A Brief critical commentary on the albums of The Chameleons (UK) and all of their various spin off groups (A Rock Family Tree almost)
By Andy N

A little background:

I was asked to provide this recently by a few friends with then knowing how much a fan I am of Manchester (UK) band “The Chameleons” – and I decided to write a few notes on what to recommend and unfortunately all of this came out, which is very different to a previous article in “Angry Left Wing Mofo” where I talked about their history, instead this time being a little bit honest about what I do and do not like.

Any questions – of course contact me over at “Setting Sun” – [email protected]

And apologies to anyone for offence here as despite the fact I am a huge Chameleons fan, this article is just a matter of personal taste.

- Andy N

July 2005

Setting Sun – http://www.geocities.com/aen1mpo

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Formed in 1981, Manchester (UK)'s “The Chameleons” were very much a band of their time, formed in a violent, expanding society and time – coming together in the aftermath of punk fusing together the energy of punk and the poetics and the style of Bowie/Bolan; they made something completely different with their guitars/keyboards becoming as much of the poetry as the actual singing.

Their first album Script of the Bridge (1983) is regarded by most of the fans as their best album. Even 22 years later, the quality of most of the songs still shine with the final track “View from a Hill” being a song for example. It begins with almost a childhood recollection of Tandle Hill, a hill on the north side of Manchester and the over four minute instrumental that follows the vocals literally floats in and out of your head and takes you somewhere else literally with the twin guitars merging into one frequently, with such skill it's almost impossible to tell who was taking the lead with the guitar and who was taking the rhythm.

Other songs on Script are more brutal or even violent. “Don't Fall” or “A Person isn't safe anymore these days” are songs of the times with the rough and tumble which is reflected in the senseless violence of “A person” or football hooliganism of “Don't Fall”

A couple of singles were actually lifted off that album, so I believe, though I can't really talk about them.

Two years later, their second album followed, What does anything mean basically?, and despite the fact about half of the album was full of old material that didn't originally make Script of the Bridge and there was rumours flying around that this album was only released to get themselves out of a contract as a band they were stuck in at the time, it is a lovely album.

Minus a lot of the anger and violence that seemed to pepper a lot of Script, What does anything mean basically? is a more gentle album, washed in gentle ambience a lot of the time which allowed Mark Burgess to explore the theme of memories for example “Perfumed Garden”, which is a beautiful song about School or “P.S. Goodbye”, which covers the memories about child-hood and the way it changes as we grow older.

The cleverest trick that the band seemed to frequently produce on this album, which was developed from several tracks on Script, was the ability where they would change gears half-way through the song in cases like on “One Flesh” or “Intrigue in Tangiers” where after a few quite poppy minutes, they would completely change gears and slow the full song down, which in the case of both the above listed songs carries a almost magical feel.

Excellent.

Also originally released at the same time, illegally as a bootleg LP, then blocked in court by the band (and blocked again in court in 1987 just before their split) before eventually being given a official release in the mid 1990's was The Fan and the Bellows.

Although deemed as classic early recordings, the tracks are in fact early demos from 1981 – 1982 (filled out with their first single “In Shreds” and “Nostalgia” which came out in 1981 – pre Script of the Bridge), which for the most the band themselves deemed as second rate demos rather than classic early recordings.

Listening to some of these early tracks now is difficult as time has not aged them well and tracks like “Endlessly falling” and “Everyday I', Cruitificed” are tracks that sound tame in contrast to the multi layers of “Second Skin” off Script of the Bridge or “One Flesh” from What does anything mean basically? with the ability to change complete tempo through a song with their mood or feel.

In-between fighting through these court battles, The Chameleons surfaced with their third album Strange Times, which was released on Geffen Records and in the process bought the band their only real hit single “Swamp Thing”, which ironically enough is probably one of my least favourite tracks.

As an album, Strange Times after the earthy ambience of What does anything mean basically? is a difficult album to listen as a lot of the tracks by this stage are clearly aimed at almost being stadium rockers like “Caution” or “Soul In Isolation”, which despite the fact are powerful, powerful creative songs and are a touch forward from previous outings.

