The Greatest Band You Never Heard Unless You Heard Them Already
Hey! White boy! You like Moby Grape? Da Boids? Guitars that ring like bells and fine, fine harmony singing? Extended psychedelicious wig-outs? Songs that have real tunes and not-lame lyrics? Inventive production and imaginative arrangements? Instrumental smarts out the ass? Sure you do. It's what you did all those drugs for. Well, if you never heard these albums, you're in for a major time; the kind of where-have-these-guys-been-all-my-life? moment that comes only too rarely.
Not that Texan jimson-weed enthusiasts Space Opera were clones of anybody. They just deserve to be up there with the best. They started out as a what-the-heck studio exercise in '68 - the Golden Year of what-the-heck studio exercises - under the sales-hostile name of Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit & Greenhill. Hoping to kill off any residual marketability, they called the album The Unwritten Works Of Geoffrey, Etc. Hmm. Well, I hope they proved they could be too clever for their own good to their own satisfaction, at least.
They seemed to realize a name change was a good idea. Shame they changed it to the baffling Space Opera, but hey, they got work; gigging extensively and honing their awesome chops before re-entering the studio in '73 for their eponymous sophomore [Rock Writer Advisory - Ed.] album for Epic (Canada), having turned down Clive Davis in the US.
Right. Epic, Canada.
Clive, Davis.
And graced it with a cover as WTF as their name. What could possibly go wrong?
Fast forward to - yikes! - 2001. Encouraged by the response to a Fort Worth reunion gig, the band released their second (or third) album under the attention-grabbing name of II, in a package that screams ignore me please, I'm shit.
A scant nine years later, in the next wave of their heroic efforts to avoid success, Safe At Home appeared from nowhere and promptly sank without trace. A stunning compilation of release-quality demos and lost tracks from their imperial period, it showed they'd given up trying to come up with their own album titles and stolen one off The International Submarine Band instead. Oh well. Let's be thankful they didn't call it The Isley Brothers Greatest Hits. Attractive picture of somebody's Tudorbethan house on the cover, though. What a great concept that was. You guys!
ReplyDeleteYeppers.
Ah, my dear Farq, I am only all too versed in the musical cacophony of the first Space Opera record. As a wee lad, I worked at local record store, Stash, and the owner fancied himself to be a connaseur of offbeat, and little known (many deservedly so) albums, that he would always play at the store. Space Opera was on heavy rotation there for an exceedingly long stretch. He resembled, both facially and in dress, Marc Bolin, so T-Rex was also played to death, which explains the derision with which I hold English glam rock.
ReplyDeleteYour local record store was called Stash. Fabulous. Mine was called Hits, Misses & Vintage Records. Little tiny store, and HMV threatened to sue their asses. (Pete n' Edith ran it. Boy, was she hot.)
DeleteDearest Farq,
ReplyDeleteIt is with much regret that I inform you that I have already had my "where-have-these-guys-been-all-my-life" moment of the year just earlier today when I discovered this Soviet Synth-Pop Aerobics record from 1985. I suggest you join me in a rigorous program of state sponsored dancercise immediately!
While I am waiting for you to join me I will download this generous offering and wait for my next moment of opportunity for a revelatory, life-changing musical discovery.
I hereby swear never, ever, to post any UK glam rock. Or Soviet synth-pop. I know that doesn't leave us much, but we'll have to make do.
ReplyDeleteIntrigued by these guys. I thought the title of the first album related to Chaucer, but further investigation reveals that the band's name in this early incarnation has no relevance to the real names of the band members at all. That is a bit odd. It's as if the Fabs had decided to call themselves Spencer, Dickens, Southport and Crosby.
ReplyDeleteThese guys courted obscurity like it was a rich widow in a low-cut dress. They tried every career-ending stratagem short of falling out of an airplane. F'rinstance, following up a radio-friendly opening song on that first/second album with a challenging instrymental that sounds like something off The Spotlight Kid. Yet here we are, decades later, enjoying their work in spite of their efforts to keep it from us. They'd hate that if they knew, so let's keep it Our Little Secret.
DeleteHere's the Unwritten Works album re-upped at the request of Bill Gates, who should know better than to request it in a totally unrelated post, fercryinoutloud!
ReplyDeleteThank you pardner! You come down to the Double X ranch and we'll have a rip roarin' time!
ReplyDeleteAccording to a book I just finished reading, a young T-Bone Burnett was involved in this production. Also, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy's "Paralyzed", but that's a slightly different saga, albeit around the same time and place...
ReplyDeleteLost in the archives again...
Archival comments are always a pleasure - thank you!
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