Thanks to Graham for these reviews - except where noted otherwise, of course
Unrelated to these endeavours, two CD singles (along with limited edition paintings) have appeared for sale on E-Bay, all produced by Adrian Wagner, Calvert’s collaborator on “Distances Between Us”. In both cases, the back-story is probably at least as interesting as the tracks themselves.
“Cricket Star” is credited to Robert Calvert and the 1st XI and was released on CD in 2004 through Adrian Wagner’s MediaQuest. It originally appeared on a flexi-disc in 1979 on Mr Wagner’s Wakeup Records (WUR 5), the intention being to cash in on the England cricket team’s forthcoming tour of the
“Paranoid Android” was also released in 2004 through MediaQuest and is billed as coming from the 1979 album “Disco Dream and the Androids”, produced by Adrian Wagner. As Adrian Wagner explains on E-Bay, Bob Calvert: “wrote the complete lyrics for two tracks as well as contributing to the entire concept and is the lead vocalist on one of the tracks”. The CD features these two tracks. The theme of the lyrics, again according to Adrian Wagner, is “What happens if a male android falls in love with a female (girl!) android? What happens if they are a different design and ‘they can't make no connection’? What about if one he fell in love with danced too fast and had strange sight which gave her a different 'view' of the world around her?”
The first song on the CD is a generic disco track,
Both CDs are still available through E-Bay.
It is apparent that many of the musical ideas as well as the lyrical content were pretty much fully formed at the demo stage. In fact, arguably, some of the music works better than on the studio albums,
The set kicks off with two tracks that appeared in their final forms on “Freq”: “All The Machines Are Quiet” and “Work Song”. The low key production and the plaintive voice work well although it is perhaps deliberately ironic that, on songs that call attention to the loss of traditional jobs and the rise of mechanisation in the workplace, synthesisers and drum machines stand in for real musicians. “Standing On The Picket Line” is played as a punk/thrash track, an idea that was sadly buried under the electropop trappings of the final version. “Nedd Ludd” is also conceived as more rock’n’roll than synth pop, suggesting that “Freq” could have turned out to be a more interesting and varied album than it ultimately did.
Turning to the “Test-Tube Conceived” material, one might expect the demos to have a harder edge. Somewhat surprisingly, “Thanks To The Scientists” is a mournful ballad here, with none of the metallic sheen that appeared in the final version. “Rah Rah Man” also gets an understated, if menacing, treatment. The demo of “I Hear Voices” is angular and insistent, but undoubtedly effective, while “Fly On The Wall” is suitably paranoid. “Acid Rain” is every bit as horribly unlistenable as it was in its finished form but otherwise these demos suggest that “Test-Tube Conceived”, like “Freq”, could have been a far better album than it finally turned out.
Of the “unreleased” (volume 2) tracks, the reflective minor key “Subterranean”, “Radio Egypt” and “Hidden Persuasion” work well enough. “Over The Moon” is bland, “Marathon Man” doesn’t really go anywhere and the jaunty “Soweto” is more irritating than profound. The highlights are “Working Down A Diamond Mine” and “Re-wind”, both of which feature slightly heavier arrangements, closer to the stark and aggressive material on “Test-Tube Conceived”. The lyric of “Re-wind” also seems more personal than most of the others.
The first CD release of this material was on BGO (BGOCD135) in 1992 and it was re-released as a double CD (with “At Queen Elizabeth Hall”) in 2003 (BGOCD601).
A brief note on the “missing tracks” which didn’t make it onto Blueprints from the Cellar:
Volume 1, side 1 tracks five and six are “Telekinesis” and “Test-Tube Conceived”. The former is a little bit flat compared to the more menacing finished version. The latter is played as a straight synth-pop song, almost jaunty in execution. In fact it would be interesting to see what the Pet Shop Boys could do with this. “On Line” (track five, side 2) is played as proto-punk and, although the sound is a bit muddy, it would have been a valid inclusion on the CD.
Side 2 of volume 2 opens with “Your Purple Lids”. Over a chirpy percussive backing track Bob recalls sitting in a hospital waiting room while someone, friend or family, is under the knife. This little slice of life is unflinching is its portrayal of both the banality of the experience and queasy reality of “your purple lids and your ashen face…”. Perhaps though it was better left as a poem rather than set to music. Track 4 side 2 is “Cats”. Buried under a heavy fuzz synth-guitar riff, the lyric seems to be about, well, cats - sleeping by the fireside, hunting at night and with (apparently) teeth like sharks. On my copy at least, quite apart from the rather twee subject matter, the vocals are rendered almost unlistenable by distortion. Again, leaving it off the CD was a good call.
[Right: this illustration is actually of the paperback (?) book of the same name]
This cassette-only release appeared on Bob Calvert’s own “Harbour publications” label. It consists of Bob reading his poetry, presumably from the book of the same name. The printed cover (the labels on the tapes are written in his own hand) lists a mere six titles but they represent a tiny fraction of the total – the tape lasts around an hour. Calvert’s voice and intonation are familiar of course, although his tones are measured here, with no hysterical shouting. Tucked away on side 2 is a set of poems that were performed with or by Hawkwind, or on solo albums: First Landing on Medusa (The Awakening is the first part of this one), The Starfarer’s Despatch and The Clone Poem (parts 1 and 2 of Spirit of the Age), The Gremlin, and the poem that became Fahrenheit 451. By far the majority of the material though steers a path well away from science fiction.
The topics are wide ranging: everyday events at home; closely observed human behaviour, places, and animals;
recollections of past encounters and relationships;
Most of the poems are short; he makes his point and moves on. Some are very short indeed, as in the classic (well it was used on the poster that came with the Queen Elizabeth Hall album) Insomnia: “I must have accidentally tripped the switch that turns the stillness on”.
