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Alien coaster, from The Dark Side of the Moon Immersion set.
Summer time has come and this means it is time to take the plastic
chairs and table into the garden and have an afternoon drink. The main
problem always is: where are the coasters to put the glasses on? Surely
you didn't pay 120 Euros for a Dark Side of the Moon Immersion
box set to ruin its cheap (but expensive) content by putting a glass of Mojito
on top of those exclusive carton collector's coasters, did you?
Thank god there is Mojo's Return
to the Dark Side of The Moon - Wish
You Were Here Again from a couple of months ago. I you have ever
listened to it then you certainly would wish you were over there,
praising that nobody can hear crap in a vacuum. My Wall Re-Built
albums are still shrink-wrapped and will probably stay like that until
eternity or till I finally have the nerve to make the final cut.
The Madcap
Laughs Again treatment from 2010 was slightly better, probably
because nobody tried to make too much of a fool out of the mad cat, but
nevertheless I only gave the album a 4 out of 10 score.
It does contain some interesting versions though, like Marc
Almond's Late
Night that has grown on me like a wart on a witches nose.
But for most of those covermount disks the only slightly ecological way
to give them a purpose in life is to recycle them as beverage coasters.
By the way, Mojo
should realize that these CDs can be counter-productive as well. A while
ago I saw the issue with Pet Sounds Revisited and because I
didn't want to spoil my good mood I simply turned my back, deciding not
to buy it. No way I was going to listen to the massacre of one of the
finest albums in the world.
This just to say I am slightly grumpy when it comes to these tribute
albums. But sometimes there are exceptions, like...
Men On The Border
Swedish Men
On The Border, so learns us the blurb, started as a project inspired
by the music and art of Roger Keith ”Syd” Barrett. The power duo
consists of Göran Nyström and Phil Etheridge and the result is Shine!,
a CD of interpretations of songs by Syd Barrett.
And what interpretations they are, rather than dumbfoundedly mimicking
Roger Keith they flavour their interpretations with power chords,
contemporary sounds, odd humour and slightly hidden musical references.
I have a soft spot for track number 5 that starts as a Joy Division,
Gary Numan or Blur inspired rendition of No Man's Land,
seamlessly sliding into Golden Hair and retreating to No Man's
Land again. The track is dark, a bit industrial with screaming guitars
and probably a signature track for what Men On The Border really stand
for. Göran Nyström:
(I'm) quite happy with it. As black as it should be. And yet with a
little golden shimmer deep inside.
The cool thing is that MOTB give an odd, unexpected, turn to the
classics we know so well. Wined And Dined makes you think that
the song will dive into Irish jig territory but the guitar that follows
(not that far from Gilmour’s Raise My Rent, if you ask me)
brings back happy memories from the music I liked in the seventies
(those heavenly oohs and aaahs), ending with a Beatlesque
streak. Göran Nyström:
I want to do this with great respect, yet not ending up imitating Syd
and his weaknesses at the time. I always felt uncomfortable with cover
artists trying to be the sick and poor Syd. I think his songs should
shine.
Listening to Gigolo Aunt, that I have always found a bit simple
as a song, it comes to me that some of the influences of MOTB lay in the
pub-rock from Graham Parker & The Rumour, Rockpile (with Nick Lowe &
Dave Edmunds) and the cruelly under-appreciated The Motors (their Airport
still is in my all times Top-20).
Opel, here renamed as Opal which is probably more correct,
has an intro reminding me of a hungry Jaws swimming towards some
EMI sales representatives who immediately devour the poor animal. First
its intro made me think of an Emerson, Lake and Palmer thing... but at
second thought some classic Deep Purple may be a bit closer to it.
Anyway it is classic stuff. The song has glimpses of an all female
string quartet, playing in the nude, but probably my imagination is
having a go at me now.
Long Gone starts – literally - with an interstellar joke before
jumping into Mark Bolan or David Bowie cockney territory , it's a
totally loony, but irresistible version (and it has a fine moog-a-like
outro as well).
What did I forget so far: Octopus, not as erratic as the
original and larded with slight psychedelic effects... Dark Globe,
loving the crack in Göran's voice at the 'wouldn't you miss me at all'
bit..., No Good Trying, a straight forward rocky rendition
with lots of reverb, oohs, aahs and nananananas... Feel, well
over seven minutes it starts with a slightly Floydian ambient intro and
it further meanders into a pastoral Grantchester Meadows classic
but at the four minutes mark a slightly brilliant Narrow Way
guitar solo takes over...
Late Night must be one of the most beautiful songs that Syd
Barrett ever wrote and Men On The Border also get this one right. Love,
peace and understanding are omnipresent (not only on this track, but on
the whole album) and, frankly, this is a quite moving version.
You may have deducted by now that the album is excellent and then we
haven't said a word about the art department yet, one of the extra
reasons you should buy this album for.
The cover art has been made by Kajsa-Tuva
Henriksson and the booklet illustrates every song with a painting
from Jennifer
D'Andrea's (aka JenniFire) I.N.Spired series. Buying the CD will
also financially help the Cambridge based Squeaky
Gate organisation.
Men On The Border haven't set up a web-shop for their album yet, but you
would be more than obliged to mail them at info@menontheborder.com
and ask for a copy.
And if the above review didn't convince you, you can listen and watch
their songs on the Men On The Border Sound
& Vision
pages (have a go at Feel
with more intriguing art work from JenniFire).
Those Swedish surely have something I can't explain.
Many thanks to: Göran Nyström, Phil Etheridge & JenniFire.
Is it already over a year ago that this blog reviewed the Men On The
Border's Shine!
CD? Lots of things happened meanwhile to the Reverend who was recently
spotted at an Andrew
Lloyd Webber's musical. Since then, when he sits in the evening in
his comfy chair, a glass of Amontillado
in his hand, you can hear him murmuring the immortal refrain...
Memory All alone in the moonlight I can smile at the old days I
was beautiful then...
Thinking that we're getting older and wiser When we're just getting
old
But I have grown older and You have grown colder and Nothing is
very much fun any more. (Taken from: Memory
[Cats] / Near
the End [David Gilmour] / One
of my Turns [Roger Waters])
Roger Waters:
Andrew Lloyd Webber sickens me. He's in your face all the time and what
he does is nonsense. It has no value. It is shallow, derivative rubbish,
all of it... (Taken from: Who The Hell Does Roger Waters Think He Is?, Q
Magazine, November 1992, hosted at: A
Fleeting Glimpse.)
But it is not because the Reverend deliberately ignores Roger Waters'
warnings that he can't recognise decent music any more.
Shine! from Men On The Border is a splendid album that shouldn't be
ignored by the redneck Sydiots out there. Luckily, neither did the
Spanish Syd Barrett blog Solo En Las Nubes and that's how the following
self-interview came into place, an interview with some old friends...
Men On The Border, who or what are they? Are they men or myth? With an
album, artwork and history myth-busting/building, they have rocked the
psychedelic foundations of the Syd Barrett world with a pop mentality.
Yes, pop. This sounds too cool to be true. We decided to find out more.
Phil: Well, wouldn't you like to know! We're just a couple of sticky
Swedes, except for me, because I'm just a Brit with Swedish tendencies. Göran:
And I am just a Swede with British tendencies. Phil: I've now lived
longer in Sweden than I did in Britland. I moved here because of my
spiritual affinity with the elks and they're thin on the ground in
London. Apart from that I've been a fanatic guitarist most of my life. Göran:
They are very thin is what I've heard. Phil: Disappearingly thin. Göran:
Disappointingly thin.
How long have you been involved in music?
Phil: All my life, actually from a very early age and my earliest
memories are musical - banging on boxes, as I wanted to be a drummer. Göran:
I wanted to be an astronaut. The space age - and the music that came
with it. Ahhh. Phil: From age 10 and onwards, everything was guitars.
My life is littered with musical tags which can take me back to specific
events in seconds - like most people probably have. Göran: Indeed.
Some good events, some less good, some joyful, some simply embarrassing. Phil:
Music has also steered major life-choices, like my conscious decision to
reject both schooling and religion in my teens. Göran: My music
universe imploded and exploded at the same time. I was a punk rocker, a
prog rocker and a 60s pop fan – all at once. My first band was named
Läder, the second one Yeah. Then I ditched music for education and...
things. Phil: My first band was at the age of 17. Unfortunately I was
unable to also reject the other very basic family philosophy: you have
to have a proper job! Getting a good education was obviously less
important. If I'd put my energies into music instead of a string of shit
jobs in my teens, maybe this album would have been made 20 years ago. Göran:
Maybe it WAS made 20 years ago in a time vortex kind of thingie.
Why did you make the album Shine!?
Phil: I love to make music, I love to play and I love to record in my
studio. If it's my music or someone else's doesn't really matter as long
as it has something to offer. Göran: As it happened, Syd Barrett had
something to offer. Phil: I hadn't actually heard any of his solo
material when we started. I was a Pink Floyd fan, but had completely
missed out on Syd. Göran: This helped to motivate me. I sent him a
first primitive demo. Phil: Making Octopus
whetted my appetite for more. Göran: And this in turn drove me
further. To convince people like Phil! The joy of discovery. Squid for
dinner! Phil: Well, he was dead keen to continue, so to make a whole
album was an easy decision. Göran: We made an early promise to be
ready for a festival the next summer. Phil: Yes. The absolute
deadline for mastering was June 8th 2012.
Can you describe the creative process of making Shine!?
Phil: Göran made acoustic demos which he sent to me. Sometimes I made an
initial draft recording, which I sent back for suggestions on how to
proceed and a few times we sat together and played. Göran: It was a
case of working out some new types of arrangements that would fit Syd’s
songs without losing too much of the feelings behind the songs. Some of
them were “road tested” in some acoustic gigs and more. Phil:
And more? Göran: Dreaming in a forest, Phil. Then I just recorded on
my smartphone and mailed over to Phil and he sent me some new amazing
twists back. Every time was such a joy! Phil: As an example of the
process my string quartet arrangement in the Golden Hair part of No
Man's Land was axed by Göran. Göran: Sorry! Phil: He
came up with another suggestion, the one that ended up on the album. I
thought that was SUCH a good idea, but was actually easily persuaded by
Göran to ditch the strings.... Göran: Creative conflicts. We
bounced things between us to create the right blend. Those strings were
brilliant, but did not work in the context of No Man’s Land. It would
have worked as a stand-alone. Phil: I also waited until all the
Shine! recordings were completed before listening to the originals and
was thus not influenced by them at all. Göran: Well, there was one
where you cheated. Phil: Yes! I actually listened to Gigolo
Aunt because I couldn't figure out the timing from Göran's demo
-there's a half-bar in there. Göran: The fun and beauty of Syd's
songs. Phil: All-in-all there was a LOT of bouncing back and forth. Göran:
Happy bouncing!
Which are your favourite songs on Shine!?
Phil: All of the songs have elements in them which I love. But if I had
to choose one song it would be Opal,
because it has everything. Poignant lyric, great vocals from Göran. Göran:
Well... Phil: And also my best performance ever on a recording. 7
minutes of stark beauty. Göran: Opal was always special and I knew it
had to be on the album. We saved it for last really. It's tricky and I
had to record my demo to Phil in several segments. Phil: Oh yes. A
bit of a puzzle really. Göran: I am very pleased with how it turned
out. Personally I like the duo of Long Gone and No Man’s Land, moving in
that punk/prog territory. Feel is also such a wonderful melody and we
stretched that to tell a bit of a story, but with sound only. Wonderful
guitar work from Phil.
Which great Syd Barrett songs did not make it to be included on
Shine!?
Phil: Terrapin,
which we recorded a week after the album was released. I love that song,
but because of the deadline we didn't have the spare week we needed to
record it. We'd planned to include that with a string quartet, though
fortunately the quartet idea wasn't included. I love the result on that.
There may be others.... Göran: Terrapin works best as a bonus track
really. There is a thematic structure to Shine! and I am not sure how it
could have fitted in. We had some ideas to include obscure Pink Floyd
stuff, like Scream Thy Last Scream. I am sure that would have been
really interesting, but then again it was never a Syd solo song.
What can you tell us about the artwork included with Shine!?
Göran: Back in March 1971, Syd admitted that at heart he was really a
painter. We just felt we should try to reflect this in our little
tribute. Phil: But none of us can paint. Göran: We tried sonically
to bring more colour to his rather bleak songs and also to illustrate
the whole album with colourful art. Phil: The cover was specially
made for us by a wonderful Swedish artist, Kajsa-Tuva Henriksson.
You can read all sorts of things into that painting. Göran: Yeah. I
first met her at a festival and played some of the early demos for her
and she really liked it. Then later, I described the overall ideas and
parts of Syd’s life. She made that painting to reflect all of this. Phil:
The booklet has one painting for each song in a sort of an exhibition,
where you move through different rooms actually. The paintings were made
by a Syd Barrett fan in the USA, Jennifer D’Andrea. Göran:
I really love those. I have Octopus framed as a constant reminder in my
working room.
Now honestly, what is really so great about Syd Barrett?
Göran: It's all great. You cannot easily separate the life and the art
of Syd Barrett. It is all so interwoven, as indeed it is with many great
artists through history. Van Gogh springs to mind, but also many more.
Their art might not have reached their true audience during their life
time, but would grow in importance. Phil: For me it has been a bit of
a discovery really. Göran: So Syd made some great stuff with Pink
Floyd and got that band on track for stardom, but I think he actually
did his best work after Pink Floyd. In a similar way that John Lennon
did his best work at a very vulnerable stage after The Beatles. Their
respective music is so extremely honest, but also very unpredictable and
full of layered meanings. Entering the “Syd universe” is very
worthwhile. We just want to help more people find it. Phil: Turn on,
tune in, rock out!
OK, you've convinced us. Where and how can we buy Shine!?
Göran: We have a few hundred copies left still, stored in USA, UK and
Sweden. Just visit our website and drop us a mail. We are quick to
answer and will happily send the CD to wherever you are. Phil: By
interstellar overdrive. We have fans on our Facebook
page from all over the planet, but no worries, we can mail the CD to all
locations!
Last question! Where is the pussy willow that smiled on this leaf -
and if it’s there will you go there too?
Phil: I've been advised by my lawyer not to answer this question, but
Göran, being brave and foolhardy in equal parts, probably has an
exclamation up the sleeve of his kaftan. Göran: The pussy willow is
in springtime Cambridge, and yes we will certainly go there one day to
gig and make recordings. Right Phil? Phil: You’ll have to talk to my
manager……
Göran Nyström and Phil Eheridge are preparing a new album called (at
least for now) Jumpstart that will at least have two other Syd
covers and own material. On the third of October 2013 they are billed at
the Floydian
Cruise gig in Sweden.
Men On The Border are a Swenglish
duo (Göran Nyström & Phil Etheridge) who surprised the world around June
2012 with the release of their album Shine!
(exclamation point included). The album consisted entirely of Syd
Barrett covers that were, for a change, not meticulously cloned, but
recreated following the weird musical rules from their Nordic universe.
The album was (still is) a smasher, although that may not have resulted
in a million selling mega success. Of course that is entirely their
responsibility as they neglected to follow the Reverend's advice to make
a video clip where bikini-clad ladies would have logistic problems with melting
ice cream.
In an interview from this summer, originally published (in Spanish) on Sole
En Las Nubes, and hosted at the Church as well (Men
On The Border, Syd Swedish version, thanks Antonio!) they broke the
news that a new album, called Jumpstart would see the light of
day this year.
It made me wonder if MOTB would suffer from Second Album Syndrome,
also know as Sophomore
Slump in more academic circles, especially as the band would have no
recourse to the effervescing work of Syd Barrett this time. How will
their own work be received by the Barrett community, now that there is
no more Syd to rely on... Well let's find out, shall we?
Jumpstart
The album starts traditionally with the title track. An electric guitar
mimics a starting motor, I remember that trick from Todd
Rundgren's solo on Bad
Out of Hell, yes the Reverend is that old, and the song further
evolves into a pub rock tune that asks to be played very loud. As a
starter it hardly sounds original, but who needs originality when it
comes to having fun? The track digs into the rich history of rock'n
roll, with prominent drums and riffs that nod slightly towards Run
Like Hell. This is the kind of song that makes me think that I
urgently need a beer. A Danish beer, close enough.
Those who feared there would be no Syd at all on the album are
contradicted by track two. Baby Lemonade sounds as if the song
has been put in a washing machine with punk rock fabric softener.
Suddenly the song oozes sex and its pistols all over, and it makes me
wonder how it could have sounded sung in a wild cockney accent by Sid.
Yes, that Sid.
Men On The Border keep it tidy though and even use a harpsichord that
gently clashes with the loud guitars. They're such nice boys.
Pills immediately caught our attention with its keyboard line
that has a certain Floydian feel. I Don't Want To Be Your Man
starts lennonesque with harrisonesque undertones until it
changes after the mid-solo into signature MOTB with a couple of sweet
oohs and aahs before the track turns somewhat bitter. Quite a crispy
song.
Have You Got It Yet, another pub rocker that could be from a Status
Quo record. Nice tune, nothing more, nothing less. A typical album
track, with all the tricks from a fun rock track that could turn into
one's live favourite...
The Public: one of Phil's tracks, bringing a change in tone and
atmosphere and a more introspective tune. Old Friends benefits
from an El
Condor Pasa treatment and is quite an earworm, actually. Garden
has a certain 60s beat feel in its 'no no no' refrain, but is one of the
lesser tunes.
Destiny Today is a grower until it sticks in your mind like
Velcro. It reminds me of those sweet pastoral hymns by the gentlemen
Waters and Gilmour, that either are perfectly swell (Fat
Old Sun) or complete duds (Smile).
Its mid-piece adventure into prog-territory and backward tapes gives the
track some extra panache. Of course I can't help to immediately
associate the words 'endless' and ‘river’ with High
Hopes, although the endless is linked to laughter here. That is the
toll of 4 decades of Floydian obsession. The song's atmosphere makes me
think of Where
We Start (Gilmour), that I first found terribly boring (like almost
everything from On
An Island) but that grew on me like a wart on a witches nose.
Warm From You starts a bit like a French pop tune and I more or
less suspected Jane
Birkin to join in. A very good song with some slight Bryan
Ferry & Mick
Ronson influences that gains some momentum near the end...
Terrapin, the second Barrett cover. A weird bend in my brain
immediately links this to early Bowie in his Quicksand
period and of course this tune immediately gets stuck in your mind like
mental flypaper. Cool guitar stuff and a vintage Men On The Border
quality treatment...
Something For The Waiting: what a weird and nice oddity. At the
start it made me think of a toned down mashup of Mad
World (Tears For Fears) and As
Tears Go By (Rolling Stones), but after that the song wanders into
its own folkish psychedelic territory...
Let's Party (Yeah Yeah) starts like a failed Sparks
single and doesn't seem to go anywhere in the beginning (for over one
and a half minute). Luckily it evolves into a cool rocker when the drums
kick in. In a previous review we mentioned Graham
Parker & The Rumour and the classic setup of Rockpile
(with Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe) as possible influences on Men On The
Border and in this case it results in a fucking good song, probably the
best on the album.
The ambient end of the last track, a reprise of Jumpstart, has a
surprise in the form of a friendly nod to Pink Floyd lovers...
Conclusion
So have Men On The Border avoided the second album syndrome, I hear you
ask. Well actually, it is not a bad attempt, not bad at all. I would
have liked some of the tunes a bit messier, the singing a bit less
polished but that is probably my education, not having grown up in a
string quartet, you see...
Throughout this review I have been throwing song references and bands
around, MOTB surely know their history and use it to their own benefit,
turning the sounds of the sixties, seventies and eighties into something
new-millennium-wise.
Don't worry about this, lads, Jumpstart is more than OK, it is quite
excellent as a matter of fact, so you can start fearing the difficult
third album now, and that is gonna be a real drag!
Just as with Shine! the packaging of this album is a feast for
the eye.
The front cover has been designed by Ian Barrett. Ian
Barrett Art
There is a story how Iggy the Eskimo, Syd Barrett and a bunch of other
musicians gatecrashed a Speakeasy gig from a band that would become
rather famous in prog, rock, jazz and even techno circles. It is a
hilarious anecdote, with rumours of mandrax-champagne cocktails and a
lot of twist and shouts. We can imagine how Iggy's roaring laugh echoed
through the club, once you have heard that laugh, it is imprinted in
your memory forever.
The Church is still trying to get some information, tie some loose ends,
interview some people, especially as this happened in the mid-summer of
1969, when everyone thought Iggy had disappeared from Syd's life.
Perhaps she did, perhaps they just met by accident that day. But that is
for later.
Little things that matter.
Two
Birdie Hopper Manzano Meza Cota posted a Mick Rock picture a couple of
days ago, it is a new one of Syd and Iggy, which makes us think that
this old geezer still has got some hidden gems in his archive.
Three
In a couple of hours it will be Iggy's birthday. As usual we were too
late posting our card as we only did it this afternoon...
Should you not know it by now, it is Iggy's birthday! So this is the
time and place to shout:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!
Four
LET'S PARTY!!! Please enjoy this mix of visual extravaganza that comes
straight out of the hidden vaults of the Church. Swedish band Men
On The Border were so kind to let us use one of their songs from
their latest album Jumpstart.
Thanks guys, you rock!
Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card (2011) contains a few seconds from a
super-secret mid-Seventies home movie (and we added a nice tune as
well). Flash link (warning: 5 MB!): Happy
Birthday Iggy Rose!or YouTube:
Crystal Blue Postcards
An electronic book of poems and art, dedicated to Syd and his muses, by
Denis Combet, with a little help from his friends Constance Cartmill and
Allison Star. Digital artwork by Jean Vouillon and some tinkering from
Felix Atagong (more about Denis Combet and his Iggy poem(s): Catwoman).
Pascal Mascheroni, from the stoner power trio Rescue Rangers donated the
haunting (& slightly psychedelic) power ballad Guitars and Dust
Dancing from the album with the same name (buy your copy at iTunes: Guitars
and Dust Dancing). In the meanwhile enjoy this Youtube clip with the
smashing artwork from Jean Vouillon.
WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?
Instead of reading and watching all this you should be heading at
Facebook where you can leave your messages, poems, songs and images at: The
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and of course on Iggy's
personal page as well.
Let's make this a birthday to remember, brethren and sistren
and don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do!
The Church wishes to thank Men On The Border (Phil Etheridge & Goeran
Nystroem), Bruce Fleming, Mick Rock, Anthony Stern, Storm Thorgerson,
Iggy Rose, unknown & anonymous..., Denis Combet, Pascal Mascheroni
(Rescue Rangers), Manzano Meza Cota, Christopher Farmer & the nice
people at Birdie Hop, Late Night and all the others that we seem to have
forgotten...
Happy New Year, sistren and brethren of the Holy Church of
Iggy the Inuit. Another year has passed by, with ups and downs, with
happiness and grief, with joy and pain... In our Inuit realm some people
passed away unfortunately, and luckily some new ones were born...
welcome Vasilisa Alla... to this world of magnets and miracles...