However, there are a number of softer moments on the album like “Tears” or “Sincerity” which are almost like out-takes from the previous two albums in the way emotions come to the fore-front and prepare you for the out-slaughter of the more epic tracks like “Swamp Thing”.

I'm not going to talk about The Chameleons original split in 1987, having previously discussed all this in a previous article on Angry Left Wing Mofo, and wanted to discuss just the music in this article (after some friends asked what is the best stuff to buy by the band) but it is worth noting by the time of the split, they had splintered into two different camps (Mark – Vocals/ Bass and John – Drums, and Reg and Dave – Guitars), aside from the fact after the split, when Mark Burgess (Vocals / Bass) naively tried to release the first two posthumous releases “Tony Fletcher walks on water EP” or the Tripping Dogs Manchester Rehearsal tapes 1985 were rapidly blocked by Dave Fielding (Guitars) and then sued.

“Tony Fletcher walks on water” EP firstly was recorded just after their tour in 1987 and just before the split that followed that summer. It was recorded over 6 weeks, the tracks here are mostly more mid-paced than the sometimes over-expanded and over-cooked paranoia of Strange Times and do little to reflect the bitterness and tension that was blowing the dynamics of the band apart with songs like “Is it any wonder?” and “The Healer” sounding almost wistful.

I haven't heard the Tripping Dogs album myself, but I believe it is to a good relaxing portrait of the band in development in 1985 with good versions of most of the stuff at the time including “One Flesh” and “A Person isn't safe anymore these days”.

However, as a first official posthumous release, it perhaps was fitting that their three John Peel Sessions was given an official release at the start of the 1990's and for at least the first and third sessions are essential listening.

The first session from 1981 is perhaps their most punk – inspired with “Here Today”, a poetic re-telling of the death of John Lennon being the strongest with the guitars and the drums really crackling together and allowing Mark to float almost in and out of the vocals with his haunting delivery. It was hard to realise this was a band that had only just recorded the mostly second rate demos off The Fan and the Bellows probably only a few months before.

Even better altogether, although on a different level, was their third and final session which featured probably their four best songs from What does anything mean basically? with “One Flesh” and “P.S. Goodbye” for example both carrying a massive amount of pathos that perhaps didn't translate as well to What does anything mean basically?

By this point however, both camps had already been busy launching other bands / projects.

First up was Mark and John's Sun and the Moon, which was completed with the addition of two new guitarists (Andy W and Andy C) and tried to carry on basically from there.

Sun and the Moon truth be told is a difficult band to make up your mind about. They were just about before my time as I got into the Chameleons just when Sun and the Moon had split but I was warned immediately by fellow Chameleons fans at the time, tread carefully here as they aren't as good and some of the stuff sounds like Simple Minds here, whom I hated and still hate.

Listening to the album now, a lot of this does become apparent, possibly because of the fact that the Sun and Moon tends to miss the simple human nature of the best Chameleons moments. Without doubt, there are some lovely touching songs on the Sun and the moon's debut and only self titled album on “Dolphin” and “A Picture of England”, Mark's vocals clearly on these songs seem to miss the though and the gentleness that only The Chameleons could provide.

The problems however tend to show to show on some of the more up-tempo songs like “House on Fire” or “Limbo Land”, the tracks veer way too close to Simple Minds or simply bad U2, which probably explained why after one album and one single (the single which by the way carries a cracking B Side “I love you, you bastard” which was rumoured to be about Dave Fielding) they split from their record label and released a final EP called “Alive, not dead” on a local independent label before splitting finally.

Although “Alive, not dead” EP caused some trouble within the band, I found it much more consistent at least with the A Side, with “Adam's Song” and “C'est La Vie”, although being much more acoustic based numbers, much more fully realised and tracks that had certainly stood up better than most of their self titled album and could have hinted nicely towards a much better second album, which sadly never happened.

