"Who do you think you are? I don't know. I really don't know"
- IF I COULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN, I'D DO IT ALL OVER YOU
- IN THE LAND OF GREY AND PINK
- FOR GIRLS WHO GROW PLUMP IN THE NIGHT
In 1970 had Caravan experienced how it feels to be without
a record label. The label that they were bound to, MGM/Verve, reorganised their
company and left the UK. But while playing at the Speakeasy Club in London,
a guy called Ian Ralfini brought them to Terry King, who became their manager.
He signed a contract with Decca/Deram and here we are. The first session for
Decca was recorded in September '69. This session featured three songs, and
all of those are on this album in two slightly different variations. There's
the ones that were released on the original LP, and there's three demos from
this mentioned session, all three previously unrelased on CD. One month later
performed Caravan at the Actuel Festival at Mont de l'Enclus, Amougies, Belgium,
and this concert remains the largest performance they ever did. In a huge circus
tent, they shared the bill with The Nice, Captain Beefheart, East of Eden, Soft
Machine, Pink Floyd, Yes, Colosseum and others. Frank Zappa and the Mothers
of Invention was also thought to embellish the concert, but his group wasn't
able to perform, so Zappa walked around and jammed with the other bands. He
played on Caravan's "If I could do it all over again...", but afterwards he
was a bit complimentary, if we should believe Pye Hasting's liner notes. Because
of all live performances, the group couldn't return to the Tangerine Studios
before February '70, were the band rerecorded the old demos. Another song also
saw the dawn for the first time during those sessions, "A Day in the Life of
Maurice Haylett", which they played live some couples of times, but it falled
into oblivion, but on this re-remastering of the original LP, we can enjoy it
on CD for the first time. It's a quite scary tune, opening with some hollow
vocals and regular bangs. It moves over into a typical Caravan-jam, avantgardisthic
with lots of keyboards, but a dark bass makes this song a quite diverse Caravan
listen. The song is dedicated to their sound engineer Maurice Haylett. Judged
by this song, he was quite a grave dude.
The album kicks off with the funny title track, a polyphonous jam, with Richard
Sinclair (probably) singing "Do you think you are" while Pye sings some other
things with his characteristhic bright vocals. In the middle of the song we
can also hear a jam part, and it's actually this jam that makes the song too
similar to the others - the jam kinda eliminates the hooks that were there in
the first place. "And I Wish I Were Stoned/Don't Worry" features the first of
the three "pasted" songs on here - typical for Caravan. They had some demos,
and those demos were put together into a whole song and re-recorded. This makes
a song longer, though I'm afraid not necessarily better. The first part, though,
is a fine ballad, especially the chorus is good. They (especially Pye) sings
'why, why, why?' in a way that would have been darn pompous if Kansas had made
it, but Caravan manages to give the chorus a funny and parodical, while they
don't use any mellotrons, and rarely made a pompous arrangement of a song (if
we forget the later days of symph-pop). Worth to mention is the jam that follows
the chorus, a very fanciful, moody one. The second part isn't much different
from the first, except of another keyboard theme, and it ends up with a drum
solo fading in in the left speaker and slightly moving over into the right speaker
and then fading out. Kinda like the precedessor of Pink Floyd's "On the run"
from Dark side of the moon. "As I Feel I Die" opens with Pye singing nearly
a cappella, but transforming into a quite non-powerful rocker. The song could
have been cheesy if it didn't sound as good as it does, and it is quite moody.
Of course the song also features a jam, this time played on some Deep Purple
keyboards. "With an Ear to the Ground You Can Make It/Martinian/Only Cox/Reprise"
is a 10-minute pure Caravan tune, a keyboard-driven average-speed tune, with
a lot of jams, some actually with a clear sense. There's of course a keyboard
solo with Dave Sinclair's favorite organ, a whimpering, nasal one. Well I suppose
it's necessary with such a solo, after all it's a 10-minute Cravan song! These
guys seems to be nasal-organ-solo-addicts. "Hello, Hello" has got a fun bass
line which I associate with a christmas song (though probably without reason).
Ah, well, the song besides that cool bass line is also quite good, though it
doesn't really move me that much. "Asforteri" is only one and a half minute
long, and features some humming accompanied by a keyboard theme. "Can't Be Long
Now/Francoise/For Richard/Warlock", usually shorted down to "For Richard", is
probably the most ambitious tune here, a 14-minute long thing thought to be
a Caravan classic. The dark and depressed opening and the first part's name
makes me think that this is about dying, maybe a continue to "As I Feel I Die"?
