Outer Music Diary

Chico Magnetic Band – s/t. 1971. Of all the albums I’ve heard in the last two months, Chico Magnetic Band’s sole album has to be my favorite. Quite simply, they don’t make them like this anymore. There are a couple of items here that make this album special. One is the heavy handed use of studio trickery (phasing, radical dynamic shifts, backwards tape, etc…), a common trait found amongst early 70s French and German albums. Cynics say it’s to mask the incompetence of the players, but I prefer to believe that a high amount of creativity was applied, and maybe even expected, for the era. Even more important, though, is Chico himself. Chico is the vocalist, and it’s his ranting, raving, screeching, drooling, mumbling that makes this album so REAL. The listener witnesses a man on the edge – a true freakout captured on tape for all time. There are other albums where this can be found, and they’re all favorites of mine: Dawn on Brainticket’s “Cottonwood Hill”, John L. on Ash Ra Tempel’s “Schwingungen’, and Catherine Ribeiro on “No. 2” (really any of her early 70s works). The psychedelics that are applied both externally (music) and internally (individual) allow the artist to apply his or her most creative mind gymnastics. Sure, it’s pure madness, but it sends a chill down my spine especially when paired with raging wah wah guitar solos and a cacophony of tribal percussion. It’s funny today to watch bands try to recreate this same sound. When it’s just the music, they do a good, sometimes great job, but when they try the “I’m crazy, here me rant” - they’re faking it. It was a one time “of the era” event. Everything else is just a simulation, a make-believe-let’s-pretend-we’re-freaked-out-and-nuts. And it sounds artificial. Get the real deal and check out Chico Magnetic Band. Though unfortunately there’s no legit CD of this treasure to be had. A far better written review of this album, not to mention an avalanche of infectious enthusiasm, can be found at Julian Cope’s Head Heritage website: http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/1107

Jorge Pinchevsky - Su Violin Magico la Pesada. 1973. Jorge Pinchevsky was an Argentine violinist (RIP 2003) who is most known for playing with Gong during their fusion stage (“Shamal”). Prior to moving to France, Pinchevsky was part of the early 70s Argentine rock movement and played with bands like La Cofradia de la Flor Solar and Billy Bond y La Pesada. His sole album obtained a release on EMI/Harvest, and is extremely difficult to find (I spent the last 7 years with no luck). Finally, a local friend burned me a copy. I suppose, in the end, it didn’t quite sound like I expected it to. The opening track is an interesting spacious violin number, which is not indicative of the remainder of the album. From there it takes a decidedly blues rock / hard rock approach (featuring many members of the Argentine bands listed above), with violin in the lead, bringing to mind High Tide – but not near as aggressive or as expansive. The album is very short, not quite reaching even 30 minutes. The original recording is a bit rough, and I can imagine a masters tape CD reissue would bring out more clarity and bump up the enjoyment. Especially if there are some quality bonus tracks not yet released.

Wolfgang Dauner – Et Cetera. 1970. Wolfgang Dauner was one of the true pioneers of the late 60s German jazz scene. And so he was a natural to experiment with rock’s energy and sounds and combine them with his vision of free jazz. I’d managed to obtain all of his rock based albums, except the Et Cetera debut (until now that is), mentioned by many as perhaps his finest work of them all. After a few listens, I’m inclined to agree, though I still have a slightly greater fondness for the “Rischkas Soul” album on Brain. The opening track features a driving staccato synthesized organ sound (somewhat akin to Supersister or Soft Machine) mixed with some freer jazz structures that can be a bit much in places. The next three tracks are Dauner at his best mixing an array of ethnic/world music (mainly Eastern) with some psychedelic rock and modal jazz. The album closes with a free jazz piece, which gets away from my personal tastes. So the opener and closer keep this from being a classic for me – but one that I still hold in high esteem. I think we call than an 11 at Gnosis. Et Cetera comes in a beautiful silver foil cover, and would be an awesome candidate for a Japanese mini-LP reissue (they did “The Oimels”, so it’s possible!)

Acid Mothers Temple - The Empty Bottle, Chicago 5/5/07 (DVD)

AMT are one of those groups I like less than I thought I would, I’d have figured with the connections revealed on their album titles, especially with Gong, that they’d be right along my lines, but for the most part they tend to split time between heavy psychedelic noise and more drifting ambient portions, the latter the half I’m most comfortable with. This is a pretty nicely done audience recording created from a tripod that gets most of the band in the screen and occasional scans to the others. There are strobelights and some grainy definition but overall everything sounds and looks quite good. They play about 2 1/2 hours on this one, which is about two hours longer than I think I’d been able to have stood. However, where AMT often just go in and improv for long stretches, there were a lot of elements in this show that made me feel that they were pre-written, including some almost song-like music with the band’s female vocalist. This does help to break up what often can be monotony when the band pushes everything up to 11 for half an hour. Anyway the DVD didn’t really change my mind about the band, but that also means I’m still fairly intrigued with what they do, and might be more intrigued if they took it easier on their release schedule.

Various Artists - Bilzen Jazz Festival, Bilzen, Belgium 8/21-24/69 (DVD)

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better overall view to the nascent progressive rock movement than this collection of late 60’s, mostly European, groups playing the Bilzen Jazz festival in summer 1969. From your average progressive rock site you might be led to thinking that King Crimson magically invented the genre when they released their debut album in 1969, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The perfect example are the Moody Blues who get two tracks on here. Every element of symphonic rock is already in place, the blaring Mark II mellotron, songs in suite-like construction with obvious rhythm changes, and a lead flute style that was obviously the model for the later Peter Gabriel and PFM, in fact clearly PFM’s strongest model in a pastoral sense was this band. It’s awesome to see, a beautiful Tuesday Afternoon and a Have You Heard pt 1>The Voyage>Have You Heard pt 1 suite with classical/suite structure. In fact another element in common with symphonic rock was its slight tendency to the stodgy and bloated, although the Moodies pop sensibilities only gave a faint whiff mostly during this piece. It’s as if they’re working out the ramifications of the Beatles’ A Day in a Life, stretching it a little farther.

The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band get a pretty long set here, but with their sense of humor and theatrics combined with a bit of jazz, it’s hard not to see them as a prior influence of Gong’s early stages, especially with the occasional move into delirium, and there are segments that seem almost identical with parts of Camembert Electrique and the zanier parts of Flying Teapot. The sort of off the seat of pants adventure leads to crazy moments as well as a mistep when the flautist’s mike drops right off the stand as soon as he’s about to start playing.

Taste seem a successor of Cream and other blues-influenced small rock bands and while they’re not the most obviously experimental aspect of the sound, noticing the trend towards jamming and improvisation seems another element of the period. Brian Auger would call his work pop music, but for a jazz festival his band’s clearly the closest to the style and the band led by a virtuoso soloist (and let’s make no mistake, Auger is a master chopster on the B3) seems another theme of the era.  

There are, of course, a number of classic era rock and pop groups that stuck a bit closer to the inside, but still showed the hallmarks of the era by incorporating slight hints of other musics, such as the Blossom Toes and Humble Pie. But then there’s the Soft Machine doing Moon in June and this is where my heart practically stopped as the quality is fabulous. Harmonically they seem by far the most advanced of the bunch (especially Ratledge), but the focus is on a young Robert Wyatt at the kit. It’s hard not get misty-eyed over such a thing as I never imagined such a perfect looking document, but as the song progresses I started thinking I never imagined them slaying the jam as hard as they did. Wow, what an absolute monster!