TL-DR Dept. - The Mighty Baby Who Never Grew Up
The Action were basically a 'sixties singles band who evolved from mod/freakbeat without leaving an album behind them, which is okay, as there's been a few since. Rolled Gold is the demo of the album they nearly got around to finishing, but it's swell anyway.
Mighty Baby were an albums band, working the college circuit and playing festivals (inc. the first Glastonbury). A genuine proto-jam band, as the other recordings here show. The eponymous [rock crit vocab alert - Ed.] first album doesn't even hint at this. Instead, they deliver a great set of tunes with a uniquely psych vibe - hard-edged but swimmy. There's not a weak aspect to the album, including the retina-busting cover by Foam Hero Martin Sharp, and it's just about the closest the U.K. got to producing a West Coast album.
The follow-up, Jug Of Love, was a misstep, and instead of capitalising on the success of the first threw it all away with a set of pleasant enough Sufi- and American Beauty-inspired acoustic numbers. Trouble is, pleasant enough wasn't enough, and whereas antecedently Martin Stone's guitar was a rush, here it just noodles about all over a bunch of unmemorable songs and doesn't know when to shut up.
Today's overburdening download includes Action Packed, the best Action comp available, Rolled Gold, Mighty Baby's deux albums (replete with extry trx), and a slew of whatever was left in the tape box (Live In The Attic, Tasting The Life, and India). Getting album sleeve images to appear in the right place is such a headache with the new improved Blogger interface (adding captions screws everything up) I'm giving up, and showing three of the seven.
Mighty Baby coulda/shoulda been as big as Traffic, who did the smart thing by working in the U.S.A., but their first album is a stone cold classic. Martin Stone, incidentally, became a book-dealer, a mythic figure in the seedy world of second-hand bookshops in the U.K. and Paris.
Today's topic of discussion is comic books*. Have you heard of these? Did you ever read one? Tell us about it.
ReplyDelete*Not "graphic novels," thank you.
Anyone else name-check comic books besides John Prine in 'Grandpa Was a Carpenter' - grandma "used to buy me comic books after grandpa died"
Delete"Comic Book Crazy" by Little Sammy Yates.
DeleteI think that demand was so great (blame CommieCon-artists?) that it was booted in the '70s or '80s... Smith-Goldsmith were also behind numerous other novelty numbers, most notably those by the Olympics (not the games...)
https://img.discogs.com/fnLNzshyMyD0xRevN-OQgKxPTBs=/fit-in/600x584/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-15886123-1599590656-4730.jpeg.jpg
Seems there even was a cover...!:
http://images.45cat.com/ezra-and-the-ivies-rockin-shoes-baca-laca-ling-dong-1959-2.jpg
Hey - if you have Slipstreams and want to share ...
ReplyDeleteIn England in the early 60’s I used to read a thing called The Boys Own Paper which I seem to remember also had an annual book format. It was like a 19th century idea of a comic, a real throwback to days of British colonial empire, full of character-building stories of splendid cricket victories and brave adventurers putting Johnny Foreigner in his place. And NO PICTURES! Maybe an occasional single picture to illustrate a story but I remember no classic picture panel stories. Maybe that makes it not a comic, but it was all this kid had. And pity this poor sap who then got sent to a school with NO GIRLS where the honours board was full of real-life characters from those Boys Own stories. Colonial governors, World War One decorated pilots, you get the idea. I apparently didnt. All that character-building stuff was water off a duck’s back with me. I dont think The Boys Own Paper survived the 60’s, and I hit 1970 age 16 with long hair and a bad attitude, spent the next 50 years drifting in and out of jobs daydreamin of rocknroll stardom and gettin high. Ended up here livin on a boat, me and my dog, surrounded by records and guitars watching water bounce off ducks’ backs. And that’s what can happen if you deprive a growing boy of PICTURES and GIRLS.
