— Stakka Bo
"I like the sound."
— Oscar
Are you in a band with leftists politics and you're struggling to come up with a name? Well, the solution is simple: do a bit of reading into the English Civil Wars of the mid-seventeenth century and you'll find something that will no doubt fit.
It's not quite as commonplace as I assumed. New Model Army and Levellers are the only two notable bands who took their names from this time period. There was a nineties' Scottish group called The Diggers but they got their name from a novel from the sixties with no connection whatsoever to Fairfax or Cromwell. Yet, I'm going to assume that there are plenty of much smaller outfits who support social democracy and have names like The Roundheads or Pride's Purge — and if they haven't been taken, have at it!
Though there is this wealth of potential band names from the era, it's worth noting that neither of the big two are especially well-remembered anymore. Perhaps your older brother or your mate's older brother was into New Model Army but they never really did much for you. (By "you" I'm referring to myself) Or Levellers had that feeble call-to-arms "anthem" "One Way" which you quite liked when you were fourteen but you've subsequently disowned because everyone you respect has told you how naff it is. (And, again, by "you" I am referring to myself)
"One Way" only got to number fifty-one on the charts in Britain back in 1991 but it has somehow cast a shadow over the rest of their work. Levellers had fifteen Top 40 hits but they somehow couldn't get people to forget about that flop of their's from early on in their recording career. Some will mockingly sing the cliche-ridden chorus, others won't even mention it at all but I just know that when nine out of ten critics and/or music fans give Levellers a good coating down, this is the song they're thinking of.
I'm neutral when it comes to Levellers. On the one hand, I completely understand why "One Way" makes so many want to vomit. Having not actually listened to it in over thirty years, I would quite like to have its annoying refrain wiped from my memory. Crapping on it is the low hanging fruit but there are other songs of their's that leave a lot to be desired. Much of what appears on breakthrough album Levelling the Land is poor — "Fifteen Years", their first of many hits that fell just short of the Top 10, is if anything worse than "One Way" — or, at best, leaves me feeling indifferent. On the other hand, I have an answer to the as yet unasked question "what is your favourite Levellers song?" (It's the poignant "Searchlights" from the 1995 WarChild charity compilation Help and it's so damn good that it rivals other better known highlights such as Radiohead's "Lucky" and Suede's "Shipbuilding") They did some stuff that sucks but they also had some good songs in them — they just weren't those that their fans tended to flock towards.
"This Garden" I would place on the good side. Like Oscar and Stakka Bo of, well, Stakka Bo, I'm not bowled over by it but there's enough to it to make me want to go back and give it a listen every so often. Ira Robbins, in a career-spanning review for Trouser Press, describes its eccentric mix of didgeridoo, dance music grooves and raps in the verses as "disastrous" but I hear it as a brave stab that works in spite of the fact that it really shouldn't. It helps that Simon Friend is almost doing a music hall send up in his spoken word parts (I was going to say that it reminds me of Phil Daniels on Blur's "Parklife" but that single was still a year away from making its large imprint on British culture) instead of some sad and laughable white boy MC spot. For a band that could have easily stuck to the anarcho-folk-punk that helped them gain a sizable following in the late eighties and early nineties, it's refreshing to hear them stretch out and even pull it off.
Where "This Garden" is superior to something like "One Way" is in its subtlety. Their early singles hit the listener over the head with messages that aren't in the least bit deep but a much more measured and considered approach to their songwriting began to take shape on third album Levellers. It's quite shocking to hear such a working class-friendly band admit that "blood, sweat and tears really don't matter, just the things that you do in this garden". In reality the song's meaning isn't terribly different from "One Way", only that it's expressed with far more originality. If their new-found musical catholicism wasn't impressive enough, there was also some strong lyrical touches that go far beyond the pablum they previously dished out to audiences. Rather than ramming your message home, why not make punters have to think about your latest protest song?
Levellers didn't make a tremendous impact in North America but there was a Canadian group who had more than a little in common with them. Vancouver's Spirit of the West had formed playing aggressive folk music which appealed to university students who were just getting accustomed to consuming vast quantities of alcohol. To this day their appropriately spirited crowd-pleaser "Home for a Rest" remains a favourite among their loyal fanbase. But it's also a rather polarizing song. Haters can't stand it and I have to admit that they have a point. SOTW got better and had further hits in Canada but they could never quite escape the shadow of that one tune of their's with a big chorus that first gave them fame. "Home for a Rest" would be their "One Way" but I'll take "And If Venice Is Sinking" which is very much their "This Garden". Hardcore fans don't know anything.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Bitty McLean: "Pass It On"
I feel like I'm pointing this out a lot of late but the selection of singles in this issue of Smash Hits is remarkably poor. The guys from Stakka Bo aren't even that crazy about "This Garden" — "that's as positive as we're going to get, so Best New Single it is!" their review concludes — and they don't have a great deal of enthusiasm for much else on offer. And who can blame them? There are good songs but the recordings of them aren't up to much. Bitty McLean's penchant for good-natured cover versions is tested to its limit on this gospel take on The Wailers "Pass It On", a deep cut from their groundbreaking 1973 album Burnin'. A straightforward modernized copy of it would have been preferable even if it would have had its flaws too. The Marley version (I'm not sure if it's the original given that he nor bandmates Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh actually wrote it) is suitably laid back and moving but none of that survives in Bitty's treatment. Good on him for picking a Wailer's track that hasn't been covered to death, it's just too bad he sucked the life out of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment