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T. Rex 1972 Box Set

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What does it sound like?:

1972 was the year of peak T.Rextasy when all of Marc Bolan’s dreams came true. He started his own record label, completed a massively sold out tour, lucratively visited America twice and released a popular movie, Born To Boogie, directed by Ringo Starr. There were four singles, Telegram Sam, Metal Guru, Children Of The Revolution and Solid Gold Easy Action, right at the very top of the charts, and a second successful album, The Slider, which outsold Electric Warrior in the US. He single-handedly dragged rock & roll out of the fifties and thrilled an audience of young teenagers whose cultural life began with the new decade. He was the epitome of a pop star, gorgeous, flamboyant, sex-craved and living in the present tense, the first Pop phenomenon since The Beatles. All the excitement is captured on this 5 CD/6 LP coloured vinyl lavish box set, with its beautiful cover and its colourful booklet, including an introduction by Tony Visconti and a 12,000 word essay by Bolan biographer, Mark Paytress.

It began in January with the Telegram Sam number one single, resplendent in its new livory, a navy blue background, bright red, upper case lettering and a brazen Bolan headshot, his famous corkscrew hair flowing over his shoulders. Even its sound was new, the guitars mimicking the horns, the rhythm section punchy and dynamic, a rattlesnake shaker and an enervated Bolan yelling “Oh, man”. He introduces us to his posse: Jungle-faced Jake, Telegram Sam’s assistant, Purple Pie Pete, his publicist, and Bobby (Dylan), his poet. Its riff, a Chuck Berry chug and its lyrics, Lewis Carrollesque, exude confidence. Then, Tony Visconti adds the magic of a menacing string quartet and the glorious and grotesque Flo and Eddie’s backing vocals. The B sides are telling, both straight rockers, retaining the unrestrained lust of Electric Warrior, and one featuring a car, rather than the elves of the Tyrannosaurus Rex days. Metal Guru followed in May and is even better, a maelstrom of guitars, strings and wailing voices, celebrating a deity with a riff to die for. The B sides are again quality, featuring another priapic car song and the wonderfully exuberant Lady.

The Slider LP came out in July. Before listening to it, you have the joy of holding the cover in your hands. The iconic, grainy, black and white photograph of Bolan wearing a top hat is credited to Ringo Starr and was taken at John Lennon’s estate. The reverse is a matching shot from behind. The blurred effect is a result of an impatient T. Rex fan over-heating the chemicals when developing the film. If you had been smitten by Electric Warrior and discounted the three tracks from the singles, you might be disappointed with the content, thinking it’s a lesser album, played in a minor key. It’s less immediately sexy, guitars shriek rather than growl, the arrangements are far less panoramic and some songs seem to be a pale imitation of an equivalent Electric Warrior track. Rabbit Fighter shares the blues feel of Lean Woman Blues, Buick McKane is as unhinged as Rip Off, Mystic Lady simulates the wide-eyed wonder of Cosmic Dancer and Main Man revisits the melody from Life’s A Gas. However, scratch off the surface frivolity in the lyrics and you will hear a vulnerable, self-aware Bolan who feels small with his Les Paul, whose lovers are few, finds himself crying alone and, at night, is fearful of the monsters that call out the names of men. The closeness of the microphones, Flo and Eddie’s vocals and Visconti’s cellos add an eery edge that emphasises The Slider as a less euphoric, more challenging and disturbing album. It seems fame has its downside.

The matinee from March at Wembley’s Empire Pool is presented in full with two takes from the evening. The show demonstrates how crucial Mickey Finn was to the live T. Rex sound. Stripped down to the core four-piece band, he provides energy and drive, allowing the space for Bolan to hog the spotlight. Bolan lacked the subtlety and dexterity to be a true guitar hero but he was more than capable of creating a pleasing racket, best displayed on an extended Get It On, although Steve Currie’s bass solo threatens to outshine him. He also oozes charisma on the acoustic section of Girl, Cosmic Dancer and Spaceball Ricochet, especially when he invites his audience to a house that “can hold just about all of you”.

