Liam Gallagher is back with a new single called “Everything’s Electric.”
Co-written with Foo Fighters Dave Grohl, the track comes from Gallagher’s forthcoming solo album, “C’Mon You Know”, out May 27th. Grohl also plays drums on “Everything’s Electric,” which was produced by fellow Foo Fighters member Greg Kurstin. It’s a pretty classic, raucous rocker that you’re sure to find yourself listening to again and again.
According to a release, “Everything’s Electric” was inspired by Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” and The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” Opening with a heavy riff, the punchy tune is a rough rocker. Lyrically, Gallagher delivers lines like, “I hate you/ But I despise that feeling/ There’s nothing left for you here.”
In October, Liam Gallagher teased “C’Mon You Know” with a trailer for the album. It comes packed with clips of live performances by Liam Gallagher. It’s interspersed with shots of the audience singing along to the tune.
“Everything’s Electric” is the first preview of the highly anticipated new album.
Alongside the album announcement, Liam Gallagher teased a huge one-off Knebworth show. The enormous concert will see Gallagher returning to Knebworth on June 4th, 2022. Kasabian, MichaelKiwanuka, Fat White Family, and Goat Girl will join Liam Gallagher for the performance.
“I’m absolutely buzzing to announce that on 4th June 2022 I’ll be playing Knebworth Park,” Liam Gallagher says. “It’s gonna be biblical. “C’mon You Know“. LG x”
There could be a number of reasons for this. Maybe the climate is ripe for this sort of thing, or certain nostalgia star-cycles are waxing at the moment, or perhaps it’s simply that lockdowns have allowed people more time to dig around in the annals of their long-forgotten projects. Whatever the reason, Party Day’s new anthology ‘Sorted!’ comes off the back of similarly comprehensive re-appraisals of the work of acts such as The Stick Figures and Getting The Fear. This Double vinyl that includes their critically acclaimed and highly sought after debut album ‘Glasshouse’ from 1985 and the 1986 follow up ‘Simplicity’. Presented in a gatefold sleeve adorned with the artwork from the “Glasshouse” EP, which features in the Prints & Drawings collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum. With printed inner sleeves and a download code for all 31 tracks on the double CD. Including all tracks from the singles and EP’s plus unreleased recordings.
In many ways, Party Day were exemplary of their time. This lot were a hard-working bunch who made enough noise to get noticed far beyond their South Yorkshire home. They dabbled with labels like PIAS, but the band put all their major work out through their own eponymous imprint. In the context of new Optic Nerve collection ‘Sorted!’, that was probably a good thing – I’d imagine retaining some/all of the rights made it far easier to cobble together the tracks from the singles, EP and pair of albums which Party Day issued between 1983 and 1986 (though it should be noted that, due to available space, not all of those tunes make the cut for the vinyl editions here).
This lot were generally understood as a goth band at the time, and it’s easy to see how those who were beguiled by The Cure’s ‘Pornography’ when it dropped in 1982 might have picked up on Party Day in the slipstream of that LP. Tracks like ‘Athena’ are on edge, the band somehow managing to make music which sounds both fidgety and ominous, airy.
The feeling is ramped up further on ‘The Spider’, a cut which is a good example of that sort of campy, crunchy chomp which a lot of groups were delivering post-Birthday Party (as I type this, it occurs to me that the Party Day name might be a nod to Cave, Harvey et al).
It’s the vocals of Carl Firth which at once glue ‘Sorted!’ together and also cement it as a fine period-piece. The way in which Firth chatters away atop these tracks can file Party Day’s music down to a point, but he’s also unafraid to drop the listener into open space. He’ll howl a chorus on one song, but on the next he’ll riddle us from the corner – see how, on ‘Boredom’, his vocals nip between the guitars with pregnant talk of money and parachutes.
They may be goth up front, but one of the things that ‘Sorted!’ reveals is how the backbone of Party Day’s music often harnessed the exploratory edge of the age. It’s easy to see how heads would have been turned at the time by the band’s debut double-A, 1983’s ‘Row the Boat Ashore’/‘Poison’. The wind may whip around these tracks, but at points – particularly at the open and close of the latter cut – we detect a bit of shuffle in the rhythm section which feels almost dubbed-out.