The tone does brighten up a bit through the fourteen minutes, but after the
dark opening comes a hard-rock riff that soon accompanies another nasal-organ-solo
or two. Pye's brother Jimmy Hastings has some flute and sax to play, too. The
most striking thing with the song is an obvious rip-off by the Beatles' "Happiness
is a Warm Gun", the riff from the late part of it, you know. This 'Caravan classic'
is mostly 14 minutes of different jams, and is quite boring sometimes - but
some strong hooks do exist, especially the Beatles-part. "Limits" is another
one-and-a-half-minute song, a jazzy jam actually. Quite funny. Then comes the
bonus tracks, of which I've introduced you to one, and the other three are just
"As I Feel I Die", "Hello, Hello" and "And I Wish I Were Stoned" as demos. Sure
they are quite funny and pleasant, sometimes even more pleasant than the final
results, but I don't care much about the bonus tracks besides "A Day In The
Life Of Maurice Haylett", which I like a lot. I like the whole album a lot,
despite the lack of hooks, but it's actually quite relaxing to listen at this
one.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?
No. I cannot. This band called Caravan has got one of the
most positive attitudes towards life in general - it's totally IMPOSSIBLE for
them to release songs like "Epitaph" or "Karn Evil 9". No, these guys (mainly
guiarist Pye Hastings) wrote stuff like the one's that on here; good-mood, inoffensive
songs, often with a bit humour. Of course, they wrote many long songs, with
this album's last tune as the longest, and often the longer songs were close
to be avantgarde. In that case, they weren't much different from other Canterbury
groups like Soft Machine. Gong's of course also a Canterbury group, but I won't
speak for them here, simply 'cause I cannot (I haven't heard them yet). Their
sound is this time a bit more concrete than on the previous If I could do it
all over again, I'd do it all over you, which was based mainly on the avantgarde.
It's weird that some of their most avantgardish songs are supposed to be Caravan
classics, like "For Richard" from that album, while I think that their more
structured songs are their best... But OK, I know that the musical taste varies
from one individual to another, and I hope you also know that (otherwise, to
be frank, you're quite "behind"...). Those long songs are mostly always some
lesser tunes put togeter (some exceptions exists, though). "For Richard", for
instance, is originally four small pieces. Wanna know their name? OK, here you
are: "Can't be long now/Francoise/For Richard/Warlock". An even better example
is "Nine feet underground" from this album, which originally is eight lesser
songs put together into a side-long tune. The album opener is called "Golf girl",
and is one of their romantic songs. Opening with a gorgeous horn, it sets the
mood of the whole album. With some acoustic chords, Pye accompanies his (or
bassist Richard Sinclair's) vocals, the whole thing has a romantic and fresh
feel, no stagnation (yet, at least) here. After the first verse organist Dave
Sinclair has some keyboard solos, still ackompanied by Pye's guitars and Richard
Coughlan's light drums. Then Dave has some sporadic moments of solo-playing,
and Pye's brother Jimmy has some tunes to play on his flute. Well, I actually
love this song, it's so naive and good-moody that it always ignites my life
when I put it on. "Winter wine" is a moody and calm ballad, again bassist Richard
Sinclair is the author. This time, though, isn't it as breathtaking as the previous
one was, and this song is more avantgarde-jazz than before. But still, the vocal
melody is moody and intelligent. The instrumentation is dominated by Dave S's
keyboards, while Pye's guitars is somewhere behind the organs. Richard Coughlan's
jazzy drums adds of course a bit 'o jazz to the atmosphere, and after all, the
song is far, far from being bad - just a little worse than "Golf girl", which
actually doesn't mean much. "Love to love you (and tonight pigs will fly)" is
another romantic song, but poppier, with Coughlan bashing at some cow-bells
(or whatever) and a poppy keyboard/guitar melody, and Jesus, these guys' good
mood is contagious! You can love just because of this fact - to the bin with
the music (if you want, that is - myself I adore this song). The whole thing
this time is some kind of romantic, glammy folk-pop, good as a car song, at
least you're guaranteed some headbanging if you're in the(ir) mood. "In the
land of Grey and Pink"'s intro is played by Pye and his acoustic guitar and
Coughlan's bass drum, which you may associate with light pop - and in fact,
that's what this song is about. A charming vocal melody, with their characteristhic
accompany - a chord by acoustic guitars on each 2nd and 4th beat in a bar, and
some very nice and ear-pleasant piano tunes can aslo be found somewhere in the
hoopla. Yes, you're right - that's another enjoying tune. Then comes the 1971
thing; the side long "Nine feet underground". As you know, all the prog bands
should make a side-long song in 1971. Other examples are "Close to the edge",
Thick as a brick, "Lizard", "Tarkus" and "Supper's ready". Of course does "Nine
feet underground" contain many small parts, as usual when we're dealing with
Caravan. In fact all the other side-long tunes except Thick as a brick has some
"parts", suppose that was fashionable at the time. The Brick is in fact also
built up around some lesser parts, but those aren't mentioned; the whole thing
is called "Thick as a brick". "Nine feet underground", though, contains eight
parts, as I think I've mentioned. Those parts are called "Nigel blows a tune/Love's
a friend/Make it '76/Dance of the seven paper hankies/Hold Grandad by the nose/Honest
I did!/Disassociation/100% proof". Unfortunately I haven't separated them into
different parts, thus I don't know when a new part begins, nor where the parts
ends. Except of "Disassociation" and "100% proof", because that both are placed
as bonus tracks in a new mix.
