More power (Liam Gallagher) (LP 2609 - 2611)

Liam Gallagher  C'mon You Know (CD, Warner Records, 2022) ***  

Rory Gallagher Transmission Impossible (3CD, Eat To The Beat Records, 2022) **** 

Crowded House Gravity Stairs (Vinyl, BMG Records, 2024) **** 

Genre: Rock

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Everything's Electric (C'mon You Know)

Gear costume: Black Water, White Circle (Gravity Stairs)

Active compensatory factors: A recent trip to Palmerston North resulted in these purchases (these and more but we'll get to them in due course).

C'mon You Know is Liam's fourth solo outing and probably the weakest, if truth be told. However, given I gave all of the others four stars, this is a three-star (pretty fine) album.

Opening track (More Power) has a kids' choral group introducing the song's opening lyrics. It's cheesy and doesn't bear repeat listens. But then Liam's vocals kick in and all is (mostly) forgiven. He is unique and he sings with real authority.

The rest of the album is good but not great and certainly not a patch on his first solo album which is untouchable.

Rory's triple CD pack collects up songs not on his BBC Sessions double set. The first CD features Taste in BBC sessions from 1968-1969. The power trio is a great setting for Rory. This is raw and in your face. So - good, in other words.

CD 2 and 3 feature sessions from 1971 to 1974 and Rory delivers every time. Some great slide guitar on Could Have Had Religion from a John Peel 1971 session. There are tons of other highlights.

Crowded House's latest iteration have just released their new album - Gravity Stairs. Its sound harks back to the dream-pop of Liam and Neil's Lightsleeper project from four years ago. That's good news, I love that album.

Neil's voice lends itself to this kind of music and he's ably supported by his sons, Mitchell Froom and Nick Seymour. Even Tim and Sharon make appearances, so at times it has a Woodface feel to it. I'll be playing this one often I suspect.

Great Revolver style cover too!

Where do they all belong? Other purchases to come along the way.

Plain truth (Gentle Giant) (LP 2607 - 2608)

Gentle Giant  Acquiring The Taste (CD, Vertigo Records, 1971) ****  

Gentle Giant  Octopus (CD, Vertigo Records, 1972) ****  

Genre: Prog rock 

Places I remember: HMV (Oxford St)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Wreck (Acquiring The Taste)

Gear costume: Knots (Octopus); The Boys In The Band (Octopus) 

Active compensatory factors: I'm not sure why I don't own more albums by Gentle Giant. Both of these albums are brilliant.

By now, regular readers of Goo Goo will know how much I love the prog genre, both the older bands like Gentle Giant, through to modern equivalents like Pineapple Thief, Katatonia, Porcupine Tree, and Anathema. The playful experimentation with form and instruments is perfect for my fevered brain.

In many ways Gentle Giant are the perfect prog band. At times barking mad, impenetrable, musical, they try everything, while still retaining melody and pop hooks.

Acquiring The Taste was their second album, Octopus their fourth. Both display all of the band's strengths - playful, intelligent, and switching effortlessly between styles in the same song. Knots is a good example. It twists and turns and creates knotty problems and then resolves them.

Founding member Ray Shulman (bass) says that "(Octopus) was probably our best album, with the exception, perhaps of Acquiring the Taste. We started with the idea of writing a song about each member of the band. Having a concept in mind was a good starting point for writing". I would heartily agree.

Where do they all belong? More to come if I ever find them anywhere, preferably on vinyl.

The musical box (Genesis) (LP 2595 - 2606)

Genesis  Nursery Cryme (Vinyl, Charisma Records, 1971) ** 

Genesis  Foxtrot (Vinyl, Charisma Records, 1972) ***  

Genesis  Live (Vinyl, Charisma Records, 1973) ** 

Genesis  Selling England By The Pound (Vinyl, Charisma Records, 1973) ***  

Genesis  A Trick In The Tail (Vinyl, Atco Records, 1976) ***  

Genesis  Wind & Wuthering (Vinyl, Charisma Records, 1976) ** 

Genesis  Seconds Out (Vinyl, Charisma Records, 1977) *** 

Genesis  ...And Then There Were Three... (Vinyl, Charisma Records, 1977) ** 

Genesis  Duke (Vinyl, Charisma Records, 1980) ** 

Genesis  Live/The Way We Walk Vol 1: The Shorts (Vinyl, Virgin Records, 1992) ***

Genesis  Live/The Way We Walk Vol 2: The Longs (Vinyl, Virgin Records, 1993) **** 

Genesis  ...CALLING ALL STATIONS... (CD, Virgin Records, 1997) **** 

Genre: Prog rock, art rock

Places I remember: Little Red Bookstore, Chaldon Books and Records (Caterham on the hill), Real Groovy Records,

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Home By The Sea (The Way We Walk Vol 2: The Longs)

Gear costume: Dance On A Volcano (A Trick Of The Tail); I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) (Selling English By The Pound)

Active compensatory factors: Genesis. For most of my life I have been, at best, quite ambivalent about them, and at worst quite dismissive of them. It has only been in the last 30 years that I have been bothered to listen to them at all.

That started, slowly, when Roger gave me a copy of their live album from 1992 - The Way We Walk Volume one: The Shorts. It was okay.

I hadn't been impressed with the Phil Collins mega hit years of the eighties and I found Peter Gabriel's earlier vocals very mannered. I just couldn't connect - even with The Shorts.

Then I saw them doing Home By The Sea on TV and I absolutely loved it! Maybe I'd been missing something after all? So I bought a CD copy of The Way We Walk Volume 3: The Longs, because Home By The Sea was on it.

Lo and behold - I loved that CD. That then interested me enough to dip further toes in the pool, and while I am still not a huge fan, I do enjoy listening to many of the songs from their back catalogue.

My Genesis collection starts at Nursery Cryme and, apart from the brilliant cover, it's a bit ho-hum. 

Foxtrot from 1972 is a lot better. Phil Collins is an excellent drummer (see Brand X - a band I do love) and he drives things along well on songs like Watcher In The Skies. Plus, it has good use of the mellotron! And, another great prog cover!

Split Enz were clearly soaking up this album in 1972.

The Genesis Live album features songs mainly from those two albums. It's a okay summing up of their tentative start but the versions stick pretty closely to the originals, and there's not a lot of a live atmosphere, so I'm not sure what the point of the album was in 1973.  

Then it's on to one of their classic albums - Selling England By The Pound (love a good pun, I do). It features I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) - a very successful single and a song that I loved then and now.

The art-rock touches work for me, but I can see how other people might find them precious and a little naff. 

Again - Split Enz were paying careful attention.

Their double album concept album, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, has never enticed me much, and I always felt that Phil Collins and Gabriel sounded quite similar so it's not much of a jolt for me.

So, we now need to jump forward three years to the period after Peter Gabriel departed.

The sound is a lot heavier than Selling England By The Pound on A Trick Of The Tail. They all sound pretty confident with Collins as the new lead vocalist.

Wind & Wuthering followed quickly on the heels of A Trick Of The Tail in 1976 - the Year Zero of punk! Genesis was having none of that malarky though. Quiet, pastoral sounds and loads of synth was their response.

The problem with both of those albums is the lack of a big number like Wardrobe. So, when it comes to the live album, Seconds Out, it has longish proggy noodling songs but no BIG songs (and I'm not talking about hits - perish the thought, just a few ear worms would do thanks).

It is a consistently fine performance of these songs, building to an excellent version of Dance On A Volcano, one of my favourites from A Trick Of the Tail.

The ...And Then There Were Three... title is a nice reflection of where the band were at membership wise, with only Collins, Rutherford and Tony Banks left in the band.

It doesn't sound too much different to the previous couple of studio albums in truth, maybe a bit more reliant on Tony Banks' keyboard arsenal. He's no Wakeman or Emerson so he's not a huge drawcard for me.