The first side kicks off with poems about the common cold and nail biting. While neatly observed, the subject matter certainly isn’t instantly inspiring. The third track though, about a lost key, and consequent need to climb out through one window and in through another, reminds us of his way with words: “at 60 feet up you have only to step on the upturned rakehead of the air for its handle of concrete paving to come flailing upwards to crack your skull…”. Slightly annoyingly, my copy of the tape ends part way through the last poem.
If you have any tolerance of poetry and any interest in Calvert’s work this tape is essential. This is who he was and Hawkwind merely offered him a vehicle for presenting one particular genre of his work in a musical setting. Settle back then, and let Bob Calvert talk you through his world, bringing the mundane to life with surprising detail, quirky and tangential observation and, just occasionally, fevered imaginings.
The Right Stuff
The 1987 rehearsals feature a basic three-piece band: guitar, bass and drums, and everything is delivered in raucous garage band style, something which works better on, say, “The Right Stuff” than on the slower numbers. On the plus side, the band are obviously enjoying themselves and the material spans most of Calvert’s solo work and his some of his Hawkwind work: five songs from Captain Lockheed, one (“Ship Of Fools”) from Lucky Leif, three from Freq (“Why Can’t The World Be Run By Machines” is simply a
The 1986 concert features a fuller sound (including keyboards) and a bit more light and shade in the dynamics – but with a drum machine in place of a human drummer. Calvert is on good form in his between song banter. The set relies heavily on Test-Tube Conceived, which is represented by eight tracks, with just two tracks from Freq (“All The Machines Are Quiet” and an uncredited “Ned Ludd”) and “The Right Stuff” from Captain Lockheed. The main set is topped and tailed by rather perfunctory performances of “Quark” and “Spirit Of The Age”.
Both were released on Voiceprint (VP384CD and VP385CD) and there are at least four more where these ones came from. Can’t wait.
The song itself is not what I would call a Blake classic, but I only seem to like half of what he does – the classic synthesizer instrumentals rather than the singer-songwriter material. A case in point is the title track, which is next up. Again, vocals and a more organic instrumental voice (piano) dominate what is, IMHO, a not-very-good song. The best thing about it is another virtual lead guitar solo, while the lyrics are somewhat New Age, but all right. The same cannot be said for ‘St.Dolay’ which features some of the most excruciating words I’ve heard for
‘Crystal Island’ is another odd one for what it does with vocals and lyrics. “So tell me…do you dream at night? Of course you do!” Well the whole track was obviously intended to be more dreamlike but the horrible jaunty verses are marred by Mr.Blake’s rasping “singing”, weirdly offset by female backing vocals. The song has touches of 70’s Al Stewart or even some of the stuff Sandie Shaw had been known to dabble in before Morrissey rescued her from obscurity. But…it’s (sorry Tim) just not very good.
What a relief it is to move on to ‘Byzantium Dancing’, which opens with some atmospheric synth noodling. One way in which this album surpasses Tim’s 70’s work is in the tonal richness of the various voicings – the bass pedal notes are plunging, deep and clear (there’s a slap bass in here too), while the melody lines are located in the upper register, leaving lots of space in the mix. This instrumental probably has some of the best actual tunes on the album, and it segues into ‘Sarajevo (Remember)’, which opens with a “Chariots Of Fire” type intro. This is another vocal, song-orientated number, but better than the preceding efforts, with an elegiac, uplifting quality, rather at odds with the lament inherent in the lyrics.
‘Tribulations’ closes out the album, very oddly, as it is built around a French-accented rap and a Eurodisco stab at reggae. Tim’s vocals work well here, and are (this time) nicely balanced against the female backing singers, though once again the synths are thin on the ground. It’s actually very smooth and reminds me of Sniff’n’The Tears – but that’s not what I came for. Tim has commented that this album is the real successor to “Blake’s New Jersusalem”, and I wouldn’t disagree with that. Unfortunately it has all the same faults as the aforementioned album, and writ larger if anything. But beauty being in the eye of the beholder, anyone who enjoyed the "New Age singer-songwriter" aspects of his 1978 opus will like this too.
The album kicks off with “Inroads To Empire”, a piece of science fiction radio theatre – musical phrases and sound effects provide the arch and vaguely unsettling backdrop to a whispered narrative by Kelleye Kendrick. “Empire Of The Night” takes a
“Clouds Over Titan” is probably the most conventional space rock track, an 8+ minute instrumental, complete with wailing sax courtesy of Brother Anubis Re. Indeed the introduction of the sax rounds out the sound nicely on the remainder of the album.
“Office Colony” sounds like Harvey again, a fantasy about insect office workers, the sort of thing Ron Tree might write in fact. It’s a spoken word piece, again, with plinking piano, squealing sax, moaning guitar and irritating percussion in the background. Like “Empire Of The Night” this kind of thing isn’t bad in small doses.
“Delpi” cranks up the space rock again with some phasing on the main riff and an eastern tinged sax melody before the music drops out and Harvey drops in, at around the four minute mark, to deliver another rant, apparently about Spaceseed themselves. The main riff comes back in before the end but by then the damage has been done.
Track 8 (“A Chance Encounter”) is actually a song and is relatively short and sweet, with the sax meandering pleasantly over the fade out. Lastly, “Wasted Skies” has a good riff, some tasteful solo guitar and builds to a decent climax. It’s only partially spoilt by the half spoken, half sung vocal.
Basically this album is a hybrid of sci-fi theatre and space rock and, for my tastes, contains rather too much of the former and not enough of the latter. It isn’t easy to listen to but at least Harvey does some new stuff instead of reprising “Dreamworker”. Worth checking out then but not a classic episode.
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