[boc-l] OFF: Larry Wallis, review and RIP

[Andy Gilham]

Yeah, another of the Great Ones passed into the cosmic infinite.

I did get to see Larry Wallis and the Death Commandos of Love, as I think they were called that night, in about 1986 at the Cricketers, just behind the Oval cricket ground, and they didn't disappoint. I particularly recall "Waiting for the Ice Cream to Melt", which surfaced on the Fairies' _Kill 'em and Eat 'em_ the following year. And of course I saw the Fairies touring the album. At the Cambridge Corn Exchange no less. But that show was less memorable.

You'll also want the splendidly-titled _The Sound of Speed_ , which has a couple of unreleased singles and other odds and ends.

-----Original Message-----
From: boc-l <boc-l-bounces at lists.ispnet.net> On Behalf Of Jonathan Jarrett via boc-l
Sent: 04 September 2020 15:43
To: BOC/Hawkwind Discussion List <boc-l at lists.ispnet.net>
Cc: Jonathan Jarrett <jjarrett at coriolis.greenend.org.uk>
Subject: [boc-l] OFF: Larry Wallis, review and RIP

 	Dear all,
 		  a little while back, I finally got hold of a copy of the 2001 solo album of Larry Wallis, ex-Pink Fairies, Motörhead, UFO and quite a few Hawk-related bands, _Death in the Guitarfternoon_. Despite the dreadful title, it has had me grinning for much of the last two days; the man's famous guitar is all over it and even if his backing band is able but not exactly innovative and some of the vocals were beyond his slightly wrecked rebel yell, it's still very much of what I hoped for right from the excellent first track.

 	That first track, 'Are We Having Fun Yet?', is one of several that refer back to Wallis's musical past, with the multi-layer soloing of some of his early Fairies work and a title that echoes the 'When's the Fun Begin?' of that era, but now lyrically set in an off-planet back-to-back and asking the question of the whole future species. A couple of the others are just straightforward rerecordings of his older songs--the version of 'Police Car' here is probably only his second best but still pretty good--and the last one, 'Screw It', is, how to put it? A negative musical tribute to a previous band-mate, sung deep from the heart. Some of the rest hovers lyrically around a kind of zombie cowboy æsthetic that is also where the artwork largely hangs out, along with some expressive sleeve-notes by the man himself. But though some of the music is simpler than other bits, it's all the real stuff and I wish I'd got it years ago.

 	That last is especially true because, while Googling enthusiastically around it rather than write another tedious reading list, I found out that Larry Wallis died in September last year. I nearly got to see him, but then he cancelled the tour because of a trapped nerve in his back; now I never will see him, and it's getting harder in general to Google one of that big generation of 70s rockers without feeling like I accidentally brought news of their death out of the Internet. But in this case, at least I can have shouted about him a bit here where people might care. For anyone reading to whom he might be new, here's the first track on Bandcamp:
https://larrywallis.bandcamp.com/music
and here's a fabulous interview from just after the album came out:
https://www.furious.com/perfect/larrywallis.html
Anyway, hope you're all well and safe out there, yours,
 							Jon

ObCD: Steve Hillage - _Green_ remaster
-- 
        Jonathan Jarrett, Keighley and University of Leeds
     "Says not the Wise One, `When two men cannot agree over
      the price of an onion, who shall decide what happened
     in the time of Yu?'" (Kai Lung, reported by Ernest Bramah)