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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, Number 8. April 24 1972

Records

Records

Ice Water: Leo Kottke. Capital disc.

In seedy little record shops in seedy American suburbs they probably have lots of reduced discs by three guys called Robbie Basho, John Fahey and Leo Kottke, all of whom used to record for Fahey's seedy little Takoma label. Which is unfair and unjust because they're probably the finest acoustic guitarists in America. Fahey and Co. have been churning out LPs for about five years now, and there's no real sign of the fickle finger marking them out for the Big Break. They play a kind of Appalachian reggae; long, weaving virtuoso pieces that milk most of American folk traditions along the way. They have names like "The Dance of Blind Joe Death". It's quiet, beautiful and self controlled music played with a taste and economy that will ensure continued obscurity for all three.

Fahey is the most famous. He rediscovered John Hurt and Skip James years ago; he wrote a book about Charley Patton, and his music turned up briefly in "Zabriskic Point". Basho is the most sensual, and uses a lot of Eastern ideas. Kottke could possibly be the most commercial. On this, his third Capitol LP, he does the best Tom T. Hall song I've ever heard, and some brilliant material of his own. This guy also plays the best 12 string guitar you'll hear any-where! Fast, complex, perfectly controlled and quite subordinated to the needs of the material. And he has a rich but deadpan voice, very much like Ry Cooder. In fact if Ry Cooder was fat, he'd probably sound a lot like Leo Kottke. The raves in this review are all well earned. Just wish it would work a miracle and get someone to release the Takoma catalogue in this country.

Buffalo Springfield: two LPs; Atlantic Sd806.

This isn't just another oldies album, because Buffalo Springfield still repay playing. And they stand up to the test of time so well precisely because they never went in for any of those adventurous projects that date so quickly. And as always the melodies of these tunes by Stephen Still, Neil Young, Jim Messina and Richie Furay just keep coming round and round in your head for days afterwards.

Most of the tracks have appeared in one guise or another on other Springfield albums, so it boils down to whether your taste in the old material matches that of the man at Atlantic. Nearly all the choices are good ones. Still's "Sit Down I Think I Love You" and "Rock and Roll Woman" sound remarkably like the kind of music he's still working at today. Neil Young's "Out of My Mind" is not so familiar, but a lovely song all the same. Even though the album leans fairly heavily on cuts from the first two Springfield LPs its sad that no one saw fit to include either Young's first anti-drug song "Flying on the Ground is Wrong" or "Do You Have To Come Right Out and Say It" which was also released as the flip of their first hit "For What Its Worth". That's here, of course, and its so fortunate that all of these brilliant early songs missed out on the big screen treatment that the later Stills and Young tunes got given by CSN $ Y.

In fact, after listening to Neil and Steve doing teenage harmony together and after hearing all the skilled pickin and pluckin' going on in these simple tunes, yes after hearing all the energy talent and taste spread over these two records I feel tempted to say something like: this was America's answer to the Beatles!

Tales from Topographic Oceans: Yes. Atlantic 2-SD 4742.

Yes are definitely not to be taken lightly. I don't dunk it's unfair to quote a couple of examples from their lyrics out of context:

"As one with the knowledge and magic of the source/attuned to the majesty of music/they marched as one with earth." and "Lost in light's array/I ventured to see as the sound began to play"

Jon Anderson's words illustrate the problem: he and the band seem to be pushing hard for some sort of magnum opus. They bring a tremendous amount of fire power to bear on the Great Task: Yes are incredibly accomplished as musicians — they've all got the technique, and they aren't afraid to try things out. The music is awesomely literate and blessed with a production that brings out the richness of every texture; I bet there are many musicians who drive themselves spare trying to work out how they do it, but for me, Yes are missing the point in the grand style.

I wouldn't suggest that they should limit themselves to "Dust My Blues", but they might give a though to letting a real emotional feel develop by itself instead of trying to force it out by all means known to musical science.

This isn't to say Yes are simply a crowd of pretentious ivory tower people. In amongst the complexities there are some beautiful passages — for example during the second half of Ritual: Nous Sommes Du Soleil — but the subjects they're dealing with demand a more oblique approach, a greater degree of subtlety and down home guts.

Now if Yes were to start off from less grandiose concepts and tame their technique, they'd really be getting somewhere. As they are on 'Tales from Topographic Oceans" they stand as monuments to the perils of progressive music. After all, every Don Quixote needs his Sancho Panza just as every Morecambe needs his Wise.

Andy Pratt: SBP474133.

I was reading Bob Christgaw late last night and God, it's great to see that someone else hates the Eagles. I mean, hip capitalists we will always have among us, but do we really have to endure hip reactionaries that are as smug and fatuous as those boys? But just to show you that the brain of every whacked out rich hippie has not turned to mush, meet Andy Pratt.

You probably know him already; "Avenging Annie" is undoubtedly the greatest single of the seventies, a dazzling multi-level journey with Pretty Boy Floyd, the avenging angel, revenge fantasies, paranoia fantasies, liberation fantasies, sado-masochism fantasies and what not, woven into the perfect musical backing; if the Byrds die and go to heaven they'll probably put out singles that sound as good as "Avenging Annie". And the wonder is, it was a bigger hit in Wellington than anywhere else in the world!

The good news is that the LP is nearly as good. As an antidote to that Hollywood cow shit you get from the Eagles, try "Sittin' in the Moonlight", while on one channel Andy lisps out a slightly bent version of the usual Mother Nature drool ("stick your toe in the cool ocean water") on the other channel the other Andy Pratt is lisping things like "I'm gonna jump right out of here and stab you".

That's the thing about Andy; he's a little intense, a mite excessive. He's blessed with this banshee falsetto voice and he has a talent for writing love songs with lines like "and you ripped your fingers on the doorknob/walked straight into the TV/and said something which made everyone think you were really stupid". There's also another song about how when Andy can't make it with people he "gives it all to music" and it seems he hears "dark pianos" playing in his head all the time. I believe it. This one scores in all directions. Five stars for manic energy, five stars for the voice, five stars for the phenomenal over tracking and overdubbing, and five stars for somehow finding a completely unknown backing group. Roger Hawkins does not play drums on this record.

The bad news is that this gem has sold about three copies. So Phonogram will surely delete it. Remember what happened with the Armatrading LP?