Song wise there is a nice variety, and there was a hit - Follow You Follow Me. Which is nice. Crap cover though.

Duke is their first record of the eighties from the threesome, so I approached it with caution.

I was wise to do so. Although, perversely, the critics seemed to like this one, and it was a big seller -I'm lukewarm on Duke.

Phil Collins' marriage had fallen apart, and the guys regrouped after a brief hiatus to work up stuff left over from their solo albums and then mucked in together to write some songs.

I think for me - this is where the dire Phil Collins commercially led Genesis of the eighties starts to wind up. 

I know this is for many people their favourite decade for the band - the albums were certainly all big sellers, but I think they lost their way to some degree.

The nineties, however, that's my favourite period in many ways.

First there are those two great live albums - Vol 1 and 2 of The Way We Walk, cunningly marketed as the short songs and then the longs.

In this context songs like Land Of Confusion, Invisible Touch, Tonight Tonight, No Son Of Mine all make greater sense. They sound like they are having fun too.

Then, perversely, one of my favourite Genesis - ...CALLING ALL STATIONS... with the new vocalist, Ray Wilson. 

I think he's great and this is a vastly under-rated album. 

I acknowledge that they are in danger of sounding a bit like Mike and The Mechanics at times, but I happen to like Mike and The Mechanics.

Where do they all belong? I find the triple CD best of - R-Kive a really good overview of their best bits. 

Other than that I'd opt for Foxtrot, A Trick Of The Tail, and ...CALLING ALL STATIONS...as the best of the Gabriel/Collins/Wilson versions of Genesis.

Splendid isolation (Gazpacho) (LP 2594)

Gazpacho  Missa Atropos (CD, Kscope Records, 2010) *** 

Genre: Prog rock, art rock

Places I remember: Fopp

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Vera

Gear costume: Snail

Active compensatory factors: Gazpacho is a band from Norway and this was their sixth album.

As they sing in English, you'd struggle to pick they are from Norway. The singer sounds a little like Steve Hogarth and Bruce Soord at times so comparisons to prog bands like Marillion and Pineapple Thief are inevitable.

This is a concept album - the story is about a man who seeks refuge from the world by removing himself to an abandoned lighthouse. He writes a mass for Atropos, goddess of destiny in Greek mythology, with whom he is in love. In the end, his destiny is to die, his last words are about Atropos' beauty.

All very arty and proggy. The music is also very arty and proggy. Which I do like! It's the kind of music that washes over you and you hear different things each time. You do have to be in the mood for it though, as it takes its time to deliver.

BTW - Kscope do some amazing packaging and this album is no exception - hard cover, great art work to go with the lyrics. But, the print on CDs is always small. I wish it wasn't, or else, I wish I had the vinyl version so I could read the details and lyrics without squinting.

Where do they all belong? A one off in splendid isolation. 

Rockin' after midnight (Marvin Gaye) (LP 2593)

Marvin Gaye  Midnight Love (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1982) *** 

Genre: Soul 

Places I remember: Secondhand shop

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Sexual Healing

Gear costume: Midnight Lady 

Active compensatory factors: This was Gaye's final album - tragically, he was killed two years later by his father.

I am partial to themed albums like this. Moby's Last Night and Taylor Swift's Midnights also take a look at the same time period - midnight to dawn.

Unlike those albums, but like Gaye's Let's Get It On, Midnight Love centres on the more sexual exploits of night time. Hey - it's Marvin!

Being 1982, and as Marvin had just signed with CBS, he wanted to get away from his Motown sound, so there are drum machines, and eighties synths to modernise the sound. BTW, even the CBS label had a make-over for the bright new decade. It also looks slightly suss in hindsight.

What hasn't changed is Marvin's beautiful vocal ability. He has such a great God-given voice.

The material is good and suited to the dance floor. Although Sexual Healing dominates, there are some cool brass driven tracks like Joy and Midnight Lady that lift the mood of the album. Hard not to dance to those!

