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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 2. 7th March 1973

Records

page 19

Records

Records header John Prine album cover art

Diamonds in the Rough—John Prine Atlantic Recording

With his first record John Prine was hailed by critics as the most important musical discovery of last year. This, his second, will add to the stories circulating about him. I've heard that he's some kind of guitar picking bodgie who shares sets with Dylan; sips whiskey between numbers and throws his head back to sing his songs to hushed crowds in grimy clubs. And afterwards the crowd rises up and says things like "he's so goddamn real!" The same mythic beginnings as the young Bob Dylan was going through back in 1963.

The songs, with one exception, are all Prine originals. There are songs about contemporary America ("take the star out of the window") and songs about a soldier's home-coming. And on my favourite track "The Great Compromise", he uses the story of a girl jilting her man at a drive-in to create a gently ironical analogy for the failure of the whole American dream.

What makes these songs work so well is Prine's rare combination of hardbitten reality and sensitivity. It all seems to be there. Prine's acoustic backing is consistently good. The only song without accompaniment is the title track and it shows the simple and yet satisfying way in which he resolves the themes he draws together in his music. The song is a 1929 Carter Family spiritual and it ends the album on an exquisite note

"When Jesus comes to claim us

And says "It is enough "

The diamonds will be shining,

No longer diamonds in the rough"

Striking IT Rich—Hicks and the Hot Licks

The Hot Licks sound a bit like the old Jim Kweskin Jug Band; they have the same good timing sound, and they use fiddles, string bass and percussion effects on the same strange type of songs; even the vocalists sound alike. But unfortunately, that's not all. Jim Kweskin was very popular during the folkie revival and when that folded he left the music business altogether to become an "enforcer" on, the fascist communes run by his old har-monica player, Mel Lyman. Mel, also known as God, spreads a message of hate to the world via a band of followers who have their heads specially re-arranged by God in intimate 1500 microgram "interviews".

I think Mel would really like the Hot Licks, too, it's one of the scariest records I've ever heard, and what's really weird is that it's so hard to Say why. Individually the songs are pleasant, innocuous even. The melodies and harmonics have the mindless charm we tend to associate with music from the thirties and forties. It's just from listening to both sides at one sitting that it starts to get to you. There's a song about a boy who keeps himself company, charms wicked pirates and a nasty uncle by laughing maniacally and rolling on the ground. There's a song called "I scare Myself" which has the backing vocalists twittering "It's me I'm scaring, it's me I'm scaring" from speaker to speaker throughout the song. And there's a lovely waltz tune about domestic bliss with lines like

"Five years, six years, seven years eight Has turned my love to deepest hate"

And in the last track someone screams that "it's bidey; bye time and I hope you all out there will go home and have a real good sleep and thanks to Dan Hicks for making it all possible 'cause he's such a real nice guy ..."

You can take all this on a lot of levels, but I still scare myself listening to the damn thing. I think some of this unease comes from hearing how completely he's penetrated the mood of this music; it's not [unclear: just] the Byrds or Van Dyke Parks nostalgically playing round with old time music, this really does seem to come from the centre of another era; yet of course it was made in 1972. That's what is so unsettling about it, that it is so completely removed, it's not just a glimpse of the past, but an attempt to live it, to turn completely away from any musical allusion to the world we're living in. It's what finally makes this record such great mood music for sitting quietly in the sun, weaving cane baskets and chuckling maniacally to yourself.

The Moody Blues : Seventh Sojourn Threshold THS 7

Every Moody Blues album from "Days of Future Passed" onwards has been a puzzling mixture of banality on one hand, and aesthetically appealing no nonsense rock music on the other. "Seventh Sojourn" is no exception. Here we have a collection of what can best be described as classy muzak, sandwiched between two of the best tracks the group has recorded.

Mike Pinder's "Lost in a lost world" is one of the better cuts, a put down of violent revolution, introduced by a measured drum beat ("angry people in the street/are telling them they've had their full of politics/that wound and kill. . . revolution never won/it's just another form of gun), as well as a study of be widerment in the face of the cosmic dilemma : "Everywhere you go you'll see them smiling/ Everywhere you turn you'll feel the pain/ everyone is looking for the answer". Perhaps their refusal to do nothing positive could have something to do with their predicament. The lyric soars above an ethereal string backing which, in comparison with the rest of the album, is tastefully restrained. The six songs between this and the last number are characterised by well executed lush string arrangements which are too prominent in the final mix and swamp the lead and rhythm instruments.

The descent into triteness starts with "For my Lady" in which the forced vocal mannerisms and a clumsy lyric combine to weigh down the flimsy song structure. A short, saccharine instrumental interlude leads into "Isn't life strange", the hands down winner in the slush stakes. Somehow the group has contrived to extend each of three rhyming words (strange, page, arrange) to four syllables, thus: str-ay-ay-nge, pay-ay-ay-ge, arr-rr-rr-gh It simply doesn't work, and the clumsiest example of over-orchestration on the whole album completely destroys the entire track.

"New Horizons" is the song most directly related to the album title and concept, but even then an air of uncertainty pervades. "Where is this place that we have found/nobody knows where we are bound", a gently fuzzed acoustic guitar starts it off and what would have been a very effective backing fights the Mantovani schmaltz all the way. The harmonies and the steel-edged electric guitar runs alleviate the excruciating experience.

Relief is on the way in the form of the final number "I'm just a singer (in a rock and roll band") which starts at a frantic pace with the drums and bass laying a pulsing foundation for a driving guitar and an insanely good piano. When the electric guitar makes an entrance it adds to the momentum rather than hindering it. This time the strings lose. The lyric asks a pertinent question: "How can we understand/riots by the people/for the people/ who are only destroying themselves" Rather than answer it they say we don't know, "We're just the singers in a rock and roll band". Coincidentally, this track was also released as a single.

Throughout both sides a disquieting sense of deja vu is evoked by the reemployment of certain excerpts which have appeared on previous Moody Blues' records. A flute riff from "In Search of the Lost Chord", crops up as does an acoustic guitar run from "Question" and an electric guitar break transposed from "On the Threshold of a Dream". It's almost as if the group, acknowledging their paucity of musical ideas, have decided to crib others from earlier albums in an attempt to inflate their cult following in America, most of which is only familiar with "Days of Future Passed", "In Search of the Lost Chord" and "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour".