UNDER-APPRECIATED ROCK ARTIST OF THE MONTH FOR AUGUST 2011: ANDY COLQUHOUN
Another man who stands out in my memory is
Papa John Creach, who played electric violin – an instrument that I had never heard of previously – for
Jefferson Airplane and
Hot Tuna beginning in
1970; he also stuck it out with
Jefferson Starship through the
Red Octopus album
. He provided an added dimension to these
1960’s stalwarts, and the presence of that gray hair in the midst of the much younger musicians in the two bands made it clear that you didn’t have to be a kid to rock out.
Guest vocalists are another common feature of rock albums and rock concerts. The only time
Led Zeppelin used one was when
Sandy Denny gave a stirring performance as the second vocalist on “
The Battle of Evermore” on their landmark fourth album, Led Zeppelin IV; she even got a special symbol by her name in the musician credits to go with the “ZOSO” symbols used by the four bandmembers. For those of you who know her only from that song, you owe it to yourself to check out her ground-breaking work on the early albums of Fairport Convention, particularly Liege and Leaf, which is generally considered to be the greatest
English folk album of all time. Her alto voice had a purity and a piercing clarity that even most opera divas can’t muster.
You never really know though what is going to happen when a side man or side woman issues a solo album. The best guest vocalist performance on a
Rolling Stones song is unquestionably
Merry Clayton’s incredible harmony vocals on “
Gimme Shelter”, yet her solo album was somewhat disappointing, even on her own version of that song.
Long before
Andy joined up,
the Deviants were one of the leading “
underground rock” bands; their
1967 album
Ptooff! is a classic in that little known genre. The band sprang up in the
British psychedelic melange that spawned
Pink Floyd,
Tomorrow, Hawkwind, and several other like-minded bands; the epicenter for the scene was the
UFO Club (pronounced “oo-foe” in an interview of
Farren at the club that is on one of their CD’s).
The Deviants’ music is a dense stew of
proto-punk,
psychedelia and
blues rock, with percussion and voice loops and screaming and a host of other effects. The album cover on
Ptooff! is also a treat, with a water-color science-fiction scene and a remarkable collection of quotes, including a corruption of a quote by
Ralph Waldo Emerson that appears on the back cover: “When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake!!”
The Deviants were also strongly left-wing politically, and their songs feature unabashed screeds and sharp social commentary. Check out this candid declaration that introduced their third album,
The Deviants #3: “We are the people who creep in the night / We are the people who hide from the light / We are the people who pervert your children / Lead them astray from the lessons you taught them / We are endangering civilization / We are beyond rehabilitation”.
Mick Farren is still recording albums regularly and has become a respected rock critic, journalist, and science fiction novelist. I used to read an occasional piece that he wrote for the
Village Voice both before and after I lived there; one mused on why the
English had such bad dental hygiene and featured a photo quiz asking the reader to match photos of rotten teeth with celebrities’ names (including one member of the royal family). The acclaimed retrospective of the world of
Greg Shaw called
Bomp! / Saving the World One Record at a Time lists him as the co-author with
Suzy Shaw, Greg’s business partner and ex-wife.
You might remember the direct-to-disc recording technique that was briefly popular among audiophiles toward the putative end of the vinyl era in the
late 1970’s; the recorded music from the studio is transferred directly to a master disk without intervening taping and overdubbing and such.
Warsaw Pakt has the distinction of performing on the first such transfer among rock recordings and even got an entry in the
Guinness Book of World Records for their trouble. Of course, this was also the standard means of recording music after
Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, well into the
1950’s.
In
1996,
Andy Colquhoun and
Mick Farren hooked up again for a
Deviants reunion album,
Eating Jello with a Heated Fork (the cover photo shows a human brain next to a glowing silver fork). That was the first
Deviants album I had purchased since the original three came out 25 years previously or longer – and was it a sound for sore ears! I just about played that CD to death, and I have picked up close to a dozen more albums by
Mick and the guys since then, in a variety of bands and permutations.
