The Basement Rug

Matti Oiling? Now that’s a handle I won’t soon forget. This 320kbps rip was done from the original vinyl from the Finleavy label (1970) and offered up at Orgy In Rhythm.

Original liner notes:

Can you imagine a lathe-hand who does lathing in his time off? Or a brick-layer who lays bricks for relaxation after his day’s work? Hard to picture, isn’t it? But I do know a number of professional musicians who relax by making music after a hard and sometimes quite exhausting session at the studio. But the difference lies in what you play in your leisure time. The musicians performing on this record have found a musical form that brings satisfaction and variation and gives them the chance to experiment and to create something new and still untried. That’s real work therapy.

Matti Oiling - a first-class drummer - has gathered around him a number of fellow musicians whose vision and musical comprehension are harmonious and whose ways of thinking run parallel. They are all musicians of the young generation, to whom pop music and jazz music are equally close and whose artistic resources provide them with an opportunity of blending these musical elements. And when they want to make music, the music they make is pervaded by a sense of cheerfulness and humour.

You’ll really enjoy this LP. Matti Oiling’s solo - something he cooked up himself - is called “Oiling Boiling”. The recipe, with spices, is provided by Matti himself. The “sound” idea is produced on a Lesley accessory.

Paroni Paakkunainen’s soaring imagination is a triumph. His musical skill, uninhibited and humour-imbued, is full of surprises and a wicked Mephistophelean laughter pops up in his performances. Among his many instruments is the Bengal flute - featured in the piece by that same name. He has an impressive range of musical color.

Matti Bergström - apart from his Fender bass - introduces his Bascello, which lends its very “different” sound to the item entitled “Stratosphere Inspiration”.

Nono Söderberg performs his solo “3/8 Of Nono” on his 1-Watt guitar amplifier - not to save the ears of the rest of the group but just to produce the right instrumental color.

Tuomo Tanska - organist, pianist and arranger - also appears on this disc as a composer. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is his musical vision of a classic work.

“Thanks to this record I have spent a very rewarding forty-five minutes - and listening to it, one can only feel a gluttonous delight in its surprising and revitalizing musical ideas. Pop and jazz fans will find something that distinguishes this LP record from other LPs - a terrific dose of happy music.” –Ossi Runne, Conductor, Finnish Broadcasting Company TV1

Here’s another offering from Britain’s Captain Beefheart. The video here gives you an idea of just how raw the band was at the time.

Apache Drop Out was an early single from the band in 1969. I ripped this track from a 2007 free MOJO sampler, of all places! I thought that this band was entirely forgotten, so it was nice to see them being introduced again to a whole new generation of kids.

For those of you who missed them, be sure to check out my previous posts of the Wasa, Wasa and Sing Brother Sing albums.

I remember buying an original tape copy of this album from a wall-o-tapes at New World Records in Brampton. Even though this was several years ago, I still recall looking at the wall and thinking to myself, “They sell tapes?”

I knew nothing about the band, but the cover looked interesting, and something about the original 1969 case fascinated me, the tape sat in a plastic tray that was inserted in a paper sleeve.

I pulled down Mantle-Piece and plopped it on the counter with the CD’s I had selected. I popped it in the tape deck of my car on the way home and was instantly impressed. As Bruce Eder states in his biography below, “Their sound was a strange mix of blues and jazz, channeled through psychedelia and some avant-garde sensibilities, and overall extremely difficult to classify.”

I did a bit of research and was surprised to find that the original name of this band was Pete Brown & His Battered Ornaments. I remember Brown for his writing credits on Cream songs.

I had figured that Mantle-Piece was a one-off album deal, but the original line-up that included Brown released an album called “A Meal You Can Shake Hands with in the Dark”, also in 1969. Both albums were re-issued individually on CD (with bonus tracks) by Repertoire in 1994, went out-of-print, and then were re-issued again together on one CD by BGO (Beat Goes On) in 2001, but they were not available in North America. You can still order direct from BGO.

I created a CD from the original tape (before I had heard about the CD re-issues) and it was in heavy rotation for quite some time. Then I discovered a quality 256kbps MP3 rip over at the Madshoes “Musicology” blog.

If you are searching for an the original LP, expect to pay more than 100 bones for it.

According to Band to Band, there are 118 bands directly related to The Battered Ornaments, with 1137 bands in their local family tree - a very interesting one at that! Be sure to check out the links for the band members below:

Pete Bailey - Percussion
Graham Bond - Organ [Bond was a leader of the British Blues scene]
Pete Brown - Percussion, Composer, Vocals
Roger Bunn - Bass
Charlie Hart - Keyboards [Also visit charliehart.com]
Dick Heckstall-Smith - Saxophone
George Khan - Saxophone
Jim Mullen - Bass
Roger “Butch” Potter - Bass
Phil Ryan - Keyboards
Chris Spedding - Guitar [Spedding's sessionography is quite impressive]
Rob Tait - Drums
Dave Thompson - Organ
Pugwash Weathers - Drums

Biography by Bruce Eder:

The Battered Ornaments had their origins in the unexpected musical aspirations of Pete Brown. Best known as a poet among the British beats of the early/mid-’60s, Brown knew something of jazz and blues, and even played an instrument — the trumpet — with some modest degree of facility. He was still primarily a writer, but he gravitated toward music and devised a presentation of poetry, jazz, and avant-garde music that entailed the presence of a band — toward that then, he put together a group called the First Real Poetry Band with a lineup, as he recalled in a 2000 essay, that included John McLaughlin (guitar), Binky McKenzie (bass), Laurie Allen (drums), and Pete Bailey (percussion). The group performed at the top London clubs of the period, and added to Brown’s recognition among the literati, sufficiently so that he ended up being approached by Cream — then a hot blues-based power trio who had run through much of their best blues repertory on their debut album and was now looking to write original material, to assist them with the songwriting. Bassist Jack Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton didn’t need help where music was concerned, but lyrics were another matter, and Brown and Bruce soon found a harmonious working relationship.

And when Cream took the airwaves and the listeners on both sides of the Atlantic by storm, with the singles “Sunshine of Your Love” and “White Room,” not to mention a brace of LP tracks off of their album Disraeli Gears, Brown suddenly emerged as a major background figure in the British pop music world. It was around this same time that the First Real Poetry Band got recorded by a friend of Brown’s, and there was talk of a possible commercial release. Meanwhile, Brown carried his songwriting activities forward on behalf of the Graham Bond Organisation, a precursor ensemble to Cream who had hung on up to that point, but were soon to break up — the process left him with a large repertory and a problem; amid the stellar lineup of the First Real Poetry Band, his singing was the weak link, as he was the first to admit, and rather than try to elevate his skills, he decided instead to recruit a less imposing group of sidemen to work with, and the First Real Poetry Band passed into history.

At the core of the new band was reedman Nisar Ahmed Khan (aka George Khan), playing alongside Lynn Dobson, while Jamie Muir — still a few years away from his work with King Crimson — played percussion at first, though Pete Bailey had replaced him by the time they got around to recording. Khan put Brown on to guitarist Chris Spedding and bassist Butch Potter, and Dick Heckstall-Smith was aboard on tenor sax, and Charlie Hart — later much better known as a bassist — played the organ and violin, and Bob Tait played drums. Their sound was a strange mix of blues and jazz, channeled through psychedelia and some avant-garde sensibilities, and overall extremely difficult to classify. Despite the latter shortcoming, however, audiences liked the outfit billed as Pete Brown & His Batterered Ornaments. The bookings were plentiful and the work was not only starting to pay decently, but they soon had representation by Blackhill Management, which, as they discovered, had entre to EMI Records’ newest imprint, Harvest Records. This was all happening in late 1968 and early 1969, when there was still a thriving underground music scene in England, and Brown and company fit right into the zeitgeist.

