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And now it's done!

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You have to hand it to them. Would anyone have bought a record called “Scottish boy” sung by a woman with a deep Glaswegian accent? Unlikely. But “Japanese boy”? Now that's a whole different kettle of sushi! Take one lady who lives across the northern border and give her a song about a Japanese girl desperately seeking her lost lover, and what have you got? Surprisingly, and perhaps to our collective shame, you have a number one single and the end of what could have been a promising career for Mary Sandeman. I mean, with a name like that she should have gone places on her own merits, but no: this song was presented to her and she gamely donned the kimono and knitting-needles-in-the-hair (why do they do that?) and began warbling in what could only be described as a really bad Japanese accent to accompanying cliched oriental keyboard music, and a legend was not born.

Japanese boy --- Aneka --- 1981
Written by Bob Heatlie, himself a Scot and most famed for his collaborations with Shakin' Stevens, notably the trembling one's Christmas song, “Merry Christmas Everyone”, the song tells the sad tale of a lady who goes to a passerby in the street (maybe a policeman; would make sense but then what about this song and its popularity makes sense?) and explains she has lost her lover and wishes to find him. Description miss? A Japanese boy. Yeah, I didn't ask for his nationality miss. Any distinguishing characteristics? Birthmarks? Hair colour? Eyes? Name even? A Japanese boy. Yes, you said miss. I understand he's Japanese. But you must understand, there are probably in excess of a million resident Japanese in London alone. How can I find one unnamed member of their nationality in a city this size? Surely you have more I can go on? No? A Japanese boy you say. Again. Fine miss, I'll take a note and if I see any Japanese boys I'll tell them you're looking for them. Name? Aneka. Very good miss. (Don't blame him if he did run off on her. Loony cow.)

What is it about this song? It's a throwaway, below-par pop song that even the famed Stock, Aitken and Waterman would blush at having written, and yet it got to number bloody one. Well I'll tell you what it is about it, what got it there: the hook. If this had just been a song about someone losing their boyfriend in a strange city then nobody would have been very interested. Well okay, there was Bonnie Tyler's "Lost in France", but that's a little different. But make it all exotic, as the Vapors once remarked, turn it Japanese, and suddenly everyone's dancing making slanty eyes and making praying motions with their hands, and the cause of East/West relations has been set back decades. Funny thing is, they wouldn't play this in Japan because it sounded too Chinese!

After the smash hit that was “Japanese boy”, Aneka, or Mary Sandeman, found it difficult, even impossible to ditch the image and was unable to be taken seriously as a singer again. Well, you wouldn't, would you? She only released the one album under that name before retiring, probably richer but somehow in a real way poorer for the experience. Thing is, nobody --- including me at the time, who of course hated the thing --- had any idea she wasn't really Japanese or that her name was not Aneka, but Mary. Still, maybe she should have asked them to write a followup called “Scottish girl”, wherein the Japanese boy seeks his Scottish .... no? Ach, see you Jimmy!

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As we approach the fourth anniversary of this journal, I'd like to return to a section I have not run for some time, and which was my first dedicated section not to specifically deal with album reviews. Technically, it does, in a way, and the very first section was “Spinning the wheel”, but that essentially was just an excuse to review a random album, so I wouldn't see that as having been much different from my normal reviews. This, however, was the first time I had what I considered a really different idea, half-robbed from a TV programme of similar title, but still all my own work. I haven't been back to it since October 2012, so it's probably high time we had another look at

This is by no means an easy choice. I have of course thousands of albums, but many of the sleeves of them, while good enough, don't have enough of that artistic flair to allow me to extemporise about them at length, as I like to do. I usually for this section have tried to select an album that either has a lot of components parts to its artwork (Marillion's Fugazi, ELO's Face the music and Gary Moore's Still got the blues) or which tells a very definite story, hopefully linked to the album or at least the artiste (Supertramp's Famous last words). The one I've chosen this time around fits, I believe, into the latter category.

No. 8: “Rising” by Rainbow

Yes, I know it's sometimes called Rainbow Rising but that's mostly due to the way the album title is set out on the cover. It is, though, just called Rising and was in fact one of the first albums reviewed by me in the early days of this journal, so that all ties in well with the anniversary. This was of course pretty much Ronnie James Dio's finest hour, I think most people will agree, when he brought Rainbow to the notice of the world with this powerful classic album that just drips with fantasy and mythological imagery, both in the music and on the cover. But it is the latter with which we are concerned of course, and that iconic cover was in fact created by Ken Kelly. Here's a little about him.

Being the nephew of Frank Frazetta's wife, he was able to study under the great man himself, whose rather nubile young ladies and muscled heroes appeared on many a fantasy/sword-and-sorcery book of my youth, to say nothing of calendars and posters of same. Ken has worked with bands such as Kiss, Manowar and Coheed and Cambria. He also illustrated many many books, of which his Conan the Barbarian series are perhaps the most well known, and has also been very active illustrating in the toy industry. This album cover was of course completed in 1975, forty years ago now, but on his website he still retains a glowing sense of pride in his achievement for it, and so he should.

Somewhat a little like Roger Dean, who made a name for himself illustrating the album covers of Yes and later Asia, Kelly's style is deeply rooted in fantasy themes, and this shines through very strongly on the album cover here. If we look at it, there are quite a few elements to take in. The first, and most overriding impression is of course strength and power, as we see a fist punch defiantly up out of the lake and grasp the rainbow. Whether it's using it as a weapon or trying to destroy it is possible open to interpretation, but given that the band's name is Rainbow I would assume it's grasping it to show how powerful the rainbow is. After all, it contains all the colours of the spectrum (rather like Floyd's equally iconic album cover) and is something you literally cannot touch, as it's basically an optical illusion created by the reflection of raindops off the sun. But as an image it has a power all of its own: you only have to look at one in the sky to realise how beautiful it is and to be struck by its awe-inspiring wonder.