The movie itself intercut the concert scenes with surreal interludes. The Soundtrack disc brings it all together, including a jam with Elton John and Ringo on a second drum kit for, of course, Tutti Frutti, plus Children Of The Revolution. There’s a Tea Party Medley featuring Bolan on his acoustic guitar and a string quartet. Ringo was in familiar territory: screaming fans, Magical Mystery Tour messing about, Tittenhurst Hall, music derived from fifties rock and roll, and surrounded by people speaking terribly precise English. Incredibly, it all hangs together very well, mainly because of Bolan’s elfin charm. No doubt, the Beatles connection helped Born To Boogie to its success in the UK and Europe but America was a harder nut to crack.

During 1972, T. Rex toured the USA twice to promote The Slider. While there, Bolan visited a number of radio stations whose ‘plays’ pushed records up the charts. Alone and armed only with his acoustic guitar, he played impromptu ‘sessions’. He has a tendency to butcher his own songs, though Girl and Ballroom Of Mars just about escape with their dignity intact and rockier songs like Baby Strange and Jeepster fare rather well. The worst quality recording contains his most impassioned singing. Left Hand Luke in 1972 is startling. In the end, the strategy worked. The Slider became his best selling album and the one for which he is best remembered in America.

Back in the UK, T. Rex recorded properly organised sessions for Emperor Roscoe and Top Of The Pops. These performances accurately reflect those recorded with Visconti for vinyl. They add little but take away even less. Right at the end of the box, we are treated to the B sides and the remaining singles. Thunderwing, Lady and Jitterbug Love are superb tracks, equal to Bolan’s very best, and Cadillac and Sunken Rags are excellent too. They all enhance the value of the 45s for the teenage T.Rex fan, when singles cost between 30-50p and LPs were over £2. In this box, Children Of The Revolution is almost an after-thought, but it’s a gargantuan single that sealed Bolan’s legacy, becoming, for a time, his best known track. Solid Gold Easy Action is a throwaway in comparison and the playful madness of the fan club Christmas flexi-disc ends the year continuing to follow The Beatles’ playbook.

In addition, T. Rex’s previous label also cashed in during 1972. The Deborah single was re-released and became a top ten hit. A ‘doubleback’ of the first Tyrranosaurus Rex albums was number one and an A and B sides collection called Bolan Boogie was another chart-topping success. To be clear, none of these are in this box as they represent pre-1972 work.

1972 was the year of The Godfather, Last Tango In Paris, maxi dresses, knee socks, the digital watch, recombinant DNA, Watership Down, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, The Joy Of Sex, Bloody Sunday, the Munich massacre of Isreali athletes, a massive Nicuaraguan earthquake, Bobby Fischer, Emmerson Fittipaldi, Ziggy Stardust, and Motown’s move to Los Angeles. A Slade 1972 box might compete, but, nevertheless, in the UK at least, it was the year of T. Rextasy and Marc Bolan’s twenty-fourth birthday.

What does it all *mean*?

We are entering the end of days for physical product. There are only two previously unreleased tracks in this box but it’s a beautiful package, capturing a Pop Superstar in his pomp. It is everything a box set should be, comprehensive, excellent sound and a lovely thing to hold.

Goes well with…

A display shelf. You should show this off

Release Date:

22/04/2022

Might suit people who like…

Elvis Presley 1956, The Beatles 1963, David Bowie 1977, The Fall 1982, Prince 1987, 2Pac 1996, Radiohead 2000, Kendrick Lamar 2015

20

Comments

  2. As ever, a magisterial review, Tigs. Though I love the T. Rex singles, I reckon the albums and b-sides are a harder sell. At 11 I was creeped-out by his hippy student-teacher acoustic whimsy from the years before, and that side of his work continues to repel. “Looning” in B2B? Christ, that sounds awful. But the concert (presume the one, titivated, on YT) is a priceless record of the band in their imperial pomp. I found it almost punky in its verve. Those 15 year old girls who were at the gig are now 75.

  4. Hyperbole: noun – a rhetorical device using exaggerated statements or claims, usually not meant to be taken literally.

    Example: With reference to Marc Feld; “He single-handedly dragged rock & roll out of the fifties.”.

    You what? The bopping elf? Hardly. It’s mostly “music derived from fifties rock and roll” after all.

    By the time of The Slider, fun though there is between its two sides, the creative peak had passed. Great review, though. Should sell a few boxes!

    • Yes. I should have worded that better. I meant that he brought the excitement of the Rock & Roll of the fifties to the fresh ears of the teenagers of the seventies. There isn’t much Rock & Roll in the music of the late sixties, though there obviously was in the first half of the decade.

      What can I say? T. Rex have that effect on me.

    • D’you know, Foxy, I have an anecdote I like to regale whenever the subject of the diminutive tunesmith comes up! Y’see, my pals and I – what a bunch of reprobates! Gone now, I expect. Long gone … where was I? Oh! T. Rex – they were even possibly still Tyrannosaurus Rex at the time – just Mark Boland and that skinny bongo-botherer Dave Gandalf whatever his name was – had a “gig” at The Lanchester Polytechnic. Well! Of course it was “not to be missed”, so “the gang”, after sharing a very crackly “reefer cigarette” – more like a firework if you ask me! Ha ha ha! – pulled off our “usual trick” of easing open a fire door at the back of the hall, a strategem that had stood us in good stead for many rock, pop n’ roll “acts” of the time who passed through that illustrious hall, “for our sins”! Little did we know that for this concert the stage had been set up at the other end of the hall, and we quickly found ourselves combat crawling across it and diving into the front row of “fans”! Mr Boland stopped playing to watch us, with an irrepressible grin on his elfin face! Happy times!

  5. We followed Tyrannosaurus Rex around loads of small London venues and sat cross-legged on the concert floors listening to songs of dragons and unicorns. One time Marc gave my girlfriend his green velvet scarf which I wore for years. Then we left town for the summer, went Up The Country to get our shit together. We paid no attention to the charts, thems for teenyboppers and straights, so had no idea what had been happening till we walked past The Lyceum one evening. Four million young girls screaming their heads off. The day the music died.
    Mind you, those Tyrannosaurus records have certainly not passed the test of time – unlistenable today. And yet, there was that time we sat next to John Peel and talked of the peacocks in Holland Park Gardens and he promised if we ever got our band together he would give us a listen. If only we could play our instruments, if only the lead singer could actually sing – we would have been huge!!

  9. i didnt like T-Rex at the time and have tried at various times to change my mind about their material.
    Truth is I can’t abide it except for I love to boogie.
    A good review about music I dont care for.

  10. Splendid review of course.

    I’ve got a theory that you had to be there with T-Rex. I enjoy the singles the Slider and Electric Warrior when I’m actually listening to them but I don’t feel the urge to listen to them at other times. I slightly can’t get past my irritation with MB himself, which probably doesn’t help.

    • I’ve loved T Rex since I was tiny. Born a few hundred metres from where Marc died, my first intro was asking as a toddler who all the mourners gathering on Barnes Common were.

      I wasn’t there for any of it, but I think his music, his look, his everything was fantastic. I particularly love the uncoolness; all those screaming teenage girls, all the daft lyrics and song names. The feather boas and perm and slight femininity. Plus, some of the greatest pop songs anyone could ever wish for – it doesn’t matter that Hot Love is all La La La La La La La when you’re in a room full of people singing it, and some of the best pop music ever written has been lyrically very simple indeed. It’s not a tickbox exercise.

      I don’t agree they were just a singles act. The albums are full of gems. And I’ll take Bolan over Bowie any time.

  11. As with some others above, and I suspect it may have been because of my age at the time (22), my take is that he/they (?) made a few really good singles, the quality of which tailed off quite alarmingly, but they were a band for the teens. Nothing wrong with that per se, but an attempt to pretend they were much more than that feels a bit of a stretch.