The whole thing is a huge bit towards avantgarde, and most of the parts are
instrumental, perhaps heading to the Soft Machine. Anyway, the song begins as
a keyboard solo. Another interesting fact is that the song was originally called
"Dave's thing", because the parts are all entirely written by Dave Sinclair,
thus the keyboards has the most things to do. But when the parts were going
to get together, the rest of the band helped with some chords and riffs making
the thing continuous. Still is most of the song a long solo by Dave sinclair,
though sometimes some vocals are put into the melody. Well, the song is very
avantgardish, and quite monotonuos, until a new part passes in. Each separate
part is actually built around but one idea, so the whole thing is 22.40 minutes
of eight ideas. And, while the keyboards sounds quite the same through the whole
song, it becomes too much avantgarde. But the song gets a kick when the vocals
enters the scene for the first time (might it be "Make it '76"? Or is it "Dance
of the seven paper hankies"?), and the song moves over into a keyboard-driven
half-ballad. Afterwards, the song becomes a keyboard-dominated tune, but with
a steady bass line. But then again, the song becomes a keyboard solo, except
for "Honest I did!" (or maybe "Hold grandad by the nose"), where the song becomes
a scary, mood-setting tune (until the solo comes again). But the solo at least
gains some speed, until the song moves over into "Disassociation" and the solo
begins again. But then we just have to wait for about 2 minutes, until the vocals
again enters the scene. And then, something happens to the song; it suddenly
becomes another romantic ballad, with a quite genious vocal melody, beautiful
and warm, as if the singer was an old man remembering his life, and tries to
tell a younger one about what's good and what's not so good in life. At the
very end of "Disassociation", a new melody slowly disturbs the atmosphere, moving
over into "100% proof", a heavier tune, with a melody that I in fact nearly
can hear Deep Purple make. The melody is first played by Pye alone, but after
a short solo (no, not any more keyboard solos, just a guitar, and a piano and
bass solo), some more instruments are added, ending up in a very powerful song.
Well, after all, I don't dislike the song, it's just a bit too relying on the
keyboards. Something like Genesis became, ya know? Not that this song, or Caravan
as a group, never sounded like Genesis - I just had to compare with something.
The comes the bonus tracks, of which "I don't know it's name (alias the word)"
is the first. It's flummy, though still Caravan, but doesn't touch me more than
"Nine feet underground". But after that, "Aristocracy" comes, which is a more
rocking and glammy pop tune, kinda like "Love to love you (and tonight pigs
will fly)". The song is probably a demo, while it also appears in a less spontaneous
but more well-done way on Waterloo Lily. Then comes a less useful bunch of songs,
with "It's likely to have a name next week" as the first. That one is "Winter
wine", but with the vocal melody hummed, while it wasn't developed at the time
when this album was recorded. Then comes "Group girl", which, as you might understand,
is another version of "Golf girl", but with different lyrics and without the
gorgeous flute and horn. After that useless tune comes "Disassociation/100%
proof" in a new mix, of which I've learned how these two tracks sounds, making
it easier to separate them from the other bunch of "Nine feet underground" parts.
These bonus tracks isn't much of a good reason to buy the records if you already
have them without bonus tracks, except of "I don't know it's name", while that
song was previously unreleased, and that funny version of "Aristocracy". Well,
I suppose this is the best album for beginners, while it contains most of the
Caravan-formula; avantgarde, folk, pop, harder rock, good-mood and some romanticism.
At least it's a good buy.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?
After gaining a lot of positive critic while releasing In
the land of grey and pink, the band simply had to release another good album.
But keyboardist Dave Sinclair quit the band in order to join Robert Wyatt and
his group Matching Mole, which was Wyatt's first group after quitting Soft Machine
and releasing a solo album ("Matching Mole" is a re-interpretion of the French
words for "Soft Machine" - machine molle). In order to replace Sinclair, Pye
Hasting requit Sinclair's cousin Steve Miller. Bassist Richard Sinclair wanted
the sound jazzier, so he said some good words about his jazzy cousin and here
we are.
A thing that I noticed immediately after putting on the record is a very ugly
and loud bass. The bass is usually quite non-existent on the common LP, but
Richard Sinclair seemed to like that nasal sound... Myself I prefer the double-bass,
or when the bass is just an element in the whole picture. The worst thing is
that the bass has just as much melody to play as any of Pye's guitars or Steve's
keyboards. But besides, that jazzy sound adds something concrete to the home-brewed
rock they played before. The cover is taken from William Hogarth's satirical
works "Rake's progress", and the picture itself is called "The tavern scene".