Browsing through our scrapbook with unfinished articles, pictures and
movies for the Church we noted this report from our fashion department.
It is a 1969 documentary about Ossie
Clarke with Lindsay Corner as one of the models.
To quote our fashion specialist:
In the first bit Lindsey Corner is on the left, then in the yellow dress
with the blonde in blue, then in the middle with a long pink thing, then
again in yellow with the blonde. She's the one with darker blonde wavy
hair basically.
And yes we are aware of the rumours that circle about Lindsay Corner and
Gala Pinion since a year or two. And no, we don't know when this will
see the light of day...
2013
2013 was a weird year for the Church and its Reverend. Again we thought
we would not be able to write anything for our lustrum, but in the end
we clocked down at 20 slightly stupendous articles.
We started anoraky enough with an article about Syd's hair-length in the
early Seventies, this to please the female audience of our little cult: Hairy
Mess. Sometimes the Reverend regressed into Brian
Eno mood and then he wrote some ditty texts about sweet nothings: King's
Road Chic(k).
The Church's biggest scoop this year was made in collaboration with the
Spanish Sole
En Las Nubes blog. Not only did Antonio Jesús find back the article
that started the infamous Oseira rumours, but he also managed to
interview the author of the hoax, Jose Ángel González. The Church merely
harvested Antonio's excellent work, like churches mostly do: Spanishgrass.
Facebook's thriving Syd Barrett community, Birdie
Hop, organised a meeting in Cambridge with several young and less
younger Barrett fans, friends and lovers. It was a most amazing meeting
in remembrance of a man who wrote the most peculiar kind of tunes: Birdie
Hop: wasn't it the most amazing meeting?
Did Syd leave us a message in a letter from a decade ago? Sometimes the
truth is more beautiful than the legend: Making
it clear...
2014
And that is what we will continue to do in 2014, make it a fantastic
year, boys and girls! And everything seems so much brighter... Let's
party! Thanks Men
On The Border!
Many thanks to Alexander, Amy Funstar, Anonymous, Antonio Jesús,
Babylemonade Aleph, Baron Wolman, Birdie Hop, Bob Archer, Brett Wilson,
Cambridge News, Christopher Farmer, Col Turner, Dion Johnson, Elizabeth
Voigt-Walter, Stanislav, Euryale, Göran Nyström, Herman van Gaal, HYGIY,
Joanne 'Charley' Milne, Joe Perry, Jon Felix, Jonathan Charles, Jose
Ángel González, Julia, Kiloh Smith, Kirsty Whalley, Late Night, Laughing
Madcaps, Lori Haines, Mark Blake, MAY, Men On The Border, Michael
Rawding, MvB, No Man's Land, Phil Etheridge, Psych62, Radharani Krishna,
Rich Hall, Rod Harris, Ron Cooper, Simon Hendy, Stefan Mühle, USA
National Register off Historic Places, Viper, Vita, Wolfpack,
Younglight, Yves Leclerc... Love you Swoonies!
And if I go insane, And they lock me away, Will you still let me
join in the game?
When Jumpstart
from Men
On The Border was released end of November 2013 we didn't
suspect that the tracks would be haunting us for weeks to come. Slowly
it dawned to us that this record was not just a simple collection of
rock songs, but that there was a certain flow in the music, a well
hidden concept that was the direct result of their previous album that
solely existed of Syd Barrett covers.
We (FA) invited Göran Nyström (GN) and Phil Etheridge
(PE) to Atagong mansion where we had the following, Guinness induced,
conversation.
Why don't you listen to the Jumpstart album on Spotify while reading
this interview? (A Spotify membership is probably needed, but this is
free. There is no need to download and install the Spotify player, the
music will (hopefully) play in your browser.)
FA: Shine! was an album with Syd
Barrett, so to speak, but Jumpstart is about him, right?
PE: Yes! Jumpstart takes over where Shine! left off. On
that album we explored Syd's solo songs. It was fun and it gave us the
appetite for more. Then we started to wonder: what happened next in
Syd's life?
GN: We tried to send a message by the sequencing of our first
album, telling a story of the period 1968-1972-ish and using a fair
sprinkling of licentia
poetica. On the new album we have stretched that poetic license
much further. Jumpstart is all about Syd, but more of a fantasy, a
speculation even. The premise is simple. What if Syd, at age 50, would
have had an epiphany. A lightning strike, a jumpstart. A reverse perhaps
of that electric shock he received in Santa
Monica?
FA: Maybe all that Syd needed was a second electrical shock to
get him on the rails again? Just like in the comics where the main
character regains his memory by a second blow on the head.
GN: That's it. That's the Jumpstart. The kick in the behind. How
we used to fix our old TV sets.
PE: Or how my school teachers used to fix me...
GN: The two Jumpstart songs on the album are the fantasy
bookends. They speak of that very moment, the awakening in fantasy-land,
anno 1996. In-between, 12 songs spread over four "seasons", telling the
inner story of the years from 1972 till 1996. It speaks of the fantasy
journey of a tormented soul and of reminiscence.
PE: We used only two of Syd's songs and the rest are not trying
to be typical Syd songs either. They speak about him, or some sort of
fantasy Syd. The song 'Jumpstart' is about fixing your heart, about
kicking it into action again and about life over death.
Autumn
FA: The first season, or song trilogy, starts with 'Baby
Lemonade'...
PE: 'Baby Lemonade' is pure Syd of course. We wanted to give it a
good solid punk rock drive with psychedelic sonic explorations - the
elements that Syd did so well in his heyday. This is when we dive back
in time to 1972, through Syd's own reflections on his life, which I
found kind of shocking.
GN: And the starting point is the thematic Autumn. A new energy
injected into that fading autumn. In the afterglow of a glorious summer
comes a season of neglect and departure. In the inescapable poetry of
Led Zeppelin: "Leaves are falling all around. It's time I was on my way.
Thanks to you, I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay. But now it's
time for me to go." (2)
FA: And rain falls in gray far away... The next track 'Pills'
really is a great track, instrument wise.
GN: Yeah. The guitar-work is Phil magic. Sinister. The song is
about addiction and relapses. But also about love and hunger. It's all
weirdly poetic and ambivalent. How to resist a temptation. A constant
inner monologue, very much about pills of course and how that addiction
is ended. “Your place by my bed, no more”. Or is it properly ended?
FA: In 'I Don't Want To Be Your Man' one can picture Syd
who almost begs to the fans to be left alone, and who is slowly getting
more and more angry about being disturbed all the time.
PE: Good point! And that theme appears in a couple of the songs.
I think it's partly that but also memories of a time waiting outside a
studio and really wanting to contribute. “No more waiting on your
steps”. But what the fuck - reaching a conclusion that he never wanted
it anyway. At the end it reverts to the question of 'Pills', those that
keep wanting him back.
FA: The maniacal Floyd anorak in me also sees a certain lyrical
familiarity to Gilmour's plea to the fans 'What
Do You Want From Me', which was a more civilised way to show his
frustration over the years than Roger Waters did who spat in the face of
a fan. Or am I just over-analysing?
GN: It's about dependency and ending a dependency. Whether that
is in sex or drugs or rock'n roll. All three components play into most
of the songs on Jumpstart. But I guess you just took it one step
further! The dependency between the artist and the fan base. Yeah,
interesting.
Winter
FA: 'Have You Got It Yet', declares the cold winter in
Syd's life.
GN: This is the start of the Winter trilogy. "I've felt the
coldness of my winter. I never thought, it would ever go. I cursed the
gloom that set upon us." (3) The
title has an obvious Syd reference. We debated that for a while. In the
end we wanted to bring out an element of anger and bitterness.
PE: Riding buses and going into pubs. Never quite able to drown
out memories and thoughts. And quite a lot of debate over the title.
There’s some tongue in cheek in the lyrics though. As a matter of fact
it’s not all dark…
FA: I hear in the frantic guitar solo near the end a glimpse of
what really happened between Syd Barrett and Roger Waters on that day he
wanted them not to learn 'Have You Got It Yet'.
PE: Could well be. Who knows? Still, the starting point of this
song is from a far distance.
GN: Yeah. An alternative title was 'Have You Still Not Got It?'
PE: And we're back in the debate again!
FA: After the mild anarchy of 'Have You Got It Yet' 'The Public'
really is a breath of fresh air.
GN: That song is sung by Phil. All other songs are from a Syd
perspective, but this one is from the troubadour at the pub watching
Syd. That's why it's a kind of Irish pub song, the sort you would hear
at the pub. And different in style to everything else on the album.
PE: The lead character joins in for the second half of the last
verse. That's the moment when it's becoming clear to him that he
absolutely must leave things behind. A song partly about a pub
existence, but definitely not Irish. Well, maybe London Irish. 'The
Public' does of course carry a dual meaning and the middle verse should
make that clear. I'm sure they don't even have public bars in London
pubs anymore, but dual meaning was too good to give up.
GN: Syd meets ABBA.
You will note some sonic references to 'Wish
You Were Here'. A song about how old friends always remain a
support. Don't they?
PE: Benny
Andersson was a conscious musical starting point for this, with the
flute and oboe melodies in the middle and the end just a bit longer than
you’d expect, typical for ABBA. Lyrically the song is miles from them
though and at least for me was one of the darker moments on the album.
FA: I have always been enchanted by the ABBA song 'The
Piper' that was the B-side of 'Super Trouper'. I even suspected it
contained a hidden message for early Pink Floyd fans: "We're following
the piper and we dance beneath the moon..."
GN: The dark side of that moon surely!
Spring
FA: 'Garden' is the place where one notices spring at
first. Syd had a gardener's job once, given to him by an old Cambridge
friend...
GN: 'Garden' is about finding solace. Walking with buttercups.
Inner monologues. Dwelling on love lost. Rather despairing and probably
half crazy. Botanical garden walks. Not gardening. This is also when he
starts to realize how deep the love was that he walked away from. "You
are the sunlight in my growing. So little warmth, I've felt before. It
isn't hard to feel me glowing. I watched the fire that grew so low." (4)
PE: The mid-section with the focus on garden and garden walk is
that moment of staring point blank at the essence of existence, the core
of the brain of our lead character. The garden and the garden walk. One
bite of an apple and then a long walk out.
GN: Or back in again.
FA: 'Destiny Today' is about Syd's long walks along the
river Cam?
GN: That is true but it’s more than that. The river symbolises
life, as it does in many Floyd songs, and the walk is about finding your
destiny. And accepting the fact for what it is. It's a strange warm
feeling of peace when you can finally come to terms with what your life
became.
PE: And what remains, which is the killer. It's a turning point.
Of the album too. This was one of the first songs we recorded for
Jumpstart. It set the mood for a kind of reconciliation. Of coming to
terms with life and to make the best of whatever it is that remains. Of
accepting your destiny, and doing that today.
FA: I hope I don't embarrass you by saying that the atmosphere of
this song reminds me of Gilmour's mesmerizing hymns, like 'The
Blue' and 'Where
We Start'.
GN: That is indeed a great compliment. David lived in his youth
close to Grantchester Meadows. I was there in June 2013 and played an
early demo of the song right there. Just by the river. To a friend who
had been there at the time. It's that kind of soothing chord structure
to it. Plus the repetitive lyrics. And Phil plays some of his best
guitar ever on it.
PE: I'm blushing. Nah, just kidding. Everything on these two
albums is my best stuff ever.
FA: 'Warm From You' starts like a warm spring day... but
what is it about, a lost love or the growing expectation for Syd to
finally do something with his life...
