Christoff's Full Review: June 1, 1974 by Kevin Ayers/Cale (Art Rock)/Nico (...
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Kevin Ayers — Vanguard to the burgeoning underground psychedelic movement in late 1960’s Britain, Ayers co-formed the ever-latent Soft Machine. Contemporaries of Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, with their complex interplay and melodic harmonies, tended toward the jazzier regions of the genre.
John Cale — Leap-frogging simultaneously between England and America, and between the Classical Avant-garde and Rock, this original founding Velvet Underground member offered a stylistically diverse musical statement that can evidenced by his legions of efforts which have taken place on both sides of the production console.
Brian Eno — Eventually dictating the path of much of ambient music’s modern history, Brian Eno first helped form the sophisticated glam-rock underpinnings of Roxy Music. His ensuing solo and collaborative (as well as production) career further explored the whole of these realms.
Nico — Rarely has music observed such an uncredentialed individual so fully integrate, and influence, the history of Rock & Roll. A former supermodel and arguably the Goth prototype, Nico’s broodish alto surveyed a hauntingly scarce musical landscape. Ornamentally placed into Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground, she eventually came to release a series of albums that were as uncompromising and uncommercial, as they were hellishly sublime.
Their gathering was one derived from friendship and mutual respect. Ayers was about to do a series of shows and invited Nico (who invited Cale who invited Eno). Each was preparing material for their own new albums, so with one weeks practice, what we get is a variety of work typical for 1974’s folkie progressive goth glam Rock scene. If such a thing exists. Three thousand attending souls bore witness as these similarly pedigreed individuals played live to England’s Rainbow for one day only; June 1, 1974.
We start-off with Side Two, first, because it sounds better that way..
The entirety of Side Two showcases the work of Ayers, who proves to be the lethargic lynch pin to the whole affair. Progressive, yes, but mostly laid-back and folkie, the Soporifics (aided by the soulful trap-work of former Softie, Robert Wyatt), assist in painting a clean swathe for nonchalant Ayers originals. One noteworthy track is the neatly-titled Everybody’s Sometime And Some People’s All The Time Blues. Assisted on lead guitar by Mike Oldfield (fresh off the heals of Tubular Bells), he harkens back to the best of Peter Green’s Albatros days.
But, it’s the flipside is what you’ve come for, and it’s the flipside where things get a bit more harried.
The bloodletting of Side One is christened with a couple of Eno-lead tracks from his then contemporary, and brilliant, Here Come The Warm Jets. The adventurously lurid and mechanically structured Driving Me Backwards and the peyote-like trance of Baby’s On Fire, while certainly kickers, differ little from the superior fidelity presented on his aforementioned solo debut (excepting, of course, the eurhythmy of Ayers’ beautifully cascading bass lines).
Next up is John Cale with his redoubtable rendition of Heartbreak Hotel. Cale’s is a Nosferatu-helmed stew pot filled with equal parts of Elvis-ear mites and brains-o-Bauhaus. Shakespeare’s cauldron witches serve as your guide wenches on a five-minute traipse down Lonely Street that seems to be leading you to some undead razing party with a dress-code. In fact, it would appear that your investment in a velvet Turin-like shroud be a magnetically appealing certainty. A must.
Nico comes to the fore with The End. Slower in tempo than The Doors’ seminal classic, she summons an alternate viewpoint as she exorcises her poltergeist-ridden harmonium. That is, as Morrison portrays the death-scene in realtime, as the killer walks down the hallway, Nico chooses to speak from the realm of the homicidal hereafter. The post-butcherous bereavement is further eulogized only with a few accents from Eno’s echoing electronic dirge.
R.I.P.
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Side Two Best Played While: under the haze of your post-violent tendencies.
Side One Best Played While: contemplating future disembowelment acitivities.
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