Aztec Camera / Roddy Frame: Classic or Dud?

?!?!?!

First album = yay!

So what's the post-1985 stuff like? More like Howard Jones or more like Mark Knopfler?

Mark Radcliffe says '... classic tune, I think...', and dedicates it to a listener who asks him to tell his fiancee that he is 'looking forward to marrying her'.

The first album is a classic, and so are about half the songs on Knife.

Somehow, if there was any one single part of Mr. Frame's oeuvre that I might have anticipated would light Mr. In NYC's honorable (sic) fire, I would have expected it to be "Set The Killing Free".

"dud"

-- mullygrubbr (fan...), August 19th, 2005 8:03 AM. (later)

Gaz made me cry.

Classic, obv., even if only for the first album and handful of singles.

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000F1IL3M.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Apparently there's also a live album which was recorded at Ronnie Scott's last year, which you can only get through the official Roddy Frame website.

well -- just heard "The Crying Scene" after a long spell. Holds up pretty well in that early nineties Lightning Seeds/Michael Penn pop-alternative way.

dud

that's just from hearing 'high land hard rain' too much and hating the inspid trash

of the lyrics and the delivery. acoustic guitars are ok.

He was always a good guitar player, and has produced some good songs along the way, but his early work has long been very, very overrated by ageing (and now youthful) indie types, most of whom probably revere Orange Juice and the Go-Betweens also.

Small World on Surf has one of the most beautiful melodies I have heard in recent years. It was the theme to the TV series Early Doors. It has the same qualities of his early songs, the romanticism, which I know will condemn him in some eyes.

"Surf" is a bit too stripped for my taste, but the songs are quality ones, surely.

"lost outside the tunnel" is the only song which ever did something for me. it has the melancholic vibe and the scottishness in the singing and tune. we had a thread about that a long time ago. all the other few songs i heard i found boring, generic, flat, bland, mor, without any interest and spark. except "jump" of course but that's not his.

classic

there is another song i dig, "worlds in worlds", a demo is online on his site. "marble arch" is quite nice too. i know hardly any of his work so there are probably much more...

_Dreamland_ is the only Aztec Camera album I got rid of

Why? I consider it perhaps his best album other than the debut.

i love Dreamland. Great album. That's the one with Valium Summer right? That album is solid all the way through.

Overrated as per but I find I can still listen to 'Oblivious' a lot.

apropos of nothing else on this thread: pinefox, i always wanted to ask you, do you like (have you heard) M. Ward?

The first album really needs to be re-issued with the A and B sides of the two Postcard singles added.

But the real first album, "Green Jacket Grey" has never been issued at all. We need that, plus the four single sides. I've heard the whole thing (I think; nine songs) - really cool stuff.

http://www.gigsandtours.com/tour/roddy-frame-aztec-camera-s-high-land-hard-rain/?pre=aztec&offercode=artistroddy&direct=true

Just saying.

Aye, but playing songs from that era perhaps suggests he doesn't hate it as much as was previously thought. Maybe.

New old treats, something of a treasure trove: https://soundcloud.com/postcard-of-scotland/

gripped High Land, Hard Rain earlier this week based on the band name alone, friend of mine said they were buds with Orange Juice? really great record, sorta reminds me of Prefab Sprout and XTC

Good man, the follow up "Knife" is excellent as well. After that it gets patchy but there's moments of brilliance along the way. The best Roddy is voice+guitar.

Yes, early Aztec Camera was on the Postcard label. Malcolm Young was in Aztec Camera for a while, but he also spent time in the other Postcard bands, Orange Juice and Josef K.

I will swear until the day I retire that Knife is Roddy's greatest work. I understand this is far from the consensus, but I stand by it.

I would recommend parts of Stray and Dreamland.

It's kind of strange that he didn't get truly consistent until he started releasing albums under his own name. All of his solo records range from decent (North Star) to great (Western Skies + Seven Dials) to flat out brilliant (Surf).

Some things bear repeating: how does a 17yr old write a song like 'We Could Send Letters'?

Why did I think he was dead? Odd, that.

I saw him on a solo tour way back in . . . 86-87? Whenever he released the live album with the plaid pants. He was surprisingly good. I say "surprising" only because . . . well, a solo show.

Was it a live album? I think so. A live EP, more like. The one on the right in this picture:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/0RcAAOxyeR9TGA16/s-l600.jpg

Coincidentally, the ScottishTeeVee YT channel just posted this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NxkgHYuoh0

Pretty wild that Aztec Camera were using a Fairlight for live shows in 1983. Rough Trade must have had great expectations for Roddy.

gosh, was he sexy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w1Q8ZkXZ1Q

Used to listen to High Land, Hard Rain regularly -- how's the rest of their discography?

Marvelous moments all over the place.

Got a Best Of list at HTV?

Sure: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/happy-in-happy-extremes-the-best-of-aztec-camera/

I don't know much beyond High Land... but I'm dazzled at the notion that there are 15 better songs *in the world* than 'We Could Send Letters', let alone 15 by the same man.

Thanks, Alfred!

alfred otm of course, tho i am making my token appearance in this revival to rep for knife. it's my favorite thing he's ever done.

(also fist bumps to alfred for repping "black lucia" — very solid jam!)

Thanks to Indexed, I'm listening to Dreamland's "Safe in Sorrow" as I type.

I think Scritti and Anita Baker were Roddy's inspiration to go soul pop rather than SOS.

we should poll dreamland. if high land didn't exist, it'd be his second best album.

I think Scritti and Anita Baker were Roddy's inspiration to go soul pop rather than SOS.