GN: Love mainly. The purpose of living, I guess. Live to love. It
tells a story of first failing and then picking up again. The sun and
that revolution can mean many things though. In the case of Syd, we
fantasize that love and love lost continued to mean a lot to him.
Shining through occasionally. How it "will always be a very special
thing to me".
PE: Like most things in life there’s ambiguity throughout and
that’s reflected in most of the songs actually. I unambiguously borrowed
a bit from Jimi Hendrix on this and it was a real pleasure to have an
opportunity to do that. The end has ‘Hey Joe’ stamped all over it. The
sounds at the end are drummer Björn Hammarberg scraping a drumstick over
his hi-hat - just a fun detail.
FA: So that was the tune that haunted me and that I couldn't
place, shame on me. I also find that the intro has a certain French
aspect, I can't stop thinking of Petula Clark's Coeur
Blessé...
PE: And strangely enough that leads me to "pour encourager les
autres", which is a nice reference a friend of mine used just the other
day and possibly the title of a new song, unless it's already been done
a whole lot.
Summer
FA: 'Terrapin' starts a new summer of love? Physical love
or is it the love for music?
PE: The summer of love was very physical, and that’s what
'Terrapin' is about for me. It also reads like an acid trip, which was
the other end of the summer of love. 'Terrapin' is also the only track
on the album which doesn’t have a keyboard of any sort, only guitars,
bass and drums. There are lots of guitars though. There must be a
hundred versions of this song on YouTube, mostly live in someone’s
bedroom, which says something about its popularity.
GN: "It is the summer of my smiles. Flee from me, keepers of the
gloom. Speak to me only with your eyes. It is to you I give this tune." (5)
It’s an essential song in the Barrett cannon. It speaks of love very
directly. We wanted it to be euphoric rather than subdued. It's the
moment of calling out for what all that yearning was about.
FA: But 'Something For the Waiting' is rather
introspective again... with a glimpse of misery and despair... begging
to god to invent "some kind of help to carry on"....
GN: It was the last song we added. I am not 100% sure if it is a
happy or sad song. Obviously it is very desperate. But it also shows a
realization and stamina. That there is something worth the waiting for.
Unfortunately, as the song goes, the rights to happiness “fell into the
hands of Paul McCartney”.
FA: It's the Men On The Border's 'As
Tears Go By', so to speak?
PE: Yeah. Olle
Ljungström has never given me happy vibes, so I’d go with sad.
GN: It's not a very faithful cover though!
PE: Göran was a bit concerned that I wouldn’t like this when he
sent me the acoustic demo, but I loved it right away and it fits.
Working on the arrangement was a blast. I used a thumb piano (a birthday
present from my sister) at the beginning of the song. I started out
playing a sort of non-tune, but Göran suggested the song melody, which
focused the whole thing. I also got to use the string quartet idea
(Lennart Östblom doing a number of overdubs) which Göran thankfully
vetoed on 'No Man’s Land'. This will be more electric live and we’ll
debut that in May.
FA: And that is when 'Let's Party' kicks in... which is
(for me) the highlight of the album...
PE: That’s great to hear! Jan Stumsner from P-Floyd
makes a much appreciated guest appearance on this track. Göran and I
each wrote our own parts for 'Let’s Party', basically two separate songs
which we melded. Göran’s lyrics are mostly poetic, whereas mine are more
about realism, like in 'The Public'. In this case the scenes were
experienced by me in 1973 courtesy of Eich Erzmoneit, a German drummer I
was playing bass with at the time, who did enjoy his acid and beer.
GN: In the context of the Jumpstart story, this is when Syd in
the end is shrugging his shoulders. Saying fuck this and let's party.
It's the best we can do. Something like the conclusion of the book 'Candide:
or, All for the best'. Playing the cards we are given. It's also a
sort of nod to the art rockers saying that there is real life to be
enjoyed behind the eyeliners and pretence. Voltaire concludes with
Candide saying that "we must cultivate our garden". That garden link
again. The heart at the center.
The Next Year
FA: So that wraps up the Jumpstart journey then? Bringing it all
back to the Jumpstart moment with a reprise of the first song and full
speed towards the future? Can I bore you once again with a quote from
someone else: "Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.
We're so glad you could attend. Come inside! Come inside!" (6)
GN: Indeed. Supersonic fighting cocks and all. You have an inner
view now. And who knows what the future will bring. One thing is clear,
Men On The Border was always about more than the music. We wanted to
bring back that old fashioned album experience. That is probably
something we will explore further in the future.
PE: Kajsa-Tuva
Henriksson (now Werner), did the previous cover and made justice to
the Syd Barrett early story in an amazing way. You can read many things
into that picture. She also contributed with an original piece for
Jumpstart, that takes the earlier picture – that life of Syd – into the
tumbler. It is a fabulous illustration of a Jumpstart, and of a broken
but vividly red heart at the center.
GN: Yes indeed. We were also thrilled to have Ian
Barrett on board, Syd's nephew and by now a good friend. He
contributed to the whole concept in no small way. He took the whole
thing one step further by adding the symbolism of Syd’s mirrored guitar
and reflections.
PE: That concept is so perfectly in tune with the whole idea of
Jumpstart, which is really a concept album about reflections and new
energy, and about Syd of course. Maybe that electric bolt in Santa
Monica that we started out discussing?
GN: Yes! Maybe that's where that guitar originally got lost?
Burnt out by the electric shock? And now we bring it full circle.
PE: Ian made a linoleum cut of those guitar mirrors and then
painted this in the famous floorboard colours. He actually made a whole
series of prints for us.
GN: We then used the idea of mirrors and reflections and energy
in a little photo session we did, courtesy of David Parkin. Our combined
photographer and bass player! We are forming a live band now. Band On
The Border!
FA: So what is going on with that? What happens next?
PE: We will try out some live gigs and see how it goes.
Rehearsals have been ongoing for a few months. It is all very fun and
energizing.
GN: Ideas are developing continuously. Check out our Facebook
site to be updated. If all goes well, and there is a demand, there could
be something unique in the works. It feels like we can see pieces of a
big puzzle, a collage if you will.
FA: A collage?
PE: Hey Felix, do you have any more of that Guinness?
Many thanks: Ian Barrett (Ian
Barrett Art), Phil Etheridge, Göran Nyström. ♥ Iggy ♥
Libby ♥ Birdie
Hop ♥
Notes and quotes (1) During the
immensely difficult negotiations to have this interview ("Do you mean
any colour you like, except blue M&M's or only blue M&M's and no
others?") the word 'interview' was wrongly written as 'innerview' on one
document, but it stuck. Back to text. (2)
Led Zeppelin - Ramble
On. Back to text. (3)
Led Zeppelin - The
Rain Song. Back to text. (4)
Led Zeppelin - The
Rain Song. Back to text. (5)
Led Zeppelin - The
Rain Song. Back to text. (6)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Karn
Evil 9, 1st impression, part 2. Back to text.
A couple of weeks ago Iggy and the Reverend browsed through a stash of
mid-seventies photos and selected nearly 60. They have been (and will
still be for quite a while) simultaneously published at Iggy's Facebook
page and at the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Tumblr
site under the Magical Iggy flag.
How, you didn't know that existed? Here it is again, you ignorant people: The
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Tumblr
blog, its Magical
Iggy section and the Archive.
In less than an hour it will be Iggy's birthday. The Reverend fought
blizzards, storms and packs of hungry wolves to go to Louvain's postal
station to find out, then, that he had forgotten Iggy's birthday card at
home.
Should you not know it by now, it is Iggy's birthday! So this is the
time and place to shout:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!
Partytime Iggy
LET'S PARTY!!! Please enjoy this mix of tracks that have been made the
past few years to celebrate our goddess. Swedish band Men
On The Border were so kind to let us use one of their songs from
their latest album Jumpstart.
Thanks guys, you rock!
In 2013 Rich hall made a concept album that has this fine pearl...
(click on the image below for the hi-res Flash version)
For those who haven't got a Flash-enabled webbrowser, let's try it
another way. Here is a, somewhat downgraded, version on Youtube, but
don't let that spoil the fun.
Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card (2011) contains a few seconds from a
super-secret mid-Seventies home movie (and we added a nice tune as
well). Flash link (warning: 5 MB!): Happy
Birthday Iggy Rose!or YouTube:
Crystal Blue Postcards
An electronic book of poems and art, dedicated to Syd and his muses, by
Denis Combet, with a little help from his friends Constance Cartmill and
Allison Star. Digital artwork by Jean Vouillon and some tinkering from
Felix Atagong (more about Denis Combet and his Iggy poem(s): Catwoman).
Guitars and Dust Dancing by Rescue Rangers
In 2011, Pascal Mascheroni, from the stoner power trio Rescue Rangers
donated the haunting (& slightly psychedelic) power ballad Guitars
and Dust Dancing from the album with the same name (buy your copy at
iTunes: Guitars
and Dust Dancing). In the meanwhile enjoy this Youtube clip with the
smashing artwork from Jean Vouillon.
WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?
Instead of reading and watching all this you should be heading at
Facebook where you can leave your messages, poems, songs and images at: The
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and of course on Iggy's
personal page as well.
Let's make this a birthday to remember, brethren and sistren
and don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do!
The Church wishes to thank Constance Cartmill, Denis Combet, Phil
Etheridge, Amy Funstar, Rich Hall, Pascal Mascheroni, MAY, Goeran
Nystroem, Allison Star, Anthony Stern, Jean Vouillon, Brett Wilson and
all the others that we seem to have forgotten... ♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥
The second weekend of June has the second Cambridge biennial Birdie Hop
meeting, with special guest stars: Viv Brans, Vic Singh, Peter Gilmour,
Men On The Border, Jenny Spires, Warren Dosanjh, Libby Gausden, Dave
'Dean' Parker & Iggy Rose (and some more).
Unfortunately the Facebook group for this event has been closed for
prying eyes, but some pictures and videos have already leaked out.
Pictures and videos will be regularly uploaded to the Holy Church of
Iggy the Inuit Tumblr
page, as soon as the Holy Igquisiton gets hold of them.
Many thanks to: Sandra Blickem, Mick Brown, Warren Dosanjh, Vanessa
Flores, Tim Greenhall, Alex Hoffmann, Antonio Jesus (Solo En Las Nubes),
Douglas Milne, Göran Nyström (Men On The Border), Vic Singh, Abigail
Thomson-Smith, Eva Wijkniet... ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
June had the second (and if rumours are correct: last) Birdie Hop
meeting in Cambridge with Syd Barrett fans having an informal drink with
some of the early-sixties Cambridge beatniks we know and love so dearly:
Jenny Spires, Libby Gausden, Mick Brown, Peter Gilmour, Sandra Blickem,
Vic Singh, Warren Dosanjh and others...
Special guest star was none other than Iggy Rose who left, if we may
believe the natives, an everlasting impression. You can read all about
it at: Iggy
Rose in Cambridge.
Men On The Border came especially over from the northern parts of
Europe, leaving their igloo, so to speak, to gig at the Rathmore
Club where they not only jammed with other Syd-aficionados, but also
with Redcaps frontman Dave Parker. (For the history of those sixties
Cambridge bands check the excellent: The
Music Scene of 1960s Cambridge.)
The night before however, on Friday June 12th, Men On The Border played
the legendary Prince
Albert (that name always make us chuckle) music pub in Brighton.
This gig was recorded and is now the third album of Men On The Border,
after ShinE!
(2012) that consisted of Barrett covers and Jumpstart
(2013) that mainly had original songs but with a slightly concealed
madcap theme.