Reg and Dave by this point had re-surfaced too under the name of The Reegs in April 1989 and released a single “See my Friends” which was a cover of the Kink's classic given a real boost and drive that only the 2 guitarists of the Chameleons could have given.

This EP which was backed by a banjo led instrumental “Is their a mother in law in the club?” and another vocal led track “This Savage Garden” proved a disquieting experience for the two of them with neither of them being particularly comfortable on the vocals so two became three with the recruitment of a friend, Gary Lavery on vocals and keyboards (Gary himself being the lead singer of a band whose name I forget who actually supported The Chameleons on a number of occasions) and his Barney Sumner (New Order) style vocals dominate the A side of their second single “Chorus of the Lost” and the single sounds the better for it, with both of the guitars really going for it all over the track.

The B Sides are even better with “Pond Life” despite being too short is a lovely, dreamy piece and “Start to see” surprisingly almost hitting Stevie Vai moments on some of the higher notes.

Both of these EPs cropped up on a compilation album Return of the Sea Monkeys in 1991 and were backed by three new numbers including a great instrumental cover version of the Velvet Underground's “All Tomorrow's Parties”, which is a understandable re-issue considering the limited nature of the two singles and well worth picking up a copy if you can find it.

By this point, John the drummer was drumming in Weaveworld which consisted of him and the rest of the Sun and the Moon (minus Mark) plus one or two ex-members of James. They released to be honest a pretty awful single “Davey Jones”, which sounded like a second rate Wedding Present and then split despite a few well-received shows in Manchester area.

Mark by this point had in the midst of recording some acoustic numbers in preparation for another album which then hit a major delay with the collapse of the record label and left Mark in the wilderness for a good few years.

However, in 1992, Imaginary Records following on from the release of The Reegs compilation album in 1991 started releasing a number of posthumous Chameleons releases starting with the Radio Sessions album Here Today, Gone Tomorrow.

Now I have read at least one interview with Mark Burgess saying this was one album he would never want to see re-issued but on a personal level, I love the first half of the CD (The Piccadilly Radio Session) which is partly down to the fact that over ½ of the tracks on the session never actually got released and are really good tracks. These include for example “String Quartet (I) and (II) which were basically the band fooling around with friend's equipment to wonderful effect and actually sounding like a string quartet.

Even better were the tracks “Bobby Moore's Wine” (which eventually become “Mad Jack” which can be spotted from the bridge at the end of the track) and “Sally”, which is a haunting track wrote for Mark's future 1st wife. Mark revealed in a interview in 1994 I think that the track was written on the spot with Mark singing what-ever came into his head literally to haunting effect.

Also released at the same time was Live in Canada, March 1987 which was a concert recorded on their sold out tour in America which despite a slightly grainy sound possibly is an excellent concert and showed how good the band were live back then.

The concert is worth picking up aside from some of the excellent versions of “Caution” or “Second Skin” for some of Mark's in-between comments. Some of these particularly insightful or indeed downright funny for example “This is a love song for Mrs. Thatcher” before leading into “Singing Rule Britannia (while the walls close in) on top of a bone crunching version of “Caution” when Mark literally sounds like he is screaming in pain.

Next in 1993 proved to be a very busy year for releases.

First up came a new solo album by Mark called Zima Junction comprising of demos recorded from 1990 to 1992 territory for an album that was never to be recorded. Zima Junction is a very different album for Mark – mostly just him and his acoustic, the songs here are mostly yearning and free on for example “Happy New Life”, we can hear Mark crying to himself "Learn to live again", which clearly reflects how much of a change he was going through at that stage in his life.

It is also worth mentioning the two very unusual cover versions that also cropped up on the album as a finale, firstly a cover version of Philip Glass's “Facades” which is an unusual cover version if you think about it to yourself considering the spiraling rock he is more famous for, but strangely enough it works quite nicely, although it does kind of clash against the more acoustic numbers found elsewhere on the album and also a touching version of the Bond theme tune “You only live twice”.