I highly doubt ‘Sorted!’ will be the last archival collection of some small but crucial act to land in our stockroom in 2022. As long as the standard is maintained, I say bring them on.
The Fillmore Auditorium, March 7, Winterland, March 8th, 9th, 10th, 1968: Cream, James Cotton Blues Band, Jeremy and the Satyrs, & Blood, Sweat and Tears
The March 68 shows were recorded by Wally Heider and tracks released on “Wheels of Fire”. “Spoonful”, “Crossroads” and “Traintime” were recorded at Winterland- “Toad” recorded at the Fillmore. Other tracks were released on “Live Cream 1 & 2″. I read recently that the rest of the master tapes were lost in a fire
Beauty School are from the United Kingdom The band hits the nail on the pop-punk head with their song “Pawn Shop Jewels.” Sounding much-like your favourite pop punk hits from the 2000’s, Beauty School is a playlist essential. The song will keep you entertained with technical guitar riffs and a melodic vocal from start to finish. The song even contains a musical breakdown section to take you deeper into your nostalgia. The chorus section of the song is an ear worm that fans will be screaming at the top of their lungs at live shows.
‘Pawn Shop Jewels’ by Beauty School out now on Slam Dunk Records.
Young punk band The Linda Lindas have announced their highly anticipated debut LP, “Growing Up“, due out June 3rd via EpitaphRecords. They made it with Carlos de la Garza, father of vocalist and guitarist Lucia de la Garza and her sister, drummer Mila de la Garza, and they told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, “So our dad is our producer. And it was kind of cool, seeing what he does all day, like, ‘Oh, this is kind of cool seeing what you’re doing.’ And it’s like, huh. And then we got to look and we get to be part of it. Yeah. It’s like another side of him, but at the same time, it’s like we get to have so much fun while doing it because we know him so well. I feel like recording with our dad is so much easier than recording with someone we barely know or we don’t know as well as our dad, because I feel like it’s just so much easier to be ourselves and have fun around him than it is to have fun around, I don’t know, someone we don’t really know.”
They’ve also shared the title track, which was written by Lucia, who told Zane, “So I was just sitting in our living room, and it was during the pandemic, it was just at a point when I was just particularly missing everyone. I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re at this point in our lives where we’re supposed to be figuring out who we are and what we want to do with our life and stuff.’ But it sucked that I wasn’t able to do that with some of the people that are most important to me. I don’t know. It was like you can’t make growing up happen, but you can’t stop it from happening either.
So I was just like, I wanted to sing about it, I wanted to write a song about it because that’s how I found that I wanted to express myself most during the pandemic.” “Growing Up” is accompanied by a cat-filled video directed by Opening Ceremony co-founder Humberto Leon. This video was extra special because I worked with the girls on designing the outfits with Batsheva, styling the looks with Rodarte and Warby Parker. The entire video was a collaboration between me and the girls. By shooting the video on iPhone 13 Pro Max, it created an intimacy with the video that felt like we were listening in on a day in the life of The Linda Lindas.“
Australia’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets will release new album“Night Gnomes” on April 22nd via What Reality? A lot of the album is about trying to work out what the F#@! is going on, in general life and obviously the period of time we’ve all found ourselves dormant in for the past two years. I started reading a few quotes from philosophers because, hey! They might know what’s going on, but mostly it was a bunch of cleverly worded gibberish that was drenched in self turmoil that thankfully, serendipitously, unbeknownst to me was the thing I found comfort in. That nobody has a clue what life is and we’re all winging it as we go!” .
Within 11 seconds of clicking “play” on “Lava Lamp Pisco” it’s instantly apparent why “Night Gnomes”,the latest album from Psychedelic Porn Crumpets might be their greatest offering yet.
The track is a riffy monster that delivers a much-welcome Black Sabbath-style slap to the head. It’s big, shiny, sleek and irresistible. It’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets giving their best and Jack McEwan the band’s fearless leader has the battle scars from the four-second harmonica solo to prove it.