ReplyDeleteBack in the 'sixties, U.S. comics were available by luck. Newsstands carried what they were given by the distributor, so following continuing stories was impossible. Marvel comics were like a glimpse into a fantsatic world, and in themselves were an amazing sensory experience, leaving aside the quality of the art and storylines. The glossy covers contrasting with the soft pulp pages. The amazing saturated inks - if they were slightly out of register, it only added to the intensity of the experience - the whole magic was performed by layers of color, like a shadow-show. The smell of the pages, their feel. Marvel comics of that era were a trip even before you got into the stories and the characters.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've seen anything more beautiful than a Jack Kirby spread from those years. I couldn't understand how this art (and I knew it was art) was available from a rack outside the corner shop, and not up in a gallery where I couldn't see it. I pored over every panel. And the ads - 1000 Confederate Soldiers In A Lifelike Footlocker? Magic Sea Monkeys? What the actual fuck was happening in the U.S.A.? Who were these people?
Later, of course, it all went to shit. The same people who made this gorgeous treasure went on to ruin not only their own artform but also the movies. That's how it goes. That's how it went. But here on Fabulous False Momery Foam island, you can still smell the inks on Doctor Strange's cape ...
As a kid, my mother used to take the car to a carwash on a weekly basis, and adjoining it was a corner newsstand that carried Marvel and DC comics. Those weekly visits were nirvana. Had a huge cache of comics that I had stored in my parents' attic for decades. When I strtaed to realize that they might actually be worth something (mint condition/1st issue Spiderman, Hulk, etc) I was proudly told by my Dad that he had donated them to a children's hospital. Oh well.......
DeleteYOW!
DeleteI had thousands. My mom gave them to my black sheep of the black sheep family son...who I'd been hiding them from. I wonder if the bag of weed was worth thousands of dollars to his lame ass.
DeleteGood site for Mad (it's their most visited dept.) - http://vlcomic.com/
ReplyDeleteIn the fifties and sixties, I wasn't exposed to many American comics but I sure had plenty UK comics to read. I say UK but these were mostly published in Dundee, Scotland, by DC Thomson. Every Sunday, my cousins and my sister and I - at least 10 of us at a time - went to my parental grandmother's along with our parents, aunts and uncles. After Sunday Dinner, (and my grannie's baking!) the kids played in the garden, the adults played dominoes or chatted and, when we got tired of playing outside, we got stuck into the pile of comics grannie bought for us every week.
ReplyDeleteThe funnies were my initial favourite – the Dandy & Beano but also The Beezer and Topper – and then there were the boy’s comics – the Hotspur and Victor, and The Rover and The Wizard, which had many stories, as well as graphics. We occasionally read the Eagle but NEVER read the Bunty or Judy, which were too girlie for us – our female cousins read these along with Jackie and Mandy. How my grannie could afford these, we never questioned, but they were there for us every week.
My maternal grandparents also bought comics for us to read on our visits (what else to do on rainy Scottish afternoons) and these tended to be along the lines of Commando Comics and other adventure styles. They also bought a series called Classics Illustrated which was based on an American comic and which covered classic literature in an easy to read comic book format for kids – this may be why I still read so many books today as it gave me a taste for literature.
However, though many of the above are still in print today, the most important comic to me is the work of Dudley D Watkins, illustrator extraordinaire, who provided the artwork for many of the comics mentioned above. I say comic but it is really two comics – Oor Wullie and The Broons. These were comic strips published weekly in the Sunday Post but also published bi-annually as compendiums of the comic strips. I first received these - Oor Wullie one year and The Broons the next – as a Christmas gift from my mother. After her passing, my sister continued the tradition and the gift I look forward to most every year is my Oor Wullie or Broons annual – I now have these annuals going back over 60+ years and still enjoy reading them today.
When I was about 7 0r 8 back in the 40‘s I loved the animated comics of Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny etc. No one told me it was hard to draw, so I started faithfully reproducing comic book pages panel by panel on my mother’s best letter writing paper.
ReplyDeleteI did it with India Ink and a regular pen.
At that time in Canada I couldn’t find much colored ink so I used colored pencils.
Then, on a family trip to Seattle, I discovered an art supply store that had Higgins Ink in many colors and pen nibs of many varieties.
Then I tried duplicating Classics Illustrated and Marvel and the cowboy series.
After that I got hooked on newspaper editorial comics where they caricatured politicians and taught myself that... tormenting parents and teachers and other kids with their likenesses.
got into comics reading the Peterson publishing auto themed ones CARtoons, CYCLEtoons, Hot Rod Cartoons ,got into Mighty Baby from the 1rst lp got it on the Revco cutout rack for around a buck all, and their great cut on the the wonderful three lp Glastonbury dillyo still on my reading/ listening radar
ReplyDeleteThose were my faves. The Olde Poop, the Gremlins....wow.