The second impression I get is of discovery. If you look to the bottom left of the cover (fig 1) you can see a small knight, warrior or soldier of some sort standing on the cliff, staring at the rainbow, or at least across the lake. His cloak is billowing in the wind, so we can assume he's at some height, though even if we didn't know that the artwork gives that idea anyway. So it looks to me as if he's come across this massive fist rising out of the water, almost like a sign to him. Who is he? Where is he going? There's no way to know, and yet he seems to me like someone on a journey, perhaps a quest, and this appearance of the mighty fist clutching the rainbow must seem to him to be a sign.

There's a feeling of vastness, of space, and of how big the world is and how small you are, as the knight (let's call him a knight) stares out across the lake with the high cliffs towering above him all around, the fist more than huge enough to crush him should it wish to, the lake itself wide and rolling. The sky above him is red and sullen, a warning perhaps, or another portent he must interpret. For me, the red sky presages the birth and arrival of a true force in heavy metal --- although this is not Rainbow's debut it's a giant step from the first album and really established them as a band to watch, and to follow. I could be wrong, or imagining it, but to me the shapes in the waves (fig 2) thrown up by the emergence of the fist can be seen to be leaping wolves, tying in to the second track on the album, “Run with the wolf”. Indeed, other songs on it can be referenced from the cover: “Starstruck” and “Stargazer” of course, and even “A light in the black”, with the blinding, brilliant light of the rainbow (more solid and clear than any rainbow I've ever seen in reality) bursting through the darkness and illuminating the brick-red sky above the lake and the cliffs.

If you look to the right then, about halfway up there's even a castle (fig 3), half-lost in shadow, which resembles the one off the cover of the debut album, created out of Ritchie Blackmore's guitar. So this album sleeve not only speaks of great power and force, the birth of a phenomenon and perhaps the fulfilment of a prophecy, but lays down a marker for all other metal bands to follow in the coming years. Like the iconic album sleeves of Hipgnosis, this was destined to appear on posters, badges, T-shirts and magazine covers, and although no singles or hits came from Rising and Rainbow commercially are remembered for lesser hits such as “Since you been gone” or “All night long”, this was Rainbow at their quintessentially best, a snapshot in time of a force (ahem) rising, against which there would be no standing, no defence and no possible resistance.

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After merging two of my sections last week I thought this might work a second time. Thing is, I was torn between who to feature on this slot and in the end thought maybe I could do both, as there are some striking similarities between their careers, both before and after they left their parent bands. So although it’s not quite a case of “Two sides of the same coin”, it’s close enough.

Both were born in the fifties in Great Britain, although Fish would never forgive me for describing him as English I’m sure. He was born in Midlothian in Scotland, about as far north and as far away from the birthplace of Peter Gabriel as you can get. The ex-Genesis frontman was born in Surrey, he attending a public school while Fish went to the usual sort of one. Gabriel began playing in bands from the time he was at Charterhouse, whereas Fish bummed around at various jobs until joining Marillion circa 1981. Although a decade separates the two men in terms of their musical output --- Gabriel formed Genesis in 1967 and they released their first album in 1969 whereas Fish did not form, but joined Marillion in 1981, the band having been together for two years prior --- the times of their departure from their parent bands and their subsequent solo career timeline exhibits some interesting similarities, which is why I’m bringing in the “Two sides of the same coin” idea.

The interrelations between the two, and indeed where their career paths diverge, is something I’ll be remarking on as I go. For now, as Peter Gabriel was the first of the two to make it big, and the one had a profound influence on the other, despite there only being eight years between their ages, it is with the Genesis founder that I will begin, cataloguing his career briefly with Genesis and then more in-depth after his split with the band.

As I mentioned, in 1967 Gabriel formed Genesis with his three schoolfriends at Charterhouse, Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips and Mike Rutherford. Two years later, having been discovered by impresario Jonathan King, they released their first album and were soon in demand. But by the time of their fifth album, the concept “The lamb lies down on Broadway”, relations were being strained and Gabriel decided to strike out on his own, leaving the band under fairly amicable circumstances. However it wasn't all roses and "Good luck Peter, we wish you well": in addition to tensions within the band and his not being satisfied at the direction they were going, he had chosen to stay by his pregnant wife’s side while she gave birth to their first daughter, rather than make himself available for touring or recording. Perhaps unreasonably, this rankled with the other band members and soon a parting of the ways was in the cards.

In 1977 Gabriel released his first solo album. This, and the three that followed, would be characterised by all being called “Peter Gabriel”. People would differentiate between them either by referring to the year they were released (“Peter Gabriel 1977”, “Peter Gabriel 1980” etc) or by the artwork (“Car,” “Scratch”, and so on). Whether this was meant to allow him to distance himself from the tag of having been a Genesis bandmember and try to mystify his new solo music, or whether he was trying to say the artist is nowhere near as important as the music, I don’t know.

He would later abandon the concept, particularly in the face of opposition from his American label, who demanded a title for his fourth album --- although it remained simply “Peter Gabriel” over this side of the pond --- and subsequent ones would all have titles, albeit short, one-word ones. Fish, for his part, would have elaborate, interesting titles for all of his albums. But that’s to come.


