If the extra vowel in Roooster was deliberate, can the same be said for the (green) cockerel endowedwith a couple of fulsome bouncy teats? Such gender fluidity created moral panic amongAustralian retailers sufficient to have them place stickers over the offending nipples. Thank Godthey did, as otherwise Police minister Russ Hinze would have had to make identical arrangements inthe illegal brothels he denied even existed prior to the Fitzgerald Inquiry. Australians likevowels, they have place names like Woolloomooloo but they don't like polygamists withjugs mate.It's become revisionist wisdom that Rooster were always destined to be a 2nd division Prog band.This perception is perhaps inevitable given the unevenness and polarity of their output e.g they sitquite comfortably on the shoulders of Heavy Prog, Gothic Rock, Symphonic Prog but also Metal andFunk/Soul depending at which point you dip into their 9 year career. However, I think the mainreason is that they are appraised using criteria inapplicable to their music. (Ditto Hendrix) If traced to itssource, Vincent Crane's muse is closer to James Brown than it is to any of the anticipatedprecursors of Progressive RockThe roots of Atomic Rooster are inextricably bound up with the disintegration of the Crazy World ofArthur Brown during their 3rd and final American Tour in 1969 so it will be instructive to expand onsome of the background.I've long been fascinated by that 'collective psychedelic black out' in 1969 when the Crazy Worldwere stuck in New York unable to tour as Arthur had run off to join a black mystic commune, DrachenTheaker was last seen walking out to sea holding a guitar above his head and Vincent Crane wassectioned under the mental health act. For those of us who subscribe to the credo that art shouldimitate life, there has never been a band so ironically named in the history of popular music. It'sdifficult to find any credible testimony as to what actually went down here as even Arthur keeps adignified but tight lipped silence as to his own state of mind during this period. What he doesconfirm however is that the oft speculated collaboration with Jimi Hendrix was for real and thattentative plans were in place to perform around excerpts of composer Wagner against visualprojections by a putative line up of Brown (vocals) Jimi (guitar) Crane (keys) Mitch Mitchell(drums) and tba (bass) Whether any of this would have come to fruition is anyone's guess but theannals of rock are filled with even flimsier and more grandiose plans that contain not an ounce oftruth. (The apocryphal H.E.L.P uber group for example)Carl Palmer maintains today that he formed Atomic Rooster as his band and invited Vincent Crane tojoin but old men forget don't they? Palmer and Crane did discuss forming a band in NYC and dideventually return to England late 69 early '70 but is it likely that your number one choice forkeyboards would be the guy who stepped off the plane in a strait jacket and straight into theBanstead lunatic asylum? You won't find many pictures on the internet of the Crazy World featuring Vinnie Crane. Thefragility of his mental health necessitated him being deputized by Pete Solley (who appears on theiconic TOTP performance of Fire)Carl was a baby. Sweet guy. Couldn't keep time, but we were good friends. We've lost touch sincethen. And he was ambitious: I think he would have eaten his young if it helped him get to thetop. Pete Solley - proves that despite a perfectly respectable career as a record producer and member of Procul Harum, the green eyed monster is not restricted to just this album artAt the outset, Rooster were tipped for big things and developed a large following in Europe althoughAmerica, being full of Americans, proved resistant to their charms.One noted UK music scribe speculated they would rival the Nice and become the successors to Cream asthe next big power trio (erm....without a virtuoso guitarist?) This type of hyperbole is of coursecommon currency in a profession where talk is cheap and a bar tab is available. That said, there ismuch to cherish on Rooster's debut which was the only album they released with a dedicated bassplayer. The rest of their discography has Crane's nimble footwork on Hammond pedals providing thebass lines. I've always felt this gives the bottom end a softer rounder tone consistent with soul,RnB and jazz idioms whereas the percussive attack of Nick Graham's bass guitar lends this album itsedgier rock energy. Trivia fans: The group got their name from a member of Elektra 'manufactured' US band Rhinoceros who(allegedly) dropped so much acid he thought he had an alter ego called 'the Atomic Rooster'.True to form, Palmer's playing is flashy and frilly throughout but just doesn't really carry anyauthoritative weight or provide Crane's music with the anchor it needs i.e. he treats any naturalbreathing spaces in a song's phrasing as an opportunity to distract the listener with unnecessaryflourishes and fills which only serve to disrupt the ebb and flow of the underlying groove. Don'tget me wrong, I think he was the perfect drummer for ELP but just not for Rooster.Here's where the confusion sets in for your reviewer. The initial pressing of the vinyl album had justorgan, bass and drums but my review version is one of the subsequent releases where John Du Cann'sguitar has been added to some of the tracks. I've never heard the 'trio' only album (and I suspectit's a disappearing rarity) but I would hazard that it probably sounds a bit lightweight shorn ofthe distorted guitar. Nick Graham also plays some pretty wild and wacky whammy bar guitar on thesubstantial S.L.Y just to further muddy the waters...Vincent Crane's bipolarity was probably diagnosed long before setting out on a music career and hewas clearly unsuited to a profession as dissolute, chaotic, shallow, hedonistic and precarious asRock and Roll. The lyrics to many of these songs carry a prescience of his own fate and that of hiscondition's inevitable triumph over a faltering will:Everyone's Lonely When They Die.No One In The World Will Want You - Save Me!No One In The World Will Need You - Save Me!No One In The World Will Love You - Save Me!No One In The World Will Miss You - Save Me! Hardly, Let's Get It On now is it? Say what you like about the Brits, we might wallow in itto our detriment but at least we do confront some unpalatable realities.As a reflection of his time spent in a mental hospital, the elegiacally beautiful Banstead exploitsto exquisite effect the disparity between the resigned vulnerability in Crane's voice with that ofthe defiant strength imbued in Graham's. These are sentiments that most of us mercifully, can onlyguess as to the depths of mental anguish they precipitated in their authorPlease, take me out of this place,Yeah, I know I'm never gonna learn.Please, take me out of this place,What I do with my life is my own concern. Even what masquerades as love in the Crane dystopia is couched in terms of the starf.u.c.king backstageharlot re And So To Bed:You don't want me, you don't need me,All you need is sex with fame.You don't want me, you don't need me,All you need is sex with fame.Want me, need me, take me, it's all in your mind.You want a group each night, tonight you want me. I had cause to doubt the authorship of some of the orchestral arrangements on the Crazy World ofArthur Brown debut album but after hearing the brassintro added to the excellent cover version of John Mayall's Broken Wings I have to concludethey are unmistakably Crane's handiwork. No-one before or since, writes brass parts like that. Sublime.Time for the Turkey Shoot. The only real stinker hereabouts is the instrumental BeforeTomorrow which is one of those jams that everyone adores from the rehearsal room until theyhear it back through the monitors: as an aimless, unstructured one idea wankfest with bags ofunfocused energy captured in an ego massage parlor. Funneling Crane's organ through a wah-wah pedal might be a neat effect if used for textural contrast but when deployed for the number's entire duration just becomes wearying to listen to.Winter quotes ingeniously the Crazy World's Come and Buy in a poignantly understated balladfor piano, flute (from Graham) and glockenspiel (from Carl) where again, Vincent's wounded delivery sets the sombre mood for an encroaching winter as a metaphor for his latent depression. It's odd that anEnglishman should invoke the seasons as a metaphor given that most UK summers are just as awful astheir winters but from a pathological perspective, that just might be his point here.Stare at the remnant of life that once was mineKilled by timeWhat is the point of going on?What is the point of going on?And on, and on, and on?Spring is past - winter's coming onIf you like Deep Purple, the Nice, Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Graham Bond, Colosseum or just have a fondness for soulful rock featuring Hammond organ in general then this is well worth checking out. social review comments   Review Permalink

