Books Reviews

"And Other Wondrous Stories", goes the subtitle. Wondrous they are, indeed, yet fantastic they ain't even though they may seem so.

"We defy you not to laugh out loud", here's the challenge from the publishers. Oh yes, sure, no question here. But if this scribe lasted four pages before breaking into his first guffaw, it was because he's in possession of Rick Wakeman's 1995's autiobiography, "Say Yes!", bought on eBay for a good sum. It was worth every penny, though, if to quote one of the pranksters depicted in this book, the author being the first and foremost of these. Reading it on a bus, then, might be considered anti-social behavior, so it's rather good that this time the main culprit doesn't look like professor on the cover (alright, alright, he looks like one, yet it's a mad professor now), and the giggles can be excusable. It's a collection of anecdotes Rick's recently been touring with rather than a chronological yarn but with a method to the madness one can expect from the man who likes a good concept as much as he loved excess which today provides a basis for these stories.

We're more than lucky that Wakeman is such a great narrator and has such a good memory to vividly recall and candidly retell some of the funny, and sometimes tragic - he had a heart attack at 25 - events which seem to be happening wherever the legendary keyboardist goes. Of these, the infamous curry-eating during the YES concert feels the least hilarious, and even the close brush (okay, push) with Salvador Dali wasn't the most unbelievable encounter in Rick's life as wasn't the night on the town with Keith Moon. The artist with a sense of humor like the author's needs not to rely on big names when there's a laughter in every crook and nanny... sorry, nook and cranny, so even the personal dramas are told here with a winkle in the eye. And there's a tear in the eye in the "Gone But Not Forgotten" chapter exposing Rick Wakeman's gentle soul behind the deadpan - and good pun - veneer able to mislead the canny KGB officers.

Intimidated? Who? The artist who met Fidel Castro? You're kidding? The only thing Rick must be afraid of is that the demand for another book will be exorbitant. Ah, he mentioned a twenty volume set. Come on, bring us the head of Anne Boleyn!

*****

A time for the label where the artist has a voice to blow their own trumpet.

A record label can be either a money-making endeavor, which is not the case these days if you're not a major, or an outlet for your love of music and desire to share the music you love with the like-minded people. For Peter Purnell the choice was obvious when he decided to launch a new business a decade ago, and that's the reason Angel Air is talked about in such reverential tone - and now has its history documented in a book. But it's more than just a history - Angel Air is business as usual, even though it's very unusual to let an artist have his say and his paycheck now - it's a quest to uncover a treasure trove and let the long-lost gems shine anew.

There's only one language in this world, the language of love. Which is all we need.

The subtitle of this strange book reads, "A Novel Experience", and that's perhaps a key to understanding its drift. There's no action in "The Gift Of Gabe", all there is is the movement of thought. It all starts from the unnamed protagonist's accidental meeting with former college teacher, Gabe, who hooks him on by providing an explanation of "Yellow Submarine" real meaning. Real for Gabe and like-minded people who consider everything in this world is connected, which in the broad sense is true indeed, and that this connection might be perceived if one strips the mind back to its primeval state setting it free from the dogmas brought by the culture. Thus, the hero's learning curve begins.

The connection, as Gabe has it, is the common language: the language of love as opposed to the language of fear - mostly fear of dying. Surely, the best way to get into any language is listening and reading, and that's what the protagonist does. His wise friend gives him books to read, music to listen to, and great lectures, each receiving its own chapter in the book. The hero cuts a surprising figure seemingly having no clue as to who King Lear was while embracing such philosophers as Kirkegaard and Ouspensky, which is mystifying - but Gabe doesn't mention mystics like Blavatsky and keeps to the "straight" science path. Likewise, looking deep into the classic rock lyrics, mostly those by John Lennon and George Harrison, he never tackles Jim Morrison or Bob Dylan's imagery. Still, many names are dropped, and yet...