This incarnation's first output was a Miller tune, first called "Steve's number
one", later to be "It's coming soon", an instrumental jazz jam shuffled into
a Coughlan/Hastings/Sinclair tune called "Nothing at all", resulting in a 10-minute
jazz opus called "Nothing at all/It's coming soon/Nothing at all (reprise)".
(sometimes these guys were quite fanciless with song titles). This lengthy jazz
thing is quite fun - for a while. I'm not the one who can listen at Sinclair's
nasal, "bubbling" bass ten minutes in a row. Short it down to 3-4 minutes and
I can easily enjoy it.
Another early tune was the title track, a rather funny tune about an ill-reputed,
large lady. It starts off as a guitar-driven, quite rocky tune. This song reveals
that there still was a sense of humour in the group, despite all the problems
that the band had at that time. Unfortunately, the song moves over into a jazz
jam, with a lot of keys/guitars, sure, but that bass haunts the song. Another
early song, "Aristocracy", was first recorded as a demo by the In the land of
grey and pink-lineup, released as a bonus track on the newly re-issued previous
album. It is a poppy tune, still with an awful bass, but not as loud as before.
Another thing with the song is the positive way it was performed in. That song
always warms my heart, even if I prefer the demo, which in its totally inoffensive,
innocent way and the falsetto vocals is a little better... Not better, maybe,
but more enjoyable, you know. "Songs and signs" is the second Miller-compostition
here, a bright vocal/keyboard melody and some jazz jam that isn't better in
any way than before. "The world is yours" is a charming, typical Pye tune, totally
unresistable. Especially the chorus is charming, where Pye and Richard during
five seconds sings along, beginning bright, then they speed up the tempo and
sings darker, until beginning all over again, accompanied by by Rich's bass
and Pye's guitars.
The most ambitious tune on here is "The love in your eye/To catch me a brother/Subsultus/
Debouchement / Tilbury kecks", usually simply called "The love in your eye".
It features the first orchestration Caravan ever did, and especially the first
part is very beautiful, opening with a hit from the orchestra, later to become
a jazzy rocker but with Pye's vocals louder than Richard's bass. It also features
an oboe solo, but sometimes the string section becomes too sentimental, and
a quite beautiful flute solo is destroyed by the bass... but still there are
some moments, as when the whole orchestra playes the same loud tones some number
of times. Unfortunately, the promising song moves over into an avantgarde-sounding
noodling. The best thing with the lengthy avantgarde part is that it sounds
as the old Caravan, which sounds refreshing after all the jazz, and that it
after a while becomes rocking.
Of course, there's also some bonus tracks, and this album features some of the
best bonus tracks of all the re-issues; at last we don't have to live through
loose demoes with the vocal melody hummed, instead we have two songs that Pye
recorded alone with his acoustic guitar during the time when the band was broken
up. The first of them, "Pye's June thing", is quite non-saying but charming,
and the other, "Ferdinand", is a bit better while it actually has a melody that
makes sense. There's also a song that was thought for this album, but in lack
of disc space, the song remained unreleased until recently and is called "Looking
left, looking right" with a reprise that fades in when the listener thinks that
the record is over, entitled "Pye's loop". The whole song goes in the classic
Caravan vein, and with a charming chorus sounding quite like a children's song.
The song is of course a bit jazzy, but at least it's funny.
A summary? Well, it could have been much better, but it could have been worse,
too... and those bonus tracks make sense.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?
After releasing Waterloo Lily, gaining some negative critic
and dismissing most of the band, Pye Hastings continues with Caravan. The new
lineup looks like this: Pye on guitars and vocals, Dave Sinclair on all kinds
of keyboards, Richard Coughlan on drums and percussives, John G Perry on bass
and vocals, and Peter Geoffrey Richardson on viola. Richardson quite by mistake
joined the group. Pye had auditions to get a bass player, and one of the bassists
knew an excellent blues-influenced viola player, Geoffrey Richardson, and Pye
asked the bssist to bring that Richardson to the audience. Pye was impressed
by Richardson and asked him to stay, while the poor bassist had to go... Such
is life...
This new Caravan lineup played for the first time on Montbéliard in France on
September 10th. The viola added a new thing to the group - now they sounded
more like Gentle Giant than before, evidencing that both bands had a similar
medieval/jazz background, but while GG always had used violins, saxes and other
"odd" rock instruments, the similarity was never as obvious as before. But on
this album Caravan rips off a GG song, "The house, the street, the room" from
Aquiring the taste, which of course makes the whole album sound even more like
Gentle Giant. Well, well... At least they sounds somewhat better than on Waterloo
Lily, where they leaned to much on the jazz for their own best. Even if they
this time leans too much on the prog... but they were a prog band, a unique
one, indeed, but still a prog band, so they always made prog better than anything
else.