Where do they all belong? I've owned this album a few times and sold it a few times, but it keeps coming back, so it'll stay.

Lonely at the top (Hammond Gamble) (LP 2590 -2592)

Hammond Gamble  Hammond Gamble (Vinyl, WEA Records, 1981) ***

Hammond Gamble  Every Whisper Shouts (Vinyl, CSM Records, 1983) **

Hammond Gamble  Recollection (CD, Liberation Music, 2006) ***

Genre: NZ music, blues, rock 

Places I remember: Peter Gillbanks collection; Secondhand shop

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Gamblers Blues (Hammond Gamble)

Gear costume: Leaving the Country (Recollection)

Active compensatory factors: It's kind of appropriate that Hammond Gamble follows Rory Gallagher, because he's as close as NZ music ever got to a Rory of their own. 

Hammond can play some great bluesy guitar and he sings well, plus he writes his own songs. His version of Crossroads live with Streettalk is awesome (I taped it off the radio back in the day).

Unfortunately, he doesn't appear inclined to play incendiary guitar riffs as a solo artist. Also unfortunately, these solo albums came in the eighties - not the best time for Hammond as he tries to write commercial songs of the time.

First solo album has the minor hit Should I Be Good Or Should I be Evil and some good musicians - various Streettalkers, Suzanne and her husband Bruce Lynch (he produces as well as plays bass), and Midge Marsden all appear.

It takes until the third song on side two before he unleashes his guitar on Gambler's Blues. More of that would have been good.

Every Whisper Shouts from 1983 is more of the same (style, musicians) but he's even less inclined to play guitar on this one. Instead, strings, synths, and slow-paced ballads are the order of the day.

Recollection is aiming to do what Clapton's Unplugged did but on a smaller scale (obviously) - an acoustic redo of the back catalogue. Hammond succeeds. There are some tasteful recollections of past glories on offer. But it's all a bit...polite.

Where do they all belong? I'd recommend a return to Streettalk, rather than the solo albums, but Recollection is a good place to start for an overview.

Just the smile (Rory Gallagher) (LP 2577 - 2589)

Rory Gallagher  Cleveland Calling (Vinyl, Chess Records, 2020) ****

Rory Gallagher  Cleveland Calling Pt 2 (Vinyl, Chess Records, 2021) ***  

Rory Gallagher  Irish Tour '74 (40th Anniversary Edition) (Vinyl, Chess Records, 2014) ****  

Rory Gallagher  Live in San Diego '74 (Vinyl, Chess Records, 2022) *****  

Rory Gallagher  Check Shirt Wizard - Live in '77 (Vinyl, UMC Records, 2020) *****  

Rory Gallagher  Photo Finish (Vinyl, Chrysalis Records, 1978) ****  

Rory Gallagher  Top Priority (Vinyl, Chrysalis Records, 1979) *****  

Rory Gallagher  Stage Struck (Vinyl, Chrysalis Records, 1980) *****  

Rory Gallagher  Jinx (Vinyl, Chrysalis Records, 1982) ***  

Rory Gallagher  Fresh Evidence (Vinyl, Capo Records, 1990) ****  

Rory Gallagher  Blues (CD, Chess Records, 2019) ****  

Rory Gallagher  Wheels Within Wheels (CD, UMC Records, 2018) ****  

Rory Gallagher  Kickback City (CD, Sony Music, 2013) ***  

Genre: Rock 

Places I remember: Real Groovy; JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Cradle Rock (Irish Tour '74); Shadow Play (Stage Struck)

Gear costume: Too Much Alcohol (Irish Tour '74)

Active compensatory factors: This post is a catch up of some Rory Gallagher albums that I've not yet written about on this blog.  

First a restating of my basic rule of thumb for Rory - Live Rory trumps Studio Rory. I base this on three things. 

1) Irish Tour '74 is the best live album of all time.

2) His Auckland Town Hall concert in 1980 was the best gig I've ever attended.

