I'm in the process of re-listening and re-evaluating my record collection, in no particular order. I'll be sharing the results of my evaluation and thoughts on the music in this blog.
They say you shouldn't judge a record by its cover, but sometimes that's all the info that's available to you. I found this LP in the bargain bin and decided that it must be Polish-language rockabilly, which I'd be interested to listen to, if only for novelty's sake. It turned out slightly different than I expected; more like late 70's pub rock/ new wave - a mix of Chris Spedding, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello etc. Songs in that style include "Nie Chce Mi Się", "Gdzie Są Panienki", "Było Nas Ze Dwóch", and "Skończ Te Fanaberie". Rockabilly is also part of the mix ("Mój Flipper Gra", "Droga Redakcjo", "Dostaję Cipca"), while there's a punk element too - especially in the nonchalant vocals and prevalent DIY esthetic evident everywhere from the production to the cover artwork. Incidentally, the band name apparently translates as "parasites/freeloaders", I wonder if that's a Polish derogatory term equivalent to the English word "punk". Rounding it up, there are a few slower songs, drunken ballads like "Maleńki Stasio" and "Jest Mi Smutno" as well as the reggae-ish "Afryka Korzenie" and "To Oni". Not the strongest tracks of the album, they highlight the singer's (Dariusz Dusza) deficiencies as a vocalist. On the other hand, I'd be the first to admit that he's an above-average guitarist. In conclusion, this is a rather mediocre record, albeit with a certain lo-fi charm. There are better Polish new wave albums in my collection, which I intend to present soon; stay tuned for my reviews of LPs by Porter Band and, especially, the fantastic Republika.
**** for Nie Chce Mi Się
*** for Mój Flipper Gra, Droga Redakcjo, Gdzie Są Panienki, Było Nas Ze Dwóch, To Oni, Dostaję Cipca
** for Maleńki Stasio, Afryka Korzenie, Jest Mi Smutno, Skończ Te Fanaberie
What a mess this is! No, I don't mean the album, I mean the title. On discogs this is registered as the eponymous album by the band Niemen Enigmatic. It's actually an LP by popular Polish singer Czesław Niemen, whose backing band in the 1970-71 period was called Enigmatic. But that's also the title of his previous album Enigmatic. So Enigmatic (1969) by Czesław Niemen is a different album to Niemen Enigmatic (1971) by Niemen Enigmatic featuring Czesław Niemen. To complicate things further it also circulates under the Polish title Człowiek Jam Niewdzięczny, and sometimes as plain Niemen. To simplify them, everybody just calls it The Red Album. Niemen was born Czesław Juliusz Wydrzycki in 1939 in a village in Belarus, which was at the time divided between Poland and the USSR (after W.W.II it was completely engulfed by the USSR). In the 60's, he embarked on a career as a pop singer in Poland. His publicity photos of the time show him wearing multicolored hippy outfits and long hair, which must have turned a lot of heads in Communist Poland. He used to play pop and soul music, but around 1969 he embarked on a more progressive direction with longer pieces incorporating jazz and classical elements. The 20+ minute opener "Czlowiek Jam Niewdzieczny" takes up all of size 1. It starts as an organ-based ballad ("Whiter Shade Of Pale" comes to mind) and turns into a long jam with many solos - bass and drums too, though the organ and guitar are most prominent. There are also some pretty cool female backing vocals here and there, as well as nods to early Deep Purple (Mk.I), Traffic, and the Jullie Driscoll/ Brian Auger collaborations.