This album also continues the "two songs in one is better than two different"-formula,
even if there's FOUR (!) songs that weren't put together with another. I don't
know what YOU think about this Caravan phenomenon, but myself I think it'd be
better with different songs, or at least give the songs a single name, instead
of call each song by each song it's made out of, it's oh so boring to write
down a 50-symbol song name...
Anyways, the album starts with "Memory lain, Hugh / Headloss" of which the latter
is really good. The first is somewhat avantgardish, with the viola's smooth
sound and some trumpets/flute as the main element, even if Pye tries to hand
out a nimble guitar riff in the beginning. Though it's obvious that he isn't
much of a guitar virtuoso. The main riff in the song is a jazzy one, but backed
up by nearly the whole band, so after all, it isn't that jazzy... Pye's brother
Jimmy has alot to do with his flute, too, and the first part ends up in a dark,
simple tune moving over into a crescendo, until "Headloss" begins. That part
also starts off with a guitar riff, but it isn't that difficult, so Pye has
no problems with it. The riff -and song- is blues based, and we can immediately
identify Pye's characteristhic bright vocals. Well, "Headloss" rocks, and it
has a Caravan feel which only a few of the other songs have.
"Hoedown" as well begins with a simple guitar riff, and it sounds quite like
"Headloss" - but only for the best. The main riff is simple; three chords, each
of the one tone higher than the previous, then a tone down and it starts all
over again. In fact I can imagine Doobie Brothers making this song.. But it
rocks and has got both a Caravan feel and a touch of blues. "Surprise, surprise"
is a bit calmer and smoother - something like Caravan's "When I'm sixty-four".
Pye's vocal melody is simple and home-brewed, and Richardson's viola adds a
touch of country & western, even if Caravan is one of the most British bands
I know. Well I suppose everybody has to change sometimes. "C'thlu thlu" is the
most "proggy" of the songs on this album, and it's also the one that rips off
Gentle Giant so it nearly stinks. The opening riff is from GG's "The house,
the street, the room", but with a dark touch of Black Sabbath (...), and a Robert
Fripp-ish riff, obviously coming directly from Starless and Bible black, can
also be found somewhere among all the GG tunes. But if this song didn't rip
off Gentle Giant, it would be one of the strongest and most innovative songs
on here. "The dog, the dog, he's at it again" is a ballad with a strong medieval
touch, and with a vocal melody that is very catchy when you've got through it
some times. But... Dave Sinclair comes in with a Keith emerson-esque moog melody.
When will they stop rip off other more well-established prog groups, I wonder...
But that beautiful vocal melody is so frigging good that it makes the whole
song, to heck with that moog-solo! "Be alright / Chance of a lifetime" opens
with a helicopter sound and a riff played by the entire band, pretending to
be a powerful Gentle Giantish riff, but when that helicopter disappears, it
all sounds quite cheesy... And that chorus sounds exactly as a GG tune. The
second part, though, is more jazz/avantgarde, and, as avantgarde uses to be,
quite melody-less. The Caravan classic on this album is "L'auberge du sanglier
/ A hunting we shall go / Pengola / Backwards / A hunting we shall go (reprise)",
usually called "A hunting we shall go". The first part, "L'auberge du sanglier"
is just a short jam moving over into "A hunting we shall go", which actually
is nearly awesome, with its riff, played by the entire band except for one who
does a solo, that begins at the lower compasses of each instrument (except of
the drums, of course), but for each tone it gets higher and higher, in a way
that reminds me of Yes... except that it's not only the bass and guitar that
plays the thing, but the whole band with keyboards and some winds, too. And
this time i don't think it's a conscious rip-off. Then comes "Pengola", where
an orchestra was added. That part is more like a slow, mood-setting piece that
has got some balladeering ability, though Dave Sinclair sometimes go overboard
with his strivings to sound like Keith Emerson. "Backwards" seems to be the
same pieace, until "A hunting we shall go (reprise)" which is the same riff
as before, but more rocking and powerful while the orchestra plays along with
the band. The, my ladies comes the Bonus Tracks. This time, there is ONE interesting
one, "Derek's long thing", which is an avantgardish piece of music, not without
a bluesy part. But the rest is quite dumb... "Memory lain, Hugh / Headloss"
in its US mix, which mostly sounds all the same, "No! ("Be alright") / Waffle
("Chance of a lifetime")" are just the demo of the songs that is on the actual
album, except that there's no lyrics yet, Pye just hums the vocal melody. The
same goes with "He who smelt it dealt it", which is "Memory lain, Hugh" in the
THIRD version on this album, "Surprise, surprise" seems to have kept its name
through the from-demo-to-song process. OK, that's all - except that i should
say that this album IS really good, even if I've bashed it a bit.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?
1973 was one of the most important years in the Caravan history.