“I hadn’t blown the harmonica in five years. It was just sitting on my desk,” he recalls. “The first thing I did was suck in all this dust, and I couldn’t talk for like a day. Afterwards, the rest of the band was like, ‘You have to scrap that. It’s so cheesy.’ Anyone under 30 hates it, but it has the dad-rock vibe, so I kept it in.”
That devil-may-care spirit is present on each and every song on “Night Gnomes“. With guitarist Luke Parish, drummer Danny Caddy, bassist Wayon Billondana and multi-instrumentalist Chris Young by his side, McEwan bunkered down in his home studio, creating a sonic pastiche that almost sounds like turning the dial on a temperamental old radio every few minutes.
“A lot of these songs are structured from the beginning, but then we add another part towards the end to really keep it interesting, even if it’s just for ourselves,” he says of the project, which was recorded at McEwan’s home studio in and around Perth. “Like on Fleet Foxes’ “Helplessness Blues,” every song has an ending that is completely different than the first part. That was the idea here.”
Hence, distorted synths giving way to and then enveloping the lighter-waving riffage on opener “Terminus, The Creator,” a magnificent string section suddenly appearing on the nostalgic acoustic folk ditty “Dread and Butter” and a dizzying array of sounds linking arms on the title track, which imagines the proverbial creatures frolicking around a campfire in some far-off, mystical forest. “It feels jolly, but it’s also kind of terrifying and disturbing. My girlfriend told me she couldn’t listen to that song,” McEwan says of “Night Gnomes,” adding, “I’ve always liked how some Beatles songs just come out of nowhere, like “Mean Mr. Mustard.” This is our own little jingle that doesn’t fit with anything else on the record.”
On “Bubblegum Infinity,”the Crumpets waded through nearly 50 different variations of the track before a Eureka moment during a rehearsal jam session revealed its final structure. The song itself wound up as a commentary on the often rudderless nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and “taking comfort in the fact that nobody had a clue what was going on,” according to McEwan. “The song used to open with a huge riff that was side chained to the kick drum so it sounded like it was thumping, but then that’s how every Crumpets song starts. I swapped the heavy guitars for acoustics, which made it feel way stronger, both dynamically and sonically. It felt like we’d
Uncovered the clutter which guides the song to build into that chorus and not give anything away beforehand.”
McEwan is particularly proud of the dreamy “Sherbert Straws,” which he says “actually has some dynamics in it rather than having nine elements in the same spectrum as my vocals that I’m trying to constantly mix in and out of the track.” The song descends from the proud lineage of Australasian rock acts such as Tame Impala and Unknown Mortal Orchestra to whom McEwan professes devotion. “When we formed back in 2015, we marvelled at how these awesome bands from around here could self-release music on vinyl and create their own stories. There wasn’t any waiting for labels to come knocking. It was all DIY and we loved that concept. We’re still holding right onto those coattails and we’re getting dragged as far as we can,” he jokes.
For all of its varied vibes, the album never skimps on massive rockers sure to delight Psychedelic Porn Crumpets fans across the world in 2022. “Acid Dent” thrashes with abandon, but actually offers a slight concession to advancing age. “When we were younger, we were carefree and living tall, “McEwan says. “You get home with a handful of stuff in your pocket from whatever festival and just munch all of it, until you wake up in the morning so scattered. If we kept carrying on this way, we’d wind up in mental institutions by 35. So this is a nice little story about slowing down a bit.”
“Bob Holiday” pays homage to classic riffs McEwan remembers from his youth, like Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way?” “We’ve been trying to emulate that sound forever,” says McEwan, who also played in a Rage Against The Machine cover band when he was younger. “I also thought ‘Bob Holiday’ was a really strong name — like, if you were called that, you’d be able to do anything.”