Also re-issued at the same time was The Chameleons final album Strange Times – complete with an additional second CD which carried six additional tracks including a electric version of “Tears” which took away the haunted beauty of the album version and almost made it a pop song, which considering the sad tones of the lyrics was a very difficult to do, but still worked really well.

The rest of the 5 tracks are perhaps a mixed bag with “Paradiso” the first track faring best with it's hushed synth opening rather than the other two self penned songs “Inside Out” and “Ever after” which are inoffensive fluff at best and the last two tracks, cover versions of Bowie's “John, I'm only dreaming” and the Beatles's “Tomorrow never knows” which were frankly quite bad (which is a shame considering I have heard at least two or three great cover versions of done it live) caused certainly by bad production and soulless.

The following year and for the rest of the year, there then followed a number of official bootlegs. The Great American Trail featured Mark Burgess on tour in the States with just his acoustic for company which sadly wasn't particularly good quality despite the feature of many Chameleons songs done acoustically with great passion.

At the start of the next year, Spring Blooms Tra-La which consisted of Mark backed by John Lever and a series of session musicians on high-lights from the Chameleons back catalogue and a few numbers from Zima Junction. Despite the fact that it was very well recorded, mixed and played it sadly seemed to lack something on the Chameleons numbers, which is something that has always haunted Mark's solo career sadly.

Following on from that was a major treat as The Reegs released their second album Rock the Magic Clock and it was without doubt was nothing short of a minor masterpiece with the guitars and synths often merging together to haunting effect for example on the album's best track “the Nasty Side” which a few words often can say a lot or even on songs like “The Dream Police” where the guitars bend and frequently twist but yet keep the sound that made The Chameleons so damn good in the first place.

Before the end of the year, there followed two more posthumous albums Live in Berlin 1981 and Pictures of Dali, neither of them particularly any good, aside from the Berlin CD contains very early versions of “Perfumed Garden" and "One Flesh” and showed how they would develop. Pictures of Dali was really just a re-issue of The Fan and the Bellows with a few more unreleased tracks (neither of which particularly good) and also a re-issue of Tripping Dogs under the name of Manchester Free Trade Hall Rehearsal 1985, which was processed in mono and despite the fact there were excellent versions of “Here Today”, “One Flesh” and a great unreleased bonus track “Tomorrow never knows” was almost ruined by this bad mixing error.

After that, Mark Burgess re-surfaced in 1995 with another solo album with Yves Altana (formerly of Wonky Alice) under a name of Paradying, which showed a major change in direction for Mark with a number of the songs becoming much more overly rocky almost like a heavier version of T-Rex and missing the subtly in places than the Chameleons and his Zima Junction songs and perhaps suffered for it in places, but was rescued in part by an acoustic number called “Adrian B” and the Chameleons-like “Money won't save your soul” (which I have read somewhere Mark saying was his favourite track on the album) and two singles, neither of impressed me that much aside from the fact they had some funny cover versions on them, which I have completely forgot who they were off the top of my head.

Otherwise, the next few years were quiet in relation for releases from The Chameleons as Mark disappeared for a bit, and aside from the odd gig by Wilson (a very Placebo-sounding Manchester band featuring John Lever on Drums) and The Snow Queen (which was Dave or Reg's girlfriend singing and backed by The Reegs among others creating a almost Drugstore sort of sound) nothing seemed to happen.

And then out of the blue, in 1997 two singles by The Reegs surfaced on their own label. Out of the two, the first “As you leave” is probably the best with the band perhaps for the first time actually embracing a traditional Chameleons sort of pop song in contrast to a lot of the more airy dynamics of their earlier solo stuff and to top it, it is backed by a tense number called “Out of Body Experience” which is well worth checking out also.