"The key to understanding this is to understand that he uses the term 'girl' to describe the societal group mind", says Gabe of Lennon. Isn't there a catch - as well as in telling wrong the well-known circumstances of the "Blue Jay Way" composing? In "Glass Onion" Lennon himself mocked such attempts to find different meanings in THE BEATLES' songs, but Gabe maintains that sometimes writers just don't know what they talk about until later, if ever at all. There can be no end to it, then, with the book's end open to speculations. Whose name is never mentioned in it, still, is the name of Occam whose 'razor' principle is that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible. So that's a fiction, a noble novel experience. Thought-provoking, the book may indeed open the doors of perception.

**1/2

The long shadow of the underestimated heroes gets a place for the casting.

"It's about goddam fucking time these GROUNDHOGS started to get some recognition": sometimes even the great late Lester Bangs' words weren't paid much attention to, and this recommendation, dropped back in 1972, didn't turn out prophetic. Musically up there with the blues elite, the band - John Lee Hooker's band of choice for his '60s British tours - lacked in the charisma department, no matter how strong a character Tony "TS" McPhee has been through all the years, not only classic era this books spans. It's him who was to write the group's history, but a musician's supposed to play and not sctibble down, so the guitarist returned the publisher's advance, and Martyn Hanson, an author of the acclaimed tome on THE NICE, stepped in. Tony couldn't have come forth better than this.

Hanson received all the possible support from the band members who all seem to have good memories, diaries and collections, yet what emerged out of this explains why they didn't get their due: an image of an ensemble set on music so firm there was nothing more in their lives - but what's the point of a book, then, when there's records out there to listen to? If complimentary reviews therein go over the top of objectivity offered in McPhee's own comments are down to the author being a fan, it's not his fault that the 'HOGS story comes off as uneventful while it can't be such being a rather long one. The classic trio shared the stage with STONES, ZEPPELIN and SABBATH, but there's no even real anecdote told in the dry narrative, save for a couple of surprising facts such as that late as 1971 Keef Richards travelled to the gigs by train. Sure, there are details and insights - like as to what stands behind the "TS" in the group's leader's name, him liking to write songs in the toilet and his acid trip which birthed the band's masterpiece, "Split" - yet the book doesn't bring a reader closer to the GROUNDHOGS' heart as before. Still, there's a gentle push to give their albums another spin, which can be considered the scribe's ultimate goal, and if the music will do the job, the book will have served well.

***

He could "out-sing Ian Gillan and out-prance Rod Stewart" yet couldn't out-live his own stage persona. Not a regular rock casualty.

For a brief period of time he reigned the stage: no matter how the press slagged off URIAH HEEP, a band David Byron was a singer with, it's only Freddie Mercury who could rival him for flamboyancy. And here lay a great tragedy. As Jeff Perkins puts it, "a front man with nothing to front is a terrible waste". Indeed, Byron left the group which he co-founded - well, he got sacked, but everybody says he left, because David was flying too high in his alcohol-addled star reverie to notice he'd let the ensemble down - in 1976, at the time when their music style and his lifestyle became unfashionable. Not the best period and not the best state to be picking up a career. The glamor peeled off and the decline was torturous, with vain attempts to catch up again with solo albums, ROUGH DIAMOND and THE BYRON BAND. Not able to kicked out the addiction, the singer died in 1985 - and once a couple of years later hard rock reclaimed its fame, the legend was born.

Read the interview

Rock 'n' roll isn't only sound, you know? The attitude as seen through a lens.

Quite a familiar feeling: to look at a picture taken at some concert and sigh, "I wish I was there", but it's very rarely that a photo takes you on a time warp with a real presence effect. Because it takes a real master to stand behind a picture, and Carl Dunn is the master. For years his works have been hitting both the pages of many a musical publication and records' sleeves so, after three and a half decades since the first time Carl went to a gig with a camera, a time came to collect a good portion of those pictures under one binding given a very simple title.

Catching the rainbow ain't easy yet the pot o'gold is still filled with beans.

Many consider Ritchie Blackmore an enigma so it surprisingly took quite a long time for somebody to dare looking through the black to get a glimpse of multicolored phenomenon that was RAINBOW. Well, not exactly looking but putting out the results of his research through previously published material, that means the advertisement claiming the band members had been interviewed for this tome was false. Still, complaints aren't many as even the most knowing fan would love to have it all gathered under one cover.

