Remembering, of course, that What's Going On and Astral Weeks never made the UK album chart, whereas the Black and White Minstrels had three number one albums...
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 6 June 2005 08:25 (eighteen years ago) link
It's all this political correctness to blame, I tell you!!!!!
― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), Monday, 6 June 2005 11:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 6 June 2005 11:51 (eighteen years ago) link
One of the more intriguing developments on today's English rock scene has been the emergence of a cult of marginal musicians bent on doing "weird" things to the traditional pop song format. Be it in the name of being "trendy" (Elton John) or just for the sake of seeming mysterious (Roxy Music), these folks have taken so many liberties with a hackneyed old genre that it frequently ends up sounding quite unlike the early Beatles records which were its foremost representation.
Brian Eno, formerly of Roxy Music, is another one who writes weird songs but their weirdness is more silly than puzzling. Lacking any mentionable instrumental proficiency, he claims he "treats" other musicians' instruments—though the end product of his efforts would have to be classed as indiscernible.
His record is annoying because it doesn't do anything. The songs aren't strong enough individually or collectively to merit more than a passing listen. Save for some incendiary guitar work by Robert Fripp during "Baby's On Fire," the instrumentation is pretty tepid. In fact the whole album may be described as tepid, and the listener must kick himself for blowing five bucks on baloney.
Historians might want to take note of the fact that "Needles in the Camel's Eye" has a heavy Del Shannon influence; that "Some of Them Are Old" is constructed around harmonies highly reminiscent of the Four Freshmen; that the first three songs on side B quote extensively from the Beatles' Abbey Road. Others will hopefully join with this writer in taking exception to this insane divergence of styles and wish that the next time Eno makes an album, he will attempt to structure his work rather than throw together the first ten things that come to mind. (RS 172)
― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 6 June 2005 12:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 6 June 2005 12:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Monday, 6 June 2005 12:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 6 June 2005 12:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― rizzx (rizzx), Monday, 6 June 2005 12:50 (eighteen years ago) link
I have a pb collection of old Rolling Stone reviews, and apart from the occasional good one by Bangs or Marcus, it's got to be the closest to worthless I've ever read. Jon Landau in particular. Anyway, Christgau gave that record a good grade, and "Jets" seems like such a simple record, it's amazing it wasn't better understood. I guess 1973 really was a long time ago..."insane divergence of styles"? That's what I wanna hear!
― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 6 June 2005 13:01 (eighteen years ago) link
did the black and white minstrels *really* have 3 number 1 albums as marcello says upthread?
― pisces (piscesx), Thursday, 6 July 2006 14:51 (seventeen years ago) link
Ha ha! Does anyone actually call things baloney anymore? Heaven forbid in a music review at that?
― Lenny Koggins (Bimble...), Thursday, 6 July 2006 20:30 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 7 July 2006 09:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 7 July 2006 09:24 (seventeen years ago) link
-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...), July 7th, 2006
what the fuck. can't believe that.clearly going for the christmas market!
so what happened in 1963 then i wonder? something else cool we can thank the beatles for? i'd like to think so. the sixties didn't really kick in until PLEASE PLEASE ME came out.
― pisces (piscesx), Friday, 7 July 2006 09:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 7 July 2006 09:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 7 July 2006 09:38 (seventeen years ago) link
That said, RS did run a more favorable feature on Eno around the time, either in that issue or the next — and I know that b/c I'm the kind of nerd who read the microfiches in high school.
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Friday, 7 July 2006 15:27 (seventeen years ago) link
"tepid" is just a mindbogglingly stupid appraisal. it's always sounded the exact opposite to me. I always equate 'needles in the camel's eye' with someone turning all the colour settings up on your TV, so you get that near-psychedelic 'bleeding' look to the picture leaping out at you. (in song form, obviously.)
