Look Back in Partial Embarassment, part 3: More 70s Rock

(Part 1 here, Part 2 here)

Motörhead, Overkill, 1979
Reading between the lines somewhat, Lemmy's aim to make Motörhead "the dirtiest rock n' roll band in the world" meant that they were actually one of the first unmanufactured bands to possess the spirit of punk back in '77. Then after punk mutated into a politicised New Wave, their second album Overkill wasn't exactly a breath of fresh rock n' roll air though they did surprise us by being given the unexpected break of playing 'Overkill' on TOTP in '79. Overkill's cover artwork by Joe Petagno became a much-prized poster on British bedroom walls, the heavy metal umlaut got another airing and the definitive black Motörhead t-shirt became the iconic thing it is today. Lemmy was (and still is) the man with the most wrecked voice in British rock, probably gargling his Listerine with shards of glass before every gig, his vocals and bass often making "Fast" Eddie Clarke's guitar practically inaudible which seems to be entirely the point. The lightest track 'I Won't Pay Your Price' sounds like ZZ Top at their heaviest, and the best riff of the album was 'No Class'. The iconic Ace of Spades was still a year away, but Overkill (and later Bomber) reliably set the stage for some deafening things to come.

Queen, Sheer Heart Attack, 1974
It's hard to believe Brian May has just turned 60. Everyone who was around in 1974 would probably agree Queen struggled with their first two albums, but became immediately cool with Sheer Heart Attack. But as their later mutation (or as I would prefer to say, descent) into a somewhat camp rock act left behind the good rock tunes and riffs, it wasn't long before I was turned off and 'the band to watch' became the band to avoid. Sheer Heart Attack, on the other hand, is early Queen at their best, the only album of theirs I ever bought, and still an often joyous racket of original, sophisticated though often badly-produced songs with an unexpected edge. 'Killer Queen' in 1974 had an undeniably fresh (if rather perfumed) air, and 'Stone Cold Crazy' and 'Now I'm Here' were obviously the kind of songs that would just run and run. But from here on in, it became as if they were wanting to do something different, to be something more than just another rock band. It seemed to hang on how much they trusted Freddie Mercury to lead them in an uncharted direction while at the same time turning them into a band that could rival the Stones and Floyd for pulling power. Over time the theatrics and those annoying, homogenous, sing-along, chart-topping anthems became more defining than anything else, as if it they had to ignore the unfortunate but very lucrative fact that boring anthemic pop was what they were about, and their former originality was soon to disappear out the window. I ignored their magnum opus A Night at the Opera (an album I'm proud to say I still haven't heard), though 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was of course the last truly interesting piece of rock they ever did, a motley assortment of strung-together musical ideas that also engaged the minds of serious musical academia. But it was also the last real gasp of their previous kind of rock originality that Sheer Heart Attack encapsulates, the kind that appealed to me. Almost everything they did after this was just the weird afterlife of a dead idea, and this album is the only one where they shone as a rock n' roll band in the classic sense.

Rainbow, Rainbow Rising, 1976
While some other members of Deep Purple seemed to want to distance themselves from the Purple sound after their split (Ian Gillan having a serious go at jazz-rock, for instance) Ritchie Blackmore seemed to know where he wanted to go and played to his strengths at the same time, giving his audience what he knew they wanted. Checking in at just 34 minutes long Rainbow Rising still packs a hell of a punch for such a short album, one that has carried it through the intervening 31 years as an almost iconic document that still arrives fresh to my ears. This for me is the defining Cozy Powell album, the defining Ritchie Blackmore album and of course the defining Ronnie James Dio album, put together by a well-matched bunch of full-on musicians all cranking their Marshalls up to 11. The songs themselves illuminate the inner lives of their audience in the mid '70s: tarot, sex, mysticism, darkness, sword & sorcery fantasy: Ronnie James Dio delivers the epic 'Stargazer' with such conviction that it can still render the real world a pathetic, sanitised and worthless place when you come out the other end. Blackmore's distinctive and weirdly improvised guitar solos are often impossible to figure out but there's never any doubt he's got the solid backing he needs to make them at least minimally cohesive, and Powell's drumming on that other epic 'Light in the Black' is relentlessly solid and energetic. Still a highly potent album that stands head and shoulders above any other piece of Rainbow vinyl (especially that horridly commercial Long Live Rock n' Roll).

