Savage Rose vs. Sadistic Mika Band vs. Curved Air vs. Nectar vs. Be-Bop Deluxe vs. Hackamore Brick

"Axe Victim" is not the axe album. "Futurama" is OK, some flaming moments, band posed in Waffen SS uniforms.

Live album's not bad -- a good selection of the better things and they've been served well in anthologies and remasters since. Charlie Tumahei (sp?) -- the Maori bass player always in trouble with immigration -- is dead.

I can never remember any Nektar songs although I bought the albums.

Sadistic-Mika Band. Japs, silly, weird. Was always in the cutout bins.

Hackamore Brick wins easy, One Kiss Leads to Another is a great record. Savage Rose could be pretty ok, but I prefer Earth & Fire for femme-fronted continental psych-rock.

Get out, the Canadian edition of Chicago. "One Fine Morning" -- my junior high rock band played that.

True story - the only Curved Air album I own is some live thing a guy included as a throw-in when I bought a Wild Turkey record, a Funk Factory record, and a Pentangle record from him!

Yeah, if you miss "See My Way" and "Cat Squirrel," they sounded bland.

I'm betting the latter. CTS always had great guitars and the first album is a primo slice. "Hold On," "Mind Baby," "Surf City," "Ice,"
etc.

george, yeah, i know chuck gave me a crack the sky and i pretty sure that lighthouse album that you mentioned. but the lighthouse debut has great great fuzz all over it. like Gun with horns or something. okay, maybe i'm lying, but the guitars are fierce on the debut.

That's why "One Fine Morning" appealed to us little boys in Newton. It starts with a neat, very fast, chainsawing riff. Most of the crummy stuff we artfully left out. "Rocking Chair" was a cool tune, too. And [scratching head], the cover of "Eight Miles High" was embroidered with a noise freak-out, I do believe.

Man, I'm as big a Quicksilver fan as you'll find for those first three records, but the later stuff is a tough slog. You can hardly tell Cipollina's even in the frickin' band. Plus the records just sound terrible. has anybody noticed that? the mastering is just awful.

Actually, I still wish I had "Kryptonite." Me mum threw it out a long time ago when I wasn't looking.

Generally, I think they're low middling to outright crummy. Then I'll put one and like it for about ten minutes. Then I'll pass out.

There's no "Race with the Devil" moments, or even "Butter Queen" ones.

Sanctuary has a reissue anthology that's easy to find; it's about what you need if the itch needs scratching.

If true (I haven't double-checked), yes. There's nothing really similar at all between them. Wishbone Ash were a jam band that got progressively softer sounding as they went along.

Album with "Vas Dis" on it -- jazzy.
Album with burnt "wishbone-shaped" stick on it -- hardest one they recorded. "Lady Whisky" and one or two others on it go right over the top in max crunchola over jammy soloing.

Was doing a college radio show when a promo copy called "Live in Phoenix" came though and it's an EP of this good material performed live. It's now tacked onto the remaster of "Argus," which ain't a bad album, but not very heavy. It's rather pastoral, has a song called "Blowin' Free" that us guitar wankers liked to play for years.

Then it's into boredoms-ville for me, fast. The live album, "Live Cuts," which was their big seller in the states, doesn't sound real good. And there's no real comparison at all with the "Live in Phoenix" set.

Golden Earring were way more arty, opaque and angular. "Switch" was a favorite of mine but I don't think it's even in print anymore.

"Three," produced by Mike Vernon. Double album, skip to the last side. Long instrumental punctuated with brutal bursts of white-boy blooz raunch.

I'm not familiar. Clue me?

Chuck, you may be onto something with that Bjork comparison actually. The singer is kind of hard to take at times. Kind of coos and cloys. The band was pretty decent though; they purveyed a kind of creepy bed of Euro-prog for her to sing over. One of their records was produced by Rolling Stones guy Jimmy Miller! I still say Earth & Fire were better.

Aggghh, "Live Dates."

Live in Japan. "Around the Plynth/Shotgun" -- very pre-BBA done to extend live show. Where "Before the Kiss (A Redcap)" came from.

And "Boogie" cannot be beat, a song in which Tim Bogert attempts to get young people in Japanese-land to spell "B-O-O-G-I-E" in the good ol' USA arena-fart tradition of audience participation. And fails.

"Whazzat spell? Whazzat spell? Awwwwww, what happened to ya people??"

The third album is more mainstream and not as good. It does consist entirely of originals, the better tracks being Facing Time, Young Gypsy,
Antithesis and Money. Enrico Rosenbaum was the chief creative force behind Gypsy, and sadly later committed suicide. James Walsh led several
reformations in later years, and now works in a recording studio in Minneapolis doing independent production projects. Bill Lordan went on to work
with Sly and The Family Stone, and later had a long-lasting relationship with Robin Trower, touring and recording with Trower for many years.

Man, I need to get that Jap-only live Beck Bogert & Appice album!! I see it on eBay a lot but always forget to bid. I think there are even bootlegs of an unreleased second studio album as well. You know anything about that, George?

That I don't know about. As for the Jap only thing, I had the LPs -- lent them to a friend, forgot about it and move across the country, and then picked up the CD on Amazon. Where, like everything Japanese, it was ridiculously overpriced. Some live BBA is on "Beckology" -- it's good and sounds like it's from a different concert.