Peter Gabriel 1977/”Car” --- Peter Gabriel --- 1977 (Charisma)

The album starts off on a song with a typical Gabriel title, which could have come from the writing sessions for “The lamb”, and “Moribund the burgermeister” starts with an echoey, Tom Waitsesque drum then some accordion and popping noises, again like something off the last Genesis album he made before leaving. His voice is quite sparse and echoing too, harsh and powerful yet restrained. Powerful synth then cuts in and more or less drives the track with a very Genesis-like sound. The similarities to “The lamb”, particularly “The colony of Slippermen” cannot be overstated here. It’s almost like Gabriel stepped from one room having written the music and lyrics for “The lamb” and into another, sat down and continued writing in the very same vein. It’s not the greatest start to be fair, but it’s followed by a song which would become a hit for him --- his first of many --- and for a while be identified with him.

In a cross between a retelling of Jesus’ ascension into Heaven after the crucifixion and his own experiences on departing Genesis, “Solsbury Hill” is a much more accessible song, with a driving upbeat tempo, jangly guitar and a nice line in flute melody, this played by Gabriel himself. His voice too is more distinctive, less dark and it’s not really a surprise that this became the hit single from the album. If there was going to be one --- and considering who he was, chances were high there would be --- this was going to be it. In lines like ”My friends would think I was a nut/ Turning water into wine” he certainly references, if only obliquely, the miracles performed by Jesus, and his delighted declaration at the end of the chorus, ”He said grab your things/ I’ve come to take you home” has always, to me at any rate, indicated Jesus being taken back up into Heaven after the resurrection.

Whatever the truth, it’s a great song and provided him a platform to build on, a platform that would sadly fail to extend for another five years. We then get what would become known (to me anyway) as the “Gabriel screech”, where he would sound just a little unhinged sometimes when he sang, and on “Modern love” there’s some great hard guitar courtesy of King Crimson legend Robert Fripp, with a solid organ line coming from Larry Fast. It keeps the tempo high and it’s almost an AOR style song with a lot of balls. “Excuse me” uses, of all things, Barbershop, showing that even at this early stage Peter was more than ready to look to the past to make the music of the future, and had no problem integrating odd styles and structures into his songs.

It’s a weird song, as you’d expect, with nothing but acapella singing until Fripp comes in with banjo (yeah!) and Tony Levin with tuba (er, yeah…) giving the whole thing of course a very twenties aspect. Gabriel sings a little like McCartney at times here, and certainly sounds like he’s enjoying himself, not so much a man with anything to prove as a man who is glad to be free of the restrictions of his band and able to flex his musical muscle and creativity in any way he feels like doing. “Humdrum” brings everything back down to earth with a low, muttered vocal and dark piano and organ, but it picks up after about a minute, taking on a very recognisable Genesis look, then throwing in some latin percussion themes. Classical guitar, rippling piano and some lush keyboard work then take the song as it slips along on a very stately, sedate rhythm. It’s one of my favourite tracks on the album.

If “Slowburn” starts as anything it’s a Genesis song but then Fripp cuts in with some tough electric guitar and the drums get going as Gabriel returns to the somewhat manic tone of “Modern love” and the whole thing rocks out nicely. In fact it’s probably the most rocky track on the album, with bouncy piano joining the party, then “Waiting for the big one” is another standout, with a thick blues riff and another muttered vocal from Gabriel, the star of the show though the piano work which drives the tune, and the false endings (about three), not to mention Gabriel’s witty lyrics: ”Once I was a credit/ To my credit card/ Spent what I hadn’t got/ Wasn’t hard.”

A full orchestra (the London Symphony) lends a touch of majesty and class to “Down the Dolce Vita”, and perhaps set a very early marker for Gabriel who would work with orchestras again, most famously in the twenty-first century as they helped him reinterpret his hits on the “New blood” and “Scratch my back” collections. It’s an odd little song, sort of a combination of an almost funky, dance-ish number with a big brassy effort from the LSO, and I find it hard to get too excited about it, a little too confusing for me with all the styles meshing: it’s a song I never remember no matter how many times I play this album. The closer is the one I do remember, my top favourite on it. Accusations of overproduction and bombast have been levelled at “Here comes the flood”, and I’ve heard stripped-down versions of it, mostly with Gabriel accompanying himself on piano, but for me this is the definitive version.

Starting off very low-key with soft, almost otherworldly flute, piano and a gentle, almost whispered vocal it builds to a powerful crescendo in the chorus, a real sense of desperation and passion in the lyric as Gabriel sings “Here comes the flood/ We’ll say goodbye to flesh and blood.” In fairness, the first two minutes or so remain the same in the sparser versions, the song just doesn’t explode on them as it does here. Heavy punchy percussion, strong piano and lush organ mesh with Gabriel’s howling vocal, the despair evident in it. There’s a great guitar almost-outro too, courtesy of Fripp, though the song actually ends on a few piano notes and Gabriel’s falsetto.

TRACKLISTING

1. Moribund the Burgermeister
2. Solsbury Hill
3. Modern love
4. Excuse me
5. Humdrum
6. Slowburn
7. Waiting for the big one
8. Down the Dolce Vita
9. Here comes the flood

Even despite the big hit single, I find this a low-key affair to announce the solo career of the ex-Genesis frontman, with little in the way of fanfare (though of course I would have been too young to have noticed if there had been any when it was released, but I somehow doubt it) and a real pot-pourri of styles and songs. As I said earlier, it does betray a sense of freedom, in a way something similar to how I described the feeling I got from Roger Hodgson's debut album after leaving Supertramp. It's like suddenly Gabriel can explore all these weird themes and ideas without Mike or Phil going, "I don't know, Peter. Do you think the fans will like it?"

That's the intrinsic dichotomy of which I've spoken in this section before: a solo artist, leaving his band or just taking time off to create a solo project, is free from the expectations of the band's fans. If people don't like it, it's most likely going to be with the complaint (in this case) "But it's not like Genesis!" to which Gabriel would archly reply "But I'm not in Genesis any more." So now the fans have a choice: write Gabriel off as a lost cause, a man who has abandoned the principles and tenets of Genesis, or jump on board with him for the ride and see where it took them.

