Getting People Over the Beatles: A Series Examining the Greats of British (and UK) Pop Music (part 19)

essay by Jamie

Nearly at twenty posts for this Series, roughly one-fifth or one-sixth of the way in, it’s interesting for me to think about some of the realizations I’ve come to. Mainly the importance and reluctance of pop/rock fans have to accepting a strangers (allegedly) dismissively titled Series on the subject of ‘Getting Over the Beatles’. Even if this isn’t the intent, or proper reading of the titles meaning. But reluctance to get over the Beatles isn’t what surprises me, as I always assumed this to be an outcome as I understand the importance of a great band to someone listening in their formative years. No, it’s the passionately stated importance of the Beatles in most peoples lives that then leads to a basic dead end. When I recall my initial listens to the Who’s greatest hits around 9 or 10 their effect on me is obvious; they turned me into a rabid pop audiophile always aggressively seeking that next moment that was as important as the first listen to those ringing chords of ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’. But with most the Beatles are celebrated as the best in a novel of sparse weight, a lover of a lover with little experience in loving. To me it seems the important moments of our lives should lead us to attempts at other such moments, and if not how can someone such as I, a stranger trying to understand others loves, take these claims as anything other then bouts of unmediated thoughtless affection. A love not worth anything (or one that doesn’t change our personality) isn’t worth much. In short if you think the Beatles are this great, why didn’t it turn you into a hopeless romantic for all things guitar pop?

Certainly this is a tangent, but a necessary one I think for today’s selection. The topic remains the large ‘Stones influenced’, but also the idea of aggressive seeking, being madly in love with something that you just want to overdose on it.

The Rolling Stones where certainly one of the first blues based English Guitar pop acts, and certainly the most famous. To accurately continue on this topic we have to reach for the machetes and begin cutting through some rather thick brush (here comes the aggressive obsession) as today is a rather obscure one.

The initial boom of the blues to the young English was mostly seen in the early Rolling Stones records. Meaning most of the other practitioners where also reading and filtering it the same way, see Mayall’s Bluesbreakers (that ‘Beano’ record is still a pretty intrenched classic), Burdon’s the Animals, early Pretty Things etc. Then at some point it started getting incredibly more eccentric (something like the Moody Blues fits here, or late Zombies) or much more electric (the Yardbirds/Jeff Beck who we’ve already tackled would fit here). Eventually less then 8 years later the Stones initial, all prevailing stamp on English blues was all but gone. It had been taken on so many interesting tangents that by the time the Stones returned with a new take on the blues for their classic early Seventies records, other English blues acts almost appeared unrecognizable.

Mostly the distinction is in regards to the heavy stuff. By 1969-71 Cream, Live at Leeds and Led Zeppelin had all appeared on the scene. It’s this sort of stuff and the initial Stones records that the new upstart blues men now had to contend with. For my tastes this means heavy and aggressive guitar music. you know, the stuff that nobody did like the English in this era. It’s on this twisting, turning back story that todays selection arrives: The Groundhog’s 1970 Thank Christ For The Bomb.

The Groundhogs are largely forgotten now, even amongst fans of the era. It’s strange really as they were both highly acclaimed and commercially successful (three albums, Thank Christ, Split, and Who Will Save the World? The Mighty Groundhogs were all Top Ten releases. And a fourth, 1974′s Solid reached #31), and had rather famous admirers. Mick Jagger (here’s our first solid Stones connection) liked the band so much that he personally hand picked them and as their opening act for the 1971 British tour (a rather coveted spot you’d have to think as the Stones were certainly clicking at that point), then after seeing them live Jagger personally financed at live album from the same tour (it was recorded at Leeds University and got the unfortunate title Live at Leeds forever being unfairly compared to the Who’s record of the same name). Thank Christ For The Bomb was the Groundhogs initial creative statement, as their third album it broke free from the rather standard—though impressive— predecessors (1968′s Scratching the Surface and 1969′s Blues Obituary). It’s the title of Thank Christ‘s predecessor that most accurately gives a hint as to what the band was about to unload onto the listening public. Standard blues is dead as a doornail, and the white Brits are partially to blame for over saturating the market. The Groundhogs quickly translate traditional Blues, and having the blues to larger targets: their next three albums feature songs about war, class obedience/consciousness, suburban malaise, and urban alienation. Essentially today’s selection of Thank Christ is really a nod to the initial salvo from this period, as any of three albums of this era (Thank Christ…, Split, and Who Will Save the World…) could just as easily be selected here. They’re all highly recommended and packaged together for a steal (actually this isn’t accurate, you are in fact rewarded with their first five records) at around 20 bucks.

