Paul Simon said: “Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts” and, if you came of musical age in the 70s, you’ll be used to people banging on about The Stranglers, The Damned and The Sex Pistols.
Punk’s ‘year zero’ is well documented, but there is one hugely influential (and massively under-rated) 70s band that is often overlooked when historians reminisce about that golden age of musical and cultural transformation. I’ve long considered it to be a travesty of lazy criticism to have pigeonholed The Wurzels as a mere novelty act. Readers of a certain vintage may recall those trailblazing glory days when they broke down the musical barriers in a way that the likes of Milli Vanilli, Black Lace and Radiohead could only dream about.
Their number one single from June 1976 ‘I’ve got a brand new combine harvester’ celebrated the arrival of new technologies at a time when the industry was trying to arrest the decline precipitated by the Devon strawberry famine of 1973, while the follow-up ‘I am a cider drinker’ (see link in the OP) was a serious study of the effects of alcohol abuse on workers in the Cornish agricultural industry.
Rock historians are invariably split on the topic of The Wurzels. Their music is multi-layered and full of delicious lyrical ambiguities, but they have also suffered for this cleverness. Some may recall the late-seventies controversy when their albums were banned in the southern states of America after lead singer Tommy Banner claimed that God was over-rated. He later retracted the statement by claiming that he had merely said that ‘cod’ was over-rated, but by then it was too late. The band had become front page news all around the globe, as hundreds of angry bible-bashers burned piles of Wurzels albums and threatened violent retribution. Only the intervention of the UN cultural ambassador Barbara Streisand stopped things getting really ugly.
It’s probably fair to say that The Wurzels never really recovered from that setback, although in his seminal work on the band -‘Adventures in Cider Space, Volume 1’- Charles Shaar Murray actually traced the start of their artistic decline to their ill-advised decision to re-launch themselves by jumping on the electronic ‘Scrumpy and Western’ bandwagon in the mid-eighties.
Their trailblazing glory days may be behind them, but there is at least a glimmer of hope that The Wurzels may yet return to the epicentre of pop culture. The blogosphere is currently in meltdown with tantalising rumours of a forthcoming collaboration with FKA Twigs.
If they can pull that one off, I’d say it would push them marginally ahead of the Beatles and the Stones in the ‘continued cultural relevance’ stakes.
“Their trailblazing glory days may be behind them.” That’s blooming fighting talk @Raymond. They are just starting. Always poplier at the Beany Arena homestead. It’s too early for a selection of their Christmas songs so have this as an example instead.
A Load More Bullocks is the better of the “Bullocks” albums.
The first is perhaps a tad predictable (well known songs done in a West Country accent).
The second is perhaps more “experimental” pushing into newer territory with covers of The Stranglers, Tears For Fears *, Pulp and Spinal Tap. It finishes with the heartfelt majesty of “Ode to Adge Cutler”
* Tears For Fears are from Bath, so this is perhaps what the original demo version sounded like
Thank you, Raymond. Your think-piece is both timely and long overdue. The Wurzels (or “The Wurzels” as fans affectionately call them) have long been the cult favourite amongst that small section of the public whose musical knowledge extends no further, and it is heartening to see them the subject of the major critical re-assessment which still eludes them. It is hard to under-estimate which of their albums most truly represents their contribution not only to pop music but also the wider context of the culture which continues to relegate them to much-needed obscurity, even today.
“Box of horrors”.
“A long forsaken box of deplorable discs”
and the final nail in the coffin…
“This ear-numbing offering from Don Estelle & Windor (sic) Davies.” (how did this get in here. – Ed.)
Lesser mortals have done a flounce for less than this. The fight back starts here. I mean LOOK – the band are playing London Dingwalls five days before Christmas. They are still HUGE. probably the Cornish pasties.
Forget Kraftwerk, the Wurzels did it first, if by first you mean performing as robots on stage.
Back in the late 1970s I was taken on a family holiday to Blackpool. One day, possibly due to bad weather, we ended up walking around the various attractions on the seafront – shop, amusement arcades, etc.