    On Hot Love, I realised a while ago whilst playing it out on the radio that a) it is bloody long, and b) the last half of it is almost entirely la-la, la, lalala-la repeated ad nauseum.

    Nice try Tiggs, and beautifully written as always ( but I too baulked at the line about rock and roll, which I am pleased to see you thought slightly better of), but I won’t be going anywhere near this.

  12. 72 was the peak for all the reasons you cite.
    It was also the last time he was ahead in the game against his mate Dave.
    It was also the point where Marc Bolan started to believe his own hype and band relationships started to fracture. As did his relationship with Tony Visconti who has as much to do with T.Rex success as the songwriter.
    Tony Visconti described the recording sessions (in an interview I can’t find now) as difficult and strained.
    Personally, I think the next album – Tanx – is a stronger album, but you can also hear the band falling apart before your ears. By 74’s Zinc Alloy, Marc Bolan decided he didn’t need Tony Visconti, and arguably didn’t need a band – now billing himself as Marc Bolan & T.Rex

    • I think the material he wrote for Tanx is amongst his best. 20th Century Boy is yet another astonishing single. Leaving it off the album is almost self-harm. Tanx is chaotic and you can almost see the white powder in his nostril on the cover.

      Bolan’s zenith was also his cliff edge. But, bear in mind, he was so very young.

      • In their famous Select Britpop Issue interview, Rourke or Joyce talked about the time the Smiths illicitly listened to the original studio tape of Metal Guru (this was presumably a prelude to recording Panic). They said the tape was absolute chaos and that Visconti was a genius for being able to turn it into a coherent record.

  13. I’ll always be more on Marc’s team than the Sainted Dave’s, but I’m almost 100% with Peel on:
    1. the stuff that was great, 2. the time it was presumably best to know Marc, and 3. when the whole thing went sour (coke? – always the time to make a dash for the nearest exit).

    • I’m awaiting the box set tomorrow, and in my eyes (and ears) he was a godhead (angleheaded hipster) between 1970 to late 1972. My entry into music, and my my my, what an entry!
      Agree that it soon went pear shaped, but there is still nothing to compare to the early T.Rex stuff from 70/71 IMHO.

      • They are the first band I remember from my childhood along with The Osmonds and The Jackson 5. I was 9 in 1971 and loved Metal Guru. Only have a hits album which is superb, and one other (Dandy). About to check download cost for this

  14. Tyrannosaurus Rex were a bit of a joke, to me. Even when I was very stoned indeed.
    I was never impressed by T-Rex. A cut above Mud and the Bay City Rollers, for sure, but still very teenage and lightweight. By then I wasn’t a teenager. Electric Warrior and The Slider were OK but only OK.
    The End.

    • I get the impression you are looking for an argument…

      Marc Bolan has released eighteen studio albums, including two with John’s Children, four as Tyrannosaurus Rex and four as Marc Bolan. Extraordinarily prolific considering the brevity of his career. However, there are just three I revisit and all of them are T. Rex, and just one often.

      David Bowie released 26 over a longer period. I revisit all of them (the debut least often) and twelve extremely regularly.

      Bolan has released six excellent singles, Bowie over thirty.

      • Not really looking to argue. I love them both. My feeling, however, is that- generally speaking- Bowie was a great user and adapter of ready made ideas be it mime, Iggy, electronica, Lou, prog, No theatre, Jagger, drag, vaudeville etc al.
        All great. And I love it. But nothing sounded like My People Were Fair, Unicorn or A Beard of Stars. The influences were just as sincere and real but I feel that Bolan was more original in how he channelled them. But no argument really- except with the chap who likened Marc to Mud. I mean… really….

      • I’ll be all alliterate:
        Bolan: briefly brill but became boring.
        Electric Warrior and Greatest Hits are still brill though.

        What were the “six excellent singles”, @tiggerlion?

