…

(Yes, Steve does have that male pattern baldness thing going on doesn’t he?)

“Sebastian” was released as the first single from Cockney Rebel. Despite it’s quite convoluted nature, it found success on mainland Europe but strangely went nowhere on the UK charts.

Having built Side 1 of “Human Menagerie” on the basis of 4 good songs topped with a streak of abject genius, Harley repeats the process on Side 2…

“Mirror Freak” kicks off the second side, that ‘lead violin’ again providing the base for Harley’s clever lyrics. Lyrics that I often find myself randomly singing – for no reason – over three decades later…
“… so you perform like it’s your very last show,
you turn her on but she’s never gonna know
Then you can shuffle your hips
or Ma-Ma-Mae West your lips
but you’re the same old thing we’ve always known”

Likewise the lyrics to “My Only Vice (is the Fantastic Prices I Charge for Being Eaten Alive)” where Steve offers up the wonderful couplet of “Simply Lorraine sings for a while, in a three-octave harmonica style” before telling a tale about a “lady from a background of pearls, who’s tormenting and bending my world” over Croker’s gypsy violin. I always wanted to date someone called Lorraine – I don’t think I ever did? – so I could introduce her to people as “simply Lorraine”… yes, that IS a bit sad isn’t it?

“Muriel the Actor” is a little carnival ride of a song, the killer line “slip on a t-shirt, me gotta look so cool” another lyrical earworm that has sat with me for ages. It’s another Rebel song where it feels like Harley uses not just his voice but also the lyrical content as another instrument. (Ian Dury later had the same talent IMHO)

“Chameleon” is no more than a mere 1-minute filler before the main event…

“Death Trip” is the album closer and it’s almost up there with “Sebastian” in terms of it’s sustainability over the years. It’s like a self-contained 10-minute rock opera and manages to feel very “British”, that theme around the 4-minute mark reminiscent of Britten or Walton to me, likewise the orchestral flourishes that occur around the end.

Lyrically it’s a little suspect (probably the only thing that lets it down), that final stanza
we’ll grow sweet Ipomoea
to make us feel much freer
then take a pinch of Schemeland
and turn it into Dreamland
especially dodgy. I don’t like to take anything away from it though because sonically it’s immense, brooding and quite masterful in its composition.

Admittedly I have not been asked very often which is my favourite Cockney Rebel album, but on the few occasions I have I have answered something along these lines….

“The Psychomodo” was the first album of Cockney Rebel’s I bought and wore to death so it will always carry special resonance for me… however, over the years “The Human Menagerie” has proved its worth time and time – and time – again. I suppose what I am saying is that I wish both albums had been released together as a double because I really can’t choose between the pair as my ‘favourite’. I do know that, a few songs aside, he never really bettered the material on his debut and the follow-up…

Talking of the follow-up, “The Pschomodo” is getting its full EFA70sTRO respect very soon…. stay, as they say, tuned…

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(1974 Albums) Free – The Free Story / At Last

 

There was a time when I would have enjoyed writing a HUGE piece about Free. 

However they’ve now become one of those acts who, since moving to and living in America, I have just heard FAR too much of on the (excuse for) radio over here. Subsequently I’ve grown a little sick of them. 

It seems like every time I tune into one of our pathetic “classic rock” stations it’s either Bob Seger or Free blaring out of the car speakers. 

Paul Rodgers - or as I now refer to him "Freddie Lite"

Plus – and this might seem strange to some – I’ll admit that whilst I still consider Paul Rodgers to be one of the finest blues/rock vocalists of all-time, his decision to join Brian May and Roger Taylor in some ugly bastardised reformation of Queen put me right off him. 

None of this is to say “The Free Story” is a bad album. Far from it. 

It is a double album compilation that came at the end of a brief (for a band of their stature) career which had begun in 1968. For me the high spots are undoubtedly “I’m a Mover“, “Fire & Water“, “The Stealer“, “Mr Big” and “My Brother Jake“, but there really isn’t a bad cut on it, regardless of my personal feelings about the band now. 

For all the compilations of Free material there’s ever been (and since 1972 there’s ludicrously been about a dozen more) I think this remains the VERY best primer for anyone interesting in ‘getting into’ the band. 

It got me into them enough to then go and buy their penultimate studio album, “Free at Last“, the last to feature troubled guitarist Paul Kossoff. 

It too has high spots, “Catch a Train” especially, but like “The Free Story”, I have a hard time listening to it these days … perhaps for all the WRONG reasons? 

I guess in my own little 2010 world Free are FAR from all right now. 

See what I did there? 

Yes, I apologise.

March 7th 1973

“Arguverge > Argument” / “Dental Appointment 2.30” / “Went to see Pictures at an Exhibition, Emerson Lake + Palmer – damned brilliant. Plod – Scaffold – Funny. Grave New World – Strawbs – Crap”

Not just a double movie bill at the Regal, but a TRIPLE movie bill!

Actually, “movie” is a bit of a misnomer in this case….

Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” ‘movie’ was in fact no more than a filmed live concert performance – recorded at the Lyceum in London – from 1970.

In the cause of – *ahem* – research I hunted down a copy of the same film recently – on DVD – and wish to somewhat amend my 35-years earlier “damned brilliant” review.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed its musically-bombastic overkill , but visually it was bloody hard work. I guess chroma-key, together with fluorescent psychedelic tinting was all the rage in the early seventies… and it really grates!

It does show the band very much in their progressive ‘prime’ though, and its interesting to note that this stage recording was made over two years before their album release of the same name hit record stores.

The Scaffold were a comedy/poetry trio from Liverpool who had, by 1973, already enjoyed a pair of massive novelty hit singles (buoyed, no doubt, by the fact that band member Mike McGear was actually Paul McCartney’s brother)

“Thank You Very Much” is a strange singalong ode – sung in a thick Liverpudlian accent – to a collection of English ‘treasures’ including love, the family circle, the Sunday joint, tea (the mentioned “national beverage”), the union jack, the Times newspaper, our “cultural heritage”, Liverpool FC (“our gracious team”), the Aintree Iron (a collection of pubs in Liverpool which, when viewed from the air, resemble the shape of an ‘iron’ horseshoe) and even for…. “playing this record”

“Lily the Pink” was of an equally silly nature. It was an old reworked rugby singalong song about a woman invented a ‘medicinal compound‘ (aka “drug”) which could improve everybody’s lives.

All, it would seem, except the titular Lily who over-enjoyed her drink (a-drink-a-drink), became “Pickle-Lily”, and ascended up to heaven purely on the strength of her marvellous invention.

 Lily the Pink is renowned for not only featuring a certain Jack Bruce on bass, but also for including the word “efficacious“… unlikely to have appeared before – or since – in recorded music.

Where was I?…. oh yes, the Regal cinema, 1973…

The Scaffold’s “Plod” was a half-hour compilation of Pythonesque comedy sketches performed by the trio. Research shows that it has never been released on VHS or DVD so is unavailable for reviewing to see if it has stood the test of time. My betting is “not”

I briefly mentioned The Strawbs earlier this year.

The band was a weird hybrid of rock and folk, and who somehow crossed over into the “progressive” arena. Probably on the strength of their 1972 album “Grave New World” which seemed to (IMHO badly) straddle the folk and prog genres.

A concept album (weren’t they ALL in the early seventies?) it tells the tale of one man’s life from birth to death. The album was lavishly packaged (check out that William Blake repro on the sleeve!) and reached Number 11 on the UK album charts.

It is perhaps best known as the first Strawbs album to NOT feature a certain Rick Wakeman on keyboards. He had left somewhat acrimoniously to join Yes, and it is often felt the song “Tomorrow” – with its lyric “You talked of me with acid tongue” – was written about him.

The film of “Grave New World” which I saw – and duly lambasted in 1973 is often credited as being one of the very first “rock videos”, pre-dating even Queen’s infamous “Bohemian Rhapsody“. It was little more than a full-length visual promo for the album which – again according to research – appears to have featured the same levels of high-intensity chroma-key nonsense which plagued the ELP movie.

Unlike the ELP “damned brilliance” I have no real desire to see “Grave New World” again. Unlike millions of others I never cared too much for The Strawbs, although I still own, and have a soft spot for, their later “Hero & Heroine” album. Indeed, it might even appear in these very diary pages when 1974 rolls around.

For those in need of a grave new fix of the Strawbs, here’s a performance from a reunion concert in 2006. IMHO, it’s crap too – and not helped by out-of-tune audience … erm… ‘participation’

What wouldn’t I give to be able to see a triple-header at my local multiscreen cineplex these days?! *sigh* Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.