They Do Feel Strange 7"
Unisex
Double Agent 1996
DA010

This record came from the discount 45s bin at King Kong Records in Osaka, and on first sight all I knew about it was that it was a dollar and the sleeve art was all right. Little did I know that when I got it home I'd end up playing it about twice a day, every day, for about a year, and it would end up cheerfully boring it's way into my heart, probably for eternity.

After a couple more years and some intense and often fruitless googling I learned that Unisex are Stephen Lawrie and Jo Doran from The Telescopes, and Nick Hemming, who later did the music for A Room For Romeo Brass. They have two other releases (both also on Double Agent) the Deadlock EP and a full-length album, called Stratosfear. Sometime in 2003 I ended up buying Stratosfear and it wasn't very good. Much more trip-hoppy and ambient than you'd expect.

They Do Feel Strange, however, is beautiful. I'd say it's even better than The Telescopes. The A side (which is in E, my very favorite key) is driven by this bright, fuzzy electric piano with this nice '50s pop rhythm and what can only be described as "whimsical" ascending scales in the transitions. Then the bass picks up playing the same notes and it's just so happy sounding. The lead guitar's got a little bit of wah wah on it and is plucked at every chord change. This element at least does have a sort of Oasisy sound, but considering this was probably being written and recorded shortly after Morning Glory came out, they've kept it impressively subtle.

Unlike in The Telescopes--where she just kind of makes sounds vaguely related to something else that's going on-- Doran spends the whole song "la la la la"ing, "oooooooh"ing and "AHHHHHahhhhAHHHH"ing over Lawrie's snotty, droopy "want somethin' for nothin', anythin', you don' care, just as long as it's somethin'".

The bridge has these two little bluesy solos, the general idea of which was clearly pilfered from Big Star, but it's still so good.

Lyrics aside, this song is a brief masterpiece of Shoegazers falling off their own bandwagon and landing gracefully on the Brit pop one.

The B side, Man About Town, is a little darker and even more Oasisy, and also makes heavy use of scales, this time descending. The guitar is the force behind this one, and most of the lyrics are "nahnahnahnah"s. Just your standard tune from 1996, a little more angry and like the Telescopes... nothing to really right about, except that Doran's voice contrasts really well with Lawrie's in the chorus.

Of the records I've written about, this is by far the most affordable and available, and it's highly, highly recommended. Go buy it!

Mouth Music
Chris White
Charisma 1976
CAS 1118

Chris White of the Zombies, produced by Shel Talmy... should be golden, right? Well it's not.

He really sparkled as a songwriter in the Zombies ("Butcher's Tale", "Nothing's Changed", "I Don't Want to Know"), he's a great producer, and his voice isn't totally awful... but for some reason this album is almost unlistenable. Perhaps not that extreme, but it's almost made that bad by how disappointing it is. I just can't believe that he and Shel Talmy listened to it upon completion and then nodding to each other agreed, "Yes, all right, that's perfect."

If you listened to it without knowing anything about it, you'd think it was the Beach Boys' worst album, recorded in the late '70s without Brian Wilson. There are, throughout, ridiculous vocal effects and bad '70s synthesizer solos, and all this is gussied up with totally incongruous strings and brass. Some of the songs sound almost like they're trying to be baroque funk. Ugh.

Each song has a gazillion vocal tracks, and for reasons which were probably lost in the '70s, he feels the need to harmonize with himself endlessly and needlessly. He even sounds kind of like Mike Love.

The worst thing is that his charm as a songwriter is totally lost. For the most part these are just bland, conventionally structured pop songs, totally lacking in nuance and inventiveness. Every time a glimmer of talent begins to shine through, it's obliterated by some disgusting and heavy-handed concession to what may have been marketable at the time. Mediocre songs poorly arranged and poorly produced.

If you find this album somewhere for a reasonable price, then by all means buy it. It's an interesting thing to have around as a conversation piece and the Charisma label is cool looking, but don't go out of your way to procure it.

Song Highlights: "Driftin'" and "Spanish Wine", but even these are not very good.

Fame&price/Price&fame/Together.
Georgie Fame and Alan Price
CBS 1971
S64392

Brilliant!

According to the Mike Ledgerwood blurb on the back of the sleeve, Fame and Price kept getting double booked for shows, and from this was borne their lasting friendship and a brief collaborative relationship.

At first listen none of the songs seems like a real masterpiece, but then you begin to question your judgment when you find yourself singing them in the shower the next day.

The first side is pretty Randy Newanish and "Bonnie and Clyde"-y, very distinctly both Price and Fame, especially the incredible "Time I Moved On". The first two songs on the second side have, for some reason, a vague Afro-Caribbean influence, while the last songs default to what you'd expect from Alan Price and Georgie Fame. "That's How Strong My Love Is" (in which you can, at some points, really see why Georgie Fame and Van Morrison compliment one another so well) even features some beautiful vocal harmonies. Given Fame and Price's backgrounds, a lot of Together is surprisingly guitar driven (and very bassy).

Without doubt, though, the single best thing about the album is how much fun they clearly had while making it. A lot of the tracks do seem like cheap, one-off twenty-minute compositions, but they're still infinitely superior to most other songs of their class, just because of who Fame and Price are.

Lindsay Anderson describes this perfectly:

Alan Price and Georgie Fame have always been my favourite pop artists--I mean the only ones whose records I have always looked forward to and bought and listened to. Though I don't really like using the word "pop" in connexion with them--they don't follow trends--they have the magic gift of popularity, of speaking to and for the people: but that is quite a different thing.

They were my friends before I met them. When we were making IF... I carried a lot of their music around on my transistor tape recorder, and I used to play it as we drove to and from locations, to keep my courage up. It was their lyricism I liked best; and I still think it is for this that they are most truly unique. Each of them has his own, absolutely individual way with a song. Each seems to have been born with a natural delicacy, musicianship, and continual, refreshing energy.

It's amazing that two such different artists can work so well together. Perhaps they complement each other. And of course they are both Northerners--Georgie from the level streets of Leigh in Lancashire, Alan a touchy Geordie, blessed (or cursed) with the Celtic charm. They both have the Northern style of directness: mocking pretension: humourously sceptical. They are persistent and don't compromise. English stamina at is best.

In evidence of the cheer that pulls the album together, here's a performance of the single "Rosetta" (which made it into the Top 20), from TOTP:



You can see that Price is playing his RMI Electra-Piano, which he played on the O Lucky Man! soundtrack as well. I'd really like to know who comprised the band they recorded with, but this information isn't immediately available on the internet for some reason.

Song Highlights: "Rosetta", "Time I Moved On", "That's How Strong My Love Is", "I Can't Take It Much Longer"

The Humble Beginnings of England's Gilbert O'Sullivan and Gerry Dorsey
Pickwick/Capitol 1973
SPC-3334-A

A pleasant surprise picking this little gem up at the Crown Hill Value Village, and fortunate, too, because it's bloody expensive.

Side A is Gilbert O'Sullivan of "Alone Again (Naturally)" fame, and side B is Gerry Dorsey, AKA Englebert Humperdink, so I've never listened to it. I don't know who would.

Anyway, the Gilbert O'Sullivan side is full of pre-Himself demos, mostly just vocals and a really fantastic sounding studio piano with a lot of reverb, a far cry from some of the weird M.O.R. stuff he came up with later.

Song Highlights: "Get Out My Life", with a lyric that goes, "And if by chance I should just happen to see you again/I'll probably be so surprised I'll climb a tree/and yell out 'why me?!'"