(2023) Stackridge - Stackridge & Friendliness (Remaster Expanded Edition)
Review:
Stackridge, one of the most singular rock bands to grow in soil sown and enriched by the British Invasion of the ’60s, coalesced in late 1969. Andy Davis and Jim “Crun” Walter were playing together in the Bristol blues band Griptight Thynne when Davis began seeking new bandmates. Mike Tobin (who became Stackridge’s first manager) introduced Davis to Mike “Mutter” Slater, then playing in the folk duo Mick & Mutter. James Warren answered a newspaper ad and connected very well with Davis, and they began writing songs together. Billy Bent showed up, listened to them developing “Dora the Female Explorer,” and invited them to practice at his home studio, and they invited him to drum. Mike Evans was playing violin with traditional ballad groups in Bristol (the Westlanders and the Moonshiners). On Davis’ 21st birthday, the band was celebrating at a pub when Mike Evans walked in. He was invited to join, as Davis knew him slightly and Walter agreed that a violin would fill out their sound. Meanwhile, Walter had proposed the latest absurd band name, Stackridge Lemon, which was quickly shortened to Stackridge. The gigs were sparse at first, and Walter left. Tobin moved to London and began securing more plentiful bookings, while around Bristol, Stackridge began developing their eclectic, whimsical repertoire, with stated influences and preferences encompassing Zappa, the Beach Boys, Flanders & Swann, Syd Barrett, Igor Stravinsky, the Marx Brothers, J.S. Bach, and very significantly, the 1965-1966 Beatles. Their rummage sale stagewear, Slater’s exuberant, witty patter (and his development of dustbin lids as a percussion instrument), Warren’s wry, rambling story/introductions (contemporaneous with Peter Gabriel’s development of same with Genesis), and the almost unique (in a rock group) inclusion of both a flutist and violinist led Stackridge to develop an enthusiastic, loyal following. They signed to MCA, and with Fritz Fryer producing, they recorded Stackridge in the spring of 1971, sharing Martin Birch as engineer with Deep Purple. Warren wrote four songs alone and three with Davis, establishing him as the group’s main lyrical voice. Stackridge was highlighted by the boisterous “Dora the Female Explorer,” “Percy the Penguin” (the first of their laments for misunderstood animals), and a 12-plus-minute version of live favorite “Slark,” a mythical beast that scoops the hapless narrator out of his car and flies him “beyond the fields we know.” Walter was persuaded to rejoin on bass, allowing Warren to move to guitar permanently, while Davis continued to switch between guitar and keyboards. After releasing two singles in support of the first LP (including a single version of “Slark” and the live instrumental favorite “Purple Spaceships Over Yatton”) and touring with Wishbone Ash, the six returned to the studio in August 1972 to record Friendliness, perhaps the classic Stackridge album. It was recorded in just 70 hours of off-peak studio time, with 30 more hours of mixing. There were five songs (including the two-part title track) from Warren, a piano instrumental from flutist Slater, three Walter/Davis compositions (including “Syracuse the Elephant” and “Keep on Clucking,” preceding animal rights activism by at least a decade), and the opening instrumental galloper “Lummy Days.” MCA released Friendliness stateside as well (unlike the first album), but without promo or performances. Despite modest sales (again), Stackridge had shed the “novelty item” tag and created, as reviewer Chas Keep put it in 1996, “A sort of children’s favorites with attitude; a compendium of tuneful melodies performed without the now dated excesses of [their] contemporaries.” The release of Friendliness in November 1972 was followed by a tour with friends the Pigsty Hill Orchestra and a new single, “Do the Stanley” b/w “C’est la Vie,” in February 1973. Despite its being a catchy and an easy singalong single, DJs failed to pick up on “Stanley,” and the BBC hierarchy restricted its airplay due to a lyrical reference to the Queen. Conversely, since 1971, Radio 1 and the Beeb had been recording and broadcasting Stackridge in session and in concert, as they faithfully did with rock and pop acts of all stripes. (Some of these recordings finally emerged on CD in the ’90s.) When a third LP was planned, Stackridge received a boost. George Martin’s son had played Friendliness for his legendary father, and colleagues at Air Studios had pestered him to work with the band. Reluctant, until he heard some demo tapes for the new album, Martin agreed to produce what became The Man in the Bowler Hat, easily Stackridge’s most financially successful and well-known album. Reviewer Chas Keep reveals that Martin worked on the melodic and rhythmic patterns (especially the vocal harmonies), supervised the orchestration, and even contributed piano on “Humiliation.” Andy Mackay of Roxy Music added sax to “Dangerous Bacon,” an infectious tip o’ the hat to the Beatles. “Bacon” was passed over for first single release in favor of “The Galloping Gaucho,” a brilliant poke at glitter rockers and the absurdity of “being cool.” Yet “Gaucho” strengthened the public’s perception of Stackridge as an oddity, a bucolic rock troupe with dancehall leanings. They were warm when the public wanted cool, intricate when brash was praised, illuminating when obscurity was in vogue. The Man in the Bowler Hat contained some of the finest hybrid rock music ever. Most of the lyrics were group efforts (under the unlikely pen name of Smegmakovitch), while composition fell chiefly to Davis, Slater, and Warren, in that order. “God Speed the Plough,” the remarkable instrumental closer, is attributed to Wabadaw Sleeve (again, a full group effort). The band’s musicianship and creative talents were brilliantly showcased, and the fact that “Hat” failed to win over record buyers probably contributed to the dissolution of Stackridge… — allmusic.com