        My top 6 in order of preference are:
        The Wizard (the version below)
        Ride A White Swan
        Born to Boogie
        Teenage Dream
        Get It On
        Children of the Revolution

        But I’d count a few more as excellent too.

        • Get It On
          Jeepster
          Telegram Sam
          Metal Guru
          Children Of The Revolution
          20th Century Boy

          are the ones in my excellent category

          Ride A White Swan
          Hot Love
          Solid Gold Easy Action
          The Groover

          are very good (IMV)

          • All of those are excellent, but if you don’t like Born To Boogie I can only only assume you’re dead and if you don’t like The Wizard I have to assume you’re deaf as well as dead.

            • Sorry. Forgot about Born To Boogie, despite you mentioning it. I put it in the Very Good category. The Wizard, hmm. I’ll wait for Twang’s direction. Actually, they were T. Rex by then. There is a wobble in his voice pre Electric Warrior that puts me on edge.

  16. I was 7 in 1972 but with older teenage sisters. I have vague recollections of T Rex. As usual time has ensured I know the singles and I know he died in a car accident. Only recently did the penny drop (I’m very slow) that of course he pre dated Bowie and following my recent Roxy Music introduction he pre dated them too. So he was the godfather of glam. He joined the dots between eras of pop. That alone is some legacy. As others have said the singles are great. I have no desire to seek out more right now but if my journey back from The Associates looking for influence continues I’ll need to include him at some point. A brilliant piece of writing as always Tigger and one I’ll refer back to if I do give T Rex a go.

    • Well they were friends and if I am correct, Peel helped with his career and Bolan then blanked him as soon as he was famous, so some lingering bitterness there I think

      • There wasn’t a falling out. As Marc became more famous, he ran with a different crowd and JP didn’t do showbiz. Marc did leave a white label pre-release of Get It On but JP didn’t play it. They both appeared on a record review show later and were friendly.

        Peel lost interest in his music once Tyrannosaurus Rex became T.Rex.

            • Mmm. Not sure really. His job as a DJ would surely be to support artists and bands regardless of daytime airplay. I was always uneasy at the way he dropped so many artists as soon as they got near the Top 40. Or, indeed, if they expressed too eager a desire to get there.

              • He made exceptions. He carried on playing the Smiths and Morrissey when they were in the charts. Besides getting support from Janice long and Kid Jensen and Richard Skinner, the Smiths were played on daytime radio, no matter what anybody says – so they didn’t need Peel at all.

                I remember Peel playing Feargal Sharkey’s then-new single in 1988 or 1989 – after he’d had huge hits on his own, let alone all that success with th’Unders.

              • I don’t think one of a DJ’s functions is to support bands. Their function is to present music that their listeners enjoy hearing.
                In doing that they may choose to support musicians they particularly like, but it’s not an obligation. And if they do, they may later withdraw their support from musicians whose music they no longer favour, same as you or I might.

              • Dai is right there. Peel himself stated this as his USP. He saw no point in playing the acts who all the other DJs on the station were playing. He therefore promoted those acts he felt lacked support and deserved it. He believed that people would like their music too if only given the chance to hear it. That was public service broadcasting in his mind. Trouble is it’s a bit like playing people your records to convert them because they are listening to the wrong ones. Bit of a snob’s mission.

                He didn’t discover new music all by himself though. A lot of it was already covered in the music press. Otherwise I doubt many would have bothered tuning in.

                • John Walters was also hugely influential. Curiously, one of the things I liked most about the Peel show was the odd oldie he would chuck in- particularly rare country tunes. I think there was a certain joy on his part in confounding listeners sometimes. Funny how he adapted his brand to fit the times though. Listen to some Perfumed Garden tapes and he is the hippiest hippie in the hip history of hippiedom. Then in the punk era his scouse accent became more prominent. As it had in the US in the wake of Beatlemania. Which is how he got his big break of course.