We made our way to one complex which had a strange mixture of attractions on display. After looking at various props from old TV shows, including some of the vehicles from Thunderbirds, we came to a room with a few rows of seats and a stage. On the stage were three robotic Wurzels, and we were treated to a performance of one, or both, of their big hits. Utterly bizarre!
The Wurzels bah!! I was always a Barron Knights man myself. They also need a critical re-assessment. How could we ignore such classics as this little beauty:-
There may not be the deserving critical re-appraisal for ver Knights, as they were outed as overt racists on that Channel 4 “Let’s Laugh At, And Find Fault With The Past” thingy a couple of weeks ago.
Yes, and before the inevitable slide into the chicken in a basket circuit, the Barron Knights scored three top ten hits in 1964/65, at the height of Beatles/Stones mania.
Check out the spookily accurate impersonation of Mick at 0:27. We were easily pleased in the 60s.
Food For Thought was the offfending song. The Chinese impression, and the statement: “all them Chinamen look the same” caused the overly smug “comedians” to shout “No, they can’t do that. Oo, that’s bad!”.
Well what a heap of old crap that was. I vaguely remember it too. Incredible too that it was between Union City Blue and Brass in Pocket. A shit sandwich.
My favourite Barron (as no one has ever called them) is Butch Baker the pugilistic-looking one who resembles Arthur Mullard (playing the Les Paul on the right).
The Wurzels were never the same after their founder and leader, Adge Cutler, died when he crashed his MGB in 1974ad.
Just look out for “Champion Dung Spreader” and “Drink up thy Zyder”. As astute an insight into the human condition as you’ll ever hear.
I wish I could do that link thing.
A thoughtful piece Raymond which underplays their role, if anything. They are famous for shying away from the limelight, much to their own cost. “The quintessential West Country situationist collective” according to music writer and on-call bell end Paul Morely.
Lou Reed died without his longed-for collaboration. It is now clear that the man he was waiting for was dressed like a scarecrow and had a ruddy complexion.
It was only a matter of time before someone brought up the subject of the Barron Knights, wasn’t it?
With respect to those who want to drag the discussion down this tiresome route again … YOU ARE TALKING OUT OF YOUR ARSES.
Yes, both the Wurzels and the Knights helped shaped chart music as we know it, but only one of them consistently produced ‘all killer, no filler’ albums which continued to innovate at every step. That’s not to take anything away from the Knight’s greatest achievements. That string of singles from ‘Call up the groups’ to ‘Under new management’ more or less defined the 60s, but they were very much a singles band. A run of brilliant singles doesn’t really compare to a solid body of ground-breaking albums.
As Roland Barthes put it in his ground-breaking study: ‘Ready, Steady, Go: Beyond The semiotic archeology of the frivolous’:
“The two distinct taxonomies within popular music are the music of pleasure (plaisir) and the music of bliss (jouissance). The music of ‘plaisir’ grants a brief euphoria; it is a music that comes from culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of merely ‘listening’.
Conversely, the music of ‘jouissance’ consists of a more complex and culturally entwined series of signifiers and may require a level of intertextual analysis for the listener to gain a true understanding of the content. When one listens, for instance, to ‘I am a cider drinker’, one is in the presence of a music that imposes a state of loss, a music that discomforts and unsettles the reader’s historical, cultural and psychological assumptions.”
Funnily enough, I had a Wurzels moment just yesterday. Melanie popped up out of the blue on a compilation LP and no sooner had she sung “You rode your bicycle to my window last night”, there was me rejoining with “oo aar oo aar”, followed by a colossal double take. Should have been a camera to look into.
I always preferred The Boondox myself. Although written off by lazy journalists as a cynical corporate US copy of the W’s, their singles – “Last Train to Hicksville”, particularly – were finely crafted masterpieces behind which lay the talents of Messrs Blaine, Tedesco & Co. Respect.
