Pop Goes The Easel
The Start Of The Swinging Sixties EL In association with Cherry Red Records (ACMEMD264CD)
Pop Goes the Easel: The Start of the Swinging Sixties is a 2 CD set that comprises a mammoth 65 tracks that are drawn from a series of British films and television programmes that marked the beginning of the so called ‘Swinging Sixties’. The title of this particular compilation is taken from Ken Russel’s ‘Pop Art’ documentary from 1962, and this album can boast a wide range of music including, jazz, rock n roll, pop balladry, theme tunes and film scores, taken from a diverse range of visual genres, including, musicals, documentaries, sci-fi, melodrama and kitchen sink dramas.
According to the compilers of Pop Goes the Easel the big screen and television was influential in providing a platform for pop music. Television and Pop music was beginning to have a powerful impact both socially and cutlturally in this period, and was arguably the two most common activities that people participated in. Television was an important point of contact between the performer and the audience, and an it can be argued that television broadly speaking was important in bringing a new visually exciting world of popular culture in the form of performance art to the masses.
However, British pop music in this period was in something of a lull, and it would be fair to say that Britain did not produce the most distinguished canon of music, apart from a few Elvis Presley wannabes (and we all know who they were). Nonetheless what was happening in Britain was that the seeds of an embryonic pop music culture was starting to infiltrate cinema and television to such an extent, that pop music had to be taken seriously as an art form in its own right. The pop song as this compilation demonstrates was being used as a form of narrative that could be used to speak for the characters, and commentate on a particular scene in a tv show or film.
It is fitting that this compilation starts with Ken Russell‘s 44 minute documentary Pop Goes the Easel. Television viewers were introduced to the playful world of ‘Pop Art’ and four pop artists in particular, who were irreverently commenting on the age of American led mass media, mass production and mass consumerism. This portrait of Sir Peter Blake, Pauline Boty, Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips had only snippets of dialogue and is far more visual and musical. It is a documentary that comments on the infiltration of American culture into Britain and sadly for this particular viewer the vibrancy of ‘Pop Art’ was slightly hampered by the fact that this documentary is in black and white.
The theme tune to The Avengers is also featured and this partiucular score accompanied the early episodes when Patrick McNee was playing second fiddle to Ian Hendry. Hendry left The Avengers after the first series, which left McNee to take the lead role with a succession of beautiful assistants. The thought provoking, baffling and stupendous cult tv show The Prisoner is also represented on this compilation, and for those of you who have watched the series it will be impossible to forget Carmen Miranda’s ‘YI YI YI YI (I Like You Very Much)’ and The Four Lads ‘Dry Bones’, which were both used to stunning effect in the brilliantly surreal ‘Fall Out’. Even today the final instalment of The Prisoner still has audiences scratching their heads in bewilderment, and frustratingly left us with more questions than answers.
However, it is films in the shape of musicals that make up the bulk of the tracks on Pop Goes the Easel, and it is the influence of Richard Lester who can be felt most of all on this album. His directorial debut It’s Trad Dad features a myriad of artists who not only perform the songs but also appear in the film. There are star turns from Helen Shapiro, Craig Douglas, Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, Del Shannon, Chubby Checker, Gene McDaniels and Gene Vincent. This particular film anticipates the enormous success of Lester’s subsequent films A Hard Days Night and Help starring (in case you didn’t know) The Beatles. Richard Lester would prove to be arguably one of the most influential film direcors of the decade. His lasting legacy was his work in the 1960s, and today he is mostly (and unfairly) remembered for his work with The Beatles. BUY HERE!
Picadilly Line
The Huge World of Emily Small (CRSEG006)
The Picadilly Line released The Huge World of Emily Small in 1967 and then as is now this album has remained an obscurity. This rare ‘Baroque Pop’ nugget has received the full reissue treatment from Grapefruit Records a Division of Cherry Red Records, and this set comprises a re-mastered version of the original album plus ten bonus tracks with previously unseen photos and liner notes, which shed some light on this rather mysterious band.
The Picadilly Line were a 2 piece formed by Rod Edwards (keyboards and vocals) and Roger Hand (acoustic guitar and vocals). They signed to CBS as a 2 piece in 1966 and by the time recording of The Huge World of Emily Small commenced in the summer of 1967 they were augmented by a myriad of session men, and could boast of a studio band of orchestra sized proportions that included luminaries such as Danny Thompson and Herbie Flowers.
The music on this album is so sweet, light and fluffy that it could just be the musical equivalent of candy floss. This is ‘Baroque Pop’ of a particularly twee nature and will appeal directly to fans of late 1960s pop that is less on the lysergic side. The album has a distinctly English hue with evocative imagery, and pretty layered harmonies and delicate instrumentation. The songs are virtually all original compositions and despite the English whimsical nature of this album Edwards and Hand manage to throw a spanner in the works (which is no bad thing) by adding cover versions of The Everly Brothers ‘Gone, Gone, Gone’, and a shortened version of Bob Dylan’s epic masterpiece ‘Visions of Johanna.’
The Huge World of Emily Small disappeared without as much as a whisper when it was released in 1967. This was not at all unusual in the late 1960s as The Zombies, The Kinks and a whole host of other bands will testify. The lack of commercial success did not lead to their demise, and the bonus tracks on this album reveal the Picadilly Line’s more psychedelic moments, including the Graham Nash penned ‘Yellow Rainbow’, which had Jan Barber on vocals and ‘I Know, She Believes’.
By their own admission both Edwards and Hand were finished with the Picadilly Line by 1968, and their demise was hastened by the lack of interest in the fortunes of the band from their record company CBS. Edwards and Hand duly began a new musical adventure with the bizarrely named ‘Edwards Hand’, and they subsequently recorded 2 albums, which were both produced by George Martin. The Huge World of Emily Small may not make an indelible imprint on the listeners consciousness, however, it’s rarity and mystery will intrigue listeners and its long over due appraisal is finally over thanks to the efforts of Grapefruit Records. BUY HERE!
The Jasmine Minks
Cut Me Deep: The Anthology 1984 – 2014
(CDBRED608)
‘The Jasmine Minks’ may not be the first band that springs to mind when thinking about Alan McGee’s ‘Creation Records’. However, signing to McGee’s fledgling Indie label proved a pivotal moment for both ‘The Jasmine Minks’ and the fledgling ‘Creation Records’. McGee’s signed ‘The Jasmine Minks’ in 1983 after reading a Melody Maker review of a demo the recorded. McGee went to see the band rehearse and he was impressed enough to offer them a record deal, and a bond was formed over their mutual admiration for ‘The Velvet Underground’. The ‘Minks’ played their first gig at McGee’s legendary ‘The Living Room,’ and would be regulars alongside label mates ‘The Loft’ ‘Primal Scream’ and ‘The Pastels’, and by 1984 they had recorded their debut single Think! at Alaska Studios for the princely sum of $50.
‘The Jasmine Minks’ have been with Alan McGee throughout their entire recording career, and with an impressive canon of work that comprises 6 albums, 8 singles, EPs, and a slew of compilations, comes the definitive ‘Minks’ collection. Cut Me Deep The Anthology 1984 – 2014 brings together on 2 CDs pretty much everything they recorded with ‘Creation Records’, including, all four albums One Two Three Four Five Six Seven… All Good Preachers Go To Heaven, The Jasmine Minks, Another Age and Scratch The Surface. Some of the ‘Minks’ later output is also covered including tracks from their final album on McGee’s ‘Poptones’ label and a new single Christine.
The first CD kicks off with the debut single Think! and this song along with the rest of their early singles seriously kicks up a storm. With their jangly Rickenbacker sound and prominent bass and kick ass drumming from Tom Reid, the ‘Minks’ had one foot in the melodic pop of the 1960s and the other foot squarely in post punk. This music sounds as fresh as a daisy today, but must have seemed out of kilter with all the slickly smooth synth pop and other such guff that was taking the charts by storm in this period.
This anthology is a tale of two halves and both CDs highlight the evolution of the band from a somewhat ramshackle scratchy post punk outfit (What’s Happening & Black and Blue are brilliant examples of this) to a more soulful and reflective direction, which can be heard on their last ‘Creation Records’ album Scratch the Surface. Also included are a number of tracks taken from their final studio album Popartglory, and the ‘Minks’ nail their anti-capitalist credentials well and truly to the mast with Daddy Dog. This song features the Scottish Socialist political firebrand and ‘Solidarity’ party member Tommy Sheridan, who provides the rant/rap to this overtly political song just before he was jailed for his part in an anti-nuclear demonstration.
The roots of C86 and ‘Indie Pop’ can be found on this anthology, and it is fitting that ‘The Jasmine Minks’ should see their music given the full reissue treatment by ‘Cherry Red Records’ whose excellent work in bringing the ‘Minks’ and other such criminally underrated 1980s Indie bands to a new audience deserves to be applauded. BUY HERE!