This live release shows that Men On The Border is a tight band and that
they can play their material without having to revert to digitally
wizardry. In a previous review we already remarked that:
...some of the influences of MOTB lay in the pub-rock from Graham Parker
& The Rumour, Rockpile (with Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds) and the cruelly
under-appreciated The Motors...
This live album certainly proves that. The versions are pretty close to
the recorded versions and singer Göran Nystrom manages once again to
give us goosebumps on Late Night and their own Warm From You
that is a pretty ingenious song if you ask us (with a sly nod to Jimi
Hendrix)...
So give them a warm hand of applause and make them feel welcome in this
mad cat world of random precision.
Tracklist:
01 Terrapin (Jumpstart) 02 No Good Trying (ShinE!)
03 Scream Thy Last Scream (2015 single) 04 Long Gone (ShinE!)
05 Gigolo Aunt (ShinE!) 06 Late Night (ShinE!)
07 Octopus (ShinE!)
08 Warm From You (Jumpstart) 09 Baby Lemonade (ShinE!)
Digital release only, people don't buy plastic any more, unfortunately.
Lost for words. That is what we are this year, with only a few hours
left to celebrate Iggy’s birthday, on the fourteenth of December. Next
to a legend, she is also a good personal friend and an incorrigible
prankster. Today as well she managed to confuse us with one of her
practical jokes that made us shake our head in disbelief. She’s a real
sweetie, our Ig.
So, dear sistren and brethren, followers of the Holy
Church of Iggy the Inuit, let us raise our glasses high to the Eskimo,
because without her this earth would be quite a dreary place.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!
And because traditions are traditions, and meant to be kept alive, we
will continue with our annual sing-along and poetry reading that turn
this birthday into a real birthday bash.
Partytime Iggy
LET'S PARTY!!! Please enjoy this mix of tracks that have been made the
past few years to celebrate our goddess. Swedish band Men
On The Border were so kind to let us use one of their songs from
their latest (studio) album Jumpstart.
Thanks guys, you rock!
In 2013 Rich hall made a concept album that has this fine pearl...
(click on the image below for the hi-res Flash version)
For those who haven't got a Flash-enabled webbrowser, let's try it
another way. Here is a, somewhat downgraded, version on Youtube, but
don't let that spoil the fun.
Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card (2011) contains a few seconds from a
super-secret mid-Seventies home movie (and we added a nice tune as
well). Flash link (warning: 5 MB!): Happy
Birthday Iggy Rose! or YouTube:
Crystal Blue Postcards
An electronic book of poems and art, dedicated to Syd and his muses, by
Denis Combet, with a little help from his friends Constance Cartmill and
Allison Star. Digital artwork by Jean Vouillon and some tinkering from
Felix Atagong (more about Denis Combet and his Iggy poem(s): Catwoman).
In 2011, Pascal Mascheroni, from the stoner power trio Rescue Rangers
donated the haunting (& slightly psychedelic) power ballad Guitars
and Dust Dancing from the album with the same name (buy your copy at
iTunes: Guitars
and Dust Dancing). In the meanwhile enjoy this Youtube clip with the
smashing artwork from Jean Vouillon.
WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?
Instead of reading and watching all this you should be heading at
Facebook where you can leave your messages, poems, songs and images at: The
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and of course on Iggy's
personal page as well.
The Church wishes to thank Constance Cartmill, Denis Combet, Phil
Etheridge, Amy Funstar, Rich Hall, Pascal Mascheroni, MAY, Goeran
Nystroem, Allison Star, Anthony Stern, Jean Vouillon, Brett Wilson and
all the others that we seem to have forgotten... ♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥
For the second time in its career Swedish based Men On The Border
has a YouTube video censored by the Pink Floyd management. This time not
because they are interpreting a Syd Barrett song, which is something of
a condicio sine qua non if you are a Syd Barrett cover-band but
because they use Barrett imagery in the video-collage of their latest
song To The Promised Land.
To The Promised Land is the B-side of their latest single Dominoes,
a dreamlike evocation with friendly nods to early Emerson, Lake &
Palmer, the eerie minimalism of Mike Oldfield and The Beatles’ I Am The
Walrus, performed in their typical cool Nordic style. The song certainly
is a grower for those who can hear and watch it.
Update 2016 05 29: A reworked version of the videoclip, with Syd
Barrett cut out, has been released on YouTube: Men
On The Border - To The Promised Land (also deleted).
Men On The Border have been invited to Cambridge to play on the Syd
Barrett celebration on the 27th of October, something Pink Floyd and its
geriatric members are probably not aware of. That there is a touch of
senility roaming through the Pink Floyd ranks was already suspected when
they managed to censor
a David Gilmour track on his own website.
Just another example, now we're on it. On the 24th of April 2016, David
Gilmour added a tribute to Prince's Purple Rain in Comfortably
Numb. Fan-made recordings were quickly removed from YouTube and then
added to Gilmour's own channel, claiming to be 'official'...
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy? We call it Riding the
Gravy Train.
Some screenshots of the deleted video can be found on our supergasticIggyInuit
Tumblr page.
(The above article is entirely based upon facts, some situations may
have been enlarged for satirical purposes.)
Many thanks to Göran Nyström. ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
The Anchor is the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit's satirical
division, intended for people with a good heart, but a rather bad
character. More info: The
Anchor. Read our legal stuff: Legal
Stuff.
About two years after the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit came with the
news of an Anthony
Stern anthology, showing an overview of his work, including unseen
Pink Floyd footage and our own Iggy the Eskimo, it might finally get a
release to the general public. Well, sort of. (See: Magnets
& Miracles)
Get All From That Ant will be shown at a Syd Barrett (mini)
festival that will be held in October in Cambridge when also a Syd
Barrett memorial artwork will be unveiled. Men On The Border will
interpret the mad cat’s wacko music with the Sandviken symphony
orchestra, some mystery guests and a groovy lightshow from Peter Wynne
Wilson.
Have You Got It Yet
Although not confirmed (yet) the Barrett movie festival may also feature
Storm Thorgerson’s legendary Have You Got It Yet. This
movie is being finalised by Roddy
Bogawa, whom you might know from the excellent documentary Taken
By Storm, that any Hipgnosis fan needs to have in his / her
collection. We had a chat earlier this year with the movie maker and
here is what he had to say.
I can answer some of the rumours! Yes, we are hoping the film will be
released this year - it is in the editing stage - and yes, Lindsay
[Corner] and Gayla [Pinion] are interviewed in it as well as Jenny
Spires and Libby Gausden... I think it is ok to make that public...
Also Roger, David and Nick appear in new interviews which I think are
quite different than most of the ones they've done before because Storm
was present and he grew up with Syd, David and Roger.
So...it's exciting and once the film gets closer to completion, we'll
talk it up more! (Source: Facebook Chat, 2016 06 03)
Surely a release to be yearning for, even when Iggy wasn't interviewed,
due to unforeseen circumstances.
Sydge and Iggnet
It is not certain if Stern’s anthology will get the DVD release as
promised a couple of years ago. Our efforts to ask Anthony stayed
unanswered. Artists, huh…
In 2014 some extremely lucky people received a Syd magnet, aka Sydge,
for a Stern project that had to culminate in a book. Unfortunately all
the relevant pages on the Anthony
Stern Films blog have been removed, so we fear it has been shelved.
In December 2014 an Iggy the Eskimo magnet was announced (see: Iggy
on your fridge!), but although the Holy Church ordered about a dozen
that project was indefinitely postponed as well. Until now…
Syd Barrett and Iggy Photo Art Collectable Fridge Magnets.
2 Magnets in total.
Taken from original photos by Anthony Stern are these fantastic,
practical and groovy fridge magnets featuring both Syd Barrret playing
live and Iggy during a creative photoshoot with Anthony.
Both images can also be found in the new and upcoming GATA? Get ALL That
Ant? .....biographical film of Anthony Stern's youth when he was friends
with the infamous couple at the start of the Pink Floyd band creation.
An original piece of Uk Rock History documentation and a great gift idea
for the Syd Barrett and Iggy fans.
The Syd and Iggy magnets are now for sale at Anthony
Stern’s Etsy page. Get them while you still can… (The
Church is not affiliated with or endorsed by Mr. Stern's company.)
Many thanks to: Roddy Bogawa, Anthony Stern. ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
And because traditions are traditions, and meant to be kept alive, we
will continue with our annual sing-along and poetry reading that turn
this birthday into a real birthday bash.
Partytime Iggy
LET'S PARTY!!! Please enjoy this mix of tracks that have been made the
past few years to celebrate our goddess. Swedish band Men
On The Border were so kind to let us use one of their songs from
their latest (studio) album Jumpstart.
Thanks guys, you rock!
In 2013 Rich hall made a concept album that has this fine pearl...
(click on the image below for the hi-res Flash version)
For those who haven't got a Flash-enabled webbrowser, let's try it
another way. Here is a, somewhat downgraded, version on Youtube, but
don't let that spoil the fun.
Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card (2011) contains a few seconds from a
super-secret mid-Seventies home movie (and we added a nice tune as
well). Flash link (warning: 5 MB!): Happy
Birthday Iggy Rose!or YouTube:
Crystal Blue Postcards
An electronic book of poems and art, dedicated to Syd and his muses, by
Denis Combet, with a little help from his friends Constance Cartmill and
Allison Star. Digital artwork by Jean Vouillon and some tinkering from
Felix Atagong (more about Denis Combet and his Iggy poem(s): Catwoman).
In 2011, Pascal Mascheroni, from the stoner power trio Rescue Rangers
donated the haunting (& slightly psychedelic) power ballad Guitars
and Dust Dancing from the album with the same name (buy your copy at
iTunes: Guitars
and Dust Dancing). In the meanwhile enjoy this Youtube clip with the
smashing artwork from Jean Vouillon.
WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?
Instead of reading and watching all this you should be heading at
Facebook where you can leave your messages, poems, songs and images at: The
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and of course on Iggy's
personal page as well.
The Church wishes to thank Constance Cartmill, Denis Combet, Phil
Etheridge, Amy Funstar, Rich Hall, Pascal Mascheroni, MAY, Goeran
Nystroem, Allison Star, Anthony Stern, Jean Vouillon, Brett Wilson and
all the others that we seem to have forgotten... ♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥
It is the darkest period of the year, literally and figuratively. Today,
the 27th of December 2017, Iggy's funeral takes place at Worthing
Crematorium. We can only wish for strength for Iggy's husband, her
family, her friends... A big thank you for the Birdies and Nesters who
have supported Iggy all these years...
Catharsis
After most funerals, people sit together and commemorate the deceased,
and slowly the tears are being replaced with laughter, when funny
remembrances and anecdotes fill the atmosphere... It is a necessary part
of the grieving process and we are pretty sure that people can go on for
hours recalling Iggy's funnier moments.
Sydiots
A couple of years ago, 2013 already!, multi-instrumentalist and
Barrett-buff Rich Hall recorded an album called Birdie
Hop & the Sydiots. Its concept was to catalogue the wacky
aspects of Barrett fandom, including cosmic brides, silly reverends and
goofing administrators of various Syd Barrett Facebook groups.
One of the highlights of the album was a track called The Reverend,
clearly a reverie about the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and its main
obsession: Iggy the Eskimo. For Iggy's seventieth birthday Rich, with
some help of his dog Porthos, recorded an acoustic version of the song.
Unfortunately Iggy never heard it and as such the song has now become a
fitting tribute. From Rich to Iggy, from Porthos to Doogle, we present
you Iggy's message that is love.
Gigolo aunts & uncles
Back in better days, June 2015, Iggy was invited to Cambridge at the
second Birdie
Hop meeting. Men On The Border joined as well, giving an exclusive
concert at the Rathmore Club. After the gig there was some time for an
acoustic sing-a-long with the band, fans, Cantabrigian mafia rockers and
a pretty unstoppable Iggy. Revive it here... original videos from Göran
Nyström and Solo En Las Nubes blogger Antonio Jesús Reyes.