"Aerumnarum Plenus" and "Italiam, Italiam" are nice jazz-soul ballads, "Enigmatyczne Impresje" a rocking instrumental à la Small Faces, "Wruc Jeszcze Dzis" and "Zechcesz Mnie Zechcesz" are upbeat soul rockers, the latter with nice piano instead of the usual Hammond. "Chwila Ciszy" features some sizzling electric guitar and funky bass, "Nie Jestes Moja" his most emotive vocal, and "Sprzedaj Mnie Wiatrowi" some folk-prog flute. Side 4 of the (double) LP closes with "Muzyko Moja". The combination of Hammond organ, hard rock guitars and soul vocals is reminiscent of contemporary Atomic Rooster (with P.J. Proby on vocals). Overall I'm once again impressed with how much with the times (if not ahead of them) a rock band from East Europe could be. Maybe the "Iron Curtain" wasn't that impenetrable after all? Or -maybe, just maybe- it was shielding us Westerners from learning that on the other side there was youth culture, rock'n'roll and modern art. Meanwhile, the Western stereotype of East European youth at the time was uniformed soldiers and androgynous women working out beneath portraits of Lenin, training to beat our athletes at the Olympics. I wonder which side was consuming more propaganda. But in any case, this LP is just as as progressive as anything coming from the UK at the time - and more so than most U.S. groups. It's notable for its fresh mix of jazz, soul and hard rock, excellent musicianship, and some experimental touches that nevertheless take care not to alienate the audience. I must admit that, despite him having a strong and soulful voice, I can't warm up to Niemen's vocals. I think it has to do with the Polish language - not because I am unfamiliar with it, but because I don't think it fits with this kind of music. In any case, this is an excellent album well worth discovering. I'm now eager to delve deeper into Polish rock - I already have a compilation of Niemen's early pop soul stuff, but I'd like to find more albums in this style. SBB and Skaldowie are two more Polish prog groups worth hearing, as well as new waversRepublika and theAnglo-Polish Porter Band - all to be presented in this blog sometime.
**** for Człowiek Jam Niewdzięczny, Aerumnarum Plenus, Italiam Italiam, Enigmatyczne Impresje, Wróć Jeszcze Dziś, Sprzedaj Mnie Wiatrowi, Zechcesz Mnie Zechcesz, Chwila Ciszy
To people who grew up listening to vinyl, like I did, cover art is an important part of a record. At a time before internet when we only had state radio in Greece which seldom played rock music, we relied a lot on the cover to figure out how the music must have sounded: how did the band look on it? what kind of instruments they used? which font did they choose? was the cover funny? serious? sexy? all that played a role. My first record was Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. I bought it because I'd heard "Temple Of The King", but above all I think because of the cover: a guitar castle out of fairy tales, what more could a 14-year old fantasy fan ask? During the CD era, covers shrinked and became less impressive but there was still a lot to be gathered by looking at them. I'm only starting my review with this because I'm looking at this CD cover and wondering how much ignorance has gone into it, and whether this can affect the way I feel about the album. Let's start with the title: "Velvet Revolution" refers to the regime change (from Communism to Western-style democracy) in Czechoslovakia in '89. Which means that the compilers missed the mark by only 20 years. Many of the bands here do come from Czechoslovakia but that's probably just a happy coincidence. I'd think they had confused the Velvet Revolution with the Prague Spring (1968) but I don't want to give them too much credit. That would imply they have at least some clue. Next, to the one that really irks me: the huge CCCP means of course that the CD contains music from the Soviet Union. Right? I mean you don't put a huge USA on an album containing music from Guatemala - or Canada, for that matter. Nooo...apparently you do. Just to throw potential buyers off. To amplify the message they use a pseudo-Cyrillic font that renders the band names virtually unreadable. Why? Cyrillic is used mainly in Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia. You feature bands from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany and Poland. These countries all use the Latin alphabet. Do you just want to get on my nerves by making me strain my eyes to decipher your bullshit font? But then I realized: the compilers apparently believe that the Eastern Bloc was a single country (capital:Moscow) that existed in an unspecified time and place. That explains why the cover features World War II bombers (again, 25 years off the mark) and a Soviet soldier - because this is what eveyrone wore in those countries, right? uniforms and hats with red stars on them. Ah, and according to discogs, the tracklist on the back has no less than 4 spelling mistakes. Now, why am I not surprised? Do you know how much skill it takes to copy a title from a record label? At least the booklet seems to have been written by a different person, someone who can actually tell Poland from Mongolia.