In the beginning of the year they went to Australia with Lindisfarne, Slade
and Status Quo in order to perform some concerts (a quite weird mix of bands,
actually), and later they let away two of the members which was replaced by
John G Perry on bass and (again) Dave Sinclair on keyboards, and they immediately
went into the studio to record For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night. That album
received plenty a lot of positive critics, and the audience grew bigger. "A
Hunting We Shall Go" from that album featured some orchestrations, and the band
took contact with Martyn Ford, a friend of John Perry. Ford wanted to make an
orchestrated concert with the band, and he got back to manager Terry King, producer
David Hitchcock and Decca Records. They all thought it was a great idea, and
they immediately started working with the arrangements and orchestrations. While
working quickly, it was soon time to perform the concert, featuring three brand
new songs, "Introduction" by Ford's arranger Simon Jeffes, "Mirror for the Day"
and "Virgin on the Ridiculous", both by Pye Hastings. In fact, the two latter
were so new that Pye had to sing with the lyrics on a stand in front of him,
especially on "Mirror for the Day", which was finished the same morning as the
concert was performed! The songs which was going to be performed was selected
by Ford, Jeffes and Hastings. I may argue a lot about the lack of diversity,
but I admit that that depends on the lack of disc space. The track list features
two long Caravan classics and three new songs. The classics are "The Love In
Your Eye" from Waterloo Lily and "For Richard" from If I Could Do It All Over
Again. This means that we have nothing from their first LP or from In The Land
Of Grey And Pink, which is a shame - "Golf Girl" from the latter should have
fitted the record very well. One song from Plump In The Night was also recorded
("A Hunting We Shall Go", of course!), but that track featured some engineering
problems and was unrealeased until this day. The concert was divided into two
sections, one promoting Plump In The Night and previously unreleased, and one
featuring the actual concert. The promoting section opens with a short introduction
by the Radio One DJ Alan Black, moving over into "Memory Lain, Hugh/Headloss",
the double blues-rocker which also opened Plump In The Night. They also perform
the beautiful ballad of "The Dog, the Dog, He's At It Again" and the always
funny "Hoedown". Then comes The Concert, conducted by Martin Ford and featuring
his orchestra, The New Symphonia. It opens with "Introduction", an instrumental
tune hurriedly put into a track. It lacks somewhat in quality,which might be
excused by the fact that the poor Simon Jeffes had a lot of orchestral arrangements
to deal with. The track opens with a couple of trumpet blows, moving over into
a not too excellent rocker played by the band, and ending up with some very
cheesy orchestral hits. I admit that there's some memorable moments, but the
piece is undoubtly the worst of the track on the album, let's exclude bonus
tracks. "The Love In Your Eye" is far better, a 12-minute rewrite of the song
from Waterloo Lily, at that time destroyed by the hideous bass, but now it works
pretty well. "Mirror For The Day" is a pretty darn good tune, despite the hurry
that coloured the band's weeks before the concert. It opens with some dark string-section
tunes and some Camel-ish guitar tunes, moving over into a cute, positive tune,
often featuring a staccato riff played by the band and orchestra together. Worth
to mention is the the backing vocals which adds some pompousity to the song,
though not necessarily for the worst. The song is actually a very fine one,
just as the latter "Virgin On The Ridiculous", which contains some darn beautiful
violin tunes, accompanying Pye's gorgeous vocal melody. Richard Coughlan's drums
gives a feel that the song goes on by itself. Heck, it's one of the finest tunes
Caravan ever played, and it also contains some pure orchestral tunes, and also
a keyboard jam part, but the jam part really makes sense because of the accompanying
orchestra. And - the staccato orchestral hit doesn't sound cheesy at all, as
it did on "Introduction". "For Richard" is the 15-minute opus from the band's
early days, as usual containing a huge keyboard jam and some riffs, the only
difference is that it sounds even better this time; the orchestra brings some
hooks to the songs which weren't there before. Closing the album does "A Hunting
We Shall Go". The song was an encore, and while the bands was offstage, the
string section went and told them that they wouldn't perform an encore unless
they got extra money. The band answered that they would go back to the stage
without the strings, then. The string section had a union meeting and decided
to go back onstage anyway. But the problems didn't end there - the band's sudden
reappearance onstage took the recorders from the Pye Mobile Recording Studio
by surprise, and some microphone channels were closed during the track. If we
shall believe viola player Geoff Richardson, there were sparks flying between
the microphones during the sound check, evidencing that there were something
wrong... Well, the concert was released at April 19th, 1974, but during the
time between recording and releasing, the band had recorded a couple of tracks
and then starting a tour in Britain and France, which kept them busy till the
end of the year. In the early 1974, John Perry left and was replaced by Mike
Wedgwood (previously with Curved Air and Kiki Dee). After only two weeks they
went to Tunisia to perform on the Tabarka Festival. At the time, the manager
Terry King also departured, to join Miles Copeland and his British Talent Management,
BTM. That guy, Miles Copeland, had met the band before, when Caravan performed
with Wishbone Ash. Copeland had promised to provide with management if they
asked for it, and so they did. He helped them get to America on tour, receiving
positive critics wherever they went.