As his millions of fans worldwide, and the respect he earned not only in the music business but further afield, in the area of humanitarian relations, politics, justice and reform as well as ecological responsibility attest to, most chose the latter.

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Flash forward four years and a young man called Derek William Dick joins a struggling progressive rock band who are trying to revive interest in the whole idea of prog rock. But it’s seen mostly as a dated phenomenon, with bands like Yes, Rush, Genesis and ELP all consigned to the status of “seventies bands”, even though most are still performing and releasing albums, and will for some time. But the times they are a-changing, as someone --- can’t quite remember who ---- once said, and the abovementioned bands, and more like them, have mostly moved on, changing their sound and their approach to their music and their fans.

By the early 1980s, Genesis had pretty much released their last proper prog album in “Duke” and followed it up with the godawful “Abacab” (shut up Neapolitan! ), a nadir in their musical career that would lead them down dark paths towards their eventual breakup in 1997, while Rush had already gone for the more commercial/AOR sound a while ago. Yes had reinvented themselves with albums like “Drama” and were about to go on to record “90125”, which while a great great album is pretty far from anyone’s idea of progressive rock, and ELP had never really recovered after the terrible “Love beach”, and would take another fourteen years to knock out their penultimate album, far from the heights of prog gods they had scaled in the seventies. Yeah, progressive rock as a genre was, to most people’s minds, a thing of the past, dead and gone and good riddance.

Marillion aimed to change that, along with bands like IQ and Pallas. This was to be the rebirth of progressive rock, or neo-progressive rock as it would come to be known. Joining the band in 1981 Fish cut an imposing figure, over six feet tall with a thick Scottish accent and affecting costumes and wearing greasepaint on his face, rather like his role model Peter Gabriel had during his time with Genesis. But it takes more than a gimmick and looking good to cut it in the technically superior world of progressive rock, and though Fish did not play any instrument he was and is a master wordsmith, and like Gabriel was the principle songwriter as well as the sole vocalist for the band. There’s anecdotal evidence from the time to suggest Fish was approached by a label to sign for them as a solo artist but turned it down. If this is true it’s not surprising, but does a disservice to the other members of the band, who all put in a massive amount of work into their music. Also, let’s not forget Fish was not in Marillion when they were formed. But it’s ever the case: the man up front gets all the press.

And Fish garnered some press. His habit of using an imaginary machinegun to “cut down” the audience at the climax of “Forgotten sons” made him something of a star and showed the world this was a talent worth watching. Like Gabriel, Fish used a theatrical style onstage, with costumes and narrations, and his lyrics explored subjects from the human condition to mythological creatures. You know: prog rock! He was also a very vocal person, speaking about a range of subjects and making it clear he was not, unlike the Moody Blues claimed, “just a singer in a rock and roll band”.

But as time wore on and Marillion began to make their mark, scoring hit singles from the Misplaced childhood and Fugazi albums, the stress began to tell on Fish and he reached a decision. Having looked over the figures for the tour to support their fourth album, the appropriately-titled Clutching at straws, he realised that the band were becoming indebted to and dependent on EMI, their label. In his own words, "By 1987 we were over-playing live because the manager was on 20 per cent of the gross. He was making a fantastic amount of money while we were working our asses off. Then I found a bit of paper proposing an American tour. At the end of the day the band would have needed a £14,000 loan from EMI as tour support to do it. That was when I knew that, if I stayed with the band, I'd probably end up a raging alcoholic and be found overdosed and dying in a big house in Oxford with Irish wolfhounds at the bottom of my bed."

Fish gave the band an ultimatum: dump the manager or he would walk. Inevitably the other members of Marillion let him go, and so in 1988 he set off on a solo career path, taking with him his lyrics and ideas which were supposed to have appeared on the fifth Marillion album, and also artist Mark Wilkinson, who had created the cover of every Marillion album up to then, and would continue to work with Fish on his solo material.

Two years later his first solo album hit the shelves, with a typically Marillion/Fishlike title. (Note: for any of you who may have read my thread “The Marillion story”, much of what follows will be recognisable to you, as I am basically pulling most of it wholesale for this review. There’s no point in my writing two reviews, which would say basically the same thing, or letting all that work go to waste. However, I will not be just repeating what I said in that thread verbatim, but will be adding to it and importing it into this review.)


Vigil in a wilderness of mirrors --- Fish --- 1990 (EMI)

It must, in fairness, have been a pretty daunting task, going it alone, even given the fact that he really had no choice, as he said himself above. In the band Fish may have written all the lyrics but he had the other guys to bounce ideas off, and besides that, he wrote lyrics, not music. Marillion as a unit took care of that. After all, let's not forget that great singer and composer though he is, Fish didn't play any instrument in the band. He was purely, first and foremost, a vocalist. So he had to turn to some of his famous mates for help, and his first solo album contains contributions from, among others, Mickey Simmonds and Iron Maiden's Janick Gers. He also used a wealth of talent from uileann pipes expert Davy Spillane to bassist John Giblin and drummer Mark Brzezicki, best known for his work with Big Country.

The album opens on the title track, and it's interesting that his first words as a solo artist are "Listen to me, just hear me out: if I could have your attention?" almost as if he's pleading with that section of Marillion fandom who have cursed his name. Probably not, but it's still a good idea. Although this is a long song (the longest on the album) it would seem Fish had taken some lessons away from his time with Marillion, one of these being that songs that are too long get no radio airplay, and as a solo artist you want as much exposure as you can get. Fish knew, or hoped, that many Marillion and ex-Marillion fans would buy his music, if only to hear the difference to what he had been doing with the band, but he knew too that he could not rely only on the "old guard", and must write songs with one eye fixed on if not the charts then at least radio time. So as an introductory song this is necessarily long, almost an old Marillion song that could have worked on "Script", but most of the rest of the songs are relatively short. As there was no acrimonious split with Marillion there's no need for an angry, "Assassing"-style opening shot at the band, and Fish instead blasts consumerism as he pictures himself lost in a "wilderness of mirrors".