― hella somethin' Gwen Stefani pantwork (haitch), Friday, 7 July 2006 15:50 (seventeen years ago) link
The idea of this record--top of the pops from quasi-dadaist British synth wizard--may put you off, but the actuality is quite engaging in a vaguely Velvet Underground kind of way. Minimally differentiated variations on the same melody recur and recur, but it's a great melody, and not the only one, and chances are he meant it that way, as a statement, which I agree with. What's more, words take over when the music falters, and on "Cindy Tells Me" they combine for the best song ever written about middle-class feminism, a rock and roll subject if ever there was one. My major complaint is that at times the artist uses a filter that puts dust on my needle. Grade: A
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 7 July 2006 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― that liz kid (that liz kid), Friday, 7 July 2006 16:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 7 July 2006 16:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 7 July 2006 16:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 7 July 2006 16:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 7 July 2006 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alicia Fucking Silverstone (sexyDancer), Friday, 7 July 2006 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link
Alicia OTM.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 7 July 2006 16:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 7 July 2006 16:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 7 July 2006 16:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 7 July 2006 16:49 (seventeen years ago) link
This is a key point. The neo-girl group backing vocals swathed in echo evoke the passive but oversexed splendour of the Shirelles and the Ronettes. It's as if the Eno character is nostalgic for a time he knows is (a) gone; and (b) a chimera anyway.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:02 (seventeen years ago) link
haha i had just noticed that the other day! the first stanza of that piano motif is TOTES the same as seger!
― M@tt He1geson, Rendolent Ding-Dong (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:17 (seventeen years ago) link
i totally agree with this
― SQUARECOATS (plsmith), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:19 (seventeen years ago) link
not to be a prick, but i really don't think eno was serious about ANYTHING on this album, lyrically. he even screwed up the obvious rhyme for "maracas" ("Caracas") by putting in the lame-o "tobaccos", a botch job which still angers me a lot more than any "anti-feminism" here.
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alicia Fucking Silverstone (sexyDancer), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:47 (seventeen years ago) link
And he's justifying his taunts by specifically addressing himself to the (supposedly) mushbrained suggestibility of young, upper-middle class women.
But it's way too easy to disparage difficult ideas (like feminism) by attaching them to target groups that no one will leap to defend (like overbred debutantes).
I love Eno, but this song bugs me. And the defense that he's being self-mockingly ironic in some kind of convoluted sense just doesn't wash. If anything, the "mustardy" vocals work as a snarky underbite to the song's superficial compassion more than its core message.
Eno's a guy of some accomplishment and significance in the world, and therefore his fruity (no, I don't mean gay) tut-tutting comes across as cheap and reactionary.
― fuckfuckingfuckedfucker (fuckfuckingfuckedfucker), Friday, 7 July 2006 18:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 7 July 2006 18:56 (seventeen years ago) link
Heh. Which is why I don't think much about the broader implications of "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch."
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 7 July 2006 18:57 (seventeen years ago) link
And yet on Baby's On Fire the last lyric before the multi minute Fripp ejaculation is "they said you were hot stuff, and that's what baby's been reduced to." which strikes me a particularly about SOMETHING.
― Popture, Thursday, 1 May 2008 01:38 (sixteen years ago) link
Christgau: The idea of this record--top of the pops from quasi-dadaist British synth wizard--may put you off, but the actuality is quite engaging in a vaguely Velvet Underground kind of way. Minimally differentiated variations on the same melody recur and recur, but it's a great melody, and not the only one, and chances are he meant it that way, as a statement, which I agree with. What's more, words take over when the music falters, and on "Cindy Tells Me" they combine for the best song ever written about middle-class feminism, a rock and roll subject if ever there was one. My major complaint is that at times the artist uses a filter that puts dust on my needle. Grade: A
-- Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, July 7, 2006 3:57 PM (1 year ago)
Here, for comparison (because I'm just that geeky), is the original version of that review:
ENO: Here Come the Warm Jets (Island) The idea of this record--top of the pops from quasi-dadaist British synth wizard who makes out with the Soft Machine--is a lot worse than the actuality, which engages the ear and the mind in a vaguely Velvet Underground sort of way. Minimally differentiated variations on the same melody recur and recur, but it's a nice melody, and chances are he meant it that way. Some good words, too. B PLUS
― The guy who just votes in polls, Thursday, 1 May 2008 13:53 (sixteen years ago) link
"Minimally differentiated variations on the same melody recur and recur, but it's a nice melody, and chances are he meant it that way."
Sentence kinda interesting in light of Eno's later ambient music.
