Disc of the day
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
Features Disc of the day
Vivian Stanshall
Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead
(Warner Bros, 1974)
The pain, genius, booze, despair and booze of a rock’n’roll life. And three songs about ‘the old fellah’.
When The Bonzo Dog Band went their separate ways in 1972 co-frontman Vivian Stanshall was enticed to Warner Bros, who believed they could harness the crackpot mastermind behind that deranged band’s most outré excursions. Warners had to wait two years before Stanshall’s keen brain could cut through the booze-sodden axminster of his own self-doubt and finally craft an album’s worth of lyrics. Recorded at The Manor, Trident and Apple Studios with ex-Bonzos Neil Innes and ‘Bubs’ White and the top Traffic line-up of Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Ric Grech, Gaspar Lawal and Rebop Kwaku Baah, MOUA was finally delivered to Warners in April 1974. It was not the album they were looking for. Opening track Afoju Ti Ole Riran (Dead Eyes), trucks in like some fuzzed Afro-funk supercurse against the record label itself, with Stanshall grimly intoning “Tomorrow’s children will be sold/and unwittingly enrolled/In the night-soil of your selfishness”. And so it continues, subaqeous grooves and breakbeats submarine ‘neath oily waves of whisky, fag tar and fear-sweat, as Stanshall dives and surfaces, like some arseholed Ahab, strapped to the white whale of his own hubris. Yelp, Bellow, Rasp Etc is a leering, befuddled blues riff, damp with the fleck-spittle of wailing defeat while Bout Of Sobriety is a crapulous boogie-woogie interspersed with foul gargling and burped leers. It is an album without peer, features three odes to Stanshall’s penis (Sample lyric: “Gotta strap him to me leg to go shopping”) and ends with the terrifying Strange Tongues, a Victorian mandrake plucked from suburban Sunday, that ends with Stanshall screeeeeching “I’ve finished the back dear/now I’ll make a start on the front!”; Munch’s Skrik relocated to a freshly mowed front lawn in Walthamstow. Interested? Your options are limited. Warners only pressed five thousand copies. In retaliation Stanshall destroyed one of their boardrooms, and secreted a bag of bluebottle maggots behind the radiator of the label president. Until they forgive him and reissue the thing you’ll have to make do with illegal downloads. Go here to sign the petition for Warner Bros to release it on CD and here to read Stanshall’s widow Ki Longfellow’s detailed breakdown of the album’s, erm, breakdown.
Andrew Male
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 26/06/2008
Further Listening
Vivian Stanshall – Sir Henry At Rawlinson End (Charisma, 1978)
Traffic – The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (Island, 1971)
The Butthole Surfers – Locust Abortion Technician (Touch & Go, 1987)
SUGGEST YOUR OWN DISC OF THE DAY ON OUR MESSAGE BOARD HERE, OR, MORE PRIVATELY, HERE!
Previous Disc of the day
-
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
6:00 AM GMT 18/03/2010
-
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Green River
Essence De Choogle from John Fogerty and crew. Badass!
9:54 AM GMT 17/03/2010
-
The The - Soul Mining
Matt Johnson's self-excoriating - but tunepacked! -classic.
6:00 AM GMT 16/03/2010
-
-
Various Artists - Axe Attack Vol II
Metal Britannica inspires MOJO metal amnesty. Studded leather wristbands aloft!
2:32 AM GMT 12/03/2010
-
The Pop Group - Y
For connoisseurs of pop-as-rupture-in-the-space/time-continuum
6:00 AM GMT 11/03/2010
end of body content back to top
Footer
Join us on:
© Copyright Bauer - all
rights reserved.
Reproduction of this
website, in whole or in
part, in any form or
medium without express
written permission from
Bauer is prohibited. All
use is subject to our
Terms of Use
|
|
Comments
Comment on this post
Stanshall was a genius...
When will MOJO be including an article on him the other BONZO's, and other strange but talented artists, i.e. Ivor Cutler?
Posted by No one of any importance at 1:14 PM GMT 26/06/2008 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Just found this link which I thought had disappeared; somewhere to download the whole of Umbrellas and hear what all the fuss is about:
http://www.shuttleworths.co.uk/sirhenry/moua.html
But please sign the petition and visit Ki's website first!
AM
Posted by Andrew Male at 9:09 AM GMT 27/06/2008 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
I am the man who started the long-running online petition to get Warner Brothers to reissue Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead. Since they never responded to me, I have considered pleading our case to two indie reissue labels who could do a reissue.
Sundazed Music: www.sundazed.com
Light in the Attic Records: www.lightin the attic.net
Both of these labels have connections with Warner Brothers and frankly, either one of them would do Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead justice.
Please do everything in your power to get this lost classic the exposure and respect that it deserves.
DADA for now.....
Posted by Mick Cantone at 6:57 AM GMT 09/02/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
RE: Mick Cantone
What about asking the Cherry Red nexus as well, Mick?
Posted by Andrew Male at 11:21 AM GMT 11/02/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Comment on this post