            • The Fall were never a band who courted commercial success and so Peel was more comfortable playing them after they had a couple of minor hits. But he had more serious issues with people like Rod or Bowie or Marc- all of whom he had championed earlier. He was always more comfortable with the wilfully awkward acts, the angular, the misfits. If they ever chimed with the mainstream he felt uncomfortable with them.

  18. Bolan wanted fame reealy badly. When he got it, he didn’t handle it very well.
    Same as many others in that respect.
    Peel is not the saintly figure he tends to be painted as.

    • Got to know John P for a while back then. He had, for instance, no problem with Rod & The Faces moving on when Fame came around. However, he really thought he had a bond with Marc, “Like brothers”. Then Telegraph Sam. Then “Sorry, can’t make Tuesday, give you a call Thursday”. Then nothing. Absolutely nothing

      • Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so dismissive of Get it On. A great record by anyone’s standards. One of latter day Marc’s best. It was a complicated relationship sure, and Marc was often impossible, but my sympathies in this instance is in the Bopping Elf’s corner.

  20. I was a huge fan around the time of “Get it on” which was the first track I loved. I think my first proper album was “Electric Warrior”, and we hunted down the old stuff, Tyrannosaurus Rex etc and listened to it loyally and even liked some of it. I still have my mint Regal Zonophone “My people were fair” with lyric sheet. I had the poster on the wall and talked my mum into taking me to the file when it came out.

    Then I heard Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and Deep Purple and Rory Gallagher and moved on.

    I rebought EW recently and it’s not as good as I remember it, but I still love it. “Mambo Sun” evokes the smell of Brut at a teenage party in seconds, and life is indeed a gas. Marc Bolan had to die young, as who would ever have wanted an old Marc Bolan? For a while he was perfect and that’s how I like to remember him.

    • This.

      Marc Bolan’s star shone very, very bright for a brief period. He appealed to teenagers via his singles promoted through the tellybox on TOTP. His run of singles from Ride A White Swan to The Groover is stellar.

      Moving on to the “musical sophistication” of Led Zep and Deep Purple is another matter…

      • I would always argue that there is as much invention and musical sophistication in Tyrannosaurus Rex and T. Rex as there was in Zep or Purple. True, the latter two bands had superior musicianship in the purely twiddly-widdly technical sense, but in terms of sheer originality and what Peelie would no doubt call that elusive ‘fuck me factor’, Bolan stands head and shoulders above them. And he was only five foot two.

      • I don’t think “sophistication” is a good word to describe LedZep. Quite the opposite, really, at least in their early days. I’m more inclined towards “Rawness” and “Bombast”. Neither word used in a derogatory sense.

  21. T. Rex were for girls. No boy-type male liked the band unless they secretly wanted to be a girl. Notthatther’sanythingwrongwiththat, but T. Rex were for girlies. I’d never liked Tyrannosaurua Rex, but at least they had some following amongst boys who wanted to be gnomes, which seemed perfectly reasonable back then. When they changed to T.Rex, they lost 99% of the testosterone in their audience overnight. I remember fancying this girl who had the first T.Rex album, and she used to play it in the caravan in her parent’s garden where we enjoyed some fumbles, but that album sounded pretty shit to me. I took Soft Machine’s Third round to try to expand her consciousness, but that was effectively the end of something that never really started. I still listen to Third, but T.Rex? It’s for girls.

    • I think if you refer to the double spread image of the band that reveals itself when you open the cover of Third you’ll see the unfortunate, girl-repellant look that was associated with this music. Reclining nerdy twerps the lot of them. OK there’s a pair of ladie’s feet visible. Note that they don’t show the rest of her. These oddballs are incapable of joining the dancefloor fun the girls were having when T. Rex were playing. Look at the cover of Electric Warrior. An axe wielding sex-God in action. The boys want to be him, the girls want to be with him. He wins.