As
Andy Colquhoun said in the original promotional material for the CD, “I’ve put as much guitar on it as possible” – and did he ever. The title song, “
Pick up the Phone, America” opens the album and features
Andy – in the guise of a “scumbag telemarketer”, as the opening lyrics on the album put it – sparring with a young lady that he is trying to interest in his spiel. Another light-hearted track called “
Creepy Beach” closes the CD, done in a
surf-rock style. I found out later that this is part of a whole series of “creepy” songs that culminated in “
Creepy Christmas”.
Andy Colquhoun had also contributed a song – appropriately called “
Lennon Song” – for a
John Lennon tribute album several years earlier, and this song is also included. Many critics consider it the best song on the album, but it has a lot of company.
Andy Colquhoun’s surname has among the most unusual spellings that I have ever seen; actually though, “Colquhoun” is simply an alternate spelling of “Calhoun”. When
Mick Farren introduced him once at a live concert, he pronounced the name “Ca-hoon”.
There have been so many great guitarists that I have enjoyed hearing over the years, for many different reasons: The old-fashioned blasts of
Chuck Berry and
Keith Richards, the unexpected dexterity and ear of Bob Dylan and Glen Campbell, the pounding virtuosity of Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman, the nearly unsung anonymity of Tommy Tedesco and Jerry Cole, the steady precision of George Harrison and Tom Petty, the sheer power of Jimmy Page and Tony Iommi, the blues-based thunder of Jack White and Eddie Van Halen, lesser known greats like Nikki Sudden and Chris Spedding (of the latter,
Pete Townshend – no slouch himself – is quoted as sayiing, “I wish I could write songs the way
Chris Spedding plays guitar”), and so many more.
To my mind though,
Andy Colquhoun is in a class apart; his guitar work, particularly on
Pick up the Phone, America!, is absolutely thrilling to me. The only guitarist I can think of who comes close to embodying the joy and exuberance that
Andy exudes throughout this album is
Ted Nugent, back in his early days with
Amboy Dukes.
I am not the only one who feels this way either; as
Ken Shimamoto expressed in an online review of the CD (I sure wish I knew enough about music to write like this): “Nobody on Earth plays guitar like
Andy Colquhoun. Well, maybe
Wayne Kramer [of
Detroit’s
MC5 and another running mate of
Mick Farren’s for several decades now] and
Tony Fate (ex-
Bellrays, current
Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs) are in the same league, but
Andy’s brand of over-the-top rock skronk and
acid-blues is totally unique. As guitarists go, he’s got a deep trick bag: a huge sound, saturated with fuzz and Echoplex; a monstrous whammy bar attack that skews his snaky, vibrato-laden blues lines and monolithic octaves; ringing harmonics; a deft touch accompanied by a fine melodic sensibility . . . almost a bent-head
Jeff Beck (always a name to conjure with in the gtr circles I run in).”
What more can I say? Dig up some of these luscious tracks and enjoy!
* * *
The
Honor Roll of the
Under Appreciated Rock Bands and Artists follows, in date order, including a link to the original
Facebook posts and the theme of the article.
Dec 2009 – BEAST; Lot to Learn Mar 2010 – BANG; Record Collecting I Jul 2010 – THE EYES; Los Angeles Punk Rock Mar 2011 – INDEX; Psychedelic Rock (1960’s) Aug 2011 – ANDY COLQUHOUN; Side Men
Nov 2013 – CHIMERA; Women in Rock II Jan 2014 – BOYSKOUT; (Lesbian) Women in Rock IV Apr 2014 – HOMER; Creating New Bands out of Old Ones Jul 2014 – MIKKI; Rock and Religion I (Early CCM Music) Sep 2014 – NICK FREUND; Rock and Religion III (The Beatles) Mar 2015 – PHIL GAMMAGE; Songwriting II (Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan) Dec 2016 – THE IGUANAS; Iggy and the Stooges; Proto-Punk Rock Jun 2017 – THE LOONS; Punk Revival and Other New Bands Dec 2017 – SS-20; The Iguana Chronicles