Be Bop Deluxe -
didnt think much of them until their last yr of existence - some tracks from the 1978 'Drastik Plastik' album are wonderful, as are some of the b-sides/rarities on the 2nd disc of 'best of...rest of...' dbl-disc compilation of 1979 - the description on amg of some of the o/p of that time is quite good:

'a tightly drawn blueprint not only for Bill Nelson's own post-band excursions with Red Noise, but also for many of the bands that would pursue the electronic agenda in their wake. Not that Be Bop themselves delved too deeply into those waters — the synths onboard are both muted and sparing, relied on for atmospheres more than full color. But the nature of Nelson's writing, not to mention the tone of his vocals, certainly drew synthi-sympathizers in, while even the song titles — "Lovers Are Mortal," "Autosexual," "Futurist Manifesto" — read like a how-to guide for aspirant nu-men. ("Quest for the Harvest of the Stars," on the other hand, should be a Blue Öyster Cult title, so maybe listeners shouldn't read too much into such things.)'

nelson's gtr stuff is about the least interesting aspect of his wide-ranging output - (unless, as on the divine 'electrical language', he gets this fantastic 1950's twang-style mixing in beautifully with bubblecar-plasti-synth-riffing and chrome-steam-engine drum loops, making it so redolent of the Popular Mechanics 50's sci-fi futura-optimism - always been one of his obsessions) - though once those 70's art-rock days were over he was at least usually restrained enough in its use.
he has written some great catchy/neurotic synth-pop, some work for film/tv/theatre, lots of bog-standard 'ambient' or 'meditative' instrumental stuff (much of it not particularly interesting, but then is that it's job...), and lots of general-purpose no-particular-category stuff

the other bands i do not know

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2592772038&category=1593

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2593687672&category=3366

It's the one with this cover:

ihttp://www.velvetrose.jp/jackets/kurofune.jpg

http://www.cityfujisawa.ne.jp/~jh1bam/SADISTIC_MIKA_BAND_.jpg

They sound like the same band plays each song on that one - pretty much as campy, but more regular pop/rock-kind of structures and kind of distorted-sounding in a way that makes the drums, especially, sound amazing. It's like it's just close enough to sounding like something I'd not pay much attention to that I can't play it enough - something like when you're tuning an instrument and come really close, but not quite, and the vibrations go crazy and sound better than when you reach the note you were going for. I bought it because of Yukihiro Takahashi, and it ended up being my favourite record he plays on.

: (

Nice picture!
http://www.vinylvulture.co.uk/pages/images/photos/F_Monk-CurvedAir.jpg

haha and it turns out it's actually on the one album I have by them as noted above. In about 6 years of owning the album I don't think I ever listened all the way through.

i've been meaning to delve into curved air -- i think that picture seals the deal.

the first Curved Air album absolutely rules

TRUE

"Recycled" by Nektar (not Nectar though) is basically the missing link between Yes and the Bee Gees :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hylrTR3pS8c

Repertoire just re-released the first three (mostly very good) Curved Air albums - a major sound improvement over the previous, rather crappy Warner versions.
Creepy little songs filled with bizarre touches about ghosts, masturbation and Marie Antoinette, plus the occasional grandiose prog workout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhAd3dQ-8b8

\m/

the first four curved air albums are all worth owning. i have the live album, but i never play it. and the two stewart copeland-era albums are okay, but not great. but i should probably play them again cuz i haven't heard them in a while. anyway, four out of seven ain't bad.

i've never heard their albums on cd. all the vinyl sounds great.

still a couple savage rose albums i need. i have in the plain, s/t, refugee, and your daily gift, but i need travelin', babylon, and dodens triumf. don't know when the hell i'll see that last one. but i might get lucky.

Wow, that video! Birds eating mice! I've never thought to look Curved Air up on youtube, so they've always been just faces on album covers for me, that was cool.

I like Dodens Triumf: it is sort of proggier than their other stuff and there's a longer version of Dear Little Mother (I think I prefer the shorter one).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcu9VnGdkC0

The Curved Air live has its moments, especially a seven minutes version of Propositions sounding like Terry Riley goes psych rock.

The live LP is the only one I own (odd, since I think I own every String Driven Thing album.) Oh wait, I might still have their final one, "Airborne" -- kinda limp, with one long jam I liked. Checking out other Curved Air footages this morning has been fun, I never play this stuff at home anymore.

"odd, since I think I own every String Driven Thing album."

as well you should. they rule.

my all-time fave string driven thing jam. played this song a zillion times. dementia!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrC4lsYCzeI

Sigh, I love these guys too...

I watched this this morning. Another case of only having seen the LP jackets, I didn't know the beardy guy was the lead singer. He has an awesome voice, I think. Low-quality, but this is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikOyn6jvpt4

Okay, I think today convinced me I need one of these:

http://991.com/NewGallery/Curved-Air-Airconditioning-352577.jpg

First and third Curved Air albums are essential but, as Scott said, all first 4 are good.

And what kind of name is Florian Pilkington-Miksa, anyway??

I never investigated any of Darryl Way's Wolf stuff, this is really nice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yyto_ktW1E&feature=related

I used to scribble names of things heard on the radio (because the DJs on WXPN would play really long blocks of music then announce everything all at once) onto whatever I had handy at the moment, often the front or back pages of books. I was just found "Savage Rose" in one of those. Pretty good stuff. Oddly I don't think I've heard them between hearing them decades ago and checking them out know, though I'm pretty sure I've seen this thread before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CODgz6xYJYs

Threads like these have been gateway drugs to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XADlIiSSbUQ

OMG thank you for posting that Savage Rose! never seen it!

my favorite Sadistic Mika Band song is "Time Machine" but i can't find a copy on youtube that sounds as good as the record, which is the most Cheap Trick thing ever

HACKAMORE BRICK.

IT IS HACKAMORE BRICK SEASON.

first Savage Rose album kicks ass

Agree.