      • One man’s nerdy twerp is another’s reclining jazzrock hipster. This is what young men looked like at the time. Ask Hubes. It could have been either of us in that gatefold. And it was a look certain young gels (mostly posh, with a rebellious streak) found strangely compelling. A look that said – I am intellectual, I care O for society’s threadworn values, I am going to improvise for thirty minutes, in as many time signatures, and it’s not for dancing, so leave me alone with my art. We certainly never needed to look like the ringletty elfin fop prancing about for an audience of sexually confused children who had to catch the last bus home.

          • I had a listen to Third a few weeks ago. Not much cop, is it? Third rate jazz if you ask me (I know you haven’t). I also gave The Faust Tapes a spin. I won’t be going there again in a hurry. However, Slapp Happy and Henry Cow were fun. Freaky but fun.

                  • (Tucks thumbs into waistcoat and rises)
                    EG- I believe, Mr Speaker, that the honourable member opposite initially introduced an element of provocation into the debate by raising the subject of Soft Machine. Now, if it pleases the House, let me state that I am, in many ways, sympathetic to the genre of early seventies progressive rock but- in the same manner in which the great JMW Turner once proclaimed that it was easy to draw a ghost but that it took true skill to delineate a horse, please allow me to argue that it is similarly rather easy to create a dissonant curdle of previously unacquainted notes but it is very hard to write an actual tune that future generations as well as our own will cherish and remember.
                    (Sits down)

                    • Listen to Slightly All The Time – quite a lot of blowing (what we jazzbos call improvising) going on there, but it’s over a beautifully composed chordal and rhythmic development that also carries frequent melodic themes. Put simply, for T.Rex fans, it’s full of tunes. Similarly, Moon In June is a song. It may be longer than (*smirk*) Telegram Sam, but it’s also a better tune (and with better lyrics – are there worse lyrics than a T.Rex song?). Out-Bloody-Rageous is also essentially A Tune, and one you can sing along with if you have slightly more than a T.Rex fan’s grasp of melody, or music, or anything, really. That leaves Facelift, which, after a lot of aardvark snootling, does evolve into a memorable tune. Okay, it has more notes in it than T.Rex’ entire recorded output, so it may be a little more demanding than (*smirk*) Get It On, but it’s also more rewarding.
                      To claim that Mark Boland was a master songwriter with a gift for melody is the kind of risible nonsense I’d expect from a bunch of girls.

                    • “Cosmic”? That was more Mark Boland’s realm, Shirley? Not only was he a *cough* Cosmic Dancer, his people were fair and had stars in their hair! Magicians and unicorns! Dragons! Hardly Soft Machine territory. And Tig, as someone who professes to dig Miles (man), you must be able to appreciate Third more than you pretend.

                    • I know who I’d prefer on my side in a fight. Those Canterbury types are all soft melts (hence their name). I reckon, Marc, a working class Londoner, could handle himself despite his elfin appearance.

  22. The honourable member may huff and puff as much as he likes (boos and jeers from the opposition benches) but…but… in the same manner as Philip Larkin once argued that what will survive the human condition is ‘love’ please allow me to humbly suggest that what will always survive the medium of popular music- whatever its genre- is an actual melody.
    (More boos and jeers from the opposition benches. Congratulations and support from the cabinet).

  23. However, to be fair Mr Speaker- and surely, fairness must be at the heart of all our actions and ambitions in this house- perhaps the issue here is one of false comparison. If my right honourable friend was attempting to draw a comparison between Mr Bolan and, say, Mr David Bowie then we could, I am sure, perceive a commonality of purpose in the sense that both these eminent artists were attempting to connect with the British people in such a way as to popularize their visions and to extend their reach among the record-buying public. One might confidently argue that the likes of Soft Machine (and their fellow travellers such as Caravan) were not primarily intrigued by the challenge of penetrating the higher echelons of the Hit Parade and were much happier munching away at the darker edges of the forest where, occasionally, fellow munchers could applaud their obscure activities.

    • That’s true enough, but ignores the fact that both Bowie and Boland are actually pretty crap. In the showbiz context of Top Of The Pops and Radio 1 Roadshows they have value as entertainment, but as musicians they’re fairly basic. End-of-the-pier acts, and nothing wrong with that!