Stackridge [1971]
The debut album from Stackridge consists of nine curiously light folk-tinged tracks, with elements of progressive rock cropping up here and there in the friendly Canterbury style. Their music takes on the classic storytelling route, but is bolstered and heightened by instruments like violins, flutes, cellos, trumpets, and the distinct sound of the harmonium played by Andrew Creswell-Davis. Both James Warren and Creswell-Davis take turns at singing such merry lyrical excerpts as “40 missing floorboards, 50 frantic far-out mice below,” sounding attractively waggish and peculiarly quaint in doing so. Without coming off as overly Celtic or far too English, Stackridge culminates the humor and the essence of figurative devices and lays them out within the field of woodwind and stringed instruments. With barely any percussion, songs like “Percy the Penguin” and “The Three Legged Table” carry out their jovial entendres to the eloquence of hand-plucked piano strings and a trio of trumpets. Their refined singing style helps each song render its own character and eccentricity when added to the numerous instruments. The albums that followed such as Friendliness and The Man in the Bowler Hat housed the same poetic components as their first release with the music sounding more progressive and slightly commercial. — allmusic.com
01. Grande Piano (2023 Remaster)
02. Percy The Penguin (2023 Remaster)
03. The Three Legged Table (2023 Remaster)
04. Dora The Female Explorer (2023 Remaster)
05. Essence Of Porphyry (2023 Remaster)
06. Marigold Conjunction (2023 Remaster)
07. 32 West Mall (2023 Remaster)
08. Marzo Plod (2023 Remaster)
09. Slark (2023 Remaster)
10. Everyman (2023 Remaster)
11. Let There Be Lids (2023 Remaster)
12. Slark (Live, BBC Radio One, John Peel Top Gear Session, 21 September 1971)
Friendliness [1972]
Although The Man in the Bowler Hat is without question the most fully realized and lavishly produced (by George Martin) Stackridge album, most fans of the band would probably gravitate toward Friendliness as their favorite. Here can be found every quality that endeared the West Country five-piece to a loyal -- but never quite large enough -- following. There's Beatlesque melody, gently surreal humor, and considerable instrumental dexterity that ranged freely between the worlds of pop, folk, jazz, classical, and prog rock. The rollicking instrumental "Lummy Days" is a perfect scene-setter, with Mike Evans' violin and Mutter Slater's flute lyrical one moment and bucolic the next as the melody sweeps between hoedown, bolero, and Vaughan Williams -- all in less than four minutes. Next comes the weightless beauty of the title track, with James Warren's choirboy vocals multi-tracked to bewitching effect. That's followed, even more improbably, by the '30-style foppery of "Anyone for Tennis," and not long after by the Eastern-tinged "Syracuse the Elephant," at over eight minutes long and with Mellotron aplenty, clear evidence that Stackridge could have staked their share of the prog market if they could have kept a straight face long enough. But they couldn't, and to prove it, the next track is a piece of cod-reggae about a cow, called "Amazingly Agnes." In truth this and the heads-down, no-nonsense boogie "Keep on Clucking" (a whimsical diatribe against battery farming) always did sound like grudging concessions to commercialism, and decades later they still do. But the album finishes in triumph with the haunting "Teatime," arguably one of the most convincing fusions of folk, jazz, and classical music in the entire prog rock canon, with none of the ego-fuelled blowing that so discredited the genre. [The CD reissue contains three extra tracks, including the instrumental stage favorite "Purple Spaceships Over Yatton."] — allmusic.com
CD 1
01. Lummy Days (2023 Remaster)
02. Friendliness, Pt. 1 (2023 Remaster)
03. Anyone For Tennis (2023 Remaster)
04. There Is No Refuge (2023 Remaster)
05. Amazingly Agnes (2023 Remaster)
06. Father Frankenstein Is Behind Your Pillow (2023 Remaster)
07. Keep On Clucking (2023 Remaster)
08. Story Of My Heart (2023 Remaster)
09. Friendliness, Pt. 2 (2023 Remaster)
10. Teatime (2023 Remaster)
CD 2
01. Slark (Single Version) [2023 Remaster]
02. Purple Spaceships Over Yatton (2023 Remaster)
03-Introduction-Hit-And-Miss-The
04. Grande Piano (Live, BBC Radio One In Concert, Paris Theatre, 15 June 1972)
05-Teatime-Live-BBC-Radio-One-In
06-Lummy-Days-Live-BBC-Radio-One
07-Amazingly-Agnes-Live-BBC-Radi
08-32-West-Mall-Live-BBC-Radio-O
09. She Taught Me How To Yodel (Live, BBC Radio One In Concert, Paris Theatre, 15 June 1972)
10. C'est La Vie (2023 Remaster)
11. Do The Stanley (2023 Remaster)
Media Report:
Genre: prog-rock, psychedelic rock
Country: Bristol, England
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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