Sonntag, 28. November 2021

Tears for Fears - The Tipping Point (Single): A Review

Has it really been seventeen years? Yes and no. To the greater public, Tears for Fears have been awfully quiet for a long period of time. After Curt Smith left the group in the early 1990s, Roland Orzabal soldiered on with guitarist Alan Griffiths and released two rather overlooked albums, Elemental in 1993 and the brilliant Raoul and the Kings of Spain in 1995. After the 1996 tour, Orzabal retired the name, having grown disillusioned by audiences who were only there for the early material and didn't care as much for his more mature work. In 2001, he released his one and (to date) only solo album, Tomcats Screaming Outside. By this point, he and Curt Smith (who was now living in the USA) had already reconnected and started making music with Smith's new writing partner, guitarist Charlton Pettus. In 2004 (2005 in some countries), the reunion album Everybody Loves a Happy Ending was released. Plagued with a fractured release strategy and a bad mastering job on the European edition, the album didn't achieve the expected success (although it has continued to sell well). A somewhat unsatisfying live album (due to its shortened festival setlist and the band not playing their best gig), Secret World - Live in Paris, was released in 2006, including a new studio recording, the exuberant "Floating Down the River". This song was also included on the Universal double CD compilation Gold, which had originally been planned as a career-spanning box set.



The band played a handful of gigs in the following years but otherwise seemed semi-retired. Curt Smith remained more active, releasing two solo albums - Halfway, Pleased and Deceptively Heavy - plus collaborating with lesser known artists on various projects. All of these were released with zero fanfare, many of them download-only or on small labels. In 2010, Smith complained that labels weren't interested in new Tears for Fears music. Despite this, 2010 was one of their most active years regarding live shows, as the band played the US, Australia and Southeast Asia. The gig in the Philippines in particular will stick in the band's memories for the crowd's sheer enthusiasm.



Things picked up in 2013, when Universal decided to give the band's debut, 1983's The Hurting, the deluxe edition and box set treatment. The release was curated by reissue specialist Steve Hammonds (who also put a lot of work into the Status Quo reissues mentioned elsewhere on this blog) and blogger/journalist Paul Sinclair, who first wrote about his involvement here and later published an exclusive interview here, parts of which were used for his liner notes in the set. During the promotion for the reissue, the band unveiled their first new recording since 2006, a cover of Arcade Fire's "Ready to Start"; it was swiftly followed by "And I Was a Boy from School" by Hot Chip and Animal Collective's "My Girls". All three songs were later compiled on a 12" vinyl EP for Record Store Day called Ready Boy & Girls? (but never released on CD). As this round of publicity ended, Tears for Fears announced they were starting to write material for a new album. The sound of the three cover versions hinted at a more electronic direction as opposed to the timeless piano- and guitar-based power pop of Everybody Loves a Happy Ending.



2014 saw the next reissue, among other versions an exhaustive 6-disc box set, centered around Songs from The Big Chair, and The Seeds of Love was expected for 2015. The band still played great live shows, including the Spotify Landmark session, but spanners started appearing in the works. Several self-imposed deadlines for finishing the new album were missed and it felt like neither the new album nor the Seeds reissue would see the light of day.

2017 was the most active year for TFF since their reunion: A big double headliner tour with Hall & Oates took them all over North America, and they also appeared on the BBC in London to promote their new compilation Rule the World, which featured two new songs, the single "I Love You But I'm Lost" and "Stay". However, with hindsight it was a dark time for Orzabal, as first his old writing partner Alan Griffiths died at only 57, and then (unbeknownst to the public), his wife Caroline died after a long struggle with depression, alcoholism and ensuing health issues. The only thing fans knew was that the last dates of the US tour were postponed because of a "family emergency", and later, the European tour scheduled for 2018 was cancelled "on doctor's orders" and moved to 2019. (The upshot of this was that they added more dates in Germany and I finally got to see them!) Earlier that year, Roland had uploaded a sad ballad to his soundcloud account called "Please Be Happy", which also hinted at the emotional turmoil in his family. Here's a fan video (which looks like it was an inspiration for the new official video!):


When the band resurfaced in 2019, Orzabal's hair had turned grey and he was starting to grow a beard. Though stopping to dye his hair increased the contrast, it was pretty clear to anybody that he had aged a lot since 2015/2016. His voice also seemed less powerful, especially on the first couple of gigs, but got stronger as the tour progressed. In the meantime, he found a new partner and according to his own account, that immensely helped to get him back on track after "losing a year".

In 2020, Roland suggested the band would release a handful of singles instead of an album, and "The Tipping Point" was slated for an April release, but that date came and went. No tour dates had been set for the year so none were sunk by the pandemic, but it seemed like the new record was indefinitely shelved. Roland later explained that they had an album but weren't happy with it, and went back to work on new material to use alongside some of the originally planned songs. All in all, more waiting.

2020 did finally see the reprint of the first two box sets, a Classic Albums documentary dealing with Songs from the Big Chair and later, the long-awaited box set centered around The Seeds of Love, something that had been put on the backburner for several times because it shouldn't collide with the new album. The hints that something was finally happening in TFF-land appeared in mid-2021: Curt Smith liked a tweet by his friend, music journalist David Wild, which enigmatically hinted at a band having made their "best album yet". Wild denied most of the suspicions except TFF, and later confirmed that he had interviewed Roland and Curt.

The new single - which turned out to be, indeed, the title track - premiered on October 7; BBC Radio 2 were first to play it, while Radio Bath followed a few minutes later. Both stations played a radio edit, while the official video and streaming services had the full cut shortly afterwards.

After living with the song for a few weeks, here is my current verdict.


The intro may actually be the best part of the song. It's subtle, it's suspenseful, and it conjures up a sonic world all of its own. There's a kinship with Roland's experiments on the
Tomcats Screaming Outside album but also 1993's Elemental, and interestingly enough Pink Floyd's 1994 album The Division Bell (the little bits of e-bow guitar aren't unlike the clip that was woven into "Take It Back" and "Keep Talking).

The beat slowly builds up over a couple of interesting movements and what follows is basically - as Roland Orzabal attested - Charlton Pettus' attempt to match the many young hit producers who thought the thing to do with TFF was to remake their classics. Pettus took the shuffle beat from "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and inserted a piano motif reminiscent of "Head over Heels" to build the basis of the song, ending up with something that sounded like neither but still like Tears for Fears. The similarity to "Rule the World" was obviously picked up by most listeners but it would be wrong to call the new single a remake, as the vocal melody is totally different.

The melody - which I assume is mostly Roland's work - is indeed strong, and the way that Curt and Roland duet on the song is an element that immediately stood out. For all the strengths of having two frontmen, it's something they didn't really make much use of. Only "The Hurting", "Mothers Talk", "Sowing the Seeds of Love" and "Closest Thing to Heaven" spring to mind. Live it's a different story, as more recent performances of "Memories Fade" prove.

There are negatives, though. Some people pointed out that the song sounds a bit Depeche Mode. A lot of classic Mode songs are entirely built on the minor pentatonic, and the melody of "The Tipping Point" mostly stays within these limits too. Unfortunately, the backing is even more simplistic. I tried playing along on the piano and got bored very quickly as the main part of the song is just three chords (the same ones as in "Shout") over and over. They are also pretty much the same chords as in David Gilmour's 2016 song "Rattle That Lock", but that may well be a coincidence. Though this isn't the only touching point between the two songs: The way the radio version of "The Tipping Point" opens with Curt singing "Who's that ghost" reminds me of the echoing "Rattle That Lock" in Gilmour's song.

So what's left is the arrangement.

As I said, I have nothing but love for the intro. But the comparisons to "The Working Hour" seem more than a little over the top; nothing that follows the intro is as musically adventurous as that 1985 song was, which seamlessly fused together very different musical ideas.

The long version of "The Tipping Point" at least contains, in addition to the spherical intro, an instrumental breakdown that helps to add some variety, although the beat isn't varied at all and there is never a new chord to be found.

I like a lot of the sonic tricks, which are very typical for Roland's production work. The exception is the white noise added at times, something I really wish hadn't become fashionable. Sadly, the very compressed mastering makes it hard to focus on any of these details because (psychoacoustically) the brain shuts off when it's hit with a barrage of sound.

Lyrically, Roland is pretty open about the inspiration. It's a very personal song about the experience of watching his wife fade away - becoming a ghost while still alive.

The lyrics get a full 10/10 from me. They are haunting and on point, and entirely worth of the TFF name. I also like how the phrases get swapped at the end, it makes for a nice variation (instead of ending predictably with the title).

There is also the typical self-reference in the lyrics, in the line "What's that shape", which comes straight from 1996's "Falling Down".


I thought it would be an interesting idea to compare "I Love You But I'm Lost" and "The Tipping Point" in various aspects. Both songs came after a long period of silence and both signalled the beginning of something new; in the case of the 2017 single, it turned out to be a false alarm, and a bit of a cul-de-sac as the album that apparently was almost ready for release back then was not issued in its original form.

But both songs were co-produced with the same team - Florian Reutter and Sacha Skarbek - so they share a common aesthetic as opposed to, say, "Floating Down the River". Skarbek also co-wrote two songs on the coming album (in one case with Reutter), so even though the band has decided to remove "I Love You But I'm Lost" from the album, it remains a part of the same "era".



MELODY

Both songs are melodically strong and it's hard to choose. I think "I Love You But I'm Lost" may be more obviously catchy but that obviousness is also its weakness, as - with a different arrangement and singer - it could easily pass as a song by any number of younger acts (Bastille's singer Dan Smith and their producer Mark Crew co-wrote it). "The Tipping Point" is more recognizable as a TFF song, but "...Lost" is the one that keeps going through my brain unprompted, so I'm not going to choose.

1 : 1

CHORDS

Perhaps surprisingly, "I Love You But I'm Lost" has a more interesting chord sequence. It's not spectacularly inventive but they change it around enough to keep it fresh. The middle eight ("All we needed was some time") especially helps there.

2 : 1

LYRICS

"The Tipping Point" wins this one. "I Love You..." isn't bad, and especially in retrospect it is recognizable as coming from the same mindset (lines like "came to life in my arms and then turned to dust"). Hindsight makes it a far more bitter lyric; Roland telling Caroline that he loves her but is lost as to how to help her. However, some of the lines seem kind of throwaway to me.

"The Tipping Point" fits in the TFF tradition. I'm reminded of this Orzabal quote from 1995:

I think that the perspective behind Tears For Fears is one of that things are slightly damaged, things are slightly disturbed and they need to be healed, they need to be made better. I think that is running through every album... (source)

Incidentally, I feel that this aspect was noticeably missing on the Everybody Loves a Happy Ending album. It was a record about death, mostly, but it didn't feel justified. The guys were only in their forties.

2 : 2

PRODUCTION

Both songs are very much in the synthpop vein, dominated by electronic sounds and underpinned by "traditional sounding" but programmed drums. They don't sound "retro" though, in the sense of how some of the old 80s bands like Visage or Camouflage have tried to avoid the modern traps of overproduction, and that's where my main grumbles lie.

I'm somebody who mostly leans towards the rocky and organic side of things. My two favourite TFF albums are The Seeds of Love and Raoul and the Kings of Spain, so the move back towards more electronic sounds was always going to be a tougher road for me. As far as I'm concerned, I also don't need to hear anything from TFF that involves the guy who co-wrote the horrific "You're Beautiful" with James Blunt (as well as other not particularly great radio hits like "7 Seconds" or Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball"), and I generally despise the trend to throw lots and lots of "producers" at a song to end up with an unremarkable overproduced stew of frequencies and electronic noise. This is what plagues "I Love You But I'm Lost" especially.

"The Tipping Point" at least has some typical guitar chords by Roland on the intro, but the instrument rather quickly disappears. Still, the more typical production touches swing this one for the newer song.

2 : 3

MIX

Both songs aren't particularly well-mixed. They drown in mids and low frequencies; I find it very hard to pick out the actual bass. The slightly better drum sound causes me to give the nod to the newer track again.

I have a strong feeling that "The Tipping Point" will open up much more when the band plays it live. Of course I can't be sure that it's going to be played (neither two new songs from 2017 were ever done) but Curt especially said they wanted to have an album that was well suited to playing live.

2 : 4

MASTERING

Mastering is a strange part of music making. Everybody does it but its original purpose has been forgotten and perverted. Because LPs have less dynamic range than magnetic tape and also only allow for a certain amount of bass, it was necessary to perform some EQ'ing and dynamic compression / limiting to get the sound right for the format. (This is also the reason why songs are often better sounding on 12" singles than on LPs, as there is more space for the grooves and therefore for bass.)

With the advent of CD, the dynamic range of released music increased to show off the new medium's capabilities. But then engineers discovered that you could do things in the digital realm that were previously near impossible. Digital lookahead limiters allow for a much more extreme raising of the overall loudness to the maximum (which is defined as 0 dB in any digital file). Producers, especially in pop and when it came to the jukebox market, had long liked their recordings to be louder than the competition, but the new tools turned that quest up to eleven.

Tears for Fears used to be a bastion of good sound, but that ended with the reunion. Back then it was Stephen Marcussen (who just outperformed himself in mastering the most recent Rolling Stones reissue into complete oblivion, breaking his own loudness records) who made the US release of Everybody Loves a Happy Ending the band's loudest release by far, while somebody decided that this was not loud enough and added further compression to the UK and European release (the one with 2 bonus tracks), leading to a steamrollered, flat sound that doesn't manage to keep the listener's attention for more than two tracks in a row.

The DR meter is a software that analyses how much a song has been affected by the loudness war. It doesn't measure the difference between the loudest and quietest parts but the density of the loudest parts. In other words, how much does the music vary in amplitude near digital zero.

On the DR meter, none of the new music and not even much of the reissues released by Tears for Fears in the last 25 years scores well. In comparison, the original mastering of The Seeds of Love (which was also included on the Blu-Ray disc of the 2020 box set) still stands up as a good example of a dynamic mastering.

As I wrote down at length here, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending was a real low point, especially in the 14-track version. "I Love You But I'm Lost" and "Stay" score similarly low on the DR meter (both DR5). They have a slightly lower RMS (average volume) but the density of the mix on the former is so extreme that when it kicks in, it feels like a sonic assault.

"The Tipping Point" (DR6) is a bit better, but both songs are mastered abysmally. I'm giving zero points on this count. They just turn into a wall of noise on headphones. If you don't believe me, try switching back and forth between any song from the first five TFF albums and the new material; the difference shouldn't be subtle.