― Raw Patrick, Thursday, 1 May 2008 14:32 (sixteen years ago) link
Always love this interview:
http://www.moredarkthanshark.org/eno_int_nme-feb74.html
― Raw Patrick, Thursday, 1 May 2008 17:19 (sixteen years ago) link
I don't understand, he meant it that way.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 1 May 2008 19:29 (sixteen years ago) link
From the Stylus article, and thank you all for the reference and the link:
I guess it makes sense that this same person whose solo debut cover art contains a picture of . . . a nude playing card--the eight of spades to be exact--showing a squatting woman urinating (in what looks like a junkyard) as a dapper gentlemen holds up the back of her skirt, would take a humorous anti-feminism stance on a track from his first post-Roxy Music outing, Here Come the Warm Jets.
Actually, it does not make sense. Fetishism--even when it is as well known as Eno's--does not automatically equate to mysogyny or even "anti-feminism."
Although now that I think on it, maybe he did mean the lyrics more or less as explicated here: Eno's fascination with smoothly functioning (or smoothly dysfunctional) systems is no secret. If you consider then that each part must have a role within an operational system, it may not be such a stretch to go from there to "a woman's place is in the home."
This is why he could say something like "cities are places built for women," backing it up with something like, "In cities, you have the opportunity to do all the things that women are really specialized at: intense social relationships and interactions, attention to lots of simultaneous details"
http://www.indexmagazine.com/interviews/brian_eno.shtml
Still, given Eno's oft-stated preference for meaning expressed through sound over that transmitted through words, it may be dangerous to consider the lyrics to "CTM" as anything more than merely an exercise in sibilant phonoaesthetics
― SecondBassman, Thursday, 1 May 2008 21:20 (sixteen years ago) link
were there any bootlegs of that one and only eno solo tour, the one that got cut short after his collapsed lung from too much groupie-rooting? curious as to how these songs were rendered live - a 'studio as instrument' record like this can't have been expecially easy to do back then, never mind that the effect is pretty mild in context of his later work.
― tea wrecks electric warrior (haitch), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 07:42 (thirteen years ago) link
intrigued by posited medical connections between groupie-rooting & collapsed lungs
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:02 (thirteen years ago) link
Was the tour with the Winkies as backing band? Or was that later? There is a Peel Session available with Eno & the Winkies, that might give some idea of what the live band sounded like.
― tom d: he did what he had to do now he is dead (Tom D.), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:05 (thirteen years ago) link
tom i think you might be on the right track. i didn't know there was a peel session! there'll be a link around somewhere, doubtless.
jd, swear i'm not inventin' this one
Eno's brief career as a solo star started with Here Come the Warm Jets. Its startling variety, punk-prefiguring abrasions, and country melodies became his only solo Top 30 hit in 1974. But a brief period touring it graphically demonstrated his limits as a rock star. "Scuzzy," he'd call it later.
"I enjoyed screwing the girls for a while, but then that wore off as well." The collapsed lung which finished him was, Chic magazine claimed, the result of six such couplings in a night. Studio collaboration would give Eno safer, quieter avenues.
― tea wrecks electric warrior (haitch), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:32 (thirteen years ago) link
winkies peel session is pretty awesome. there is at least one other recording of a winkies live show I've got lying around somewhere.
― (e_3) (Edward III), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:36 (thirteen years ago) link
It's the best track on the album imo
― imago, Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:22 (ten years ago) link
i mean if it's a "everyone is so reverent to this thing, but i don't get what the big deal is, i wasn't sent to mars, it was just goofy '70 UK Phil-Collins-in-the-liner-notes shit, and I don't even like Roxy Music anyway" well yeah it's a Roxy Music spin-off and you're an adult, music's not gonna make you shit your pants like you're 14 once you've got a general sense of what's out there. But just as Dylan made more sense to me once I stopped resenting that every sentence wasn't the promised-by-boomers pearl and sometimes this guy's just telling jokes and making it rhyme, it shouldn't be too hard to step back and realize "john cale with the muppets" could actually be an AWESOME thing.