But as 1969 wore on, and a first album — A Meal You Can Shake Hands with in the Dark — was released, and did well enough so that a second one was recorded — a process similar to the one that had overtaken Brown’s first band began to occur within the Battered Ornaments. They began to get more ambitious in their musical goals, and also to see Brown’s still limited — but highly expressive — vocalizing as a detriment. This time, however, it was the band that made a move on Brown rather than the other way around. Matters came to a head in early July 1969, when Brown was essentially voted out of the band he’d organized, unanimously. When the smoke cleared, the core of five musicians remained, with Spedding installed as lead singer. The second version of the Battered Ornaments was a tighter band, and a thoroughly more professional sounding outfit, despite some limitations — Spedding was obviously a more natural musician than Brown, but his vocals, while more professional, weren’t any better, and were a lot less interesting.

The group set about wiping Brown’s singing from the completed second LP and substituting Spedding, with backup singing by all of the others. And the results, while smoother and more professional, were also a good deal duller without Brown’s contribution to the music. The original Battered Ornaments might have been unclassifiable in terms of their music, but with Brown as the frontman there was an unpredictable element — which extended itself from his singing to the playing of the others, by emotional and musical osmosis — that kept listeners of all sorts engaged in the finished tracks. The second album, by the new Battered Ornaments, sounded like a bunch of highly talented jazz players doing good work that was a lot more predictable and not half as interesting. (In a sense, in terms of the internal dynamics of the band — which very much shaped its sound and playing — the departure of Brown had an effect similar to the loss of Brian Jones in the lineup of the Rolling Stones; the latter group had got Mick Taylor, a true virtuoso on the guitar, who could take solos that neither Jones nor Keith Richards ever would have thought of playing, in his place, but they lost all of the unpredictability that Jones himself had brought to the table, and lot of the edgy tension that went with it; except, of course, that the Battered Ornaments had no Mick Jagger in their ranks, or even anyone quite as charismatic in his dark way as Keith Richards, to keep pulling people into their orbit.)

It all ended by 1970, in the wake of the critical and commercial failure of Mantle-Piece, when Spedding accepted an offer to work on Jack Bruce’s first solo album, Songs for a Tailor (which, ironically, was comprised of songs with lyrics by Pete Brown), and later joined Bruce’s touring band. The Battered Ornaments were mostly forgotten over the ensuing decade, as the members moved on to other projects, Brown emerging with a new band called Piblokto while Spedding went on to become a top session player with one huge British hit (”Motor Bikin’”) to his credit, and Charlie Hart became a member of Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance, in addition to being a busy sessionman.

I found this one at Grown-So-Ugly, but I wanted the original album cover, and when I went hunting, I found it at this great, and humourous blog called CRUD CRUD. Here’s what Scott “five dimensional man” Soriano had to say about Transmigration Macabre:

Composed in 1967 for a Brit art film called Viola, Transmigration Macabre is not your average Ravi Shankar album. Overtly psychedelic, sometimes closer to Coltrane’s mystical free jazz than the Indian classical music Shankar is famous for, Transmigration… is one of those records that gets revealed to you. In the olden days, that revelation would happen in the used record store. Young Timmy would come to the counter with a copy of Black Sabbath’s Masters of Reality and one of Ravi Shankar’s albums on World Pacific or his East/West record with violinist Yehudi Menuhin. The head behind the counter would shake his head, put aside the Shankar records, reach behind the counter and pull out a copy of Transmigration Macabre. “Here, kid. This is the one you want,” he’d say ringing Young Timmy and sending him out the door, not giving him time to object. Young Timmy would go home, smoke a joint on the side of the house, go into his bedroom, listen to Sabbath and then put on the Shankar album AND BLOW HIS FUCKING MIND! That is the way it used to happen. Not anymore. Now we check out blogs or podcasts and do the soulseek thing. We find the dudes with the rapidshare blogs and download psychedelic collections that once took decades to obtain. No sweat, no blood, no stinky record geek loser standing behind the counter playing underground music pusher, sending you away with the idea that not only does every musician have a freaky side, but many of us are secret freaks. The record store guy knew that you were a freak and you now know he is a freak. You speak a secret language. Not a hip language or a lingo that makes you better than anyone else. Nah, just one that acknowledges that you don’t fit in. Nowadays, people wear their freakiness or at least they wear some kind of store bought freakiness. Yeah, sure it is great that people can look however they want to look. It is groovy that every flavor is out there to be tasted. But it seems to me something has been lost in this effortless. point/click/download world. Like digital recordings can’t capture room ambiance the way analog can; like look at words on a screen doesn’t measure up to kicking back and reading a book; like watching two people fuck on yummygirlfuck.com, with your pants around your ankles doesn’t quite compare to lying next to the one you love or even kinda like; this instant aural gratification, hell, let me just say that I hope that as far as this blog goes, it inspires you to do something more than play passive consumer of yet another mp3, even if that is only going out and getting your fingers dirty, digging for your own crud.