Happy belated birthday Iggy. Hundreds of fans will never forget you.
Many thanks to: Rich Hall, Men On The Border, Göran Nystrom, Antonio
Jesús Reyes. ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥ Paula ♥
Never has a Kurt Vonnegut quote been more appropriate than here, we
think. Iggy Rose is no longer on this world, but the third rock didn't
stop turning around the sun. There were no lunar eclipses, although
people from the Hastings and Rother community have been calling the
police out of fear of an alien
invasion. If there was some magical interference, it may have been
that a soft blanket of snow had fallen the night before Iggy's funeral.
So it goes.
Happy New Year, sistren and brethren of the Holy Church of
Iggy the Inuit, followers of Saint Syd and Laldawngliani, gift of
the gods. In 2018 we will continue to be the thorn in the side of all
that is Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett related, because although they have
made some of the best rock music of the latter half of the twentieth
century, their business counterparts are worse than crooked second hand
car dealers when it comes to selling their 'product' and screwing the
customer. (The latest Floydian fuck-all-that consists of Dark Side Of
The Moon Immersion set Blu-rays, suffering from bit rot, and suddenly
refusing to play, about five years after their release.)
Next to the excellent blog you are currently reading we also have a Tumblr
micro-blog that we daily update, with coloured photographs!, a Facebook
timeline and a Twitter
account. Here is what made our Sydiot heart tremble past year, seen
through the pink glasses of the Holy Igquisition.
The Church wishes to thank: An@log, Azerty, Gretta Barclay, Marc-Olivier
Becks, Roddy Bogawa, Carmen Castro, Chris from Paris, Frank Cookson,
Petra Eder, Vanessa Flores, Johan Frankelius, 'Gabi', Libby Gausden,
Stanislav Grigorev, Rich Hall, Paula Hilton, Peter Alexander Hoffman,
The Iggy Bank, Peter Jenner, JenS, Antonio Jesús, Men On The Border,
Mob, Iain Owen Moore, Anna Musial, Lisa Newman, Göran Nyström,
OldPangYau, Peter at the Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd 1977, Dylan Roberts,
Jenny Spires, TW113079, Venomous Centipede... and all the others... ♥
Libby ♥ Iggy ♥ Paula ♥
We ended the first season on a low note because it seemed that the
entire Iggy story had been told in a handful of articles. It seemed that
she had disappeared and that she would not be found back.
How wrong we were, but we were not the only ones. Duggie Fields (to Mark
Blake):
I have no idea who Iggy was or even what her real name was. (…) I
saw her not long after Syd left the flat and she was looking more like a
Sloane Ranger. I heard she’d become involved with one of the voguish
religious cults at the time.
(As a matter of fact, this was not that far from the truth, but of
course we didn’t know that in 2009. For a while Iggy was signaled in Scientology
circles, one of those incredible stories we might tell you one day.)
Here is an overview of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit’s tumultuous
second season (August 2009 -July 2010).
Fille de l’espace
We celebrated our first birthday with the publication of a brilliant
poem written by Dr.
Denis Combet, professor at Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada, who
specialises in French literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, but he
has also written lyrics for the pretty awesome stoner rock band Rescue
Rangers. In 2006 – 2007 he published a Syd Barrett inspired
multimedia project under the title Guitars and Dust Dancing (that
is unfortunately no longer online, but archive.org has a partially saved
backup: Guitars
and Dust Dancing).
The Church could exclusively issue the French version of the poem ‘De
Quétesh à Bastet’, dedicated to Iggy the Eskimo, and would
later publish Crystal Blue Postcards, a digital booklet with
(mostly) new poems, dedicated to Syd and Iggy. It can still be found
here:
Iggy was moved to tears when she found out that someone in Canada had
written a poem for her and she kept on repeating that on our weekly
phone-calls. Thanks Denis!
The Iggy story, so we thought, was a dead end street or at least a slow
lane. In absence of our subject of adoration we started a series about
the legendary Cromwellian club, bar and casino. We also looked deeper
into The Bend dance craze, a clever marketing scheme started to twist a Dave
Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich single into a genre.
You
don’t have to believe us but we think these are still the best articles
about this nightclub on the web, with several interviews from people who
were there. The complete Cromwellian & The Bend series (running from
2008 till 2015): The
Cromwellian
The Madcap’s Mojo
2010 started with a bang. Rock magazine Mojo had a Madcap Laughs 40
years anniversary special, annex tribute CD, and it was undoubtedly
clear that some writers had found inspiration at the Church, but without
mentioning where they had found the information. (It needs to be said
that our secret informant in those days, Mark
Blake, who also wrote for the special, was not amongst those.)
We ended our review of the Mojo special with the prophetic words:
Ig’s story as published in Mojo may be the butterfly effect that will
cause the storm at the other side of the world. So perhaps, thanks to
Mojo, the Church will be one day able to fulfil its quest.
On the fifth of February 2010 Mark Blake informed us that Iggy was alive
and well and living in a small village in Southern England. The Church
were the first to publish this news on this entire planet. World
Exclusive: Ig has been found!
Initially Iggy wanted to anonymously live her life in her little village
in South-England, but her cover was blown by The Croydon Guardian. (Here
was another journalist suffering from amnesia. She didn’t find it
necessary to give a nod to the Church, although it was us who had
informed her about Iggy.)
Timing couldn’t have been better. Iggy was found just when we were going
to publish an interview with Gretta Barclay, who – with her friend Rusty
Burnhill – was a regular visitor at Wetherby Mansions in 1969.
A decade later this is still Margaretta’s one and only interview in the
Barrett-sphere.
We also tracked down Rusty Burnhill, living in a small town in Northern
Germany and sent him a polite letter where we asked if we could ask him
some questions. To our amazement he called us a few months later,
started swearing and shouting, threatened to call the police and smashed
down the phone. Needless to say that we didn’t pursue our plans to have
him interviewed.
Iggy had been located (by a few journalists) but wasn’t communicating to
the outer world (yet). A decision we obviously accepted. The Church has
never been into trophy hunting.
The Holy Church had already published the intriguing theory that the
painted floorboards at Syd’s flat didn’t date from autumn 1969, but from
spring 1969. This was contradicting all witness reports and all
biographies and obviously it was clear evidence that the Holy Church was
lead by a raving lunatic.
But our anonymous witness JenS had said so, Gretta Barclay and Iggy
confirmed it and more ‘proof’ for this was found by Barrett enthusiast
Dark Globe, a member of the Late Night Syd Barrett forum and one of the
people helping the Church with valid information.
Rob Chapman didn’t update this information in his Syd Barrett biography,
but Julian Palacios did, just before the printing deadline, making him
one of the believers. What was a wacky theory at first, laughed at by
several people, has now become the gospel.
Our review of Rob
Chapman’s Syd Barrett biography A Very Irregular Head
was quite polemic (and made us persona non grata in top level
Barrett circles). We did conclude it was one of the better biographies
around but there was of course the Octopus – Clowns & Jugglers
controversy.
Rather than stirring up a dying fire and prejudicing you we suggest you
read the review first and we’ll talk about it afterwards.
An intriguing anecdote was told to us by Gretta Barclay. One that also
couldn’t be found in any biography. Syd Barrett and his Welsh
counterpart Meic Stevens, who also suffered from a few psychological
drawbacks, met each other at different occasions.
Prydwyn read Steven’s autobiograpy (in Welsh) and translated the
relevant bits into English for generations to come. One pretty exiting
bit is that the two musicians were filmed by a BBC camera-team, but
apparently the movie has been destroyed, unless it still is hiding in a
BBC archive somewhere.
2019 sees Meic Stevens gigging again in Britain (although he immediately
started with some controversial
statements). Men
On The Border singer Göran Nyström published an excellent follow-up
to our Solva Blues article just a few days ago, with a few new
discoveries. Or how an article from a decade ago inspires people today
to further investigate in all matters Syd.
The Church wishes to thank all of those who helped us 10 years ago.
Unfortunately, many of them have already left the scene. : Anonymous,
Banjer and Sax, Margaretta Barclay, Paul Belbin, Mark Blake, Rusty
Burnhill, Constance Cartmill, Rob Chapman, Denis Combet, Duggie Fields,
Dark Globe, Rod Harrod, JenS, Pascal Mascheroni, Kerry McQueeney, David
Moore, Julian Palacios, Paro नियत, Prydwyn, Douggie Reece, Lynn Annette
Ripley (Twinkle), Brian Roote, Beate S., Jenny Spires, Allison Star,
Jean Vouillon, Kirsty Whalley, Vicky Wickham and the Dutch Dave Dee,
Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich fan community (not online any more)… (Sorry to
those we have forgotten to mention.) ♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥
Long time since we have written something about Men
On The Border. Men On The Border are a Swedish band, formed around
Göran Nyström and Phil Etheridge, who surprised us in 2012 with the
album ShinE! (review: Full
of guitars and no dust...).
That debut album contained only Syd Barrett covers, but their second
album Jumpstart, from a year later, mainly had self-penned songs
(review: Jumpstart).
Unfortunately, the CD market more or less collapsed, and plastic wasn’t
profitable any more, especially when you are a young band on the verge
of a breakthrough. The third album from 2015 – Live In Brighton
– was a digital download only (on Amazon
and Spotify)
(review: Live
in Brighton).
2020
We are in 2020 but this doesn't mean that Men On The Border hasn't done
anything for the last lustrum. There was a spectacular gig with the
Sandviken symphony orchestra and a psychedelic light show by Peter
Wynne-Wilson at the Corn Exchange (Cambridge) on the 27th of October
2016, resulting in a smashing single (on Spotify)
with special guest Rachel Barrett. (Youtube audience recording: Long
Gone.)
Other gigs and singles were announced at regular intervals and at the
bottom of this article you can find an overview of sites where you can
find videos and tracks of the band.
June 2020.
We were pleasantly surprised when we heard that Men On The Border jumped
on the vinyl bandwagon and announced a new physical release, Blackbird,
with a sleeve by Ian
Barrett (who also did Jumpstart, BTW).
Looking at the tracklisting we saw that several of the tunes were
already known to us. Göran Nystrom agrees:
They are indeed single songs from many years ago and a few new ones. We
wanted to remix and remaster and give them a proper home on an album.
So something old and something new on some good old-fashioned coloured
vinyl. Let’s hear it from the boys. Here is the Reverend’s verdict.
Men On The Border – Blackbird – Side A
To The Promised Land
You can't deny that Men On The Border is Swedish. The opening song of
their new album Blackbird starts Abba-esque
enough to take away all doubt. I’m thinking of The
Piper here, that was on the flip-side of the Super
Trouper single and that, so I have learned, has something of a cult
status among fans. I have always thought it was a hint towards Pink
Floyd, but apparently, that is not the case.
But let’s get back to the Men On The Border and the opening song of
their album.
To The Promised Land is more than that. Men On the Border like to
garnish their songs with elements from the past and this one is no
exception. The song is a dreamlike evocation with a friendly nod, I
think, to Greg
Lake, from early King
Crimson fame and of course Emerson,
Lake & Palmer.
I also hear faint shadows of the folkie minimalism of Mike
Oldfield. Think of Ommadawn,
or perhaps even more appropriate, Hergest
Ridge. This doesn’t mean that Men On The Border are mere copycats.
They take several ingredients out of the encyclopedia of rock, mix them
and perform the result in their typical cool Nordic style.