The record starts where it is going to go for the duration of the next 40 minutes or so, with ‘Strange Town’. A doom laden lyrical guitar extravaganza, it easily lets the listener decide if this is a road they want to continue traveling down. ‘Darkness is No Friend’ is the sobering reality to what would happen if Jagger got his wish in ‘Paint It Black’, cold lonely isolation. Facing the sunlight, and all that’s visible, is what’s really difficult according to McPhee. Musically it features an interesting final third where the band matches McPhee’s chugging hiccuping guitar leads to great effect. ‘Soldier’ is the initial entry into the anti-war sentiment on the album, which is a straight forward message: as a soldier you’re rewarded for the worst trait a human can offer another, seeing them as a faceless non-human enemy rather then the emotional real equal. These idea’s are taken further on the title track and album centerpiece, ‘Thank Christ For the Bomb’. It’s a sarcastic witty pondering where they wonder if the arms race is both the worst and best thing for humanity. Only facing sure oblivion can people actually not want to kill each other. ‘Ship On the Ocean’ opens to ominous ringing guitar work before a running guitar lead and band entry brings in the most musically joyful song on the record thus far (even if the lyrics hint at stormy isolation and depressive completion when there is ‘nothing left to do’ when a task has been met or a goal reached). ‘Garden’ is the pastoral ballad of sorts, as this is 1971 heavy music after all, with lyrics hinting at an overgrown post-(or pre-)apocalyptic world. Tthere are some rather explosive breaks between all the acoustic strumming (featuring the most impressive guitar work on the album in my opinion). ‘Status People’ and ‘Rich Man, Poor Man’ shift the album’s focus from (anti-) war to class consciousness. As is true for the album they shift between direct, pointed, lyrical assaults (‘Status People’) and sarcastic ones (‘Rich Man, Poor Man’). Musically the model remains true as well, the direct one gets more delicate performances with intricate musicianship whereas the sarcastic one gets full throttle Rock N’ Roll (the same is true for the straight ‘Soldier’ and then the ironic ‘Thank Christ…’). ‘Rich Man, Poor Man’ does however feature a plaintive middle passage that steals the show for me, easily my favorite part on the album. ‘Eccentric Man’ closes the album right where we started, riffing and rocking, with the band trying to explain how this world view isn’t brash and probably deserves serious consideration.

Fans of stuff like Ten Years After, Deep Purple, and Jethro Tull will certainly find much to treasure here as will admirers of the initial reason for this subgroup, the Rolling Stones. Upon the release of the Groundhogs box set english rock magazine Uncut described it this way: “For Thank Christ For The Bomb (1970) and Split (1971), however, something great happened, and it becomes helpful to think of the Groundhogs as a hybrid of The Kinks and The Rolling Stones. Like the latter, they were fans of American R’n’B, who had moved on, lessons learned. Like the former, they had made their escape by mining their own cultural identity. Thank Christ…is in part a British Tommy’s psych album, part a tour of English “types”. Half of Split, another concept, is an account of a psychedelic experience during an Indian meal.

It’s what the band make of McPhee’s songs, (like “Strange Town”, later covered by The Fall or the inspirational “Split Part 2”) that show what the Groundhogs were all about. To hear them in such moments is to hear musicians in full exploratory flight, McPhee’s guitar playing and Pustelnik’s free-roaming drumming setting them on the same paths as Cream, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience.” They seem slightly more throaty and raucous then the Kinks and the Stones but putting them on somewhat equal terms with such heavyweights seems to be the main point. A grossly underrated band, one I almost included in another grouping of five I’ve created under the guise of ‘Eccentric English’ (which will come at some point down the line). They rock in a classic rock sort of way, but they avoid the overtly sexual cliches of most of those bands. They’re different guys with different concerns, one just needs to consider their eclectic group of admirers: Mark E. Smith, Steve Malkmus, Julian Cope, and finally Captain Sensible of the Damned. It was on his recommendation, in an issue of The Big Takeover, that I originally sought them out. Bringing us full circle from my earlier diatribe on being struck by Pop’s Cupid arrow, when it’s from someone you trust you seek it out. Hopefully you guys are all starting to trust me.

Happy listening, see you next week.

(to listen to this album, start with the opening track here, then follow that original poster who has uploaded the entire album to the right)

Advertisement