This is from the great funkified period of Eddie Fisher on the Cadet label from 1969.

Track List:
1) Scorched Earth
2) A Dude Called Zeke
3) Shut Up
4) The Third Cup
5) Two By Two
6) Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Be-Do-Da-Day
7) The Shadow Of Your Smile

Band biography from bubblepuppy.com:

Todd Potter, lead guitarist, singer, songwriter, and businessman, began playing at age 13 when asked to fill in for Weldon Roberts in the Austin based band Monte and The Montrels. A prodigy of sorts on guitar one could soon find other older guitarist and musicians in the audience watching him and inviting him to play. With his parents support, he found himself working with the accomplished “ones” gaining experience beyond his years. From Jerry Potter, Jack Knight, Jim Mings, Mike Christian, Doug Harmon, and so many others, came valuable influences and musical understandings that ripened his talent with confidence and soul.

His invitation to play in a friend’s living room with Rod Prince in the fall of 1967 held out that both he and Prince had a knack for such things particularly dual things. Like two guys that had played a million melodies together, meeting for the first time. With Cox on bass, music was made. No imitations, or similes, but original sounds and rhythms, and changes to play. Along came D4 and play they did.

Hours and hours of music every day. Loving the sound of it and working it out to perfection. A truly unique musical experience. All who heard Bubble Puppy live understand how those hours were magic and held the truth. Four young musicians playing above their heads and ahead of time.

After some years, and good years they were, Todd left the group to stay on in California to give it a go. As before, he was privileged to work with exceptional players and made a small but noticeable mark on the coast. His buddies out there are still in touch and lasting musical bonds endure.

Upon returning to Texas in 1976, Todd joined Rusty Wier’s band, The Fabulous Filler Brothers, and once again toured nationally. He played almost three years worth with Rusty in the majors. By then, “big gigs” had gotten really big. Mile High Stadium, Texas Stadium You Name it Stadium they played it with acts such as Heart, Marshall Tucker, The Outlaws, Charlie Daniels, Waylon, Willie, and B.B. and every body who was anybody in 76,77,78 and 79. There are some stories to tell.

When Todd left Rusty’s band in late 79, he again teamed up with Rod Prince, along with George Rarey and Mark Evans on Sirius/ Rising a self produced effort which holds some of Rod and Todd’s best work as soloist. This record also features guitar work by the now legendary George Rarey. Sirius/Rising did not fair well in the market place but deserves a listen by all fans of Bubble Puppy. A series of one two punches caused Sirius to disband before it received the attention it warranted. Plans to release “Rising” on Actual Artists are underway.

A young fifty, Todd now lives west of Austin, with his best friend and lovely wife Christie, son Asa and daughter Kayla. He plays occasional dates with The Hot Brown Boys, an Austin based R&B band of pros and does not rule out presenting his work again in some sort of “comeback” one day.

Roy Cox’s bio as told by Rod Prince:

Roy was born in Boys Town, a suburb of Matamoros, Mexico. The illegitimate son of poor but ignorant lesbian sheepherders, he spent his younger years trading sheep and goat digestive tracts for sexual favors.

Cox, a consummate liar, tells people he conceived and founded the legendary Texas guitar band Bubble Puppy. He also claims to have written all the songs, was the lead singer, band leader, booking agent, financier, bus driver, producer, and overall God of the band.

His imagined exploits with the Puppy have led to many lengthy stays in the Moral Deprivation unit of the State Hospital for the Irredeemably Egotistic.

Roy lives in the mountains of West Texas now, where he makes his living as a sperm donor for the numerous flocks of tasty sheep that populate that region. The number of newborn animals with a notched left earlobe attest to his prowess in his new career. “Plenty more out there” joked the deranged Cox in a recent interview with SheepPoker magazine.