― da croupier, Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:23 (ten years ago) link
yeah but all the grand claims people make for eno in the 70s are actually true
― avinit garde (wins), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:26 (ten years ago) link
especially that muppets thing
availing myself of the opportunity to say da croupier otm
― Choogle Plus (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:28 (ten years ago) link
i was always disappointed that ziggy bowie wasn't more of a blast-you-into-space kind of thing, just a dude with an acoustic guitar poncing around
once a grown-up colleague of mine heard me playing 'warm jets' and he seriously had to inquire how someone could like 'serious music' and also this sophomoric junk (not his words), like there was a complete disconnect
― j., Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:32 (ten years ago) link
"john cale with the muppets" could actually be an AWESOME thing.
could? yeah i guess VU were pretty goodgeez who would disagree with john cale and the muppets?!
― Mayor Manuel (La Lechera), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:34 (ten years ago) link
da croup otmalthough I need a little convincing that Another Green World is as classic as the other 70s vocal records, to me it's just a collection of almost-but-not-quite-as-good-as-Cluster instrumentals and the annoying "Tie Your Shoe" song
― "got ye!" (flamboyant goon tie included), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:35 (ten years ago) link
y'all I don't dislike Driving, but it is my least favorite here
da croupier otm, ha xp
― RSD-rolled (sleeve), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:35 (ten years ago) link
the annoying "Tie Your Shoe" song
*glare*
― RSD-rolled (sleeve), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:36 (ten years ago) link
key to AGW is St Elmo's Fire/Big Ship imo
― RSD-rolled (sleeve), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:37 (ten years ago) link
That shoe song is the should-be-erased musical-linguistic link between Eno's songwriting style and Rice/Webber imo, never was a fan
― "got ye!" (flamboyant goon tie included), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:39 (ten years ago) link
Love I'll come running, also whatever the version on the peel sessions is called
― avinit garde (wins), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:42 (ten years ago) link
da croupier OTM
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:44 (ten years ago) link
Another green Eno-nostalgia post: the second-longest relationship I've ever been in was with a girl I met at an Eno tribute night. She wore a black dress and had a goth band and smoked and sang through perfect versions of "Needles" and "Cindy". I was smitten and asked her out and we were together two years.
― "got ye!" (flamboyant goon tie included), Saturday, 26 April 2014 16:53 (ten years ago) link
awesome
― RSD-rolled (sleeve), Saturday, 26 April 2014 17:00 (ten years ago) link
yeah that's tender
― Mayor Manuel (La Lechera), Saturday, 26 April 2014 17:14 (ten years ago) link
so who/what is 'Sweetfeed'—backing vocals:http://www.discogs.com/artist/288423-Sweetfeed ?
― nerve_pylon, Saturday, 26 April 2014 17:33 (ten years ago) link
I saw Jon Brion back in 2007 or so, and as part of the set he did a spontaneous three-song "Jets" tribute the consisted of "Dead Finks Don’t Talk," "Some of them Are Old" and the title track. I'll try to find some audio. And then he segued to "Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet," which of course is also connected to Eno.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 26 April 2014 21:22 (ten years ago) link
How was Here Come The Warm Jets received upon it's release?
They would say "Here comes 'Here comes the warm jets' "
― Mark G, Monday, 28 April 2014 14:27 (ten years ago) link
bass solo in Needles rules
Bass solo?!?! Where? Have I lost my mind here or what?
For years I assumed that was Manzanera doing that solo. Someone here set me straight.
Fripp
― A frenzied geologist (Tom D.), Monday, 28 April 2014 14:51 (ten years ago) link
OK maybe it is a gtr solo mostly played very low? the part right after he sings the title of the song, there is a cool solo, I am not a musician.
― RSD-rolled (sleeve), Monday, 28 April 2014 14:53 (ten years ago) link
Ah, it's a gtr
― A frenzied geologist (Tom D.), Monday, 28 April 2014 14:54 (ten years ago) link
I was somewhat disappointed with the comparative un-adventurousness of the instrumentation, more of a standard rock record than the endless funhouse of Tiger Mountain.
I don't think the two albums are all that different really, my one tiny tiny minsicule insignificant complaint about "Tiger Mountain" would be that some of the songs are a bit longer than they need be
― A frenzied geologist (Tom D.), Monday, 28 April 2014 14:58 (ten years ago) link
nahhh
TTM is for me an entire step up, whether in terms of songwriting or sonic ingenuity
― imago, Monday, 28 April 2014 15:01 (ten years ago) link
P. surprised Hurting 2 doesn't like the "Baby's on Fire" solo!
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Monday, 28 April 2014 15:10 (ten years ago) link
I listened to Baby's On Fire like 6x because of this thread and that guitar solo remains one of the most sizzling ever. How else to describe? Honestly I have no idea.
some of the songs are a bit longer than they need beagree!! i love true wheel and mother whale eyeless but they could both stand to be at least a minute shorter imo
― Mayor Manuel (La Lechera), Monday, 28 April 2014 15:26 (ten years ago) link
"sizzling" is right. fripp really knew how to make the most of a guest spot back then. tho manzanera does the solo justince in the 801 live version...
