OFF: Outskirts of Infinity & The Bevis Frond @ The Standard, Walthamstow, 10th October 2004

[Jon Jarrett]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, Brian Halligan wrote:

> Paul Mather wrote:
>
> > Interesting!  The "basically went in and recorded it live" would imply
> > the bulk of the guitar work is Paul's, not Nick's.
>
> If that's the case, it's nice to see a "name" guitarist without the ego
> to insist he hog all the playing time.

        Nick's not quite the egomaniac that other guitar heroes
are. Possibly because he's too paranoid to admit it, posibly because he
met Bari Watts when he was 17 and has known him ever since, possibly just
because he's a nice bloke...

> > I really like the Scorched Earth album, but I'd have to say I'd be a
> > bit
> > uncomfortable with Nick putting out *another* pastiche album in the
> > same
> > genre.  I think once is enough.
>
> I just miss the aspect of the Bevis Frond that Scorched Earth
> represents. I'd be satisfied with a cousin of  "Long Black Gown" on the
> next Frond album.

        I'd like Scorched Earth to go further than they did, but I think I
made that clear, Unfortunately the `working ethic' has been so clearly set
by the first album that the pastiche band is upright and honest that they
can't really turn into Monster Magnet from here. Nick and Paul are both
too big a pair of hippies for the lyrics ever to turn quite that, um,
earthy, anyway. But they could be hevaier, more distorted,
stranger... Someone should be doing it anyway, and they clearly could, so
it's shame that they aren't.

> In related news, on the Bevis Frond mailing list there has been
> discussion about how Nick has been neglecting the long, freakout jams
> of earlier albums for his three-minute pop song alter-ego. Nick agreed
> and assembled a CD of unreleased epics called "The Long Stuff" as a
> community-only release. I've wondered if "Through the Hedge" on Hit
> Squad wasn't inspired somewhat by the discussion. Still, even though I
> think it's an amazing song, it's not quite in the same vein as
> "Superseeder" or "Long Black Gown."

        I'm not so happy with `Through The Hedge' as a successor to these
tracks; it's too straight-ahead, it doesn't wander, I realise it may
actually last ten minutes but it doesn't feel as if it does. Not that
it's a bad song, at all, I like it, it's just a long one of Nick's pop
numbers with extra strange noises added, not a piece that started out as a
jammed-out strangeness. And it's a long way from being `Tangerine
Infringement Beak' or `The Pips' which are the particular excesses I'd
most like to see Nick try and repeat. Or `Garden Aeroplane Trap', or
`Superseded' or `House of Mountains' or... You get the idea.

        Basically, I know Nick, especially with Paul as foil, could make
some of the music I most want to hear if they wanted to. Ditto with
however long Tommy Grenas remains not doing Farflung stuff, or Hawkwind
not producing, um... No, that sentence is complete as it stands. But you
see what I mean. Here are competent merchants of transcendence
inexplicably failing to turn it out. Come on guys, I need my fix! Oh, it's
just me, I see... Yours,
                         Jon

--
                Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College, London
    jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk/ejarr01 at students.bbk.ac.uk
  "As much as the vision of the blind man improves with the rising sun,
       So too does the intelligence of the fool after good advice."
       (Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, late-eight/early-ninth century)