They were a “joke band” put together by members of the so-called Wrecking Crew. They appeared on the Carson show, dressed as hillbillies, and performed two numbers, “Married My Sister, Shot My Pa” and “Mother’s Milk Tasted Of Moonshine Whiskey”. They never made a recording, as far as I know. There’s no YouTube record of this because of legal action taken by Carol Kaye.
Somebody mentioned their West Country rivals Tears for Fears up there. Now they really *were* taking the piss. I can’t believe that these idiots made so much money from singing ridiculous songs in their silly accents, wearing stupid clothes. Embarrassing.
I’ve got a feeling there’s another Wurzels trib band. I find it puzzling, as surely the real thing can’t be that much more expensive than the ersatz version.
Paul Simon said: “Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts” and, if you came of musical age in the 70s, you’ll be used to people banging on about The Stranglers, The Damned and The Sex Pistols.
Punk’s ‘year zero’ is well documented, but there is one hugely influential (and massively under-rated) 70s band that is often overlooked when historians reminisce about that golden age of musical and cultural transformation. I’ve long considered it to be a travesty of lazy criticism to have pigeonholed The Wurzels as a mere novelty act. Readers of a certain vintage may recall those trailblazing glory days when they broke down the musical barriers in a way that the likes of Milli Vanilli, Black Lace and Radiohead could only dream about.
Their number one single from June 1976 ‘I’ve got a brand new combine harvester’ celebrated the arrival of new technologies at a time when the industry was trying to arrest the decline precipitated by the Devon strawberry famine of 1973, while the follow-up ‘I am a cider drinker’ (see link in the OP) was a serious study of the effects of alcohol abuse on workers in the Cornish agricultural industry.
Rock historians are invariably split on the topic of The Wurzels. Their music is multi-layered and full of delicious lyrical ambiguities, but they have also suffered for this cleverness. Some may recall the late-seventies controversy when their albums were banned in the southern states of America after lead singer Tommy Banner claimed that God was over-rated. He later retracted the statement by claiming that he had merely said that ‘cod’ was over-rated, but by then it was too late. The band had become front page news all around the globe, as hundreds of angry bible-bashers burned piles of Wurzels albums and threatened violent retribution. Only the intervention of the UN cultural ambassador Barbara Streisand stopped things getting really ugly.
It’s probably fair to say that The Wurzels never really recovered from that setback, although in his seminal work on the band -‘Adventures in Cider Space, Volume 1’- Charles Shaar Murray actually traced the start of their artistic decline to their ill-advised decision to re-launch themselves by jumping on the electronic ‘Scrumpy and Western’ bandwagon in the mid-eighties.
Their trailblazing glory days may be behind them, but there is at least a glimmer of hope that The Wurzels may yet return to the epicentre of pop culture. The blogosphere is currently in meltdown with tantalising rumours of a forthcoming collaboration with FKA Twigs.
If they can pull that one off, I’d say it would push them marginally ahead of the Beatles and the Stones in the ‘continued cultural relevance’ stakes.
“Their trailblazing glory days may be behind them.” That’s blooming fighting talk @Raymond. They are just starting. Always poplier at the Beany Arena homestead. It’s too early for a selection of their Christmas songs so have this as an example instead.
A Load More Bullocks is the better of the “Bullocks” albums.
The first is perhaps a tad predictable (well known songs done in a West Country accent).
The second is perhaps more “experimental” pushing into newer territory with covers of The Stranglers, Tears For Fears *, Pulp and Spinal Tap. It finishes with the heartfelt majesty of “Ode to Adge Cutler”
* Tears For Fears are from Bath, so this is perhaps what the original demo version sounded like
At last!
Thank you, Raymond. Your think-piece is both timely and long overdue. The Wurzels (or “The Wurzels” as fans affectionately call them) have long been the cult favourite amongst that small section of the public whose musical knowledge extends no further, and it is heartening to see them the subject of the major critical re-assessment which still eludes them. It is hard to under-estimate which of their albums most truly represents their contribution not only to pop music but also the wider context of the culture which continues to relegate them to much-needed obscurity, even today.
Great stuff, Raymond.
Earlier this year I managed to listen to an entire Wurzels LP: http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/little-box-of-horrors-part-4.html
I really don’t know you @minibreakfast do I?
“Box of horrors”.
“A long forsaken box of deplorable discs”
and the final nail in the coffin…
“This ear-numbing offering from Don Estelle & Windor (sic) Davies.” (how did this get in here. – Ed.)
Lesser mortals have done a flounce for less than this. The fight back starts here. I mean LOOK – the band are playing London Dingwalls five days before Christmas. They are still HUGE. probably the Cornish pasties.
http://www.thewurzels.com/gigs.htm
Thanks for the spellcheck, Beanster. Corrected!
I wish you’d mentioned that back in February 🙂
I was hoping the ridicule over the coming months would bring you to your senses. I mean, me and The Don are ascloseasthat these days on Twitter.
Make sure you tune into Twitter between 8.30 and 9.00 tonight, when I tweet the day’s car boot finds. There’s a record I think you’ll like very much 😉
In that case perhaps I should post a track from the Ken Goodwin Christmas Album on Soundcloud. Settle down now…
Forget Kraftwerk, the Wurzels did it first, if by first you mean performing as robots on stage.
Back in the late 1970s I was taken on a family holiday to Blackpool. One day, possibly due to bad weather, we ended up walking around the various attractions on the seafront – shop, amusement arcades, etc.
We made our way to one complex which had a strange mixture of attractions on display. After looking at various props from old TV shows, including some of the vehicles from Thunderbirds, we came to a room with a few rows of seats and a stage. On the stage were three robotic Wurzels, and we were treated to a performance of one, or both, of their big hits. Utterly bizarre!
I’m glad you highlighted this @raymond. For me, the Wurzels are almost as trailblazing as U2. Almost… ❤️
If Beatles = Scientology then Wurzels = … Jedi?
The Wurzels bah!! I was always a Barron Knights man myself. They also need a critical re-assessment. How could we ignore such classics as this little beauty:-
https://youtu.be/hBUyTn_wIhc
There may not be the deserving critical re-appraisal for ver Knights, as they were outed as overt racists on that Channel 4 “Let’s Laugh At, And Find Fault With The Past” thingy a couple of weeks ago.
I once saw The Barron Knights ‘supporting’ Hot Gossip. It was some gig. I enjoyed the scampi and chips too.
Trivia Time (Pop Fact!):
The Barron Knights are one of only three UK bands to have supported both The Beatles and The Stones on UK Tours
(The Moody Blues and Cliff Bennett & the Rebel Rousers being the others)
Yes, and before the inevitable slide into the chicken in a basket circuit, the Barron Knights scored three top ten hits in 1964/65, at the height of Beatles/Stones mania.
Check out the spookily accurate impersonation of Mick at 0:27. We were easily pleased in the 60s.
Missed that, what did they do?
Food For Thought was the offfending song. The Chinese impression, and the statement: “all them Chinamen look the same” caused the overly smug “comedians” to shout “No, they can’t do that. Oo, that’s bad!”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_vEeXb4e4E
That wad truly appaling.
That was truly appaling.
Coming from you, Unc, that’s saying something. I daren’t click play. Is it worse than Def Leppard? 😉
Well what a heap of old crap that was. I vaguely remember it too. Incredible too that it was between Union City Blue and Brass in Pocket. A shit sandwich.
Isn’t that Dennis Wilson with the beard? I knew he had a troubled career, but this …
My favourite Barron (as no one has ever called them) is Butch Baker the pugilistic-looking one who resembles Arthur Mullard (playing the Les Paul on the right).
He’s been there from the start I think.
RE: “forthcoming collaboration with FKA Twigs”
I think you’ll find it’s “forthcoming confrontation over NFU tweet*”
* proposed removal of scrumpy subsidy
The Wurzels were never the same after their founder and leader, Adge Cutler, died when he crashed his MGB in 1974ad.