The song opens on atmospheric keyboard but soon kicks up on the basis of thick percussion and when it really gets going it takes on something of a celtic feel, reflecting of course his Scottish roots. He talks about learning that all his childhood beliefs were wrong --- "When I was young my father told me just bad guys died, at the time just a little white lie. It was one of the first but it hurt me the most and the truth stung like tears in my eyes that even the good guys must die. There's no reason, no rhyme and I never knew why: even now it still makes me cry."

Further celtic inspiration is supplied by the appearance of the great Davy Spillane on pipes and whistle, and great guitar screams courtesy of ex-Dire Straits man Hal Lindes as Fish is back to the angry man we knew on albums like Fugazi and Script. The feeling of loss and helplessness runs through the album, and the idea of "the Hill" is first broached here. This is a metaphor for the accumulation of wealth and power, the idea that if you're on "the Hill" you can look down on your neighbours and feel that you're better than they are. There’s a lot of anger in the song, but hope too, that someone somewhere will hear his “voice crying in the wilderness” --- ”If there’s somebody out there/ Will they throw me down a line/ Just a little helping hand/ Just a little understanding” --- and at the end as everything winds down and the song more or less returns to the musical theme of its opening, Fish sighs ”When I can’t scream no more/ And I need reassurance/ I listen to the crowd.” This may reference society, or it may be talking about his audience, now or before; Fish may be saying that when he needs to be reassured he has done the right thing he remembers the crowds shouting and cheering and applauding Marillion.

That’s the last of the “epics” for a while, as Fish kicks things off with the lead single from the album, “Big wedge”. An obvious push for the charts, this single was never going to do much in the USA --- truth be told it didn't exactly shake up the charts here either --- as Fish decries the idea of capitalism and specifically American capitalism. It's upbeat and rocky as Fish sings "A priest got in a Cadillac,/The shoe-shine boy sang gospel/ As God and His accountant drove away!" Showing he was determined also to move a step away from the Marillion music, Fish calls in the talents of a brass section which really "souls" up this track. If there was any doubt about his views on the US of A they're dispelled as he roars "America! America the big wedge! /Am I buying your tomorrow out today?" No US stadium shows for you, Mr. Dick!

Weirdly, although “Big wedge” was the lead single from the album, “State of mind” was released months before the album hit the shelves. Seems EMI were afraid of pulling too much attention away from the “relaunch” of Marillion, whose first album sans Fish was due out in 1989, and so they threw out this single as a taster in October 1989, one month after Seasons end hit, but held back the actual release of the full album until the following January. Although also politically motivated lyrically, this is far more restrained and more in the Marillion mode, as Fish fumes about the grip of Thatcher's government over Britain, and foresees a revolution. Driven on a thick bassline from Giblin the vocal is downbeat and restrained, menacing and somewhat paranoid, rising to a hopeful rallying call as he sings "We the people are gettin' tired of your lies/ We the people believe that it's time. /We're demanding our right to the answers: /We'll elect a president to a state of mind." Another example of Fish's talent in making a phrase mean two things, or changing the meaning of a word to fit in with his vision. The title of the album is also mentioned here for the second time. Great crashing guitar and what could be sitar but probably is not.

Perhaps a slight throwback to Clutching at straws, “The Company” is is a folky tune that sways along with the happy abandon of the drunk but soon turns angry as Fish snarls "You buy me a drink then you think/ That you've got the right to crawl into my head/ And rifle my soul." In fact, this could even go back further, to where on Misplaced Childhood he's singing about a journalist bothering him during the "Mylo" section of "Blind curve". Again "the Hill" is mentioned, quite a lot actually as he says "Here on the Hill, halfway up, halfway down." Nice bit of celtic violin and flute with an almost orchestral keyboard passage.

The first ever Fish ballad comes in the form of “A gentleman’s excuse-me”, and I have to say it’s right up there with the likes of "Lavender" and "Sugar mice". The imagery goes right back to "Chelsea Monday" as Fish asks, against a lone piano melody, "Do you still keep paper flowers/ In the bottom drawer with your Belgian lace, /Taking them out every year /To watch the colours fade away?" It's an inspired and effective depiction of a life, and the chance of a relationship, wasting away, the more so when he sneers "Do you still believe in Santa Claus?/ There's a millionaire looking for your front door/ With the keys to a life that you'd never understand" but then admits "All I have to offer is /The love I have, it's freely given." Sumptuous orchestral arrangements lift this song right up to the status of instant classic, and if there was a time when you realised Fish --- the solo artist, not Fish the ex-Marillion singer or even Fish the Marillion singer --- had arrived, this is it.

All through the song Fish tries to compare his real charms, his true love to the fantasies and dreams of the girl, who is waiting for a white knight to sweep her off her feet, and can't see what's under her nose. But in the end, frustration gives way to cold anger and then resignation and acceptance as he tells the object of affection "Can't you get it inside your head/ I'm tired of dancin'? /We're finished dancing."

Probably one of the most uptempo tracks on the album is “The voyeur (I like to watch)”, with a very Europop feel, almost Madonna's "True blue"! Not the most original of lyrics I have to say, with the television and particularly the news seen as a voyeuristic activity as Fish declares gleefully "I like to watch plausible pledges of black politicians" (almost twenty years before Obama!) and then references shows like Jerry Springer: "Private lives are up for auction/ And a cupboard full of skeletons/ Are coming out to play!" Again, not one of my favourite songs, though there is a nice Marillion-style keyboard passage in the middle eighth. This was not included on the original vinyl album and to be honest, I wouldn't have missed it on the CD. Oh well, not a terrible song but I guess you can't have a flawless solo debut.