Status Quo, Live, 1976
Back in '76 when a double vinyl LP was about the most expensive thing a hard-up schoolkid could buy, my brother and I had to pool our funds to get hold of this. I recently listened to this for the first time in around thirty years. And somehow enjoyed it. With a teenage appetite for unpretentious heads down no nonsense mindless boogie I probably saw Quo three or four times at Hammersmith and Wembley in the mid to late '70s, and before they were well and truly sidelined by punk Live was really their crowning moment, the music raw but also conveyed with crystal clarity, their studio albums (which were all, let's face it, shite) being far too overproduced in comparison, and every track here is way more energetic than the insipid originals. The only one that really risks me getting the air guitar out again is their over-the-top cover of The Doors' 'Roadhouse Blues', one of the many moments that showed they could actually beat a band like Dr. Feelgood at their own game if they tried hard enough. Live is now like a small capsule of memories of some Great British '70s gigs; Quo are still kicking around now so I don't wish to consign them completely to history, but they were so much a part of that time I doubt there could ever be a lasting Quo revival, at least in the way that such a thing briefly happened to Slade in the '80s. If there ever were, Live is probably where it would have to start and end. Or ought to.

2007 books

90) Antonio Skármeta, Il Postino, 1985
Formerly a journalist, Skármeta originally called his novel Ardiente Paciencia, then El Cartero de Neruda, then after the success of the 1994 film (actually the second film of the book) simply Il Postino. He recounts a Chilean postman's friendship with the world's greatest love poet Pablo Neruda, and how Neruda unlocked the teenage postman's own romantic creativity in his pursuit of the beautiful Beatriz González. The story was drawn from personal experience after Skármeta was asked by his newspaper editor to dig up some scandal on Neruda, the end result being a whole different story. I was rather pleased that the book goes a lot further than the film, which was heavy on sweetness yet decisive about what kind of film it was actually meant to be, and by the film's relocation of the story to Capri in the Mediterranean (where Neruda sat out his exile from Chile for his communism in the 1950s) it was able to omit the book's strong undercurrent of bitterness caused by the rise of Pinochet. The romantic and the political don't make good bedfellows in this book and sadly the political wins out, a sweet fantasy killed off by a bitter, fascist political reality. Well written and entertaining for the most part, with surprisingly darker tones than the film.

2007 books

91) Charles Stross, The Jennifer Morgue, 2006
autopope's second 'Laundry' novel and one that is firmly of the Ian Fleming variety, with Bob Howard skedaddling off to the Dutch Antilles to head off the re-emergence of dark forces lurking in the depths of the Atlantic. It's interesting to see how the characters either live up to or try to shake off their literary stereotypes and perceived roles; even though I'm wary of stories that turn in on themselves, Ouroboros-fashion, and end up being about little more than their own self-contained cleverness, Charlie shows he's aware of such pitfalls and easily navigates his way around them while also keeping up the pace of the taut, Bond-like plot. One friend makes a suitably villainous guest appearance, and I also have an equally close personal connection to the short story 'Pimpf', contained herein. As always, good fun from one of our most energetic writers, someone who can't seem to put a foot wrong these days.

2007 books

92) S.P. Somtow, I Wake from a Dream of a Drowned Star City, 1992
Theodore Sturgeon once called Somtow Sucharitkul "one of the most gifted masters of colour and spectacle", and being Thailand's only current SF author of note it was inevitable I'd start reading his SF and mainstream fiction. This novella of a cloned and alien-educated adolescent boy ascending to the royal throne of a far future Earth is most notable for its use of incest as a plot device. There's much Freudian symbolism at play and a strong use of class and underclass; though in many places well written it does have the feel of an inadequately formed idea only hastily sketched out – at novel length, with more background and a greater use of the very interesting aliens, it would most certainly have been better.