Behind the scenes in 1998, Mark spent most of the year forming a new band which was originally called Occasionally David, but later became Invincible featuring Yves again. The duo eventually released a album called Venus in 1999, which was a partly return to form after the mostly disappointing Paradying, with the now three piece band featuring Mark on Vocals/Bass, a drummer whose name I forget and Yves on everything else doing a couple of really good shows, and produced an album in Venus which are on a number of tracks - “Think (it's gonna happen”, “Venus on the rise” and “Only you can save me” - clearly showed Mark still had the ability to make you shiver with some of his lyric writing.

However at the start of 2000, (and ironically just when John Lever had released a solo album which I still haven't heard) just when the band were about to start releasing over the internet tracks from their forthcoming second album, they split and word went out that The Chameleons had re-formed.

I saw them live myself in April 2000 and bought a copy of an album they sold on the night called Strip, which was basically an acoustic album featuring versions of 8 classic Chameleons tracks and also two new tracks.

The album itself it could be argued was little more than a cash in by the band, but I think listening to the tracks – the tracks on Strip are by a band that after a 15 year lay off were starting to learn them again and start to learn how to play them with each other again and the effect is wonderful. Songs like “Here Today” or “Caution” the tracks are reduced to a whisper instead of a scream and it works perfectly, despite the fact of a dodgy then new song “Indian” (which was re-developed into Indiana later on) and an all too short instrumental song “Road to San Remo” which should be longer.

After that, it was only natural that the band should then release a new studio album and this followed in 2001 and was called Why call it anything?

Why call it anything? in a lot of ways reminded me of Strange Times, in the way that some of the songs could really, really move you and then on the next song it can leave you thinking – for god's sake shut up.

Sadly this happened on a number of the tracks for instance the opening track “Shades”, which the lyrics sound like Mark composed them in his sleep despite the fact of a menacing guitar hook by both Reg and Dave.

Other tracks like “Miracles and Wonders” which featured Kwesi fared better with a five minute outro which lead to sounds to the sea or “Anyone Alive”, which reminded me of “Pleasure and Pain” for some reason.

The band fizzled out again in 2002 I seem to recall but not before releasing quite a charming second acoustic album called The Never ending Now which included acoustic cover versions of some of the newer songs including “Miracles and Wonders” as well a excellent version of “View from a Hill” on-top of a David Bowie cover which name escapes me that doesn't really get going sadly until after Mark almost finishes singing and the guitarists take over for a excellent two or three minute guitar solo.

Also interesting, though hardly essential was a Live in Manchester CD (2001( which surfaced about the same time and is nice to listen for a couple of excellent versions of “Soul in Isolation” and “Caution” as well as “Seriocity” which was played with a electric guitar instead of a piano and actually sounded better for it.

After that, it seemed like the bubble had burst again and the four members vanished back into their own private little world.

I managed to buy off Dave Fielding a CD last year I think showcasing a couple of dance tracks which were okay to be truthful, but left me surprised more than anything of the sudden change in direction.

I have heard rumours that Mark is currently composing another solo album and has got a double CD out on the way I believe comprising off his best tracks from his non Chameleon career, although he has no plans to work with The Chameleons ever again.

Perhaps again in about 10 years or so, eh Mark?

To conclude with this ever expanding article, if you want to buy the best of The Chameleons, I would certainly recommend Script of the Bridge and it's follow-up What does anything mean basically?

Out of the later stuff, I certainly advise to tread carefully as although tracks like “Caution” and “Soul in Isolation” are amazing, powerful tracks on Strange Times, there are tracks like “Time”, which is frankly pretty poor sadly.

A lot of the out-takes CD/demo/radio session CDs are now out of print – certainly all the Imaginary Records CDs, which is a major shame considering both of The Reegs CDs are worth checking out and Mark's Zima Junction CD if you could perhaps find them on E-Bay or something as most of them at worst have at least a few tracks worth checking out.

The side projects often you are best making up your own mind over to be truthful, and if you look round on the internet you can find various tracks by the band knocking around, on the official Invincible website for example there is at least one or two mp3's to download which may help you make up your own mind.

More information can be found on the official “The Chameleons” website, which is on http://www.thechameleons.com

All covers taken from the official Chameleons site.