“Family business” is much more like it. As already mentioned in other posts I’ve made about Marillion, and particularly in one of my “Run for cover!” features, the actual lyric for this was used on a song to have been recorded by Marillion for their then fifth album, which was of course never recorded, Seasons end being released instead after Fish's departure. The lyric was in the song then called "Story from a thin wall" and used as "Berlin", but here it has different music, the story of domestic violence, as Fish listens to the nightly goings-on next door and wishes he could help. "Every night when I hear you/ I dream of breaking down your door, /An avenging knight in shining armour". It's a slow, plodding song with crying violin and stark piano, bitter and recriminatory. It ramps up for the bridge as the unnamed husband warns his battered wife "If anyone from the Social asks, you fell down the stairs!"

It's a shocking indictment not only of domestic and family abuse, but of how it's tacitly accepted, mostly because people just don't want to get involved, or are afraid of being pulled into what's seen as "family business". The same reason cops don't intervene in domestic disputes. The pathetic figure of the wife as "She's waiting at a bus stop at the bottom of the hill. /She knows she'll never catch it" is heart-rending, and so typical of women who fail to break out of their abusive relationships. But something will have to be done, she realises; her own fear will have to be faced or placed on hold for the good of her children "Cause when daddy tucks the kids in /It's taking longer every night."

The Hill finally comes into view, as Fish teams up with Maiden's Janick Gers for a searing look at the things people will do to get to the top in “View from the Hill”. Fish snarls "They sold you the view from the Hill, /They told you the view from the Hill would be further /Than you had ever seen before!" It's the old story of the grass being greener on the other side, and the song could be misinterpreted to mean that Fish was regretting his solo move, but that's not the case at all. Gers himself guests on guitar and really rocks the track up, Fish's vocal burning with anger and accusation, almost as if the impotent rage of "Family business" has exploded out of him in a towering wave, directed at those who sell unattainable dreams. Of course there's a great solo from Gers, and the song is definitely the heaviest on the album, not quite metal but coming reasonably close. It fades out on single chords from Gers and takes us to the closer.

Starting out pretty much like the opener did, “Cliche” is the second ballad, though it ramps up near the end. It's carried mostly on piano and synth, with Fish wrestling with how to get across how he loves his lady without resorting to hackneyed lines and methods. With perhaps a lack of humility he declares "I've got a reputation of being /A man with the gift of words: /Romantic, poetic type, or so they say." The fact that it's true makes it a little easier to take, and the guitar moaning in the background adds a sense of power to the song, with backing vocals from among others, Heaven 17's Carol Kenyon giving it a feel of Pink Floyd. A slick bass line from Giblin runs throughout the tune, and a fiery guitar solo from Frank Usher lays the final polish on a great closer. As I say, a ballad but a song that changes as it goes along and ends up being quite a punchy, emotional and stirring final track.

TRACKLISTING

1. Vigil
2. Big wedge
3. State of mind
4. The Company
5. A gentleman's excuse-me
6. The voyeur (I like to watch)
7. Family business
8. View from the the Hill
9. Cliche

As a debut solo album, even for someone already well known in progressive rock circles, this stands as one of the best, and certainly among Fish's catalogue I'd rank it among the big three, with "Raingods and Zippos" and the followup to this, "Internal exile". If nothing else, it did partially exorcise the ghost of Marillion and the breakup, and showed that Fish was able to stand unaided as a performer in his own right. Of course, that same ghost was not completely gone, and in the subject matter and Mark Wilkinson's Marillionesque album covers, the Jester was always looking over Fish's shoulder.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

As we head closer to the fourth anniversary of the rebirth of this journal, I've been looking at some of the older sections I started way back in 2011, and one that jumped out at me, and allows me to review an album I've been meaning to take a look at for some time, is this:

The story is told of how one day I was out and about with my Zen X-Fi and wondering what to listen to as I stood waiting on the bus, as those of us without cars or the money to buy them are forced to do. It just so happened that I had listened to most of what was at the time on the unit, and I came across this album and, having failed to even remember when or why I downloaded it, thought well why not? Give it a spin. I was very glad that I did.

War and peace and other short stories --- Sean Filkins --- 2011 (F2 Records)

Those of you in the know who move in progressive rock circles will know of this man. He was with Big Big Train for six years, but only featured on two of their albums, 2009's incredible The Underfall Yard being released after his departure. This is, to date, his only solo album but on the strength of what's here I'd be willing to lay down serious money it is not his last. Working with friends and fellow musicians Lee Abrahams from Galahad, John Mitchell from Arena and It Bites, Dave Meros and Gary Chandler, Filkins has come up here with an album that will, in fairness, take some beating when he gets around to writing a follow-up.

In typically English eccentric style (presaging the second track indeed) the album opens with “Are you sitting comfortably?”, which is basically an organ rendition of “Jerusalem” played against the sounds of someone making a cup of tea and settling down. The perfect way to set the scene I guess, and it quickly moves into the first “proper” track, which as I mentioned above is called “The English eccentric”. It kicks off with a big squealy keyboard intro with hammering drums and then settles down into a song that reminds me of very early Supertramp, especially the Indelibly stamped album. It's not my favourite on the album to be honest, and made me reserve judgement until I got past it, but on repeated listenings I've come to quite like it. Still, everything else on the album was a hit with me first time around, so that says something in itself. Filkins' voice will be familiar to anyone who's heard Gathering speed or The Difference Machine; strong, clear with a definite English tinge that marks him as from the same vocal school as the likes of Gabriel and Hammill, but he has his own style and identity.