DeleteWe had a lot of that saccharine "Gold Key" type "kid safe" stuff when we were wee lads. Disney, etc. (At least it wasn't all "Highlights" for children and "Dynamite" and such all the time... (Just in the dentists' waiting room...?)
ReplyDeleteAt some point, when we were (pre-?)teens, my big bro brought the fabulous furry FREAK BROTHERS in to the picture. It was all down hill from there.
Started off with DC in the early sixties and gravitated to Green Lantern. Discovered Marvel via the Fantastic Four, then the Avengers and (personal favourites) the X-Men. Surprisingly, here in Australia the supply was regular and plentiful.
ReplyDeleteNow how about a link (stealth or otherwise) for the Mighty Baby trove. I have most of it but am looking forward to hearing "India"...
Stealth Link:
ReplyDeletecomicscodeauthoritycomicscodeauthoritycomicscodeauthority
comicscodeauthoritycomicscodeauthoritycomicscodeauthority
comicscodeauthoritycomicscodeauthoritycomicscodeauthority
Them Jugs of Love be pretty hot.
DeleteToo stealthy for me, I'm afraid...
Delete(Stealth Links are generally hidden in puctuation - everything else is a sneaky ruse)
DeleteThanks Farq, great to have these to listen to. A couple of related albums to watch out for: Reg King's eponymous album from 1972 wherein he's backed by members of Mighty Baby and BB Blunder - absolutely brilliant, and a 1972 Sufi inspired album from the Habibiyya called If Man But Knew which features three members of the Baby.
DeleteIf I can ever figure out how to do it, I'll post these for your consideration and that of your members...
These albums would be a welcome addition, John. If you have them as MP3 files, do this:
Delete- Copy (drag) them into a folder, call the folder Something.
- Compress the folder with its contents into a zip/rar file (a Mac does this from a simple right-click menu).
- Go to workupload (or any file host) and drag the compressed file where it tells you. Wait for it to upload, copy-paste the link here.
Speaking of technical stuff, I don't know if it's just my PC unzipping/extracting these not correctly, but the album "India" just consists of one track chez moi. Anyone else with that issue or just good ol' me?
DeleteI'll have to convert the CDs to mp3 first. Then I'll see what I can do.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info...
That's too much trouble, John! I'm sure they can be found elsewhere.
DeleteJohn, if you're on Windows, you can just play your CD with Windows Media Player and then just push on "extract this CD" (you might have to change the screen from the music playing window to the library-style one) which will copy the tracks as WMA files which is essentially the Windows version of MP3s.
DeleteThanks One Buck, I'll give it a try. And btw, I'm pretty sure that India consists of one 40+ minute version of the Coltrane classic. It's also has an alternate title: A Blanket In My Muesli (!)
DeleteAs for comics, I started out with mostly French-Belgian stuff that they published in a variation of the old Pif Gadget journal (retitled Yps), where they either had short comic strips or broke up full length stories (44-48 pages in short 4-6 page installments). Plus of course Disney strips (Donald Duck etc.) which were big when I was young. I also read tons of Mortadello Y Filemon or "Clever & Smart" despite every story being the same.
ReplyDeleteThose were also the days when once every two month or so people could put their large volume trash in the street and you spent an afternoon scavenging through the old crap of folks in your neighbourhood in the hopes of hitting - in my case - stuff like comic books. Often you went home disappointed, but once or twice you hit the jackpot. Gave up comics for a couple years, then came back during the comic book boom of the mid-to-late 90s. I remember an acquaintance showing me a "Spawn" comic and I had never seen the Image style of comics. From there I went back to reading comics, mostly superhero stuff. Though I gotta say unlike most of y'all I'm a DC guy. Batman, baby...
Quite a fan of both The Action and Mighty Baby, thanks! Here those Mighty Babies lovely debut in glorious 320 kbps - because well it sounds a lot better:
ReplyDeletehttp://thespiritualsuite.blogspot.com/2016/12/mighty-baby-uk1969.html
https://workuphttps://workupload.com/file/teL9KsqGAfAload.com/file/BgrKAdtwWZH
ReplyDeleteHey Farq, the above links should contain the HABIBIYYA & REG KING albums.
Let me know if they work...
Thanks, but the link is screwed!
Delete