        • Mr Speaker, surely music- be it jazz, classical or indeed the more instantly digestible ‘beat’ variety which today’s youngsters appear to relish with such careless abandon- is reliant on an element of what one might call ‘connection’. There may well be Paganinnis and other virtuosos plying their trade and bringing much joy in their wake but I remain committed to the belief, Mr Speaker, that ultimately, it is the melody and the actual tune which accords permanence and longevity to music and not the number of notes played or the particular skill of the player. In that respect Mr Speaker, whilst we can all enjoy and applaud the magical fingers of a trained pianist or cellist- or, indeed, the silky tones of a jazz musician- at the end of the day if what they actually create does not chime with a large enough audience it will, sadly, be forgotten within a generation.

  25. Actually, I like jazz. I’ve got most of Cannonball’s output on the Riverside label together with a healthy selection of Blue Note stuff and the obligatory Miles and Coltrane. I have a liking for Bechet and Armstrong too.

    My problem with Soft Machine is not that it’s ‘jazz’. Just that it’s bad jazz.

    • My problem with your opinion is that it’s wrong.

      However, I recognise the truth of Moose’s comment, so I won’t try to intellectually convince you that you like the music that you don’t like – I’ll just leave you in your wrongness – after all, it’s only leisure time, isn’t it?

            • The definition of ‘good’ in this context is surely impossible to define or qualify? Does it come down to longevity? Sales? Influence? Both Miles Davis and Marc Bolan were superb in their own, very different ways. We can all, I’m sure, agree on that.

              Oh, and that Soft Machine were a fair to middling Canterbury band whose fortunes took a dive after Kev- their only genuine songwriter- left to try to be a proper pop star (and fail). I’m sure we can all agree on that too.

              Possibly…

              • “Soft Machine were a fair to middling Canterbury band whose fortunes took a dive after Kev- their only genuine songwriter- left to try to be a proper pop star (and fail). I’m sure we can all agree on that too.”

                Ah yes – the old theywereneveranygoodaftersoandsoleft trope. See also Syd Barrett, Brian Jones, Skip Spence, Stu Sutcliffe ectect. This is the default position of deramdaze, and many others, because it means you don’t have to exercise any critical abilities at all.

                Of course, you have to ignore the fact that all the bands involved went on to massive success without their genius guiding lights, but that’s no problem.

                  • Plus, of course, Stu Sutcliffe’s musical influence on the Beatles was always negligible. In fact it may even have been detrimental. But that’s by the by.

                  • Eddie – are you kidding? I wasn’t talking about Moby Grape (who sold millions of albums for major labels and toured the world but anyway …) but Jefferson Airplane, probably a little outside your comfort zone, as is the Soft Machine, who were also a major group on a major label with a worldwide following. What little hole have you burrowed for yourself?

                    • I would argue that Skip Spence’s tenure with Moby Grape is more widely acknowledged than his brief stint as a drummer with Jefferson Airplane. As for selling millions of records…mmm…perhaps by now they have but, of course, at the time the band were deemed a commercial disaster due to that attempt to release the entire debut album as 7″ singles and also by the involvement of Matthew Katz who effectively blocked the band from touring. Yes, there were Moby Grape tours but there were TWO Moby Grapes and the second version bore little or no relation to their original incarnation. To this day they don’t own the right to the name ‘Moby Grape’ and the surviving members are forced to call themselves something else if ever they perform in public. So, on the whole, not a success story. In fact, the Moby Grape experience is often touted as one of the most tragic career trajectories in the history of pop music. They coulda been huge. In the end they ended up a cult band. Like that other one. Oh you know…

  26. I gave “My people were fair etc etc” a listen this morning. Surprisingly enjoyable and well done, and like it is with albums you loved 40 years ago I couldn’t have hummed more than the odd hook but then knew every word.

    I shall be working through in order. The opinion of the cognoscenti back then was that “Unicorn” was the best album. We shall see.

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