Most of the keyboard parts are played by John Sammes, who also helped flesh out some of the musical ideas Filkins presented him with, but the man whose name the album bears is no slouch when it comes to playing instruments either, adding guitars, blues harp, even didgeridoo at one point! “The English eccentric” (surely a coincidence that BBT's last two al bums were called “English Electric?” ) is a long enough song, about eight and a half minutes, but that pales when compared to “Prisoner of conscience”, which is divided into two parts and runs to an immense thirty minutes between them. Yeah, I said thirty. Part one, which is subtitled “The soldier”, begins with effects: a man walking through a forest, bird singing, then the sound of a jet aircraft flying overhead. Some dark synth and flute merge with a fast guitar, almost Classical guitar with what also sounds like sitar to create a very eastern feel as the soldier awakes in a hospital, voices mentioning “Oh good, he's coming around”. Mind you, it's almost four minutes into the track before that happens. Then we're off on some very Yes-style guitar as Filkins confirms he has amnesia: ”Please don't ask me who I am/ As I for one just don't understand.”

The Yes comparisons grow even stronger when a lush keyboard backs him and he really channels Anderson as he moans ”I'm haunted by the ghosts / Of all the innocents/ That I betrayed along the way.” Cue a flurry of keyboard madness taking us into the seventh minute with bombastic drumming from Meros. It's hard to figure out precisely what this song is about, but I feel it's the tale of a soldier, possibly a pilot shot down over the country he was about to bomb, recovering from his wounds after being taken care by the very people he had intended to destroy, and realising the country (unnamed) is a beautiful place he had never dreamed of it being before. From being just a target it has become so much more, and he is now questioning his orders, his career, the very reasons for whatever war he is engaged in. He seems also to fall in love with one of the natives. That's what I get from it anyway. Some superb guitar playing fleshes part one out, with a grinding fretworkout that just leaves me stunned, Filkins executing a buildup vocal that rises to a tortured crescendo as he realises ”I don't want this/ I don't need this/ I can't have this”...

Suddenly, in the twelfth minute, the unnerving, eerie sound of the voices of all the people he has killed in his role as pilot (let's say) come crashing like waves against the cliffs of his head and he yells out, unable to face the truth they batter him with. The music gets heavier and more frenetic as he wrestles with this knowledge, that he may have --- probably has --- killed so many innocents whose names he did not even know. Everything flows then back into the guitar motif that runs through this part and into a soaring solo that puts me in mind of John Mitchell, though details on who plays what and where are almost impossible to come by. A Spanish Flamenco style passage then gets underway as part one moves towards its conclusion, sliding into another emotional guitar solo, some lovely bright piano and pealing bells with choral voices before it ends on a very Gilmouresque solo, taking us into part two.

“The Ordinary Man” opens then on soft organ, a much gentler vocal which again betrays traces of Anderson, bringing in some really nice vocal harmonies too. A rippling keyboard passage takes the third minute with choral vocals in attendance, into the fourth with a swaying rock rhythm bringing in Genesis influences, then another extended keyboard romp takes the tune, almost an Irish reel at times. In the sixth it changes to a rolling soft piano and oddly enough reminds me of The Beautiful South on Blue is the colour, then back to Yes for some really superb vocal harmonies and another rising guitar solo as we move into the eighth minute. The triumphant resolution of the song (both parts) is really moving and attended by one more expressive guitar solo before we exit.

And yet, this massive epic is not the standout. That's to come, and is up next, in the slightly shorter but somehow even better “Epitaph for a mariner”, which opens on Abigail Filkins singing the old hymn “Eternal father, strong to save” with only church organ as accompaniment. The piece is broken into five sections, the first of which, “Sailor's hymn”, has just been sung, the second, “Siren's song” is characterised by a long piano and synth instrumental with effects and moaning guitars and a rising, mournful chant from Abigail Filkins that follows the music perfectly and does indeed make her sound like a siren luring sailors to their doom. Who could not follow that seductive voice? A sort of electronica piece next takes over, as the music gets faster and more urgent, guitar breaking through with a powerful voice, percussion hammering away like the wind battering a ship at sea.

In the middle of this compelling instrumental we suddenly hear a voice muttering about his wife and child, and part three, “Maelstrom” has begun, as a sailor, who has chosen to stay on land while his wife gives birth, worries about his comrades fighting for their lives on the harsh seas, as he accepts ”The sea's no friend to man.” We're now almost halfway through the piece and things begin to calm down (calmer seas?) as “Ode to William Pull” brings back in Filkins' vocal against a gentle, pastoral background of organ and guitar. A dreamy, drifting keyboard line takes the song as the vocal swells then descends and we pass into part five, “Epitaph”, the vocal continuing on as the keyboards get harder and more insistent, the piece building towards its climax now with guitar sailing in majestically, joining the measured drumbeats of Meros. The vocal fades out in the seventeenth minute, ts work almostdone, and a superb guitar and keyboard ending brings this amazing epic to its final conclusion, as the vocal comes in once more to repeat the word "Oceana", leaving me breathless. A final slow passage on the piano sets the final seal on the song.

And yet there's one more track to go before the album wraps up. It's pretty amazing to think that in reality we've only had four actual tracks so far, it sounds like about ten, but the closer is a short (in comparison) little gentle ballad, as “Learn how to learn” is about as simple as they come. And yet it carries the full authority of what we have come to see as Sean Filkins' worldview in its seven-minute-plus length. Another very Yes-like song, it rides on gentle piano and acoustic guitar with a soft vocal, as if Filkins is reinforcing the lessons he has learned, and in turn passed on to us, through the run of this wonderful debut album.