Now let us go to the music, starting with the Hungarian bands: Opener "Visz A Vonat" by Illés is groovy, organ-heavy, soul-rock with female vocals. A second song by the same band is completely different, featuring male vocals and a folk sound akin to Incredible String Band. Another (as Illes Zenckar) has some nice hard rock guitar but is otherwise unimpressive. Neoton is also represented with 3 tracks: hard rockers "A Haz" (Deep Purple-influenced) and "Nehez Fiuk" (Hendrix-like) and ballad "Gyere Alom". Moving on to Czechoslovakia, "18 Minut" by Juventus starts off like typical 60's pop but turns into a freakout with the singer yelling and band attacking their istruments hard. Olympic were a hugely popular band (nicknamed The Czech Beatles). "Tobogan" is a Yardbirds-like rocker and "Ikarus Blues" reminds me of Traffic circa 1968 - including a Chris Wood-like flute solo. Blue Effect were a Matadors offshoot (We'll talk about the Matadors in another post). The Effect's "White Hair" has some nice guitar but otherwise sounds like an outtake from the musical Hair. Of the Polish bands, Czerwono Czarni offer their own take on The Electric Prunes' Mass in F Minorwith the instrumental "Kyrie". No To Co's "Saturday To Sunday" is English language flower pop. The band even made an attempt for an international career by releasing a record at the UK, but failed to get noticed. By "international" I mean in the West. Most of these bands did have international careers within the confines of the "Eastern Bloc". Breakout's "We Have Told All" (sung in Polish, despite the English title) sounds a lot like Jullie Driscoll circa 1968-69. Rounding the compilation up, there are some East German numbers. East Germany had a great rock scene, evidence of which is the fantastic hard rock of Scirroco Combo (think Atomic Rooster), Joco Dev Sextett (Black Sabbath without the ultra heavy riffs) and Electra Combo (rather progish - Jethro Tull meet Cream?). On the whole this compilation helps to dispel the myth that Eastern Europe was this backwards place where rock was unknown or banned. Despite their difficulties in dealing with the state, rock bands flourished and produced music at least equal to the one made on the other side of the Continent. Musically, this is probably worth 3,5 stars but I'm subtracting 1,5* because of the disrespectful cover art presenting all these countries as if they were nothing more than Russian provinces.
**** for Visz A Vonat (Illés), Wege Mit Gutem Namen (Scirroco Combo), Stapellauf (Joco Dev Sextett)
*** for 18 Minut (Juventus), Tobogan (Olympic), Du Bist Mir Nah (Joco Dev Sextett), The Story Of M (Illés), Ikarus Blues (Olympic), Kyrie (Czerwono Czarni), Saturday To Sunday (No To Co), We Have Told All(Breakout), Über Feuer (Electra Combo), Nehez Fiuk (Neoton)
** for A Haz (Neoton), Gyere Alom (Neoton), Menekilles (Illes Zenckar), White Hair (Blue Effect)
I set about writing this review after witnessing David Gilmour's concert at the courtyard of the majestic Schloss Schönbrunn in Vienna, a huge baroque palace and the erstwhile seat of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Like everyone else present, I wasn't drawn there by Gilmour's fame as a solo artist: we were all there to listen to "The Voice & Guitarof Pink Floyd" as advertised on the CD sticker here. Which doesn't leave much for Roger Waters - maybe he should advertise himself as "The Bass andBrains of Pink Floyd" just to get even.Not that he's doing badly himself. I've had the luck to catch his Athens show in '06and Pink Floyd in '89 - now with the solo Gilmour concert, I can compare 3 different live versions of my favourite Floyd tracks like "Comfortably Numb", "Time", "...Crazy Diamond" etc. One may argue that '89 Floyd were Gilmour and co but I'll beg to differ. First of all, that'd be hugely underestimating Rick Wright, which everyone seems to do, and secondly the Floyd concert was all about the show. Stunning visual effects, unparallelled surround sound, huge flying pigs etc. Gilmour's stage show and sound equipment would be impressive for any other band, but compared to Floyd (or his former bandmate Waters) it comes up short. He was so little interested in the show that he used the same visuals (e.g. in "Time") that I remembered from the '89 Floyd concert. But the guitar - ah, the guitar!- was up front like never before. Gilmour's solo career has allowed him to get rid of the elaborate Floyd concepts, write simpler songs and focus on his guitar playing which was always impressive but often overshadowed by the huge show. His playing is now better than ever, or at least better presented than it ever was. The Vienna concert consisted of a 60/40 mix of Floyd and solo tracks. We heard most of his new album, a couple of older solo tracks, and of course Floyd songs, both classic and obscure ("Fat Old Sun" from Atom Heart Mother, "One of These Days" from Meddle, "Coming Back to Life" from A Momentary Lapse Of Reason and Division Bell's "Sorrow").