3) Shadow Play as done live at Montreux (it never ends) is the most exciting live video of all time 

Cleveland Calling is a great addition to the Rory Live legacy. Like Live! In Europe it's also from 1972. Rory is performing an acoustic set for a Cleveland radio station (Carolyn Thomas is the sympathetic interviewer).

The sound hits the spot and Rory is up close and personal. I grinned from the start of Pistol Slapper Blues to last song Blow Wind Blow. 

Gypsy Woman (a Muddy Waters song) is inspired, and so is Rory's harmonica playing. He's a one-man band - guitar, vocals, and harmonica!

Cleveland Calling Pt 2 is the electric half and has a similar set list to Live! In Europe. 

Our story resumes with Irish Tour '74 (40th Anniversary Edition). I have waxed lyrical about this album a few times before in this blog (here and here).

The 40th Anniversary edition is an expanded triple album and comes without the after-hours jam session.

Let me say right now - I prefer the original double album. That one kicks off with Cradle Rock and never let's up. This one has Cradle Rock after Messin' With The Kid, which just feels slightly wrong.

Rory obviously didn't want to include songs that had appeared before - hence removing Messin' With The Kid, In Your Town, Laundromat, Hands Off, Going To Your Hometown and reducing the acoustic set in the middle to just As The Crow Flies on the original. All good decisions!

Nothing wrong with including all of these additions on the 40th edition, it's just that I'm used to this album sounding a certain way, with a certain flow. So I'll stick with the three sides live + jamming double album version. Less is more.

Rory was hot in '74, as Live in San Diego shows. A double album, it covers the same basic set as Irish Tour '74 but he stretches out on Cradle Rock and In Your Town to great effect.

In '77 Rory still had the '74 band and they were absolutely smokin' as Check Shirt Wizard shows. Some new songs had emerged from his studio albums between those years so some Rory classics like Moonchild, Calling Card, Souped-Up Ford, Country Mile mix it with some of the stars of Irish Tour '74.

It probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway - Rory's on form on guitar and that means he's hard to beat (just Hendrix ahead of him in my book).

Back to the studio albums and Photo Finish emerged after the aborted San Francisco sessions of 1977 (which has already appeared on Goo Goo  here). 

  

There are some great moments on the album - notably Shin Kicker, The Last Of The Independents, Brute Force and Ignorance, and best of all - Shadow Play. Overall though it's a mixed bag with some other songs that don't live up to Rory's high standards.

Better was to come in the following year - a real peak with Top Priority. His hair was still the same length, but the punk sensibility from 1976 and 1977 really pervades this album's short sharp songs. 

Ted McKenna had taken over the drum stool for Photo Finish, but he came into his own with his muscular approach on Top Priority and 1980's live Stage Struck. Gerry McAvoy, is, of course still brilliant on bass.

Stage Struck is a faithful record of Rory live in 1980. Listening to it always takes me back to that Auckland Town Hall gig - a seminal moment in my musical life. Thank you Rory.

Take another look at Shadow Play (a highlight of Stage Struck) from Montreux. He came alive on stage!

Next studio album, Jinx, came 3 years after Top Priority. A huge gap in Rory's world. And it would be followed 5 years later by Defender (which I covered here).

Jinx is the first album with new drummer - Brendon O'Neill. The sound is back to Photo Finish era with the punkish years behind him. Which is to say, a bit inconsistent and not as inspired.

This leaves the final studio album and some posthumous releases on CD to end this post.

Fresh Evidence came three years after Defender and Rory doesn't look in rude health on the cover - he was to die 5 years later, sadly, at the age of 47. That said, Fresh Evidence is a very good album. He lavished extra time on its recording - maybe sensing this would be his last studio album. There are also other hints with heaven, mortality and health being sub themes in the songs.

The sound is augmented by some horns, accordion and piano (by Lou Martin). Standout tracks: Kid Gloves; The Loop; Heaven's Gate.

Bottom line: Rory sounds like Rory and plays like Rory. That's high praise!