Just look out for “Champion Dung Spreader” and “Drink up thy Zyder”. As astute an insight into the human condition as you’ll ever hear.
I wish I could do that link thing.
Things have to get wurzel before they can get better I fear.
After the inter- necine strife of the Battle of Beatleloo, Rabble Rouser Raymond now seems determined to fan the flames of discord yet further.
Mention the W word on the AW and anything can happen.
A thoughtful piece Raymond which underplays their role, if anything. They are famous for shying away from the limelight, much to their own cost. “The quintessential West Country situationist collective” according to music writer and on-call bell end Paul Morely.
Lou Reed died without his longed-for collaboration. It is now clear that the man he was waiting for was dressed like a scarecrow and had a ruddy complexion.
It was only a matter of time before someone brought up the subject of the Barron Knights, wasn’t it?
With respect to those who want to drag the discussion down this tiresome route again … YOU ARE TALKING OUT OF YOUR ARSES.
Yes, both the Wurzels and the Knights helped shaped chart music as we know it, but only one of them consistently produced ‘all killer, no filler’ albums which continued to innovate at every step. That’s not to take anything away from the Knight’s greatest achievements. That string of singles from ‘Call up the groups’ to ‘Under new management’ more or less defined the 60s, but they were very much a singles band. A run of brilliant singles doesn’t really compare to a solid body of ground-breaking albums.
As Roland Barthes put it in his ground-breaking study: ‘Ready, Steady, Go: Beyond The semiotic archeology of the frivolous’:
“The two distinct taxonomies within popular music are the music of pleasure (plaisir) and the music of bliss (jouissance). The music of ‘plaisir’ grants a brief euphoria; it is a music that comes from culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of merely ‘listening’.
Conversely, the music of ‘jouissance’ consists of a more complex and culturally entwined series of signifiers and may require a level of intertextual analysis for the listener to gain a true understanding of the content. When one listens, for instance, to ‘I am a cider drinker’, one is in the presence of a music that imposes a state of loss, a music that discomforts and unsettles the reader’s historical, cultural and psychological assumptions.”
The Wurzels were the best band ever. Fact.
Grand piece, @Raymond.
Funnily enough, I had a Wurzels moment just yesterday. Melanie popped up out of the blue on a compilation LP and no sooner had she sung “You rode your bicycle to my window last night”, there was me rejoining with “oo aar oo aar”, followed by a colossal double take. Should have been a camera to look into.
I always preferred The Boondox myself. Although written off by lazy journalists as a cynical corporate US copy of the W’s, their singles – “Last Train to Hicksville”, particularly – were finely crafted masterpieces behind which lay the talents of Messrs Blaine, Tedesco & Co. Respect.
Who were these Boondox? Googled the song title and all I could find was a Dan Hicks song and a TV show of that name.
They were a “joke band” put together by members of the so-called Wrecking Crew. They appeared on the Carson show, dressed as hillbillies, and performed two numbers, “Married My Sister, Shot My Pa” and “Mother’s Milk Tasted Of Moonshine Whiskey”. They never made a recording, as far as I know. There’s no YouTube record of this because of legal action taken by Carol Kaye.
Oh – correct spelling, please, Archie – “Boondoks”.
Somebody mentioned their West Country rivals Tears for Fears up there. Now they really *were* taking the piss. I can’t believe that these idiots made so much money from singing ridiculous songs in their silly accents, wearing stupid clothes. Embarrassing.
The Wurzels must be big. They have a tribute band. I may have this CD. Just don’t ask me to find.
It.
Don’t knock the Knights. Some of their later releases are quite groovy. Check them out on Spotify. This track was a b-side.
I’ve got a feeling there’s another Wurzels trib band. I find it puzzling, as surely the real thing can’t be that much more expensive than the ersatz version.
Like that Vegas billboard on The Simpsons: “TONIGHT: A TRiBUTE TO THE MOODY BLUES BY THE FIVE SATINS! Support: The Moody Blues.”