The album comes full circle with the one-two closing punch of the instrumental “In Dreams, Out” and “Slinky/ Holy Water,” touching again on the thumping drums, acoustic guitar flourishes, washes of sound and strange noises introduced on the opening track. With the pandemic having provided McEwan the chance to “get my life together and get healthy,” not to mention move 200 meters from his favourite pub, he and his bandmates will soon be onto their next musical adventure. But exploring the undiscovered territory of “Night Gnomes”has already made a major impact on its creators.
“I have no idea what I’m doing half the time,” McEwan says. “It’s like, plug in, record. Why does this sound like shit but this other thing works? I needed five albums to get to this point of revealing some golden nuggets of information about dynamics, production and exploring new sounds. Everyone finds fault in their own work, but that’s probably what makes us want to keep creating.”
Sarah Tudzin of illuminati hotties, she’s about to head out on tour with Fenne Lily, and ahead of that she’s shared this upbeat new single. “‘Sandwich Sharer’ was very much written at the precipice of unknowns – I was seeking a teammate at a time where I felt swayed by nostalgia for youth as opposed to the reality of the momentum of life,” Sarah Tudzin says. “And it feels so good to be close to someone who knows you so well it’s like you finish each others’… sandwiches.”
The official visual for illuminati hotties’ new single “sandwich sharer” out now on Snack ShackTracks/Hopeless Records!
Los Angeles-based singer and songwriter Yael Kaufman has released a new EP as Yes Kid, “Lighten Up“. It was produced by illuminati hotties’ Sarah Tudzin, and it should appeal to fans of hers and Rilo Kiley, as well as those who like catchy indie rock seasoned with a little emo and pop-punk. “I had just started therapy and found out that I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder,” said Kaufman “At the time, I was in a constant swing of anxiety highs and drained lows. It was exhausting. So I guess the name ‘Lighten Up’ is sort of a joke. I really hate when anyone says that to me, you know? Haha. But my days actually were lightening up a bit, so I guess the joke’s on me! I was finally having some good days alongside the rough ones. I guess I sort of feel like this EP takes you through all of that – high highs and low lows, all those things you’re forced to contend with when you really look inward, yada yada yada.”
LA-based singer and songwriter. New Single ‘Too Much Feeling (Not Enough Screaming)’ out now!
Official Trailer for the long awaited documentary “In The Court of the Crimson King” by Toby Amies. An official selection for the 2022 SXSW film festival, with a world premiere in Austin in March. What began as a traditional documentary about the legendary band King Crimson as it turned 50, mutated into an exploration of time, death, family, and the transcendent power of music to change lives; but with jokes. In the Court of the Crimson King is a dark, comic film for anyone who wonders whether it is worth sacrificing everything for just a single moment of transcendence. It explores the unique creative environment of King Crimson, one in which freedom and responsibility conspire to place extraordinary demands on the band’s members – only alleviated by the applause of an audience whose adoration threatens to make their lives even harder. It’s a rewarding and perilous space in which the extraordinary is possible, nothing is certain, and not everyone survives intact.
King Crimson have shared a new trailer for “In the Court of the Crimson King“, a documentary about the recent incarnation of the legendary prog-rock band while on tour in 2018 and 2019. The clip features an intimate conversation with bandleader Robert Fripp, live concert footage, and interviews with previous members—ranging from long time drummer Bill Bruford to co-founding keyboardist-saxist Ian McDonald—about King Crimson’s ever-changing line-up.
“In the Court of the Crimson King” is directed by Toby Amies and was commissioned by King Crimson. The film was originally announced back in 2019 under the title Cosmic F*Kc, and will finally make its premiere this March at SXSW.
“We have been approached by various broadcasters, but felt that the ‘standard talking head’ format was becoming increasingly cookie cutter and uncreative,” band manager David Singleton told Rolling Stone. “We therefore approached Toby Amies, an independent filmmaker, and asked him to make an original music documentary, to reimagine the format, and gave him complete creative freedom to do so. So the film is really sanctioned by the band only in as much as they set the ball rolling and gave Toby the access and interviews he requested. Thereafter they happily ceded all creative control.”
In 2019, King Crimson went on a massive tour to celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary and released new box set for their 1969 debut album, “In the Court of the Crimson King“.