― tylerw, Monday, 28 April 2014 15:32 (ten years ago) link
Fave Fripp guest spot can't not be the last minute of A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers tbh
― imago, Monday, 28 April 2014 15:40 (ten years ago) link
there's probably already been a fripp guest spot poll?
― tylerw, Monday, 28 April 2014 15:41 (ten years ago) link
Ha, I never knew that was Fripp on "Lighthouse Keepers"!
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Monday, 28 April 2014 15:42 (ten years ago) link
Tbh I wouldn't put it past Banton to extract that fearsome solo from one of his organs, but yeah, Fripp.
― imago, Monday, 28 April 2014 15:44 (ten years ago) link
here come the warm jets is basically my dream of a ziggy stardust album - an alien using all of pop/rock's little musical and recording tricks and hooks to try and seduce listeners but from a slightly askew perspective. by comparison same-era bowie feels earthbound and stagebound, decent but more pretentious than actually surreal.
this is really otm - I like Ziggy a lot but it only felt like 10% as "out there" as advertised. Warm Jets does a lot of really crazy things in some fairly normal contexts which IMO is what makes it so fascinating. It's not easy to do that!
― frogbs, Monday, 28 April 2014 15:47 (ten years ago) link
True wheel could be longer, agree re mother whale eyeless tho. Latter has some of my fave lyrics ever
This is for the fingers This is for the nails Hidden in the kitchen Right behind the scales
^if Scott walker sang this it would be horrifying and obviously about torture; when eno sings it it's not obviously not about torture, and unnerving.
Then there's the "in my town" sequence which is just funny.
― paolo amusing eclectic revivals (wins), Monday, 28 April 2014 15:50 (ten years ago) link
Slightly off-topic, but the new one, with Karl Hyde, "Someday World" is streaming here:http://www.npr.org/2014/04/27/306161810/first-listen-brian-eno-karl-hyde-someday-world
― back-up duck (doo dah), Monday, 28 April 2014 15:58 (ten years ago) link
I didn't really OTM him because he'd been OTMed a lot but yeah, croup hitting it out of the park on this one.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Monday, 28 April 2014 16:03 (ten years ago) link
Um, the internet thinks it might have been Banton after all xps
― imago, Monday, 28 April 2014 16:18 (ten years ago) link
― tylerw, Monday, April 28, 2014 11:41 AM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Even if we did a poll already, would make a sweet Spotify playlist especially since there's 0 crim on there.
― Khamma chameleon (Jon Lewis), Monday, 28 April 2014 16:23 (ten years ago) link
and if we ain't polled it we should
This thread deserves to have ITS title fixed.
― nerve_pylon, Monday, 28 April 2014 16:56 (ten years ago) link
― nerve_pylon, Saturday, April 26, 2014 6:33 PM (2 days ago)
http://www.spectropop.com/FrontPorch/
I was the only one to continue with music. I moved to London in 1971 and stayed for ten years. I had some success as a guitarist-singer-songwriter. I had a group that went by the name of Sweetfeed and also Roberts, Rice, Bandell and Scott. We recorded with Roger Daltrey on his solo album "Ride A Rock Horse", and also with Brian Eno on his album "Here Come The Warm Jets". We never had any of our own recordings released or achieved commercial success, but our fans included David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Gary Glitter, Bryan Ferry, the Supremes and all of London high society, including members of the royal family.
― Number None, Monday, 28 April 2014 17:19 (ten years ago) link
but no actual punters.
(soz)
― Mark G, Monday, 28 April 2014 17:26 (ten years ago) link
xpost Pretty sure that is Fripp on the VdG album. I know he pops up a couple of places on "Pawn Hearts."
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 28 April 2014 18:48 (ten years ago) link