― Piedie Gimbel,

He went on and on about Rapture in these 1987 reviews. He got it better than American critics.

*interviews

Rapture had been number 2 in the NME's 1986 end of year list, so it was a UK critical commonplace at the time.

I think Western Skies, under his own name rather than AC, is up there too.

My god:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKNUKidVML0

xpost

I think Western Skies, under his own name rather than AC, is up there too.

― Piedie Gimbel, Friday, December 16, 2022 8:05 AM

roddy's records under his own name are excellent across the board.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYCs2sY2ahE

"postcard" (2014)

I love when this board gets me down a good old fashioned discography wormhole

xpost to It's Friday, Post Vids of Chill Tunes Why Not?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzkp48musvE

"knife" (1984)

alltime vibe.

"The Crying Scene" is a jam

shame the deluxe edition stuff isn't on us spotify. couple of his solo albums aren't there either. he seems really ripe for a revival. at least they have the version of the first album with "orchid girl" and "queen's tattoos."

he is a very charming man, isn't he?😻

sorry to spam this thread but he is someone i am admittedly too big a fan of to be objective whatsoever. thanks for the revival.

i even have a very fond recommendation for his 2002 all acoustic album surf.

"high class music" (2002):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9drqJU3bRg

these acoustic-only tunes are some of his best and always have been.

"mattress of wire" (live, easily better than studio version, 1984):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i66Mbln4xU0

"dry land" (2006):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u26z5XK0x38

"if life could taste that good again, i swear i'd never complain."

🙂oh, gosh. please tell me more.🙂

Life should taste like Roddy Frame imo

Listening to Knife from start to finish for the first time in decades, it's really fucking great.

I was just thinking the same of Dreamland

Dreamland is my fav Aztec Camera album by a long shot.

was frestonia his faux-weller attempt? i always get about two minutes into the songs and then go, "oh yeah. it all kind of goes this direction, doesn't it?"

giving it another attempt atm and the big boomidy-b'dapdap-b'boom-CRASSSHHH reprise on "rainy season" made me irl lol. oh boy.

i mean it's alright. he still sounds in good spirits, but those silly guitar solos. he was still doing that for a couple songs on his last album, too! just funny. i mean he's got the chops, why the hell not. on that note, his amazing cover of "jump" is not on us spotify and that's just, like, fucking stupid man. (grr face)

don't care if it's already been posted. here 'tis. definition of a classic-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDhQ8ed7WLg

"jump" (1984)

sheesh, his digital catalogue is telling a story. i wanted to post a youtube of the song "imperfectly" from frestonia and make a snarky comment about how he invented imagine dragons, but i found this bemusing stat:
https://i.imgur.com/OF7q1HT.png

ahh well, here it is; wdyt?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CukQYM5CqxU

"imperfectly" (1995)

okay, "beautiful girl" is preposterous. they had to have known that it sounds simultaneously like "summer breeze" and that phantom of the opera riff in "echoes." that is a fucking bland song jesus crimini.

i just don't buy his attempts to be a rocker dude. some of it's alright, but nah man. this ain't you.

yeah, probably not his best album. in fact, upon revisting, i am currently thinking of everything else he's ever done with a much better opinion than frestonia. it's very mor. no thank you.

but i recommend everything else he's ever done in varying degrees of essential-ness.

wow this thread has blown up in the last couple but after soto's refresh i rechecked Love it's still nope, but also based on recs here i listened to Surf 4 times and it is indeed greeeeeaaaaat.

ever since hearing 'Birth of the True' at the end of his follow up, I've longed for an entirely acoustic album - one guitar, one voice, no harmonies. And here it finally is: 'Surf'; and it's quite beautiful

Ugh god same can't believe I've been sleeping on this record for 20 years thank you Alfred for the revive and everyone else involved in this beautiful old timey internet forum, what a gift

jammin' the north star this afternoon for the first time in a long while. big sigh. so good. absolutely nothing even resembling a surprise happens.

and yet.

ps- is faux boy band north star-era roddy your favorite?
https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000087094007-tmec67-t500x500.jpg
because it's mine.

Dave Mustaine, recently:

... there’s a guy named Roddy Frame who is the singer for a band called Aztec Camera, and most metal people would call me a pussy if they heard Aztec Camera, but it’s a great band with beautiful songwriting. That’s where I turn to when I want to learn something. I’ll go to people who are exceptional in their field. And Roddy Frame writes for a lot of people. When somebody has unlocked the secret of songwriting, for me, I want to maybe not pick their brain, but at least observe.

and then there's me who actively got called a pussy for liking aztec camera.

but yeah, spot on dave. roddy's clearly great, sure. lol @ "exceptional in their field." ya think ol'davo thinks of himself accordingly?

lol

I'm not a pussy ok! I'm just observing exceptional people in their field! I'll kick your ass! MEGADETH

was looking for youtube covers to help me figure out how to play some of the tunes from Surf, found the video below which is not exactly helpful because it's all arranged for piano but is great none the less, pandemic-era living room set of Roddy songs, very interesting to hear on a piano

I guess in the end I have to agree with Dave Mustaine, I don't know that Dave has unlocked the secret of songwriting but if anyone has it's probably Roddy Frame

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0MuJIKBTGQ

Some things bear repeating: how does a 17yr old write a song like 'We Could Send Letters'?

dreamland thoughts...

suspend disbelief, close your eyes, and press play on "vertigo" with the thought that it's roddy, sakamoto, jam+lewis.

i mean... "vertigo" up to classic camera status for me anyway. it's roddy doing city pop!

OMG Roddy Frame turned 60 this year, how is that even possible?

that's clark kent for you, man. idk how he does it either. (winkwink)