Live In Gdańsk is likewise divided between solo and Floyd numbers, but here we get the whole of On An Island played in its original sequence, albeit with the addition of the Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, conducted by noted Polish composer and Gilmour collaborator Zbigniew Preisner. The location is highly symbolic as the city's shipyards were famously the birthplace and bastion of Poland’s Solidarity trade union, somewhat of a Marxist paradox where the workers were inspired by Catholicism, and rebelled against a Communist (supposedly the worker's own) government, demanding workers' rights and political freedom. Gilmour's band here also includes former Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera, Floyd saxophonist Dick Parry, and -critically- Rick Wright in one of his last performances; he would be dead within a few months. It opens with a Dark Side medley (Speak to Me-Breathe-Time) before launching into the tracks from On An Island. Thanks to the intimacy of the live setting and Manzanera's second guitar the songs gain a little in punch, while they are perfectly complemented by the orchestra which enriches the sound without drowning the band out. IMO, the live versions are different but equally good to the more atmospheric studio ones, while some songs (e.g. "Castellorizon") sound much better live. "Live In Gdańsk" is, just like "On An Island", above all a guitar album for people seeking something more sophisticated than Heavy Metal's flashy guitar pyrotechnics. As such, it stands well as a whole while the individual songs are less impressive. The song "On An Island" is melodic with folky harmonies and the standout track of both the studio and live version of the album. "The Blue" and the closing "Where We Start" lull you into a state of comfortable numbness, until it's time for the passionate solo. On the atmospheric instrumentals "Red Sky at Night" and "Then I Close My Eyes" the guitar takes a back seat to the sax and orchestra, with Gilmour returning to his fiery solos with a rocking "This Heaven". "Smile" and "A Pocketful of Stones" are closer to Paul McCartney balladry, but the former is saved by its great slide guitar. "Take a Breath" is the hard rocker of this bunch, channeling the angst of classic Floyd circa Animals and The Wall. The second set is the fans' reward for politely listening to Gilmour's latest album when all they wanted was their favourite Pink Floyd hits. It opens with a flawless "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" and makes an unexpected return to Sixties psychedelia with versions of "Astronomy Domine" and the folky "Fat Old Sun". A forgotten Floyd gem that Gilmour has dusted off and polished with a fabulous solo, making it worthy to feature in his set among classics like the following "High Hopes", undoubtedly Floyd's greatest post-Wall achievement sounding even more resplendent backed by a full orchestra. The inclusion of "Echoes" is a pleasant surprise. Gilmour and -especially- Wright shine in their recreation of the "Meddle" track and it's incredibly sad to think that this was one of the Wright's last performances. "Wish You Were Here" is one of the greatest ballads ever, while "A Great Day For Freedom" gets an orchestral score especially for the occasion by Michael Kamen, supposedly as a tribute to the Solidarity freedom fighters of so long ago. Thankfully Gilmour does not join the fools in celebrating the "End of History" and "Triumph of the Free Market". Listen carefully to the lyrics and you'll discover the irony behind the title: "On the day the wall came down/They threw the locks onto the ground/And with glasses high we raised a cry for freedom had arrived...Now life devalues day by day/As friends and neighbours turn away/And there's a change that, even with regret, cannot be undone/Now frontiers shift like desert sands/While nations wash their bloodied hands/Of loyalty, of history, in shades of grey". Does that sound like a celebration of freedom to you? Did the Solidarity workers really win as "history" wants us to believe? Only if their dream was to scatter around Germany, England or anywhere else there was demand for cheap labor. As for the trade union itself, it withered and died as its leaders surrendered hard-won workers' rights in the hope that rampant capitalism will magically bring prosperity to all. You've got to hand it to Pink Floyd, there's nothing like one of their songs to start a socio-politico-philosophical discussion. "Comfortably Numb" closes the concert in a grand manner, with one rock's most transcendental solos ever. I don't know how Gilmour does it -he should have been tired of it by now, but he always pours his soul into this solo and never sounds like he's just going through the motions. This song alone would be enough to earn "Live In Gdańsk" its 5* rating...
***** for Time, Shine on You Crazy Diamond, High Hopes, Echoes, Wish You Were Here, Comfortably Numb
**** for Breathe, Breathe (reprise), Castellorizon, On An Island, Red Sky at Night, This Heaven, Astronomy Domine, Fat old Sun, A Great Day For Freedom
*** for Speak to Me, The Blue, Then I Close My Eyes, Smile, Take a Breath, Where We Start,