With half the book taken by the reference material such as concert log, discographies and chart placing, the narrative itself is not as detailed as one could wish for and rather confusing in places but, as Blackmore himself confessed, there were "too much friction going down - but a lot of that was down to me", so you can't blame the author for that. He may have given too much space to the guitarist's pre-RAINBOW work yet this helps better understand what the band was like - up to notions regarding the "Long Live Rock 'n' Roll" riff originating from Chuck Berry's "School Day" and "All Night Long" lyrical idea coming from Ritchie. Highlighted come even moments many tend not to pay attention to, such as Ronnie Dio's amicable split or Blackmore's business-mindedness as a reason for some twists in the tale.

A pity is the writer not only isn't able to solve the contradictions - like, when Graham Bonnet says he left and wasn't fired while the leader insists the singer got kicked out - or explain why, say, "Straight Between The Eyes" was released six month after it had been recorded, but sometimes Davis only adds to the confusion, writing about an album and forgetting to relate to its title or mentioning one Shoshana singing on "Still I'm Said" which is an instrumental track. Anyway, subject to relish are bits-and-odds that may seem rather unimportant yet make the overall picture shine like a rainbow: thus, one comes to know the photo in the "Long Live" gatefold had been taken at the RUSH concert, or names of the singers who didn't make it into the ranks though Peter Goalby recorded some vocals for "Since You Been Go" on his way from TRAPEZE to URIAH HEEP, or that RAINBOW toured with such unlikely ensembles as VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR and PROCOL HARUM. Anecdotes are great too, all funny, if familiar and in those, the musicians are revealed as human beings, because a RAINBOW ad with only three names on it - Ritchie's, Dio's and Cozy Powell's - is quite telling, as well as Ritchie's decision on Ronnie having to have a second name or Powell feeling like a family doing things that made Tony Carey feel like a hell.

A hell of a story it is - and, hopefully, it'll be written one day with full collaboration from the insiders themselves and not by skilful fan but a professional with a musical horizon much wider to see that same RAINBOW rising.

****

Good lovin' gone bad - that's how it goes when subjective gets in the way of objective.

A tireless time traveller gets his life outlined - with stamp of approval from the man himself.

There's a great photograph inside: Wetton facing the Stonehenge. The caption, "John admiring one of the few rock groups he didn't join," has the essence of the story, for hardly any other musician's life spanned such significant bands as FAMILY, KING CRIMSON and ASIA to name but a few. But too few a word this book gives to many a glorious moment so a true fan is left thirsty still and finds a great value in pictures which are rare indeed. Revelations are rare too - though in other sense, yet they're alone are reason enough to delve into this pleasant, if brief, reading. It's only here that the ASIA roots are tracked as far back as 1969 when both John and Steve Howe auditioned for ATOMIC ROOSTER Carl Palmer was drumming with then; even more teasing feels an account of a supergroup of Wetton, Rick Wakeman and Bill Bruford that might arise in 1977 - will those demos ever surface in their original form?

No doubt, Kim Dancha did a massive work having picked up the pieces from Wetton and people he met in his own time. Still, you can't help but wish author's possibilities stretch beyond friends like Richard Palmer-James, who John's been working with since his teens, or Geoff Downes, his partner in crime of passion. The art of making friends and keeping a marriage safe for three decades tells much of Wetton's human side, with his early years highlighted and ASIA story occuppying half of the book, it's difficult to justify the URIAH HEEP stint being given only a page. Not important this may seem but year and a half spent there brought forth two albums, one marking the band's highest commercial success and other their experimentative peak - here, John's role is downplayed. Fortunately, a funny story of his and Lee Kerslake's antics is told, an opposite to KING CRIMSON's lack of humour. Hard to believe it was so but encoding the "Starless And Bible Black / Starless" enigma deserves acclaim.

It's all right now that the greatest boy band ever finally receives its written history.