The new bassist Mike Wedgwood introduced the symph-pop to the Caravan sound,
and this album is actually the last in a long row of successful prog records,
which established Caravan as a very special and quite underground prog band.
The latter albums would contains common symph-pop, as professional as it might
be, but the days of pleasant Caravan-prog were from now on sadly passed. But
this album is a worthy closer to the band's first and most important period,
and all you who think that Procol Harum's In Concert With the Edmonton Symphony
Orchestra is great should take a look.
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The bassist John Perry quit the band during the summer of
'74 in order to become a session musician, being replaced by Mike Wedgwood,
who also was an arranger and had worked with, among others, Curved Air. During
August the same year, they also got rid off their manager Terry King, who was
replaces by Miles Copeland. The band had for a long time now longed for a US
tour, a desire which they finally fulfilled with Copeland as manager. They were
on this US tour during the whole latter part of the year, and they actually
got themselves some fans within the colleges and universities. Mentionable is
also that they played with band like Weather report, Wishbone Ash, Fairport
Convention and The Climax Blues Band. Um, I feel that I'm getting too businesslike,
don't you think? It's this goddamn booklet which is full of information which
makes me wanna boast about my knowledge! I'll try to be somewhat more personal
from now on, I promise!
Anyways, the keyboardist Dave Sinclair had some serious thoughts about leaving
the band in order to cultivate a songwriting partnership between him and John
Murphy, but after the US tour he changed his mind and decided to stay with the
band, at least on one more album. He eventually got two months of free time,
and therefore he could still write songs together with John Murphy. Mike Wedgwood
also wrote some songs during this time, and even the viola-player Geoff Richardson
wrote a tune. The only one who wasn't able to write more songs than usual was
Pye Hastings, who used to write almost everything on the earlier albums, and
I suppose this is the reason why this album sounds even less Caravan-like than
Blind Dog At St. Dunstan's. This lack of songs from Pye was also the
reason why the band decided to use some Dave Sinclair/John Murphy songs on the
album.
The album opens with a song by the mentioned songwriting alliance, and it's
"The Show Of Our Lives", which is pretentious enough to match its title. It
has a very easy-listened melody, and it's pretty much a general power-ballad,
though sped up a little bit. The thing with it is that it 1) sounds too mainstream,
2) becomes boring with its repeated hooks, which aren't too good anyway, and
3) er, I thought I had three good excuses not to like this song, but STILL...
"Stuck In A Hole" is an upbeat track signed Pye Hastings, and it pretty much
predicts the next album. It's, for the most part, a good-mood symph-popper,
but with that Caravan scent, and all such songs rule!
"Lover" is a pure power-ballad, at least, signed by Mike Wedgwood. Dangit, I
who thought that bassists usually writes good material! Well, well, I suppose
I shouldn't have such prejudices, and at least this little prejudice of mine
won't bother me no more! Anyways, the song is a full-fledged power-ballad if
I've ever heard one, with strings and stuff, and I just don't like this sort
of stuff, OK?
"No Backstage Pass" is the second, and last, Pye Hastings composition this time.
It begins where "Lover" ends, with strings always there, and this is pure Caravan!
This tune seems to come right out of For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night,
and heck, it even has the same hooks as some of the tunes from that album. The
most important thing, though, is that it rules! Calm moodiness by Caravan is
something really special.
"Welcome The Day" is another tune written by Mike Wedgwood, sounding quite mainstream
this time, too. The band does a serious attempt to do the heavier kind of rock,
but the fact is that Pye Hastings really hasn't got the right voice for that,
and the other members, maybe with exception of Wedgwood, are basically Canterbury
rock musicians, which surely is far from being hard rockers! The song sounds
both stupid and cheesy - only in small portions, though! - and this Mr. Wedgwood
obviously wasn't the great requit he was meant to be, at least not as long as
he's allowed to write songs!
"The Dabsong Conshirtoe" is a masterpiece, though! It's an 18-minute suite comprimising
five different songs by Sinclair/Murphy, of which "The Mad Dabsong" is the first,
and it's a calmly opening tune, with Geoff Richardson on acoustic guitar, sounding
really nice and gentle, until it moves over into a rather rocking tune, rocking
in the Caravan way, though, not attempting to be anything else than just Caravan.
The song itself is called "Ben Karratt Rides Again", and somewhere it moves
over into "Pro's & Con's", where the main hook is really strong, and Pye surprises
positively - this isn't what he is used to sing, but he sings it well, and hey
- he sounds like Jon Anderson! "Pro's & Con's" has got really cool riffs,
and a brass section makes it even better. It's maybe not Caravan, but it's how
Caravan could sound without being cheesy (to heck with Mike Wedgwood!). These
riffs could even be signed by Deep Purple, as far as I'm concerned, and then
you may understand that this is rock. The next part is called "Wraiks
& Ladders", which somewhere moves over into "Sneaking Out The Bare Quare", and
is a really progressive-sounding tune with a nice arrangement, and finally we
can hear Jimmy Hastings' flute! It also features a keyboard solo. It's pretty
jazzy, too - the return to Canterbury?? Great! This song is great! Caravan are
great! Heck, I even almost said that this album is great - only almost, though.