In the short existence of the Nice (first as a quartet, later on as a trio) they released just 3 albums, of which the third, simply called “The Nice”, already consisted of a concert recording at the Fillmore East in 1968 on the second half. Furthermore they recorded a wealth of other material, like the non album “America” and the “Five Bridges Suite”-album, which was released after the band has disbanded, plus a numerous quantity of compilations.
The Nice were an English progressive rock band active in the late 1960s. They blended rock, jazz and classical music and were keyboardist Keith Emerson’s first commercially successful band. The band played its first gig in May 1967, and had its first major break at the 7th National Jazz and Blues Festival in Windsor on 13th August. Now a band in their own right, the Nice expanded their gear, recruiting roadies Bazz Ward and Lemmy, the latter of whom provided Emerson with a Hitler Youth ceremonial dagger to stick into the keys on his Hammond organ.
The group was formed in 1967 by Emerson, Lee Jackson, David O’List and Ian Hague to back soul singer P. P. Arnold. After replacing Hague with Brian Davison, the group set out on their own, quickly developing a strong live following.
The group’s early sound was geared more towards psychedelic rock with only occasional classical influences. Following O’List’s departure, Emerson’s control over the band’s direction became greater, resulting in more complex music. The absence of a guitar in the band and Emerson’s redefining of the role of keyboard instruments in rock set the Nice apart from many of its contemporaries. He used a combination of Marshall Amplification and Leslie speakers in order to project a full sound to compensate for the lack of a guitarist.
The band released 3 studio albums (i.e. “The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack”, “Ars Longa Vita Brevis” and the aforementioned “The Nice”) plus a version of “The Five Bridges Suite” . The Nice was one of the forerunners of playing together with an orchestra . Keith Emerson with a more prominent feature of the Hammond organ.
The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack
The name of Keith Emerson has forever been sullied by the activities of behemoth classical-rock monsters ELP, but as with so many artists of his generation, if you scratch the surface and do a little delving, you come across a very different beast indeed. No one who buys this album will be unaware of Mr Moog-mauler’s pedigree, but for those unschooled in prog history it may come as some surprise to hear that this, his sophomore outfit, started as a support band for sixties soul diva PP Arnold. While performing warm-up sets prior to her arrival onstage, the band discovered a talent for stage craft and theatre which, when married to Emerson’s Jimmy Smith licks and Davy O’List’s psychedelic guitar strangling, resulted in a sound that was very much flavour du jour in early 1967.
The title track and their freaked-out mangling of Dave Brubeck’s “Rondo” (12 minutes plus!) are present and correct as is “Flower King Of Flies”, the psychedelic stomper which demonstrates that The Nice could easily match contemporaries such as the Pink Floyd and Soft Machine for lysergic weirdness.
The group’s first album was recorded throughout the autumn of 1967, and in October of that year they recorded their first session for John Peel’s radio show Top Gear. The album included classical and jazz influences including extracts from Leoš Janáček’s Sinfonietta and a rearrangement of Dave Brubeck’s“Blue Rondo a la Turk” renamed as “Rondo”, changing the time signature from the original 9/8 to 4/4 in the process. The group clashed with producer Oldham in the studio over the length of the track, but eventually won the argument; the full eight-minute piece was included on the album. After the album was released, the group realised that Oldham had a conflict of interest as manager and record company owner, so they recruited sports journalist Tony Stratton-Smith to take over management duties.
For their second single, the Nice created an arrangement of Leonard Bernstein’s “America” which Emerson described as the first ever instrumental protest song. The track used the main theme of the Bernstein piece (from West Side Story) but also included fragments of Dvořák’s New World Symphony. The single concludes with Arnold’s three-year-old son speaking the lines “America is pregnant with promise and anticipation, but is murdered by the hand of the inevitable.” The new arrangement was released under the title “America (Second Amendment)” as a pointed reference to the US Bill of Rights provision for the right to bear arms. In July 1968, Immediate Records publicised the single with a controversial poster picturing the group members with small boys on their knees, with superimposed images of the faces of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. on the children’s heads. A spokesman for the band said: “Several record stores have refused to stock our current single …. the Nice feel if the posters are issued in United States they will do considerable harm”. During the tour that followed the release of their second album in July, the group spawned controversy when Emerson burned an American flag onstage during a performance of “America” at a charity event, Come Back Africa in London’s Royal Albert Hall. The group were subsequently banned from ever playing the venue again.