Posted Saturday, March 9, 2019  Review this album  Report (Review #2153638)

The trio didn't waste any time releasing their first album titled ATOMIC ROOOSTER (not eponymous, has 3 o's and also spelled RO-O-OSTER on later CD reissues) in 1970 with that famous ridiculous cover of a green eagle with a rooster head with voluptuous femalemilkers drooping down in the midst of a cube with a purple shadow next to a chair. The cover art ranks high on my WTF list! Soonafter this was released, Nick Graham whose vocals grace this album would jump ship and John Du Cann would replace him and thenoverdub three tracks for a slightly different US release (bonus tracks on the expanded CD version and quite well done). ATOMICROOOSTER, the album kicks things off with the hard rockin' "Friday The Thirteenth" which joins the ranks of a number of harderrockin' bands marry some heaviness with the keyboard rich proto-prog that was oozing out of the late 60s music scene. While not totally unlike bands like Deep Purple, it is apparent that the ROOSTER was cock-a-doodling some funk and soul in its mixand focuses on heavy grooves, more soulful vocals as well as the Hammond rich organ runs and hard percussive drumming drivethat Carl Palmer was delivering quite skillfully even at this stage of his career. Many of the tracks on this album follow suit with thesame exact formula that deftly mixes the soulful grooves with the harder edged prog elements which was Crane's main style ofsongwriting who was the main songwriter for this album. The one track "Broken Wing's" which is a John Mayall cover sounds ratherout of place in comparison despite Palmer's best efforts to give it a percussive backbone clearly demonstrating Crane's differentapproach to songwriting. Despite the efforts of fusing British prog with American soul and funk, this debut release still sounds a little devoid of a completelysuccessfully fusion of the disparate styles and feels much more firmly rooted in the late 60s psychedelic scene than the progressive70s. The keyboard rich rhythms are a dead giveaway and make this release sound a bit dated in not only its style but its deliverywhich has hints of Procol Harum, Deep Purple and of course, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. Graham's vocal abilities are a pointof contention for me as well. While he successfully gets the job done by hitting the correct notes and emphasizes dramatic phrasesthat serve to heighten the musical tension, my main problem is that his range is a little limited and the music would have been moreanimated with a slightly more gifted vox box. While ATOMIC ROOSTER yielded some decent fruit on their freshman effort, it wouldbe eclipsed by the lineup change and release of their second album "Death Walks Behind You." Album number is chock full of nicepleasant late 60s sounding chops, rhythms and keyboard fantasies but doesn't quite make the highly essential list for me. If you're going get this one you should really be sure to get the 2004 Castle Music CD reissue that contains the three overdubbedversions of "Friday The 13th," "Before Tomorrow" and "S.L.Y." with Du Cann on guitar and vocals. The comparison between theoriginals and redubs are astounding as it was fortuitous that Graham moved on to let a more talented vocalist take the reins. Alsoincluded are two equally better live versions at the BBC Radio Session in 1970. The bonus tracks make this a much better albumthan it would be otherwise but of course my rating is for the original release.3.5 rounded down like those mammories on the cover :P social review comments   Review Permalink

Posted Friday, December 16, 2016  Review this album  Report (Review #1668308)

Atomic Rooster Discography Download