EDITOR'S CHOICE LOCAL NEWS Go-ahed for wind turbine at school Go-ahead for new school in village LOCAL SPORT Call for help with festival OTHER SPORT Boulton’s a winner GET OUR NEWS BY E-MAIL Just register

Most read Comments 1 Crews tackle Weymouth house fire 2 Card skim fraud is back 3 Man who stopped a burglar faces assault charge 4 Go-ahed for wind turbine at school 5 Evans outraged by two-and-a-half year ban 6 Now it’s beach polo 7 Go-ahead for new school in village 8 Deer rescued from hole by firefighters 9 Boulton’s a winner 10 KICKING OFF: Togetherness in Terras camp is uplifting Today | 7 Days 1 Man who stopped a burglar faces assault charge 2 'Killjoys' halt pub's fun days 3 Carry on drinking 4 Ten post offices to close 5 Setback hits Lidl bid to open store 6 New parking scheme ‘a disaster’ 7 Sailing centre in the spotlight 8 Second monster crab is caught 9 Pay parking likely at County Hall 10 Battle of the wordsmiths

Comment

AFTER my crisis of reviewing confidence last week, in which it seemed I had lost my mojo in categorical and irreversible terms, I reasoned that drastic action was required.

To this end, I spent Saturday evening in my fleecy jim-jams getting nose-deep into a couple of bottles of fine wine and returning to the source, as it were; which is to say, I had another listen to one of the albums which got my juices going in the first instance, back in the days when I was so young that I didn't actually know what juices were, far less where they went when they got going.

This Was (EMI) is the 1968 debut album by Jethro Tull and it has just been reissued in scrummy expanded format with a clutch of extra BBC session tracks and even both sides of the hyper-rare Sunshine Day/One For John Gee single, released on MGM under the name Jethro Toe - presumably as a result of ear trumpet malfunction at the label pressing plant.

Before even reacquainting myself with the music I had to marvel anew at the sleeve portrait, in which the band were made up to look like old men - a decision which would guarantee instantaneous commercial suicide for any young band nowadays.

Those were very special times, though, when groups didn't necessarily have to look like the contents of Brad Pitt's dreamboat pants drawer in order to secure a following. Even by the lax standards of the day, however, Jethro Tull were scary pugs - and fiercely proud of it.

The nearest they got to "buff", "fit" or any of those other drearily overworked epithets was bassist Glenn Cornick, who still looked sufficiently myopic and wan as to have spent the majority of his life deep underground. The others, with their Rasputin beards, matted hair and greatcoats, looked as though they had just stepped out of a rancid medieval woodcut and had headed straight for the soup kitchen.

It is to the eternal credit of frontman Ian Anderson that he managed to parlay this image into one of unforgettable potency. Furthermore, he conferred rock credibility on to the flute, an instrument which had hitherto unfairly only been thought of by the yoof market as being the ideal shape to ram up the bum of the flautist in question.

Roland Kirk was a major influence on Anderson's playing - but then you would never have found Kirk in his dad's old coat, standing on one leg, hyperventilating and mugging with grand mal conviction and rounding off the whole package, if you'll pardon that phraseology, with a codpiece.

Considering how fresh and inimitable Anderson's stage persona was, it is salutary to be reminded of the fact that Jethro Tull were to all intents and purposes just another Brit blues band when they first shot out of the traps, albeit one with increasingly significant jazz, folk and classical leanings.

This Was duly huffs and puffs with earnest but enjoyable readings of trusty R&B warhorses such as Cat's Squirrel and Stormy Monday, but it's the early intimations of the weird alchemy that would come to define their sound that properly stir the soul.

My Sunday Feeling, Serenade For A Cuckoo and A Song For Jeffrey all variously point towards aspects of the band's multi-faceted future, while Love Story - particularly in the thrillingly bashy BBC incarnation herein - reminds us of what a versatile, limber and robust rhythm section Cornick and drummer Clive Bunker were.

For me, the second Tull album (Stand Up) is where it starts to get really interesting - but this is a fine how-do-you-do regardless.

On to other matters now, and having rediscovered my mojo - apparently it rolled under the sofa - I was raring to hear a few singles, starting with Falling Slowly (Anti) by Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova.

Those of you who keep abreast of such matters should know that this rather lovely and affecting ballad has just won an Oscar off the back of its central importance to the also lovely and affecting film Once, starring Glen and Marketa.

Tell you what, though: the song, and the performance, of the film is actually Say It To Me Now as busked at night by Glen in the opening minutes. Wounded, feral, hair-raisingly intense, it's a knee-buckler for sure, and Hansard's Takamine guitar bears the evidence of having been strummed so hard that actual holes have appeared in the wood.

You should also go well out of your way to hear Caravan (Leaf) by Danish collective Efterklang, indescribably different and life-affirming to an unfathomable degree. In its hopeful, lopsided sprawl it sounds like a timorous but proud civilisation emerging into the light after years of dark repression.

And while we're strolling in the new-found sun, there can be no more fitting companion than Do Something Stupid Tonight (Pink Hedgehog) by Hamfatter: sound advice, written and recorded in a blithe, breezy, arm-swinging manner which makes the suggestion seem like the most sensible course of action open to us all under the circumstances.

Elsewhere in the pile, The LSB (EMI) by Glasgow-based sextet Make Model may not be the most overtly melodic offering you could be tickling your ears with at present, but it makes its tough and punchy point most effectively by leaping out and battering you, repeatedly and very scientifically, until you inevitably acquiesce.

Similarly pugnacious are The Thirst, famously discovered by Ronnie Wood at a gig in the Half Moon in Putney.

One listen to Sail Away (Wooden) confirms the suspicion that they would indeed knock you flat and reverse over your face in a live context. It is brisk, urgent, tight and tense as cramp, performed with a life-depends-on-it vigour and featuring some heart-stopping tempo changes which are so handled so adroitly that the band must surely spend their every waking moment together, sharing Pot Noodles, toothbrushes, social diseases and - who knows? - perhaps even codpieces.

9:06am Friday 18th April 2008

Print

Email this

Comment