David “Fuzzy” Fore grew up in the coastal town of Corpus Christi (though born in a hospital in San Antonio). The son of a drummer, Dave played the drum kit in pop bands, rock bands, garage bands, and just about any gig, as a very young boy, he could find. Still in his mid teens during the Psychedelic explosion of the 1960s, he left high school to join a band, and in just eight months they had a national top 14 hit: The band was Bubble Puppy. From 1967 through 1971 he toured America with the band making radio and television appearances in between concert dates. When the band broke up, he settled back in Austin, Texas. Going back out on the road as the drummer for Folk artist Steven Fromholtz in 1974, Dave became disillusioned with the music business, and his creative lot as the drummer, so in1979, picking up the guitar, and collaborating with Austin singer/actress De Lewellyn, Dave wrote “Too Young To Date” a new wave anthem. With Stu Hillyer as the guitarist, and John Keller on bass, they formed D-Day and recorded several singles and an album for I.R.S., A&M, and Rhino records. When the band broke up, Dave settled back in Austin, and while touring occasionally as a drummer with friends, he went back to college to pursue a second career in computer science.

Rod Prince is a native of Corpus Christi, on the coast of Texas. He first picked up the guitar at thirteen, finding his true love early in life. Rod was influenced most deeply by the Ventures, Dick Dale, Lonnie Mack, Jeff Beck and, as we all were, Jimi.

He dropped out of school at sixteen to apprentice with the hottest band in town, the Velvederes. Under the wing of keyboardist Gary Beck, Rod began his lifelong learning.

Rod was a member of the infamous “Bad Seeds”, his first recording experience, releasing four singles on the J-Beck label. (a video clip of the Seeds has been the scourge of record conventions for years).

Rod would join with Roy Cox to form BubblePuppy after the Bad Seeds split. On, through Demian, Manbeast, Crosswhen, New World Symphony, the Deadhorse Puppy, the Prince Trio, to the apex in Sirius. He has two only-children, Brenna and Amy, both very beautiful, favoring their mothers.

Since the demise of Sirius, Rod’s worked in the construction trade, an electrician for many years. Rod’s ActualArtists label consumes his extra time, a labor of love for the music that has been his true life’s work.

Seek and ye shall find, no? On my previous Edgar Broughton post, I stated that I had been looking for Wasa, Wasa for 20 years but was not able to find it. I just did a quick search and it turned up on the My Generation blog:

The band started their career as a blues group under the name of The Edgar Broughton Blues Band, playing to a dedicated but limited following in the region around their hometown of Warwick. However, when the band began to lean towards the emerging psychedelic movement, dropping the ‘Blues’ from their name as well as their music, Victor Unitt left.

In 1968, the Broughtons moved to Notting Hill Gate, London, seeking a recording contract and a wider audience, and were picked up by Blackhill Enterprises. Blackhill landed them their first record deal, on EMI’s progressive rock label Harvest Records, in December 1968. Their first single was “Evil”/”Death of an Electric Citizen”, released in June 1969, which was also the first single released by Harvest.

The first single was followed by the Broughtons’ first album, Wasa Wasa, and after a series of free concerts, many performed on the back of trucks and in the face of police harassment, the Broughtons entered into an attempt to capture their ferocious live sound on record by organising a performance at Abbey Road on 9 December 1969. Only one track was released at the time: a rendition of “Out, Demons Out!”, an adaptation of The Fugs’ song “Exorcising The Demons Out Of The Pentagon”, which had become the band’s set-closer and anthem.

Track List:

1) DEATH OF AN ELECTRIC CITIZEN
2) AMERICAN BOY SOLDIER
3) WHY CAN’T SOMEBODY LOVE ME?
4) NEPTUNE
5) EVIL
6) CRYING
7) LOVE IN THE RAIN
8) DAWN CREPT AWAY
9) MESSIN’ WITH THE KID
10) WATERLOO MAN
11) JACQUELINE
12) TELLIN’ EVERYBODY
13) UNTITLED FREAK OUT