At two minutes in the song, there is an obvious nod to I
Am The Walrus. It only takes a few seconds but it is enough to make
the hairs on your arms stand up.
Men On The Border plunder the past or... let me rephrase that...
Men On The Border lend from the past and of course, they are not the
first to have done so, just have a go at early Led
Zeppelin for instance. Also, Syd
Barrett from Pink Floyd, as you probably know, was a master sampler,
and even his band’s name was taken from the liner notes of a blues
compilation (read that story at: Step
It Up And Go).
But Men On The Border never turn their samples into a parody, like for
instance Jennifer
Gentle did – intended or not – on Take
My Hand and other songs.
Göran Nyström, whom I think is the main lyricist of the band, also uses
the phrase "Take My Hand" in the To The Promised Land song, although it
is not certain if the Promised Land really is a land of milk and honey
or just another nightmare of an LSD-induced brain.
This song invariably makes me think about the enigma that Syd Barrett
was, but as you know we, Syd Barrett anoraks, have a kind of
short-circuit in our brains that makes us believe that everything in the
world is Syd Barrett related.
So probably I’m just erring, because the follow-up songs from this
record point to another direction.
But what I can say you is this, To The Promised Land is a grower of a
song and an excellent opener of Blackbird.
(Above text was read by the Reverend, in true inspector Jacques
Clouseau style, for the live video show ‘Blackbird
Unboxing’ on Facebook.)
The Populist
The next couple of songs on the A-side are protest songs, which makes
the A-side of Blackbird more or less a political record, but in a polite
Swedish way. Sweden being something like the Canada of Europe, so to
speak. Men On The Border are much more Coldplay
than Sex
Pistols as an early bird-hopper confided to me.
The Populist evidently is about those politicians who rise everywhere in
Europe and the Americas and who use tweeted one-liners to propagate
their political agenda.
It is one of those semi-soft Border ballads these men thrive in. Not a
bad song though, but it could have been spiced a bit more. If there is
one major point of criticism from me to them it is that they never yank
their amplifiers to eleven or spit the venom out.
But once you feel comfortable in the Men On The Border universe it nests
in your brain like an earworm. At two minutes forty-five minutes the men
put their toes in a prog-like puddle that could’ve taken a bit longer.
Why We Build the Wall
Track three of the album is Why We Build the Wall. Indoctrinated as I am
as a Floydian anorak I immediately linked this to The
Wall album, a hint that was probably deliberately built-in by Men On
The Border. The previous song, The Populist, used the phrase ‘dark side’
and these are phrases put in to trigger our musical memory (at least, so
it seems to me).
Why
We Build The Wall is an Anaïs
Mitchell song, taken from her ‘folk opera’ Hadestown
(2010) that was also turned into a theatre play. That album musically
relates to the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus
and Eurydice. The wall in question is the fortification around
Hadestown, build to keep the so-called enemy out. But the enemy turns
out to be the have-nots who want to find a better life inside the city
walls.
The song Why We Build The Wall acquired a more modern interpretation in
2016 when a presidential candidate promised he was going to build a wall
at the American – Mexican border. In a column for HuffPost
Anaïs Mitchell reacted:
Suddenly it felt like the song was speaking directly about today's
politics, rather than ancient mythology. People began to ask if it was
written in response to the Trump campaign when in reality, both Trump
and the song were simply tapping into the same folk archetypes. There is
nothing new about the Wall. Political leaders have invoked it time and
again to their advantage because it works so well on people who feel
scared.
The songwriter ended her article with the following plea: “Let’s not
elect him President.”
But we all know how this has ended.
The Men On The Border version is pretty close to the original (or one of
the originals, as there are different versions of the song), although
they venture more or less in prog-land thanks to the guitar intro and
intermezzi.
In this cover, they show themselves from a slightly more aggressive way
and that’s the way I like it. Great tune.
She Took A Long Cool Look
In Douglas
Adams' excellent sci-fi series The
Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy appears a rock band called
Disaster Area. They are the loudest band in the universe and have been
inspired by the theatrical shows of Pink Floyd. This has got absolutely
nothing to do with the Men On The Border’s cover version of She Took A
Long Cool Look.
It starts slow, very slow, in a Poles
Apart fairground kind of way. A cool idea, at least for the first 30
seconds. It made me wonder how the song would be evolving, later on,
knowing the Men’s obsession for turning Barrett classics into something
new. Reggae? Punk? Symphonic Metal?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t evolve at all and it goes on forever and ever,
like a record with a stuck needle. Even the flimsy musique concrète
bit in the middle can’t salvage this, although that would have been the
right place for a tempo change.
I wrote in the introduction that this album assembles several songs MOTB
have recorded for the past four or five years, including quite a lot of
Syd Barrett covers. Why they chose this one is a mystery to me.
Disaster area indeed and a failed experiment.
Blackbird Song
A heartbeat rhythm – there’s Pink Floyd again! - starts Blackbird Song,
the title track. It is followed by an early U2
guitar, before adventuring into an Owner
Of A Lonely Heart riff.
It’s a happy little tune about someone whose mind drifts off when he
can’t sleep at night and a great closing track of Side A.
Men On The Border – Blackbird – Side B
Side B of Blackbird contains a few Syd Barrett classics that have been
transmuted by Phil and Göran. I am a great admirer of people who destroy
and rebuild a cover. I have hinted a few paragraphs before this can
either turn into something exciting or into a failed experiment.
The second side of Blackbird shows us how the Border’s cut and paste
technique can turn into something pretty stimulating.
Scream Thy Last Scream
Scream Thy Last Scream, for instance. It’s an older one as I seem to
have an early version of this song dating from somewhere in 2014. It was
quite spectacular then and it still is.
Not a Syd Barrett original, obviously. Call it a bit avant-garde-jazzy
or art-of-noisy before it evolves in another one of those default Border
semi-soft rock songs with an airy funky beat. Despite the F-bomb it
never gets angry and the refrain is another one of saccharine quality. A
great little song with some cool keyboard and guitar and overall an
attractive arrangement.
Milky Way / I Never Lied To You
A threatening bass glides into a cute guitar solo that never crosses the
border of prog but comes pretty close. With its first strophe Milky Way
almost turns into a lost crooner classic. The refrain, if there is
something like a refrain in this song, is a bit rougher to the ears.
Three minutes and 30 seconds in the song there seems to be a Metallic
Spheres (Paterson,
Youth & Gilmour) inspired ambient mid-piece that progressively slides
into I Never Lied To You that gets a soft funky new romantics treatment.
Not really extraordinary but nice.
Dominoes
Dominoes Mark 2, the dance version, as Göran more or less describes it.
A quasi-funky neo-psychedelic version of an almost perfect song,
screaming for a 15-minutes full-fledged house remix.
This Border version is a bit under-cooled and if there is one global
criticism of me about Men On The Border in general, it is that they
never dare colouring outside the lines. Too much Alan
Parsons and not enough Prince.
Which is weird, because they tend to cover the guy who used a Zippo
lighter to massacre his guitar strings. At the other hand Men On The
Border are not afraid to go on tour with a symphonic orchestra, like
good old Deep Purple, and as such, they have more or less become the
Cambridge Mafia house band.
Dominoes is good, very good even, ending Blackbird on a high note.
Epilogue
When Men On The Border enter the gate into Barrett-land, they tend to
milk from that Aquarian fifth dimension. Once you have grown accustomed
to that somewhat lazy Nordic style of theirs, there is a pretty great
album hidden inside that Ian Barrett sleeve. They do know how to write
an earworm of a song and as we all know... the early (black)bird...
See Emily Play
Not on this album, but available as a (download)
single is MOTB's brand new version of See Emily Play. Enjoy!
Guess what. When I was contacted by Iggy Rose, somewhere around 2011, I
didn’t think it would be a never-ending story, with many laughs and now
and then a tear. She was a remarkable woman with a touch of daft
eccentricity that only seems to exist in England.
Obviously we are sad of what happened on the 13th of December 2017, a
few minutes before midnight. But then, invariably, the gates of dawn
open and we can celebrate her birthday. So, first, my annual wishes for
her:
And then we have a dance and a laugh. A Church tradition that started in
2011 when Iggy roamed the Internet gangs of Clowns & Jugglers, No Man's
Land and Birdie Hop (where a remembrance thread is praising this
remarkable woman). And who can be better to start a dance than our and
her buddies of Men On The Border?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!
We end with a quote of Anne M, dating from almost a decade ago:
I don’t think Iggy's mystery will be over from now on; I do
think the mystery that comes out of her photos in the 60’s just cannot
die.
She's forever a legend. And as we know... legends live on.
The Church wishes to thank Jørgen Folmer Nergaard Larsen, Men On The
Border and everybody still reading this. ♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥
The most recent Mojo
has, next to a John Lennon special, an eight pages article about the
ongoing feud between Roger Waters and David Gilmour. It is
titled Burning Bridges and has been written by Pink Floyd
informant Mark
Blake.
As usual, knowing the Mojo standards, it is a highly readable and
informative article, but it’s all a bit of déjà vu,
especially for members of the Pink Floyd obsessed dinosaur pack. We have
been following that extraordinary band for about forty-five years and
actually, we didn’t need to be reminded of something that happened
thirty-five years ago.
The starting point of the article is the Roger Waters rant
of May of last year (2020) where he was visibly annoyed that the
official Pink
Floyd website was actively plugging Polly
Samson’s latest novel, but refused to mention the Roger Waters Us
+ Them live release. (For our review of that album or video, please
consult: Them Secrets)
The Odd Couple
We will not get into the fruitless discussion who is right and who is
wrong. There are pros and cons to both sides. Mark Blake quotes Polly
Samson who once said that ‘Roger and David were like a bickering old
divorced couple’. The only error in that quote is the use of the past
tense, because, if the rumour mill is correct, the gap between the
‘genius’ and the ‘voice and guitar’ of Pink Floyd is still there and is
– after a period of apparent reconciliation – again very wide and very
deep.
Unfortunately, the Mojo article doesn’t mention the recent quarrels that
have had consequences for the Pink Floyd fan and collector. But don’t
worry, that’s where we – The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit: the thorn in
the flesh of all things Pink – come in.
One of the juicier stories is that the advertised Early Years set
(2016) was different than what finally could be found in the stores. 5.1
Mixes were promised of Meddle
and Obscured
By Clouds but had to be removed due to an ongoing copyrights war
between the Waters and Gilmour camp. Much of the printed material had
already been done and booklets were (allegedly) replaced at the last
minute. (To read the full story: Supererog/Ation:
skimming The Early Years.)
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others
The 5.1 remixing war is not a thing of the past. While a 5.1 version of The
Wall is (apparently) in the pipeline, the 5.1 release of Animals
is not, although it has been finished a while ago. All it is waiting for
is Gilmour’s blessing. And that will not happen soon if our information
is correct.
One reason could be that David Gilmour is still pissed about the fact
that he only received one songwriting credit for his work on Dogs,
while Roger Waters got four (not counting the copyrights for the
lyrics). Waters added Pigs On The Wing (Part 1 and 2) at the last
minute and got 1 extra credit for each part. David Gilmour didn't like,
and may still not like, that his 17 minutes song was valued less than
the 3 minutes Roger Waters throwaway.
Peace Be With You
In a 2019 interview Waters claimed that he offered a peace plan to
Gilmour, but that it was rejected. Polly Samson, from her side,
twittered that it was not her perfect lover boy who rejected the peace
plan, but the bad guy. Us and them.
As usual Nick Mason is the coolest of them all. He once said that ”if
our children behaved this way, we would have been very cross.” (Read
more about the Pink Floyd wars at: Happy
New Year 2020)
...for something completely different. Here is our yearly overview of
what we have published on our Tumblr
‘sister’ page in 2020.
