OFF: Porcupine Tree/Henry Fool

[ANDREW GARIBALDI]

Sorry to be off topic, but, far be it from me to recommend a release on
Cyclops (for me one of the great disappointing labels of our time) but they
have redeemed themselves something else by issuing the album from Henry Fool
which I heard today - a total mix of 'Court of Crimson King'-era Crimso and
Porcupine Tree - lots of mellotron and sax, harmony vocals, great
production - a thoroughly recommended album.
Andy G.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Jarrett" <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU>
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 8:52 PM
Subject: Re: BOC: Mirrors & OFF: Porcupine Tree


> On Mon, 2 Jul 2001, Stephan Forstner wrote:
>
> > > ...if nothing else,
> > > Mirrors would present an opportunity for everyone to hear The
> > > Devil's Hangnail, which is the original song that metamorphosed
> > > into The Vigil and had some nasty Patti Smith lyrics.
> >
> > Although I can somewhat understand it, I have to put up a (small)
protest to
> > the slagging Mirrors occasionally takes here. Sure, it's got its share
of
> > dogs (Dr. Music) and somewhat boring stuff (Moon Crazy, Lonely
Teardrops),
> > but The Great Sun Jester is definitely one of my all-time favorite BOC
> > pieces, The Vigil is likewise great, I am the Storm is pretty good, and
I
> > really like In Thee, which I take at face value as a completely
non-ironic
> > statement and love it for both its sentiment and its presentation.
> > Admittedly the album is a very mixed bag, but the good tracks here are
> > really good, in several different ways. Maybe the fact that they seem to
be
> > all over the place turns people off? Or is it that this was too 'pop'-py
an
> > album?
>
>         Now, I have to differ marginally here. I really do have problems
> with the way _Mirrors_ sounds, but there are I agree some songs which are
> worth having it for, indeed `The Vigil' is pretty life-enhancing. However,
> I really don't get on with `The Great Sun Jester', which strikes me as
> mawkish, uninspired and over-long (though the Nikwind spoken word version
> is much *much* worse) but I do like `Dr. Music'. The lyrics, man. the
> lyrics, it's Meltzer at his S&M finest--well, maybe not finest, but
> they're pretty good for what the song is. The song is of course a pop
> number but hey. It's a pop album, in production at least. I also like `I
> Am The Storm' though I wish it had been on _Spectres_ where the production
> of that one would have suited it better--I'd swap it for `Fireworks' I
> think... My problem with it is this mostly the production, but also the
> other songs on it, which are quite often only rivalled by `Debbie Denise'
> and `Make Love Not War' for BOC-discount-store schlock. I'd still rather
> give up at least two other BOC albums before _Mirrors_.
>
> > > As for rejected songs being lesser than songs that make an album, that
> > > is not always the case.  There are any number of reasons a song
> > > might be dropped from an album.  Sometimes the song just doesn't
> > > quite fit in with the rest of the songs...so no matter how good it
> > > is, it gets cut.  This happened fairly frequently with Jethro Tull,
> > > for instance...
> >
> > As was amply demonstrated with the fantastic 20 Year (5 LP/3 CD) boxed
set
> > that collected lots of these 'extra' tracks, and, to a much lesser
extent,
> > disc 2 of Nightcap. Many of those unreleased songs were really good, as
good
> > as the prviously released 'official' material, in some cases even
better. I
> > think though that some cleanup and additions were done for some of those
> > tracks before they were let out for the boxed set. Incidently, the BBC
DJ
> > who appears doing voiceover on some of the early live tracks collected
for
> > the JT 20 year set (Brian Matthews) can also be heard on the 2 Hawkwind
> > tracks from the BBC transcription disc (collected on the Dawn of
Hawkwind boot).
>
>         This is it. I don't think you could ever have put `Mommy' on
> _Secret Treaties_ except as an extra of some sort, it's so completely out
> of kilter with the general tone of the rest of the album. Porcupine Tree
> had ten or twelve tracks from the vaults which had just never fitted with
> the rest of an album's pieces which were going on that Delerium
> retrospective collection. Since Delerium's website, having been inactive
> for a year and a half, is now off the ether, I assume the label itself is
> also finally folded? So I guess it will be a while before we hear that
> stuff. Yours,
>               Jon
>
> --
>            Jon Jarrett                     "Two men say they're Jesus,
>           (01223 514989)                   One of 'em must be wrong..."
>    jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk              (Mark Knopfler)