Completists will love the inclusion of three non-originals including the almost mandatory (for the time) Dylan number and a lumpen version of “You Keep Me Hanging On” which may even pre-date Vanilla Fudge’s useless rendition.
The version of “Sombrero Sam”, however, really allows Emerson’s funky keyboard chops to come to the fore. He truly was a precocious master of the Hammond and in a light jazz setting such nimble-fingered wizardry shines out. Overall you sense a band stretching each other to the limit, reaching out to invent a new format which would eventually become their downfall. At this point, however, the quartet was wandering in a perfumed garden of psychedelic modishness,
Ars Longa Vita Brevis
The band’s second LP “Ars Longa Vita Brevis” featured an arrangement of the Intermezzo from the Karelia Suite by Jean Sibelius, which the band’s friend Roy Harper had recommended they cover, and the album’s second side was a suite which included an arrangement of a movement from J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. The group used an orchestra for the first time on some parts of the suite. The band were on the bill at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival
A transition from the flower power and revolution themes of Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack. This marks the end of one cycle and the start of another, in that Davey O’List makes his last contribution to the band, which becomes a trio plus guests in the studio. This is a very sophisticated, inventive and influential first stab at what would eventually become an important part of the progressive rock genre … the first steps to concept/symphonic rock.
The Nice
The third album, titled “Nice” in the UK and “Everything As Nice As Mother Makes It” in the US, featured one side recorded live on their American tour and one side of studio material. As with previous albums, it included arrangements of classical material, in this case the Third Movement of Tchaikovsky’s SixthSymphony (Pathetique), and rearrangements of Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me” and Tim Hardin’s“Hang on to a Dream”.
This was one of the first ‘progressive rock’ LPs, Those that remember these things will know you had to turn the things over to play the other side.
BUT we never bothered with the first 4 tracks of side 1. The killer and standout track here is the live side 2. The stand out track being “Rondo 69″.
Now I’m not saying the first four tracks are bad it was just that side two was so dam good. We played that side to death. The Nice were like that the single ‘America’ was always an anthem for them. Now some people will read this review thinking that I am saying the first 4 tracks from the original LP are bad- they are not. They are studio tracks which to my ear always sound better played live and as extended live track sets.
The live side of the LP has always contained my favourite Nice track “Rondo ’69” and captures what the Nice were, a really fabulous Live band. That organ sound that Emerson produces drives the trio along. No lead guitars see. ‘She belongs to me,’ a Bob Dylan song, has Lee Jackson barking out the vocals, his bass guitar being the powerhouse backing with able support by Brian ‘Blinky’ Davison on the drums.
Five Bridges
In 1969, the band found time to contribute to other projects. Emerson performed as a session player for Rod Stewart and the Faces, while the whole group provided instrumental backing for the track “Hell’sAngels” on Harper’s 1970 album “Flat Baroque and Berserk”. Mid-year, tour promoter Michael Emmerson asked the Nice to write some music for the Newcastle upon Tyne Arts Festival. The result was the “Five Bridges” suite. The group premièred the piece on 10th October 1969 at Newcastle City Hall.
A complete version with an orchestra was performed at the Fairfield Hall, Croydon on 17th October, which was recorded for the album of the same name. The title refers to the city’s five bridges spanning the River Tyne, and Jackson’s lyrics refer to his Newcastle childhood and the St James’ Park football ground.
Emerson played the piano on several other tracks, solely and/or in combination with the organ. The band made clear where they stood an amalgam of pop, jazz, blues, rock and classical music. With only three people aboard they could produce a lot of noise. Emerson tried everything to make the organ sound more abrassive, agressive and louder. He played it like an lead guitarist with use of feedback, overdrive and distortion, in an unusual way, by mistreating the hapless instrument and even with the help of army of knives, thus creating before unheard sounds and effects. Lee Jackson added an earthly sounding bass guitar and his gruff vocals, whilst Brian Davidson used everything he could fit to bash on. All in all they were an unique group an could not be easily compared with other contempories. The Nice were one of the best progressive rock groups that ever existed. Some of it was prolonged in ELP but that is another story.
John Peel, was an early champion of the Nice, called ELP “a waste of talent and electricity”
Elegy
In 1971, the posthumous Nice album “Elegy” was released. It included different versions of previously released tracks, two being studio versions and two live from the 1969 US tour. Emerson had no involvement with compiling the album, which was done by Jackson, Davison and Charisma Records
As the name suggests “Elegy” ,a song after mourning, was released after the band had broken up. Immediate their label had been slaughtered causing all sorts of reissue hell for the collectors to fathom.
This was the last official Nice album. released after they split up, it shows a band at the peak of their live performance. the original album consisted of four lengthy tracks which were nice interpretations of other people’s music. “Hang On to a Dream” features some great piano work from Keith and an extended jazz work out in the middle where, at times, he plucks at and hits the strings – a style used to great effect on “Take A Pebble” from the 1st ELP album. some great bass playing throughout this track.
this is followed by a radical interpretation of Dylan’s “My Back Pages” with some excellent hammond work. next up is a romp through “Pathetique” with Lee Jackson showing just how good he was at his best. give it a try yourself and you’ll sees what I mean
Finally, there’s “America”. the best recorded version. The last 5 mins are amazing. don’t forget, this is all pre synth days and the sounds generated from Keith’s trusty hammond are stunning and well complimented by the bass and drum work from Lee and Brian (who plays well and unobtrusively throughout.
Bonus tracks not really needed. the live version of country pie is much better than this one and the “Pathetique” is very similar to the album version although the BBC sound is better.
As a Keith Emerson, ELP and Nice fan (the group not an adjective) I still believe that the Nice never realised their full potential as a group. This CD confirms it.
The original 4 tracks have been enhanced with further tracks. BUT beware there are now two different reissue versions of this CD. At the time of writing in Feb 2012 the one with 2 is the cheaper.
To the actual tracks with bonus later.
Track one is a live version of the Tim Hardin penned `Hang on to a Dream’. Here as with all tracks LeeJackson’s vocals were not top division.
Track 2 is My Back Pages a Bob Dylan song with which the Byrds found success with. The Nice really seemed to go for Bob Dylan at that time but then everyone seemed to be releasing Dylan Tracks at that time from Manfred Mann’s Mighty Quinn to Hendrix’ All Along the Watchtower.
The final and the Stand out track of the original LP and of course the Nice’s only single success is “America”. This is a really stomping version and is worth the price of the CD alone. (But then most Nice fans would say this so I’m not alone.)
On the 2009 reissue. The first enhanced edition includes 2 bonus tracks which I believe have been previously released on a 1968 LP on Charisma called Charisma Perspective. They are much earlier tracks than the one included on the original “Elegy” but really make this a worthwhile investment. (see what I mean about recycling and completists’ hell?) many tracks by the Nice appear and reappear on countless editions in different but all too often the same forms on many not only best of type but as extra tracks on the original LPs.
These two additional tracks are another Bob Dylan written Country Pie and another Pathetique! Both from the BBC live.
This includes two tracks from the final recording session by The Nice for a BBC Radio One Sounds of the ’70s session. The Nice would go down in history as one of the most exciting live acts of their age and as the creators of a series of excellent albums that would fuse the worlds of Rock and classical music, taking in elements of Jazz, Psychedelia and Rhythm & Blues on the way, effectively spawning the genre of Progressive Rock in their wake.
Studio albums
The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack (Immediate, 1968)
Ars Longa Vita Brevis (Immediate, 1968)
Nice (aka Everything As Nice As Mother Makes It) (Immediate, 1969)
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