The last part is called "All Sorts Of Unmentionable Things", and similarly to
Sinclair's other lengthier composition ("Nine Feet Underground", referring to
the last part called "100% Proof" from In The Land Of Grey & Pink) it's
a pretty rocking tune, repeating the same quite heavy riff over and over, until
some extracts from "The Show Of Our Lives" are mixed in, and then the song ended.
I should actually have this one as "best song", but the problem that the ABSOLUTELY
last track, Richardson's "The Fear & Loathing In Tollington Park Rag" is such
a mood-lifting and gentle little tune (yeah, little - it's barely one minute
long!) that I just can't help but hold it as my fav - and heck, my fav should
be the tune I love most, right?
There's some bonus tracks, too, a single version of "Stuck In A Hole", not too
mentionable, while "Keeping Back My Love" is a Hastings' composition from the
autumn '74, by some reason forgotten, even if Hastings DID use it with diferent
lyrics and a slightly different melody, now called "Behind You" on Better
By Far, a '77 album which I haven't got right now. There's also a pretty
good live performance of "For Richard", but I've never been much of a fan of
that song.
By the way, did I mention that this album was meant to be called "Toys In the
Attic"? Pye didn't like it too much, though, and when Aerosmith accidently released
an album with that name, he was actually pretty relieved. The album then became
called "Cunning Stunts" after a joke by the drummer Richard Coughlan, which
goes like this: "Q: What's the difference between a magician's wand and a policeman's
truncheon? A: One's for cunning stunts and the other for stunning cunts". The
album was pretty successful, by Caravan's standards, at least, it charted both
in UK and the US, and also pretty much everywhere in Europe. When it went straight
to #14 in Belgium, the first letters were accidently mixed, making the album
title to "Stunning Cunts"! The same happened in Italy.
Richard Sinclair finally left after the release of this album, and he was replaced
by Jan Schelhaas.
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Their second symph-pop album, actually. Their previous album, Cunning Stunts, was actually their only charting album in the UK, so it's not hard to understand that they guys wanted to follow up the "sell-out". Now I'm not a big fan of symph-pop, but I got to admit that the music of Hastings is pretty charming after all. And don't forget that Caravan was among the absolutely first prog groups to metamorphose into a rather commercial band. While Yes and Genesis became 'commercial' around 1980, Caravan were five years earlier. As a consequence (??) they never got their sell-outs, and they slowly began to dissolve. Well, well... My research about this album was a disaster, so I'm afraid I cannot tell you any other certain facts. The album opens with "Here Am I", a pretty darn professional symph-pop tune, you know, an intro where Pye shines on his guitar and a chorus where the vocals sing a slow melody while the accompanishment keeps the speed. It's a quite generic tune, and I don't really know why I think it's the best song here, perhaps because it's the catchiest. "Chiefs and Indians" is the only song written and sung by bassist Mike Wedgwood and opens as some sort of commercial 50's song, but moving over into a noodlish noodling (you know?), dominated by some not very well sung vocals and a viola. "A Very Smelly, Grubby Little Oik" is a bit catchier, with a good guitar guitar melody and the good-mood which we are used to hear when we listen at Caravan. The chorus is pretty cheesy, though, and a jam part heading back to the glorious early days ("Bobing Wide") doesn't really to fit the song. "Bobing Wide" is pretty short and moves over into "Come On Back", a song with a really strong chorus, keyboard driven with plenty of intelligence, disguised in noodlishness, behind, performed with refinement. Perhaps i should have chosen this one as the best song... Anyways, it moves over into "Oik (Reprise)" which is a reprise of "Come On Back" with lyrics from "Very Smelly, Grubby Little Oik", with the chorus sung by professional ladies. Not bad. "Jack And Jill" features a catchy bass/guitar interplay, but unfortunately the verses are less catchy. Otherwise, the song is a jolly noodling. It might be a bit too overlong - 6 minutes for a pop noodling? - but is still a pretty fine one. "Can You Hear Me?" has got a not too progressive song title, has it? It's generic symph-pop from top to toe, ugly synths always present and a professional interplay between the band members. The vocal melody isn't the finest Pye has written, and song has a boring jam part, so it isn't something for me, I'm afraid. "All The Way (With John Wayne's Single-handed Liberation Of Paris)" is the ultimate symphonic pop ballad, and I suppose that this describes the song pretty well. Calm verses, flutes and generic drums and a catchy chorus makes it a fine one (fine symph-pop ballad, that is), and me not dislike it. The chorus is really mood-raising. A good album, better than most other symph-pop albums, but it's far from reaching the heights they reached before.
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