TRACKLISTING

1. Are you sitting comfortably?
2. The English eccentric
3. Prisoner of conscience part 1: The Soldier
4. Prisoner of conscience part 2: The Ordinary Man
5. Epitaph for a mariner
(i) Sailor's hymn
(ii) Siren's song
(iii)Maelstrom
(iv) Ode to William Pull
(v) Epitaph
6. Learn how to learn

To think I might never have heard this album! I should have been alerted to how good it is by the fact that it was placed high on Prog Archives' top albums for 2011, but so often these lists turn out to be just one person's choice and don't chime with what I believe are the pick of the bunch. Here though I definitely have to agree with them. As I said, I did not even know who Sean Filkins was, and had to check his pedigree to get an idea of what kind of music (I didn't even know it was prog) I might be listening to.

Now, all I can do is hope that he doesn't leave it too long before gracing us with his next composition. I'll be waiting.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

innerspaceboy

The moral of this story - stop what you're doing right now and buy a Creative Zen X-Fi media player.

I was excited to find another person on the planet with one of these glorious devices, bringing the grand total to date to a staggering THREE people.)

For those of us still holding fast to our truly-unlimited data plans, a cell phone and an external DAC / headphone amp is sufficient for portable playback. Most of us have a dedicated media server and unlimited data plans permit FLAC streaming for an average of 100-120GB of data per month.

But I understand not all are that fortunate, and the majority of smartphone users have a crippling data cap prohibiting such freedoms.

This is where the Zen rides in on a white horse.

32GB of internal flash storage and an SD expansion slot provides sufficient storage for several hundred hours of FLAC (or even more for 320CBR v0 audio) requiring only the occasional reloading of content perhaps once or twice each week.

And remember - that's non-volatile FLASH storage. Drop your Zen on the pavement? No problem - there are no moving parts to damage.

Sure, the X-Fi audio enhancement technology is a little silly, but the sheer convenience factor here outshines its faults.

Just don't try to use the Wireless LAN function... we prefer not to talk about that.

The bottom line is, the Zen has largest flash storage capacity of any video/mp3 player on the market. It's expandable, durable, has an OUTSTANDING battery life, and if paired with the right portable DAC will provide you with countless hours of listening pleasure.

God, I love this thing.

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Trollheart

Totally agree. If I had one reservation/annoyance about it, it's that even Creative make their docks and speakers for the fucking ipod! They make one of the best media players (it also does VERY good video, people!) and they don't make a standalone dock you can plug it into if you want to listen to it at home?? I tried several speakers, and every one of them sucked. Then I bought this

which works like what it says it is (Pure-Fi Dream). But of course, it's exclusively for ipod. You CAN plug in the X-Fi, but not dock it. You have to go "around the tradesman's entrance" and plug it in via a crappy 3.5 jack. You get none of the features of the Pure-Fi Dream: no scrolling titles, no remote control, no nothing.You can't even see it in the dock because it has to sit at the side like some poor distant cousin who isn't really liked and who nobody wants to talk to.

Goddamn it! When are these people going to realise that the only thing really holding them back is that their customers --- their customers --- are being forced to buy ipods in order to use something like this, which I had to do. And I don't use the ipod anymore. I bloody hate itunes!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Dateline: 2008. I'm looking for somewhere to shop my stupid game where you guess the song intros, and after a search come acoss Music Banter. After having been given the by-now-familiar “don't advertise your crap here” I settle in to explore, and on finding the Journals Section think: this is great. I've been a frustrated writer for so long, and love my music, wanting to share my appreciation of it with others. This is perfect for me. And I set up house. The Playlist of Life is born.

But it is not a happy childhood. I fail to realise that people here have much more eclectic taste in music than I do, and that about 99% of what they listen to is music I have never even heard of or knew existed. After some initial derision and what I see as music elitism concerning my mainstream musical tastes, I get annoyed and close up shop, giving everyone a piece of my mind on the way out, a piece they surely ignore and laugh at.

Flash forward to 2011. Having taken voluntary redundancy and with a lot more time on my hands, I wonder if I should give this Music Banter thing another go? I set up my journal again and take the attitude that if nobody reads or if anyone slags me off, fuck them: I like my music and will continue to write about it. Over the course of time I come to realise that, though this is indeed the right way to approach things, it might be interesting and helpful to explore this music they're all talking about. Some of it works, some does not, but at least I get a little more accepted now, and people are certainly reading my journal.

It's now four years on, I have a total of ten journals ranging from TV and movies to mythology and from comics to classic albums, and have become a (hopefully) valued member of the forum. My original journal (this one) has over 200,000 views, the most of any journal by a country mile, and special events like Metal Month have made it reasonably popular. I've essentially taken over the running of the Journals Section, encouraging people who think they might like to start but don't know how or are nervous about it, updating everyone each Sunday on what's happening in all the journals, and generally trying to raise awareness of and interest in the section to a level it had not been anywhere close to when I arrived.

I guess it's really nothing special, not a landmark to be shouted from the rooftops, but I just wanted to note it anyway and say thanks to everyone who made me welcome here (Jackhammer, Janszoon, NonSubmissiveWife, Unknown Soldier, Anteater, Batlord and others) in the initial stages and who helped keep me here (too late to change your minds now!) and to all the many many friends I have made here, whether you read my journals or not. And a big thank you to the mods who tirelessly approved my many entries (sometimes four or more a day, every day, way back when!) and who gave me invaluable advice as well as a little abuse when deserved.

Here's to another four years!

Thanks
Trollheart

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

It's nice to know that my constant abuse can sometimes overcome this newfound sense of purpose and confidence and legitimately piss you off.

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