The three compilations listed above are memorable and worthy of inclusion here (I haven't added the more straightforward The Essential Rory Gallagher, a 2CD compilation from Capo Records which emerged in 2008). 

Blues, Wheels Within Wheels, and Kickback City collect various odds and ends from his career. They are compiled with various themes in mind - Blues is obvious, Wheels is more folk influenced songs and Kickback City is noir/crime centred.

Blues collects some lost radio sessions from 1971 to 1994.

Wheels Within Wheels compiles some lost recordings and outtake with a folkier acoustic style.

Kickback City is a good idea - hardboiled crime fiction was what Rory loved to read and it often cropped up in his lyrics, so this one collects a CD of those items, plus a live CD and a CD of Ian Rankin's novella The Lie Factory.

Where do they all belong? So, that's it for Rory Gallagher - he devoted his life purely to music. He never married, and fathered no children, but he created joy for thousands of music lovers. For that we should take our hat off to him and keep his memory alive.

Blueprint is an obvious gap (doh!) and I'm sure there will be more live albums to come. I'd particularly love to see material from the 1979 to 82 period. 

Sweet dreamer (Lenny White) (LP 2576)

Lenny White  Big City (Vinyl, Nemperor Records, 1977) ***  

Genre: Jazz fusion; Nemperor Records 

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Dreams Come And Go Away

Gear costume: Big City

Active compensatory factors: This is Lenny's second and final album on Nemperor Records (the awesome Venusian Summer was the first).

This one is more eclectic, flutes and strings appear and it even has a song (Sweet Dreamer) with vocals by guest - Linda Tillery. It begins each side with a hefty slice of fusion and a live track, And We Meet Again, rounds out a slightly inconsistent album. 

The musicianship is first class, with guests like Neal Shon, Herbie Hancock, Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, Jerry Goodman, Jan Hammer and Marcus Miller all appearing on various tracks.

Where do they all belong? That's it for Lenny but loads more obscure things to collect on Nemperor Records.

You know we can't go back (Noel Gallagher) (LP 2572 - 2575)

Noel Gallagher  Oasis Unplugged (CD, Bootleg, 1996) ****  

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (CD, Sour Mash Records, 2011) ***   

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds Chasing Yesterday (CD, Sour Mash Records, 2015) ****  

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds Who Built The Moon? (CD, Sour Mash Records, 2017) ***    

Genre: Pop, rock 

Places I remember: Colleague gave me the bootleg, rest from Dubai (Virgin Mega Store) and JB Hi Fi.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Ballad Of The Mighty I (Chasing Yesterday)

Gear costume: Do The Damage (on the bonus disc as part of Chasing Yesterday)

Active compensatory factors: Although the Gallagher brothers probably feel they are competing with each other, in reality they are working very different sides of the street these days. But both are riding the crest of different waves. Their albums instantly chart at number one and both are very creative, talented guys.

The bootleg is an Oasis concert without Liam - 10 songs, Unplugged, from 1996. Noel does well, but he ain't in Liam's vocalist league. The bootleg also adds a few Beatle cover odds and sods (Noel and Liam with Ocean Colour Scene at the Electric Ballroom, Camden, May 9th, 1996; UK radio session, December 1st, 1995; and recorded live at Glastonbury Festival, June 23rd, 1995).

Solo album number 1 is a strong start. Once you get over the fact that this is not Oasis, nor is it Liam, then it becomes a very enjoyable tuneful experience.

It's Chasing Yesterday that really sees him in confident mode with this new alt-rock style. 

The video for Ballad Of The Mighty I is what hooked me to his solo albums in the first place. The rest of the album contains some great indie pop/rock songs, and the bonus CD is, for once, a crucial addition. For me, this remains his best, most successfully realized solo album.

I struggle a bit with third solo album, Who Built The Moon? The first two songs are skippers, but after that I enjoy his change of direction.

Where do they all belong? Done. I think that will do, probably won't buy his Council Skies from 2023.