Jimi Hendrix - Axis Bold as Love, 1967 - Top Fifty

Dig My Freak Flag

I would appear to have prevaricated in deciding about putting this album into my Top Fifty, when it and Electric Ladyland are absolute givens to join Are You Experienced. Rather, I have prevaricated in keeping up with the Top Fifty, soon [perhaps] to be swelled with the bulk of John Martyn’s albums which are obvious givens too.

Aix Bold As Love contains two of the most beautiful songs ever written, by anyone: Little Wing and Castles Made of Sand, the former as magnificent as it gets, with the latter running it close and excelling in that psychedelic storytelling of the time.

It’s tempting to want to articulate some mimetic description of the guitar work, but why bother? Just listen. There are playful elaborations as Hendrix explores more on this second album in his unassailable trinity of iconic work, for example on EXP.

The album also contains the all-time great anti-establishment anthem If 6 Was 9, resonating as revolution in a teenager’s aural world at the time. It is such a funky number with its aggressive base and guitar two-step, then there is that jazz break with walking bass, a guitar that makes those unique noises, the line Point on Mr Businessman/You can’t dress like me, then rolling drums and the close-to-mic voice of Jimi claiming triumphantly So let me live my life the way I want to, and the guitar squeals and wails in its sustained independence.  

So many of these songs exemplify the genius of Hendrix [and producer Chas Chandler – maybe more so him] in framing Jimi’s sound within such short pop-burst timings. The album was completed in haste in 1967, the same year as debut album Are You Experienced, but it does not suffer for that expediency. The lengthy guitar jams are what we all want to hear, but the songcraft and even pop sensibilities of many of the songs on this album are what endear and endure. And when we arrive at relatively lengthy songs like closer Bold as Love at four minutes, the dramatic storytelling is augmented by the contrast, and the sweet guitar solo leading to the distortion effects of its finish is glorious. 

Eric Clapton - Old Sock

Odd Sock?

The latest Mojo magazine cd is one of those clever compilations that invoke a music star in order to regurgitate a musical anthology of those who influenced/shaped/affected and so on that star, not that this Blues collection is bad – indeed, it’s a superb selection of classics by the greats and makes for fine listening. In my own nerd compilation mode, I decided to make my own copy of this Mojo collection but add the Clapton versions of each song on the cd – a before/after or original/mirror pattern. Yes, just for the fun of it. Just to see if I could do it. And I did. 

Most of my Clapton and Cream material is on cd – and needed to be to compile my extended compilation – but I was still surprised at the amount of Clapton in particular that I have on vinyl [not that this will compare with actual fans and/or much bigger record collectors]. A surprise because I wouldn’t say I’m a big fan of Clapton’s whole output, though I can’t imagine how anyone who likes music – and especially the guitar and the Blues – could not regard Clapton as a true great, but I simply didn’t remember that I had this number of records. 

And all of this by way of a brief comment on Clapton’s latest Old Sock, which I referenced very briefly in a previous entry. It’s not really that good [a relative term!], not that Clapton would give a toss for my or anyone else’s opinion. When you have done and achieved what he has and can play as he does, why should he? But it is disappointing, and the title could be a deliberate piece of wit to reflect on its contents, but I suspect not. It almost [but doesn’t even have this as a full excuse] has that ‘star doing standards’ naffness about it, with for example the Paul McCartney duet The Folks Who Live On The Hill, which is dire. The album opens with a workmanlike reggae-tinged Further On Down The Road which is OK, but second track Angel is a dirge. It’s not until fourth Gotta Get Over that Clapton stands up from the rocking chair for a mild romp – the kind of rootsy number he can do blind-folded and handcuffed, so to speak. All Of Me is homage enough, if you like that sort of thing. But to end on a slightly higher note – though not commenting on all the tracks – eighth is a beautiful and atmospheric version of Gary Moore’s brilliant Still Got the Blues, Clapton in gruff Eric voice and pleasant Eric acoustic then electric blues guitar amble.

His album cover photo says it all: this is me as I am, hangin’ out and doing what I do as I want to do and lookin’ like this as that’s how it is - so take it or leave it. 

Accident

An accidental inhale of my finger where the

bourbon must have dripped, and the scent of

spices is an adult reading of sweetness

sniffed from emptied bottles in Grandpa’s barn

amongst stripped corncobs awaiting their burn.

How curiosity in a smell could lead to this

pleasing addiction is one of the influences of

back then, and I now hope his slow climb to a

bedroom alone does not define just a pair of

events to shape future habits of a child.

On my third tonight, I breathe in from the bottle

and a whole new world of memories is ignited

like the cobs in their eventual stove, flames

of sour-mash swirls and all recall delighted.

Purling Hiss - Water on Mars

Again

Purling Hiss’ 2011 EP Lounge Lizards was a low-fi noise: distorted guitar and effects promising something psychedelic, but the vocal was completely lost in the mix on all the tracks, and there was little in the actual songwriting to make it anything other than a mess, as intentionally anarchic as that might have been. Current release Water on Mars begins with a scorching Nirvana-esque number Lolita, the sound-quality itself lightyears ahead of that earlier rough template. The guitar fuzz and other effects drive this superb grungepsyche into a wonderful expectant territory for aural listening. It then descends – perhaps an overstatement, but nonetheless a disappointment – into a trio of quite ordinary and indierock numbers. Surprised? It is badshock compared with the goodshock of that opening thrust. There’s plenty of fuzz and wah-wah and thunder, as in third Rat Race, but the Velvet Underground dirge of the songs doesn’t ride with spurs the guitar tsunami generated. Fifth She Calms Me Down has a Syd Barrett acoustic sound that is appealing coming out of this low, until sixth Face Down reboots with a pounding punk number, and we’re back on track, quick wild guitar riffs regenerating my interest. Water on Mars is five fine minutes of guitar squeal above a very simplistic drum beat, but then sees out its last two minutes with that rather bland talking vocal that doesn’t appeal to me. Closer Mary Bumble Bee is a little Countrified – just a little – but is primarily again rather simplistic in its ‘melody’: pleasing enough, but I’m not compelled to listen again. But I will be listening to Lolita again and again and again!

NB – Just found this video recounting the recording of Lolita nearly a year ago and over a two day period [a Shaking Through challenge]: this is a musical technician’s nerd litany of kit and gear used in the recording process, the technical terminology truly titillating, if you’re into that sort of thing I would guess.... Here

Purson - Leaning on a Bear

Leanings

I ordered my limited edition vinyl copy of this single yesterday – sadly missing out on the green or purple versions – and am looking forward to the release of their debut album The Circle and the Blue Door on the 29th April, hoping to get a special vinyl of that, here.

New to a new generation of psychedelic freaks, Purson is so steeped in 70s psychedelic/prog rock as if teleported to the present from Curved Air’s musical consciousness of their heyday, though the reference is much more simply, and plausibly, the uncanny resemblance of singer Rosalie Cunningham’s vocal to Sonja Kristina’s. Less classical and rock in the band’s overall sound [able to hear a variety online], that distinctive vocal is underpinned by a prog rock base [elements of Nice and Affinity] – a sound the band terms vaudeville carny psych. Absolutely brilliant for nostalgic listeners like myself, even if I don’t understand their description.

Purson has been performing with fellow psychedelic exponents Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats who I have also been listening to and will review. Exciting times. 

The single can be heard here.