The Church wishes to thank: Ulrich Angersbach, Edgar Ascencio, Azerty,
Bafupo, Charles Beterams, Birdie Hop, Mark Blake, Brainysod, British
Music Archive, Juliet Butler, CBGB, Rob Chapman, Ron de Bruijn, David De
Vries, Dr Doom, Drosophila, Ebronte, Vita Filippova, Friend of
Squirrels, Ginger Gilmour, Goldenband, Graded Grains, John Gregory,
Hadrian, Hallucalation, Gijsbert Hanekroot, Sara Harp, Hipgnosis Covers,
Alexander Peter Hoffmann, Steve Hoffman Music Forums, Elizabeth Joyce,
Jumaris, Rieks Korte, Mojo, Late Night, Bob Martin, Men On The Border,
Modbeat66, Modboy1, Iain ‘Emo’ Moore, Neptune Pink Floyd, Lisa Newman,
Jon Charles Newman, Göran Nyström, Old Man Peace, Julian Palacios, Emma
Peel Pants, David Parker, Joe Perry, Brynn Petty, Borja Narganes Priego,
Catherine Provenzano, Sophie Partridge. Punk Floyd, Antonio Jesús Reyes,
Ewgeni Reingold, Shakesomeaction, Solo En Las Nubes, Mark Sturdy, Ken
Sutera Jnr, Swanlee, Tomhinde, Wolfpack, Syd Wonder, Randall Yeager,
Yeeshkul,
I may have written this before but when my stack of Pink Floyd tribute
CDs threatened to become bigger than actual Pink Floyd albums I gave up
buying those. Most of the time these albums are quite rubbish anyway and
consist of artists who only sell records to their grandmother. I mean,
who has ever heard of Stinking
Lizaveta and their Matilda
Mother cover on the Like Black Holes In The Sky album? Actually that
track is quite good, you can have a listen by clicking on the image
below.
Hoshizora No Drive
It was Göran Nystrom from Men
On The Border who reminded me of Love
You, a (mostly Italian) Syd Barrett tribute album that was going to
appear on the 6th of January 2021. I immediately pre-ordered it, in the
heat of the moment, so to speak.
I wanted to have a look at the artists and bands involved and the fact
that I couldn’t find them anywhere made me fear for the worst. It is
never a good sign if even the record company keeps the actual performers
a secret.
I could only hope this wasn’t going to be another Hoshizora No Drive.
That is a 2008 Syd Barrett tribute album from Japan that I once received
from the head guru of Birdie Hop. Most songs on it sound like Godzilla
with a toothache.
The Madcap Laughs Again
Mojo had a Madcap Laughs Again CD in 2010. It only scored 53% on the Late
Night forum, based on 18 votes. I gave it a 4
myself but the passing of time has somewhat sweetened my opinion,
based upon the three or four tracks that aren’t totally shite.
Stand out tracks are Mark Almond’s version of Late
Night and Field Music’s Terrapin,
although Eternal Isolation, the administrator of the Late Night forum,
found that it sounded like a shampoo commercial. But that was 2010,
we’re a decade later now.
Italian Efficacy
The blurb for Love You goes as follows:
Our project is to collect, for the first time, all the songs Syd Barrett
recorded after his experience with Pink Floyd. To realize it we invited
many artists from various parts of the world – Italy, Mexico, France,
Ireland, UK, USA, Sweden, Japan, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands – and
asked them to choose one song and re-arrange it in their own way.
Well, let’s be honest, that’s just standard promotional chitchat.
The sixth of January 2021 passed by without a trace and it took until
mid-March for the album to finally arrive, proving once again that the
terms Italian and Efficacy will never match.
Update 2021.04.01: according to Luca Ferrari the delay was due to
problems at Gonzo Multimedia, an English company, BTW.
So enough dilly-dallying let’s play the CDs and publish one of those
Holy Church reviews in telegram style.
CD1.
TERRAPIN - ANDREA ACHILLI (Italy) 2'59" I like the
chill-out arrangement but the singing is below par. 5.6/10.
NO GOOD TRYING - LUNA PARK (France) 3'15" Nice try, but
again, the singing could be much better. 5.4/10.
LOVE YOU - EUGENE (Italy) 2'24" Turning Love You into a
novelty tune à la Devo. 5.9/10 for
the effort.
NO MAN'S LAND - HUMUS (Mexico) 2'27" Power version but
(again, sigh) average singing. 4.8/10.
HERE I GO - MAX ZARUCCHI (Italy) 4'52" 0/10.
A track Italians invented the word vaffanculo for.
OCTOPUS - SHERPA (Italy) 4'02" Very close to the
original. With some extra effort, this could’ve been an excellent cover. 6.4/10.
GOLDEN HAIR - IN THE LABYRINTH (Sweden) 7'41" It starts
close to the original, then it glides into a surprisingly nice Indian
raga prog-fantasy. Unfortunately, it loses its momentum after a few
minutes. This could’ve been saved by adding some uplifting beats. 7.3/10.
LONG GONE – BARYOGENESIS (Italy) 3'27" Close to the
original, it has potential but gimmicks can’t save it. 5.3/10
SHE TOOK A LONG COLD LOOK - ALANJEMAAL (Italy) 5'55" This
starts promising with an intro that puts you on the wrong leg, which –
in my opinion – is always a good way to tackle a cover. The singing is –
again – awful and what is left is a good old space rocker… 6.9/10.
FEEL - HIS MAJESTY THE BABY (Italy) 3'37" This is the
Luca Ferrari who gave us the quirky Fish Out Of The Water in a
previous century. Beautifully written (in Italian), but badly translated
into English (not by him, I might say). Unfortunately, his track on Love
You is an experiment gone bad. 3.0/10.
IF IT'S IN YOU - HENRIETTA AND THE FIVES (Italy) 3'45" Despite
the quite traditional rendition (with raga influences) I’m going to give
this a 6.8/10. At least it is a track
that tries to achieve something.
LATE NIGHT - DUNCAN MAITLAND (Ireland) 3'39" A nice cover
from this ex-Pugwash musician. It stays close to the original but
manages to bring the message over. 7.0/10.
OPEL - GALERIE 65 (USA) 5'43" It starts by slowing down
the song to a very intimate level. There is a nice instrumental bridge
before the song ends with a less convincing epilogue. 6.0/10.
DOLLY ROCKER - THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (Italy) 3'16" 5.6/10
for the effort. The original is not really great either.
WORD SONG - QUARTO STATO DELLA MATERIA (Italy) 4'37" I
was looking forward to this. The original has got virtually no tune and
we all know that the lyrics are an experimental mess. The band QSDM
turns it into a REM-like tune. 7.2/10.
SWAN LEE - HIBUSHIBIRE (Japan) 4'07" This is Hoshizora No
Drive all over. The freakbeat outro can't salvage the intro,
unfortunately. 3.0/10.
LET'S SPLIT - MICHELE GENTILE (Italy) 2'54" This one took
me by surprise. This could well turn into my personal summer hit. I’ll
play it on my radio show one day. 6.9/10.
TWO OF A KIND - DAVE HARRIS & ZEUS B HELD (UK) 2'29" From
Rick Wright’s teammate in Zee, here is Two Of A Kind that might well be
a Rick Wright tune anyway. It’s a fun tune and that is how I look at it. 6.3/10.
ASTRONOMY DOMINE - BORIS SAVOLDELLI & UMBERTO PETRIN (Italy)
4'01" Turning Astronomy into a lounge jazz fantasy. The intro is
quite brilliant, but I sense that this tune could’ve been much better.
It lacks some salt and pepper, so to speak. 6.0/10.
End of CD1 with an average of 5.5 points
out of 10.
CD2
BABY LEMONADE - ST 37 (USA) 6'08" The musicians try
imitating the Baby Lemonade intro and fail at it. Then they try
imitating Syd’s vocals. They fail. Then they try to imitate Hawkwind but
Hawkwind does it better. 4.8/10.
LOVE SONG - LA FORMA DELLE NUVOLE (Italy) 3'31" Close to
the original, quite folky with a few unexpected surprises which made me
add some points. 6.1/10.
DOMINOES - SULA BASSANA (Germany) 5'46" Tries to give
Dominoes an experimental – slightly Floydian – feel but the result is
not immediately satisfactory. This is one of those songs that has
potential and is asking for better treatment. 6.8/10.
IT IS OBVIOUS - STEREOKIMONO (Italy) 3'30" Making
pub-rock out of Barrett, although the song explores many musical
territories. Nice try. 6.6/10.
RATS - PHOSPHENE (UK) 2'14" Phosphene is John Cavanagh,
whom we all revere for his Floydian knowledge. He has tried to turn
Barrett into a minimalistic industrial electronic outfit à la Front 242
but doesn’t quite succeed. 4.0/10.
MAISIE – THEEUNFORESEEN (Belgium) 4'04" Maisie is a
somewhat underrated track by Barrett and with this cover version, it
will certainly not grow in popularity. 4.7/10.
GIGOLO AUNT - THE AIRWAVES (Sweden) 5'10" It's OK but
could've been a bit more daring and original. With over 5 minutes it
takes much too long. 5.8/10.
WAVING MY ARMS IN THE AIR / I NEVER LIED TO YOU - LUCA RAIO
(Italy) 5'28" Song #1 is a folky carbon copy of the original,
not bad, but not really inventive. The surprise lies in the bridge
between the two parts. Part #2 tries to bring a more emotive version of
I Never Lied To You, which has always been one of the more poignant and
powerful moments of Barrett, but it fails miserably. 6.1/10.
WINED AND DINED - KABLE (USA) 4'04" Close to the
original. No frills, no thrills. 6.4/10.
WOLFPACK - KEEPER OF ATLANTIS (USA) 5'37" Yep, it’s again
one of those. 3.3/10.
EFFERVESCING ELEPHANT - BOTTI & PAVONI from GREENWALL (Italy)
3'02" At least a track where some fantasy has been used. It
might even have been sillier for me. 6.5/10.
BIRDIE HOP - TRESPASSERS W (The Netherlands) 3'14" Yep,
it’s again one of those. 3.5/10.
LANKY PART 1 - ALFREDO LONGO feat. SEBA PAVIA 4'31" A jam
imitating a jam. 5.0/10 for the effort.
MILKY WAY - MEN ON THE BORDER (Sweden) 5'10" A
(shortened) track from their Blackbird album. See our review here: Blackbird:
Fly Into The Light. One of the very rare occasions on this
compilation where you can hear there is a tight band behind the song,
rather than a hobby project. 7.2/10.
BOB DYLAN BLUES - JOSS COPE (UK) 4'17" A man and his
guitar in a great version of this tune. 8.0/10.
RHAMADAN - MORNING SCALES THE MOUNTAIN (USA) 9'43" The
story of how Syd and Jerry Garcia met, in syncopated pandemonium. 6.7/10.
VEGETABLE MAN - NICK BENSEN (USA) 3'59" It’s OK, I guess,
but it’s not spectacular. 6.0/10.
End of CD2 with an average of 5.7points out of 10.
Conclusion: 5.6 points out of 10.
What I feared about this tribute album came true. It's a mixed bag with
about the same amount of nays and yeas. A single CD, with half the songs
weeded out, would’ve sufficed. (And weirdly enough the average score
would then have been 6.66 points out of
10.) What is even more perplexing is the fact that a great part of the
human race seems to have lost the ability to sing but that this doesn’t
stop them from doing so.
But at least all of the artists can now proudly say to their grand-mum:
"Look bonny, I’ve got a record out."