The horrible sound of modern CDs and digital files has been one of the main drivers of the vinyl revival, so it's reasonable to expect the LP sounding better, although that's not a given. There have been cases where dedicated files with less compression were used for the vinyl editions (the Tears for Fears Record Store Day release Live at Massey Hall is an excellent example); often enough the cutting engineer simply takes some of the bass off, which improves the DR without really restoring anything. In some cases (Clockwork Angels by Rush springs to mind) that still makes it easier to listen without getting a headache, as a lot of energy can be concentrated in those low frequencies.

2 : 4

VIDEO

I don't want to give marks for the video clips but "The Tipping Point" also wins that comparison, as it's a simple mix of Curt and Roland singing and a couple of strong visual images, therefore well in the tradition of the band's 80s clips. "I Love You But I'm Lost" wasn't even advertised with a video at first and when it was released, it turned out to be a rather weird story-video that didn't even feature the band.

So all in all, "The Tipping Point" bodes better for the coming album then "I Love You But I'm Lost" did in 2017 for the scrapped album, still I have some reservations.

I know some people will question my even being a fan. But it's a question of emotions. Was I happy to get new material? Yes. Do I think "The Tipping Point" is a good song? Sure. But whenever I hear "Sowing the Seeds of Love" on the radio, it's a rush of emotions, it's pure bliss. And the same goes for quite a few other TFF songs. In comparison, anything they've released more recently has been a bit limp/grey. It's good music but it just doesn't make me feel much. I'm glad it exists, but either the production brings it down instead of enhancing it, or maybe I just don't 'get it'.


As far as the other two songs we already know go, I'd say "Please Be Happy" is the best so far (judging from the demo version, which criminally also has a huge amount of compression baked in - on a demo!!). "Stay" has the main problem that it sounds like Curt's solo work. While he is a good writer, he doesn't have Roland's genius. Also, it's very reliant on electronics, therefore not a good live track.

I hope that any song Curt didn't like and that was therefore discarded will show up on an Orzabal solo record. Considering how much I like the second half of The Seeds of Love (unlike Curt) there should be some very strong material.

But I also assume the coming album will contain songs that impress me more than the title track. After all, "Closest Thing to Heaven", the first single from Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, wasn't its strongest track either. And I'm glad I caught the opportunity to grab the special edition that Paul Sinclair managed to negotiate with the band and label, which contains all three bonus tracks that are otherwise only available in separate markets, plus an exclusive interview. Regardless of how much I'll end up liking the album, that is one of the coolest ideas I've seen in the CD business.

By the way, the next single "No Small Thing" will be out on December 3. Since it was described as containing acoustic portions (as you can hear in the preview clip), I'm having rather high expectations for this song.

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Dienstag, 12. Oktober 2021

[Comics] The Great Crown Jewel Robbery

"Mickey, Minnie and the Great Crown Jewel Theft"



I said that I love reading review posts on Disney comics by established bloggers such as GeoX, Review or Die, Disney Comic Randomness, not forgetting Joe Torcivia and also the sadly deceased Chris Barat. So, I've taken up GeoX' ('s?) example of writing about a story that's not published in English and translating some dialogue from the language I read it in, which is normally German. I don't want to claim I can write reviews as well as the aforementioned bloggers can, and I don't want to enter any competition either. I'm mainly interested in highlighting some stories that have not been published widely, and I'm starting with a favourite of mine. In fact, I've written about this story several times before (always in German though), so you'd think I've figured out how to do it…


The story I'm talking about takes place in London. Is it "very British"? Yes, I'd say so, but of course the Brits never had a chance to read it. The story of Disney comics in Great Britain is a history in itself, and not a great one (David Gerstein broke it down here). It's funny to talk about this story in the wake of Brexit, but hey – London has been one of the world's most important cities, and I doubt Brexit is going to erase that (even though I still think it was an awful idea to start with, but oh well).


You'll notice that the colouring isn't so great. Although a lot of Italian Disney comics have been re-colored over the years (especially in Greece), this one has so far evaded the honour (possibly because the Greeks never printed it). Too bad - Giovan Battista Carpi was arguably at his artistic peak sometime during the 80s (remember "That Missing Candelabra", "War and Peace" etc.) and his art, beautifully detailed and atmospheric, could really shine with new, more precise and diverse colours. But this is the way it was done in Italy during those times (that said, "War and Peace" certainly received a better colouring, and is hardly improvable).


Also, the choice of scans isn't entirely intentional; these are the pages I scanned for my German review, then edited. Because I'm lazy and have little to no desire to make even more scans, I simply used all I scanned way back then for this post. This also means that there are spoilers, if you haven't read it yet & plan to do so.


Now, let's begin at the beginning... ((C) Francis Rossi / Bernie Frost)


I've always liked detective stories. My favourite children's book was one that dealt with minor "crimes" and the efforts to solve the puzzle, and the crime mystery is, in my opinion, one of the essential columns of the Disney comic. Anyone who thinks otherwise should come with a warning sign… and definitely not be working for Disney! Some of Carl Barks' best (Duck) stories were crime mysteries, sometimes mixed with a touch of gruesomeness (see "The Old Castle's Secret" for one of THE best Disney comics of all times), but for the most part, Mickey is the main expert on these matters. The tradition goes back to the venerable Floyd Gottfredson, who was responsible for turning Mickey Mouse from a funny animation star into a character who could survive complex and 'serious' comic stories. The influence of Gottfredson's comic strips on future generations has often been written about, and unlike the USA (where Paul Murry's less entertaining Mickey overtook the scene, before there were some attempts to artificially re-create the Gottfredson spirit in the 1990s) or Northern Europe, Italy never lost the connection to those formative stories. Gottfredson's work repeatedly gets reprinted in Italian, and the most important Italian Disney cartoonist Romano Scarpa was a dyed-in-the-wool Gottfredson fanatic who often wrote in the strip format and also did some covers for classic Gottfredson tales.


Scarpa's influence, through his various inkers, friends and pupils (especially Luciano Gatto, Giorgio Cavazzano, Sandro Del Conte, Maurizio Amendola, Valerio Held, Giuseppe Dalla Santa and Casty), is felt even today – although Cavazzano's stylistic development probably was even more important in the long run. On the other hand, there was something of a concurrent "school" that was more rigid, and more based on copying poses from Barks, Taliaferro, Gottfredson or (probably also self-made) model sheets. Scarpa, of course, didn't draw with any boundaries; such was his talent that he could create incredibly dynamic panels full of movement – but at times, it also meant that his artwork could look deformed compared to the "originals", exactly because Scarpa created his own interpretation and didn't adhere to any set rules.


The school I'm talking about includes Giovan Battista Carpi, Giulio Chierchini, Luciano Bottaro, Tiberio Colantuoni and Guido Scala. Although Carpi became a teacher to many young artists, late in his life, his pupils (e.g. Andrea Freccero or Anna Marabelli) either didn't follow his example much or disappeared from the Disney scene after a few years (e.g. Laura Bozzano). Only the exceptional Francesco Guerrini could be seen as a modern torch-bearer, but even here Carpi's influence is more implicitly felt.


Anyway, let's get to the story then. INDUCKS isn't entirely sure on whether Osvaldo Pavese wrote it alone, or Carpi co-wrote it; I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter, since Carpi did have a knack for epic stories, although Pavese's work is severely undervalued on the whole. His writing is well worth checking out.


There were not one but two covers for both issues of "Topolino" that contained part 1 and 2 of the story, although neither were drawn by Carpi himself – but Marco Rota is no slouch either:


Cover of Topolino 1507: "Il tesoro della corona storia thrilling"

Strepitoso successo! Il tesoro della corona 2.da parte


We start out with Mickey and Minnie enjoying their holiday trip in London. If they knew what was coming…


Immediately we're hit by Carpi deftly handling the cultural icons of London, with the center image of the first page (one single panel) being neither Mickey nor Minnie, but the Tower Bridge. Although it's secondary to the plot, it shows the care that Carpi invested into the comic. The slow pace of the story might put some readers off, but I think it helps to set the atmosphere and makes it feel "authentic". The attention to detail is what sets this apart from so many commissioned comics (especially from Egmont) that try to stick in as many sights of one city as possible. Here, though, it flows very naturally; ironically, not concentrating on the plot all the time makes for a more realistic read.

Mickey and Minnie getting a tour on a bus through London. They see the Tower, the Westminster Palace and Big Ben.

Tourist guide: To your right, you can see the legendary London Tower!

Minnie: The scene of gloomy and gory stories! Shudder!


Mickey (MM henceforth): True, but now it's a museum, Minnie!

Minnie (MI): A museum, you say?


MM (or guide?): Yes! Nowadays, you can see the famous crown jewels there!

MI: Oh, I'd love to see them!


MM: We'll do that tomorrow, Minnie! I'm sure we'll need an entire day just to visit the Tower!


Guide: And now, ladies and gentlemen, a short pause to take photographs!

MI (?): Good idea!


MM: Oh Minnie! Aren't you gettin' tired of photographing everything?

MI: Well, I happen to enjoy it!


MI: Besides, it's a way to capture something for later!

MM: OK, I hear you!


[Soon after…]


Guide: This is the Westminster Palace, the House of Parliament with its clock tower, the famous Big Ben!

MI or someone else: Great!


MI: And where are we going to next?

Guide: To Hyde Park, one of the nicest parks in London Town!


~~


While the plot isn't important at the beginning, various elements do appear on the first few pages. After the romantic boat ride through Hyde Park (Mickey and Minnie are the perfect couple here, which some may find a bit boring, but Minnie's no Daisy; constantly having her argue with Mickey doesn't make sense to me), they visit Madame Tussaud's and come across the wax figure of "Captain" Thomas Blood. The whole tourist group later visits the Indian restaurant. And if you thought this was a totally police-focused story, you could not be more mistaken!

[In the evening…]

MI: Say, why don't we try something truly exotic!

MM: That's a very good idea, Minnie!


MM: What do you think of a saap-skewer from the grill?

MI: Oh, that sounds lovely!


MM: Twice grilled saap skewer, please!

Waiter: A good choice!


[Shortly afterwards…]

Waiter: Here you are!

MM: Oh! Um! Thanks!


MI: What… what is that?

Waiter: Fresh snake from the grill!


MI: Snake??

Waiter: For the next course, perhaps a delicious omelet with…


MM: Oh, er… let's just stick with plain eggs!

Waiter: As you wish!


Waiter: We've got gull's eggs Nepal style, frog eggs in the Himalayan way…

MI: Oh no!


MM: Erm, I think we might prefer totally normal fried eggs!

Waiter: Ack! What??


MM: I think he's offended now!


[After eating…]

MI: Can you photograph me, please?

MM: Of course! We simply have to record this "snake dinner" for posterity!


~~


Somewhat ridiculous sequence, as it consists of clichés about apparently inedible "exotic" food, but I admit I do find it mildly amusing. Anyhow, the next day, it's time for a visit to the Tower, as has already been announced before. We see the famous ravens (a topic that was recently taken up by Francesco Artibani and Lorenzo Pastrovicchio, in a story that features both Ellsworth and his adoptive son Ellroy!), meet a grumpy guard and then go visit the crown jewels.

MM: The "Imperial State Crown"!


MM: It consists of over 3000 crown jewels and was crafted in 1838!


MM: The fabled "Black Star Ruby" was worked into it.


MM: And this is the well-known "2nd Star of Africa"!

MI: How many carats, Mickey?


MM: Oh, just 317, Minnie!

MI: Wow, that's frightful!


MM: Why that?

MI: Well, such precious stones surely attract thieves, don't they!


Guard: Impossible, Ma'am! The museum is well-protected!


Guard: We've got an ultra-modern alarm system, steel-reinforced doors, and, last but not least, us Warders in the Tower!


MM: Well, but Captain Blood got in too, didn't he!

Guard: Yes, but he failed even without anti-theft devices!


Guard: You hear that?

MM: That sure sounds solid but…


MM: …with today's thieves, you never know!


[The visit goes on…]


MM: This is where it goes into the basement!

MI: Something special in there?


Blogger's note: The 2nd Star of Africa is one of the largest diamonds in existence. The largest one is also shown!


Again, you can tell how well Carpi did his research: The uniforms of the Yeoman Warders look exactly like they do in reality (a few simplifications for the comic format notwithstanding).

MM: Well, it's been said that the ghost of Queen Anna Boleyn has been haunting this dungeon!

MI: Really?


MI: Mickey! Where are you!


MI: Mickey! Don't leave me alone!


MM: Woohoooo! Minniieee! Boohooooo!

MI: EEEEEEEK!


MI: Help! A ghost!


MM: Oh no! I've overdone it and terrified her!


MM: Minnie! Wait! It was just a joke!


MM: Minnie! Stop!


(Slam!)

MM: Minnie!


(Slam!)

MI: Mickey! Mickey!


~~


Notice how well Carpi switched from happy-go-lucky, friendly tourist surroundings to dark doom with no advance warning. And yet, it's so effortlessly done that you might not even notice it if I didn't tell you so. Also, notice how Carpi's Mickey is not anywhere near the boring spoilsport that he's often seen as; the scene of him giving Minnie a fright could be straight out of Gottfredson.


So Mickey is locked in a place where poor Anne Boleyn might still be spooking around. (By the way: This, along with the quick mention of Henry VIII. earlier – Minnie's face says it all – is a good example of briefly touching upon stuff that is way too dark for a Disney comic, without disturbing anybody... after all, it doesn't tell you anything that you don't already know, and if you don't know yet, it just goes by unnoticed. I think it's really well done.)


Though what's more spooky is the coincidence: Just a few minutes after this misadventure, the alarm goes off. A guard says the crown jewels were stolen. Enter Police Inspector McKey, a type that couldn't be more "typically British" with his trenchcoat, bowler hat and umbrella. Not forgetting a decidedly grumpy personality. (I'm not sure if the name McKey is a German invention – it's a stroke of genius in any case, as it's phonetically very similar to "Mickey"!)

MM: Finally! I'd already pictured I'd have to spent the night in that place!


MM: Whoa- what's up with YOU?

Police officer: You come with US, young man!


MM: But… I'd been locked in there by accident!

Police officer: You can tell that to the inspector!


[Soon after…]

Police officer: He'd been hiding in the Martin Tower!

MM: What the heck are you mumbling there?


Inspector McKey: Oh-kay, young man! What have you got to tell us?

MM: Very simple! I was locked there by accident!


[After explaining…]

McKey: And that's what you call an alibi?

MM: Alibi? Why do I need an alibi?


MM: I'll gladly pay a fine if I have to!


Guard: Good joke, mate!

McKey: The cost for the theft of the crown jewels will be a bit higher, I think!


MM: Theft of the crown jewels? Who did that?

McKey: That's what I'd like to know from YOU, young man!


MM: And how would I know that?

McKey: Your explanations are awfully thin…


~~


Long story short, the police don't believe Mickey and want to put him in a cell until the evidence has been collected. Scotland Yard is already looming on the horizon (and drawn ominously, with black clouds in the background – some subliminal message there, eh, Carpi!). Obviously Mickey is totally not OK with this; 1) he's innocent, 2) he knows how long a process like this can take and 3) he knows too well that the actual thief will be more than happy to get out of the picture until it's way too late. It doesn't help that Mickey was talking about thieves during the visit to the Jewel House, especially since the thief has signed as – you guess it – "Captain Blood"!


(Notice also, that Mickey's facial expression in the eighth panel is clearly a nod to late-period Gottfredson stories.)


So what does Mickey do? If you've read "The Blot's Double Secret", you'll know the answer: Escape and try to solve the crime while hiding from the police. And of course, this is London: Mickey can't simply go hide at Goofy's house or count on Chief O'Hara's support (although that's debatable anyway). He's now very dependent on Minnie's skills. And of the many positive aspects of the story, Minnie's portrayal is one of the most noticeable ones. She's worried about Mickey, of course, but totally excels at helping him get a disguise, and making various investigations. It still takes Mickey's inventiveness and experience (e.g. calling Minnie at the hotel with a different voice as "Aunt Mimmie" and warning her that the police will have her under surveillance), but essentially the two are a perfect match and compliment each other really well. (This is also why I tend to sigh when Casty uses her as a boring female stereotype, as it feels like more than one step backwards, despite the general quality of Casty's plots. But I digress.)


So, this story shows that Minnie can hold her own as a detective, although it still hinges on some lucky coincidences (and her love of photographing!) that she finds the connection.

MI: But... the guy who's speaking to him, is…


(Blogger's note: This is where part 1 ended, but the German printing didn't make much fuss about it. Thankfully, the title page of part 2 wasn't cut as is so often the case, even if it means looking at some rather empty art – obviously, since the Italian original had a cliffhanger and a sum-up)


~~


So, slowly, we're putting the puzzle together. Mickey's still a suspect on the run, so meeting up with Minnie isn't the easiest thing, but they somehow manage. Again, there's a reason why the title has both Mickey and Minnie as titular "heroes"; based on this, Minnie could be a detective in her own right (and Mickey even admits so, saying that she always had a good instinct). I love that there's no competition or bad feelings about this; other writers could have had Minnie be annoyed at Mickey for the rest of the story, leaving him out in the cold. Nope. And though there's nothing romantic about the situation, look at distressed Minnie giving Mickey a surprise hug and telling him to be careful. D'aw!


And lest you thought the story was lacking in humour, Carpi sticks in funny details here and there. There's some literal monkey business in the zoo that doesn't detract from the main action, not unlike Don Rosa's "side plots" (but not as elaborate).


Eventually, we're due a showdown. And Carpi exceeds himself at thickening the atmosphere. Basically, it gets thicker and thicker with each page. Not even the humorous sign on the side of the "Odeon" can alleviate that.

[Shortly afterwards…]

MM: There's the theatre! Ah, Shakespeare's on!


MM: The Sheik seems to like the classical drama!


Timothy (admission guy): What do you want?

MM: Er… balcony, once, please!


~~


Would you think that Mickey is the guy who falls asleep during a Shakespeare play? Well, now you know!


It turns out that the thief may be a criminal genius, but he's also a big-headed guy who didn't really consider that few people would want anything to do with such hot loot. Let alone finding somebody who's rich enough to pay for it. This is where the sheik comes in; the thief had thought him – a lover of costly jewelry – a potential buyer. Nope, it turns out that the sheik, even if he might not have the best morals, is not interested in buying some of the most well-known jewels in the world, although he might as well have expressed interest at first. He's actually so concerned about this that he vows to leave England "this night", which strikes me as an unusually realistic line for a Disney comic.


The showdown between Mickey and the thief is just stunning. I'd love to show the whole sequence because it's so captivating, but I don't want to completely spoil the story for those who haven't read it yet. Anyway, Mickey seriously underestimates the guy – his detective expertise ensures that he gets him to admit doing the deed, but he can't hold his own against such a dangerous and cunning person.

MI: Mickey!?

Telephone caller: No, here's a friend of Mickey!


Caller: You're Minnie, right?

MI: Yes, but has something happened to Mickey?


Caller: No, no, don't worry, Miss Minnie! He just can't use the phone right now!

MI: But why?


Caller: Er… he's gotta watch that geezer, you know who! And he needs you!

MI: What am I supposed to do, then?


Caller: You should come to the Odeon Theatre! With photos and negatives!

MI: What photographs?


Caller: You know! The photos from the restaurant and the Tower!

MI: A-ha! So then you must be Mr. Thompson?


Caller: Mr. Thompson? Er… yes, that's right, that's who I am!

MI: Good, I'm coming!


Caller: Fantastic! I'll wait for you backstage! See you there!


[Minnie's smart, you see, and she laid a trap for her caller…]

MI: Good to know! Mickey never told me anything about some 'Mr. Thompson'!


MI: I gotta hurry!


MI: But I won't arrive empty-handed!


MI: I'll take this – just in case!


~~


That facial expression in the eighth panel. Man, this guy IS dangerous. Watch out, Minnie!

"Thompson": Here am I, Miss Minnie!

MI: O…okay, Mr. Thompson!


~~


I actually get goosebumps looking at that panel. So well done. The speech bubble coming from an invisible place hidden by shadows, and a really frightened Minnie in front… amazing bit of staging. The whole page actually, too bad I only scanned the lower third…


Minnie again shows that she's just as capable as Mickey, and attacks Mr. Bad Guy with a pepper pot, which results in her being chased by the crook with a sword (!) and later a pistol…


Did I mention that the bad guy is a criminal genius? There's lots of evidence throughout the story. Given how much he shines in all his menacing irritativeness, it's actually a shame he was destined to be a one-shot character. You rarely see such colourful characters in Disney comics, especially when it comes to bad guys. And even when he was already supposedly "caught", he makes for an escape, adding another unexpected sequence to the story and giving us this hilarious nugget (that's Mickey stuck in a large vase, in case you're wondering):

(Tlang!)

MM: Heeelp! Get me out of this thing!


MM: Stop the thief! He's escaping!


MM: Ooph!

Guard: Halt! Everyone stop!


~~


In the next panel, Mickey utters the classic line "I'm falling! Help! A parachute! Quick!" 😂 Straight out of the best slapstick movies. Arguably it wasn't necessary for the story, but it makes it more fun. Why complain? Well, Mickey and Minnie getting invited to Buckingham Palace and being honored by Her Majesty, the Queen herself is perhaps a tad bit over-the-top, but what other way could this have ended?


So, if you like detective stories, or if you want to read one that isn't written after the most obvious formula, or if you want to see a lot of London in a Disney comic (there really is a lot), or if you want to see Minnie in one of her best roles… you might still want to read this comic despite my spoiling it to you!


PS: The art is so good that at least two different artists copied poses from the story in their own comics! :-)

Mittwoch, 3. März 2021

No, Eric Clapton is *not* racist! (Rant)

"Best of Eric Crapton"

Some statements are like zombies. They keep returning and replicating. And some people are all too willing to parrot simple statements like these. But simple statements are for simple minds...

If you're not aware of what this is referring to, you might be scratching your head and saying "How could a musician who dedicated almost his entire life to playing and celebrating Black music possibly be considered racist?". And that statement wouldn't be false either.

Nonetheless, there is that one incident which is, undoubtedly, a blemish on a career that otherwise can only be considered remarkable. I'm not going to replicate his words here; you can find them elsewhere if you're interested, and they're really horrifying. No denying that.

But there is a larger picture here and anybody who focuses on this one occurrence thinking it is in any way representative of Eric Clapton is engaging in willful ignorance. The incident happened in the middle of his raging alcoholism, which occupied about fifteen years of his life. After getting off heroin in the early 1970s, he slid from one addiction to the next. At the time this was seemingly not seen as much of a problem, and that is very much the problem. Can you imagine going to a gig where the main attraction performs the entire show lying on the stage, with a microphone stand lying beside him? This might sound hilarious, as does the episode where he went out fishing in the middle of the night and then freaked everybody out by returning in a diving suit. But in reality, alcohol had turned Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. An introverted, intelligent, well-mannered man turned into a belligerent idiot. It's almost as if his personality had completely flipped - the only thing the two Claptons had in common were that they both played guitar. There is no film material of the infamous 1976 "speech" but there are bits of video showing him trying to pick a fight with the audience. He comes across as bone-headed and entirely unlikable. Pattie Boyd, his wife at the time, confirms that he was violent under the influence, and that it was not part of his sober personality at all. In his autobiography, he admits that there was always a nutcase inside him waiting to get out, and drinking set it free.

In his autobiography, Clapton also refers to his second time of rehab, since which he has been clean for good, as the beginning of his maturing into a grown-up. And if you analyze all those accounts of his drunken behaviour, they can be summed up in one word: childish. It didn't help that his management (Robert Stigwood) was protecting him from a lot of trouble, this clearly furthered the 'spoiled child' behaviour. He got mad at officials for reading his full name (Eric Patrick Clapton). Can you take anything serious he said in such a state?

In the documentary "Life in 12 Bars", he referred to that awful speech as "the moment that ruined everything". Again, it fits into a pattern - not one of racism, but one of self-destruct. He had car accidents that could've killed him (and others). His unquantifiable alcohol consumption gave him ulcers that could've killed him. It goes on and on. He had no respect for anybody, least of all himself and his own life.

To add context: Those horrifying comments didn't come out of nowhere. Clapton referred to UK parliament member Enoch Powell, already then a polarizing figure but not unpopular. His "rivers of blood" speech on what immigration would turn the UK into was deemed racist back in the day. For the record, Powell always denied being racist. If you define racism as hating others based on their skin colour or heritage, then he doesn't fit the definition. But nowadays it's generally consensus to also label the idea that racial groups have certain intellectual properties racist, and it's a definition I tend to agree with. Of course, genetic disposition is a thing, but not across entire swathes of population. And this kind of prejudice needn't be negative either. If you approach somebody with Indian roots with the clear idea that they must be a mathematical genius, this is still racist because you're basically not willing to accept that human beings are all individual, not just those of your own group. A certain former US president exhibited this kind of behaviour time and time again.

So, Powell does not really fit the bracket of a typical right-wing rabble-rouser, but he was seen as a problematic figure. As evidence, Manfred Mann, who had left South Africa partially because he couldn't stand the Apartheid regime and how it treated Black people, dedicated this instrumental to him after the "rivers of blood" speech. In case you're still wondering about what Manfred thought of him, just read the title "Konekuf" backwards.

Now why would Clapton, always influenced by and admiring Black musicians, come out with support of Powell? It's not an easy question; drunkenness is only part of the answer. First of all, I think many people have some amount of prejudice. We always like to think that we don't but most of us grow up in relatively homogenous surroundings. I'm wary of people who say "I'm the least racist person", because those either lack self-critical insight or modesty. Secondly, the UK has always been a bit funny about this. My father, who's a jazz musician, told me that the British jazz scene is the most isolationist in this part of the world. Just look at the Brexit vote: those beliefs are still very much alive. To be clear: There is a fine line between simply thinking 'mass immigration' is bad for one's country and being actually racist, but Clapton's comments clearly crossed the line, not just through the choice of words. So is he racist, after all?

...I don't think so. I still think it was mostly alcohol-fueled shit-talking. Maybe he was spending a lot of time in pubs where his drinking mates talked like that and he simply parroted something he'd heard the other night. Not really an excuse but an attempt at an explanation. Every ugly cloud has a silver lining, and in this case, people horrified by Clapton's comments started the Rock Against Racism movement in response to this incident (as well as a cocaine-based David Bowie ogling fascism at the time).

Anyway, let's put things into perspective.

In 1968, a very thoughtful and articulate Clapton commented on the conundrum why so many of his main role models and influences didn't get the same amount of media attention that Cream got at the time. Clapton analyzed the situation succinctly and told the interviewer that this was due to ongoing segregation and racism in the USA. In fact, a lot of the original bluesmen (and -women) had received more praise from a white audience in Europe (on the so-called "American Folk Blues Festival" tours) than what would've been possible in the US at that time. For reasons still somewhat mysterious, a lot of young white kids in the Old World, especially the UK, had really latched onto this style of music. It was a dedicated fandom, blues nerdism was a real thing. Those Brits might not have known all the backgrounds of slavery and sharecropping, but there was something universal in the music that spoke to them. Bands like The Rolling Stones, Manfred Mann, The Animals, The Spencer Davis Group, The Yardbirds and later Cream basically re-imported a genuinely American style of music back to the USA, where it was then rediscovered by a larger audience (while people like Mike Bloomfield were similar catalysts on American ground).

In any case, Clapton was well aware of the civil rights movement and said that it needed to progress further towards equality so that his heroes could get their due respect. This is the Clapton I want to remember when he's no longer with us. His statements then are consistent with pretty much his entire career. How?


His formative days were influenced by blues music he heard on the radio and later, on import records. Big Bill Broonzy, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Freddie King and Chuck Berry were among the musicians he payed close attention to. He literally modeled his playing style on those icons of Black music. In 1965, he left The Yardbirds because he was a blues nerd and didn't want to go their way of diluting that element for pop success. His subsequent playing in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers was ground-breaking; the combination of a Gibson Les Paul and overdriven Marshall amps (which he stumbled onto by trying to imitate Freddie King's sound) basically defines the tone of modern blues rock guitar. The famous graffitti "Clapton is God" originates from this period. Mayall himself was extremely educated about the blues and saw it as his mission to introduce his fans to lesser known blues artists - the LP "Crusade" (recorded after Clapton's departure) explicitly states the aim to bring more blues to the radio, and contains a mournful ode to J.B. Lenoir, one of Mayall's biggest influences.

Clapton left Mayall because he had seen Buddy Guy at a gig with just bass and drums and wanted to front his own trio. In the end, Cream was a rather different beast, with multi-instrumentalist Jack Bruce doing most of the singing and songwriting. What didn't change was the reverence for the blues: After he'd already sung Robert Johnson's "Ramblin' on My Mind" on the Bluesbreakers album, Clapton resurrected another Johnson classic with "Four Until Late". And Skip James earned more money from Cream's version of "I'm So Glad" than from anything he had done up to that point.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2015/07/08/jack-bruce-lost-tapes-viii-skip-james-widow-thanks-cream-for-im-so-glad/

As this Jack Bruce interview shows, Cream were not fussy about giving people credit. Clapton even eschewed bringing any new material of his own to Cream's third album "Wheels of Fire" in favour of covering Albert King's "Born Under a Bad Sign" (which was brand new at the time), Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" (aka "Cross Road Blues", combined with elements of Johnson's "Travelling Riverside Blues") and the classic "Sitting on Top of the World" (written by the Mississippi Sheiks but made famous by Howlin' Wolf).

Clapton once also pointed out, correctly, that Cream's heavy blues paved the way for Led Zeppelin. But Willie Dixon had to sue the Zeps for royalties to "Whole Lotta Love", given that they gratuitously used his lyrics of "You Need Love" (recorded by Muddy Waters). This is not the only example of LZ ripping off black artists without giving proper credit, whereas Cream rearranged songs so heavily that they could've at least called themselves co-writers, but didn't. So who's the racist? (As an aside, Clapton admitted that his own "Let It Grow" borrowed heavily, if unconsciously, from "Stairway to Heaven", which he saw as a sort of irony considering how much he had criticized Led Zeppelin...)


If, after all of this, you still consider EC to be a racist, think of this: He has made music with Black artists almost his entire life. The Yardbirds backing up Sonny Boy Williamson didn't work out so well, but a few years later he was invited to play guitar on an Aretha Franklin song, he jammed with Jimi Hendrix and B.B. King and worked his way up, if you will.

In 1986, Clapton's live band consisted of himself, Phil Collins, Greg Philinganes and Nathan East. In other words, it was a 50/50 black/white split. Generously sharing the spotlight, all four bandmembers got to sing some parts of the show. East has been one of his go-to sidemen ever since and Philinganes also worked with him a couple of times more. I could list more names (e.g. his backing singers Michelle David and Sharon White), but you get the idea. If there was more to the allegation than the drunk rant, someone will have come forward about it at some point. I've not heard any tales that he treated fellow musicians different based on their skin.

That said, being the boss of his own band is one thing, but I've also never heard from any African-American blues artist who didn't accept him. He was good friends with Muddy Waters, who invited him to his wedding and even told him to keep the blues alive - Clapton goes as far as saying "The Mud" was almost like the father he never had, and he regrets that this took place in the time alcohol still had a tough grip on him. (Muddy died in 1983.) Robert Cray and Buddy Guy are also on good terms with him. The friendship with B.B. King seems to have been even deeper. B.B. called him a genius and told him "May I live forever, but may you live forever and a day". Of course B.B. was one of the most generous souls who ever walked the earth, but this was unusual even for his standards. Even if their collaboration album "Riding with the King" was a disappointment for me (as a fan of both artists), it probably still brought B.B. some new attention.

My favourite Eric Clapton album was released a few years earlier - I'm talking about "From the Cradle", which is an almost 1:1 reconstruction of classic blues mostly from the Chess Records stable. This was a project dear to his heart; after the tragic death of his son Conor, the ensuing hit single "Tears in Heaven" and the very successful MTV Unplugged album/video, management clearly expected something else but it's just like Clapton to deflect from himself by putting out a love letter to this classic era of Black American music. It has some of his finest playing and some of his most passionate singing ever, and the live gigs - with a fantastic band that featured, among others, Muddy's harmonica player Jerry Portnoy - were even better.

If anybody who bought this album and didn't know the blues before would investigate the work of Leroy Carr, Eddie Boyd, Lowell Fulson, Jimmy Rogers or Charles Brown, the album already was good for something. A few years later, Clapton finally explored his love for Robert Johnson's music at album length. "Me and Mr. Johnson" soon got a sibling in form of "Sessions for Robert J", because EC kept playing with the material. And his more recent albums have usually also included a handful of blues classics such as "Can't Hold Out Much Longer" by Little Walter or "That's No Way to Get Along" by Robert Wilkins. In the final chapter of his autobiography, he goes through names of people who meant the most to him, and they're predominantly Black: Muddy, B.B., Leroy Carr, Little Walter, Ray Charles, Robert Cray and so on.

Cynics might say Eric made a lot of money playing African-American music. It's partially true, but then again he himself has become a main influence on many guitarists, including Jimi Hendrix, Peter Green or Gary Moore. For all of his borrowing of licks, his playing is usually recognizable because it's his own personal expression.

And if we talk about money, we shouldn't go without talking of his charitable actions. After surviving heroin addiction, going through alcohol rehab twice and also finally quitting smoking, he contemplated the fate of many of his musical heroes who didn't get the chance to straighten up their lives - blues and jazz are notoriously littered with addiction casualties. He also thought of people who couldn't afford therapy. Borne out of all this was the Crossroads Center in Antigua, which became a major undertaking for Clapton. He auctioned many of his guitars to raise money (besides the amount that he paid out of his own pocket), and this led to the Crossroads Guitar Festivals, which have usually taken place every three years and seen some of the best line-ups ever. The DVDs of the festivals are usually very recommended and all profits from their sale go to the Crossroads Foundation.

So, I don't take too kindly to people trying to paint him as some kind of villain. He's not faultless but he's mostly worked on himself; he had to overcome a lot of problems and managed to both find personal peace and a good cause to dedicate himself to. If you don't like his music or consider him a bad imitation of real blues guitar playing, that's a much more understandable & valid criticism than "he's racist".

In general, I abhor people who complain about "wokeness" and "cancel culture" because they want to have unchecked free speech and demand the right to offend anybody's sensibilities, which should not fly. But sometimes there is a grain of truth and I think this is it.

See, I'm very much pro equality and against discrimination. Structural and institutional racism is definitely a thing and "we" (= mostly privileged white people) must all work to do away with it. But an ideology that literally does not accept apologies and disregards the idea that someone might actually change their stance (if you can call even a drunken slur a stance) is not what I want to be part of. Clapton, although it's hard to disagree he wasn't really himself, said and did awful things and expressed regret about it. Though I'm not a very religious person, there is the teaching of Jesus that says "He who is faultless may throw the first stone". If you're going to keep on jumping on a man who's done so much since then for one drunken slur he made over forty years ago and that he has repeatedly disavowed, you'd better be sure you have no skeletons of your own somewhere in a closet. Moreover, you should really be taking your attention elsewhere. To me, a racist is someone who doesn't regret making offensive comments. EC doesn't fit that bill. Many people still do and act like that, though, and not just under the influence either. This is what we need to focus on.

Oh, and if you are only using this story in order to defend your personal dislike of his music and to make the ill-informed point that EC is unimportant/talentless/whatever, this is very poor form.

Don't get me wrong: Eric Clapton can be a bit of a pain to be a fan of. His albums are famously differing in quality - for every "From the Cradle" there's a "Back Home" and for every "CLAPTON" there's an "Old Sock". Politically speaking, his recent collaboration with Van Morrison on the subject of "lockdowns" alienated a lot of fans. But while I also criticize him for his unhelpful statements, I'm irritated that now all of a sudden this old stuff gets dragged to the surface again when it's really old hat.

Samstag, 2. Januar 2021

Marillion: Not Afraid of Anoraks

 Marillion are an interesting band. You don't think so? Then you probably only know "Kayleigh", the only song of theirs that radio stations like to play these days. But Marillion's output is actually quite large, including (depending on how exactly you count) up to twenty studio albums and an almost uncountable amount of live releases, plus other oddities like demo albums. I'll take a closer look at the band's reissue strategy in a separate post but this is about the band and their music in general.


Marillion's roots go back into the late 1970s. While progressive rock might have been declared dead by the hip people in London, in more remote areas of the United Kingdom, the music of Yes, Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator, Camel and the like was still popular. Out of this scene, a group emerged in Aylesbury that initially called itself "Silmarillion" after the posthumous J.R.R. Tolkien book, which was then shortened to simply "Marillion".


The very first line-up included Mick Pointer on drums, Doug Irvine on bass and vocals, Martin Jenner on guitar and Neal Cockle on keyboards. The latter two were replaced by Steve Rothery and Brian Jelliman. When Doug Irvine left, he was replaced by two people – bassist Diz Minnitt and vocalist/poet Derek William Dick, commonly known as Fish (for a habit of taking extended baths, when he was living in a place that only allowed you to use the tub at specific times…). The band now had the classic five-man line-up of Genesis and Yes, and started developing into something of a local attraction.


Fish really helped to make Marillion a lot more professional. If you ask yourself what that entails, it included firing almost all the original band members! By the time of the debut single, only guitarist Steve Rothery and drummer Mick Pointer were left from the early incarnation, and Pointer had to go after the first album. (Finding a replacement proved to be a problem, though, only after a couple of drummers the band had found their ideal rhythm engine in Ian Mosley, who has been with Marillion ever since.) Mark Kelly replaced Brian Jelliman on keys and Pete Trewavas came in to take over from Diz Minnitt, which was especially hard on Fish since it was only through the friendship with Diz that he had even got in the band. Nonetheless, Jelliman and Minnitt left a legacy in form of the songs that had been written when they were still in the band ("Market Square Heroes", "Three Boats Down from the Candy", "Grendel", "He Knows You Know", "The Web", "Garden Party", "Forgotten Sons"), and the same goes for Mick Pointer, who's listed as the co-writer of all songs from the first EP and album. (Pointer remained to be pretty bitter about being fired from a band that was just starting to break through, but he later achieved some success with his own band Arena, which has been going for many years now, too.)



From the get-go, Marillion were an anomaly. After all, punk and new wave were supposed to have done away with the "excesses" of prog rock. Yet there they were, playing long, extended pieces with long, extended guitar and keyboard solos, different parts and even the odd odd meter (although Marillion used that element rather sparingly, and sometimes even made a normal 4/4 sound like something more complicated by dividing it up into things like 3+3+2, a trick that would later be used very successfully by bands like U2 and Coldplay!). The music press, especially those writers who thought they had the right to decide what was allowed to be successful and what wasn't, were quick to try and write Marillion off the scene. Alas, it didn't work.



Part of this was down to the fact that there was simply a lot of quality in the band - Steve Rothery's guitar playing was influenced by David Gilmour and Andy Latimer, and he displayed a great ear for a big guitar tone early on; Mark Kelly could dazzle listeners with technique but also lay down atmospheric keyboard tapestry, and Pete Trewavas approached the bass in a way reminiscent of Paul McCartney.


For a lot of people in those days, though, Fish was the main attraction. At first hearing, his voice has some similarities to both Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins (although he would insist that Peter Hamill was the bigger influence), but he's clearly doing his own thing. Fish's vocal delivery had an aggression to it, and on the first two LPs the whole band sounds quite edgy. In fact, while neo-prog (as the new movement would soon be labelled) can be seen as a counter-reaction to the dilettantism of punk and the coldness of synthpop, those trends didn't simply pass Marillion by. I'd wager that this was one reason why they didn't simply disappear, and why you couldn't label them as dinosaurs. They had something to say and they were relevant (not just to people who had lost faith in Genesis and Yes, both of which had become more and more commercial). They expressed a lot of the same angst that spoke through punk too, but with much more finesse and eloquence (Fish's talent as a lyricist and writer was evident right from the first line of "Market Square Heroes", a track that cleverly addressed the wish for revolution without a real goal).


It didn't make sense to the critics, though. Those had simply decided that prog was out and supposed to stay dead. (Steven Wilson, a first-hour Marillion fan and now a musician and producer in his own right, would later find out how much this affected some of the musicians of the first prog era like Robert Fripp, Ian Anderson or Steve Hackett: "They were brainwashed by the media into thinking everything they did in the '70s was worthless junk.") What made matters worse was that they drew crowds and gained a following, which gave some critics the idea that they could not only insult the band, but also its fans.



This ceased, to some degree, after the band's 1985 album "Misplaced Childhood". EMI had already been ready to drop the band given that 1984's "Fugazi" had actually sold less than the debut "Script for a Jester's Tear". Both albums are now regarded as absolute classics of the neo-prog subgenre, but the concept album "Misplaced Childhood" was much more accessible and warm sounding, and even produced several hit singles - not just "Kayleigh", but also "Lavender" (which was elongated for the single) and "Heart of Lothian". Marillion now played in the first row of 80s rock bands, opening for Rush or Queen (in fact they were approached with writing the "Highlander" score, which they declined; as we all know, Queen eventually did the task very successfully).


As is typical when a band has had a massive success, there was a lot of struggling to come up with a follow-up. This was also accompanied by internal wrangling: Some of the band members, especially Mark Kelly, felt Fish was writing too much about his own issues (the main character of "Clutching at Straws" is a writer named "Torch", struggling with alcoholism), and generally there must have been a lot of tension between the band members. "Clutching at Straws" mostly maintained the success of "Misplaced Childhood", but its singles ("Incommunicado", "Sugar Mice" and "Warm Wet Circles") weren't as big smashes despite probably being even more commercially appealing than the 1985 singles. The band reconvened to write its fifth album but by this point, relationships were very tense. The instrumentalists didn't like that Fish was now starting to write from a more political and Scottish point of view, and Fish simply didn't relate to the music he was supposed to marry his lyrics to. Also, he demanded a change of management, feeling that there was too much pressure to tour so that the manager could make money from the band. The other four members felt differently at the time and that was the end of the partnership. (For the record, Marillion parted ways with the management some years later, essentially proving Fish's point.)



Just like Genesis when Peter Gabriel left, a lot of people were quick to write off Marillion as a band. Surely they couldn't continue without their charismatic frontman and lyricist?? But the band simply continued to work on the music they had already started with Fish, and employed a writer named John Helmer (not knowing whether their new singer could write lyrics). In the meantime, Fish launched into his solo career, although the release of his debut "Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors" was delayed in order to avoid a clash with Marillion's first album without him!





Unlike Genesis, Marillion didn't recruit somebody from their own ranks. Steve Hogarth had sung with The Europeans and How We Live, but he wasn't very well known. His timbre was very different from Fish's, but he immediately made clear that his crystal-clear and expressive voice (somewhere between Bono and Mark Hollis) was a force to be reckoned with. "Seasons End" covered a diverse range of topics, from the Northern Ireland conflict ("Holloway Girl" and one of the first Marillion songs starting from an idea by Hogarth, "Easter"), across the Berlin Wall up to the danger of anthropogenic climate change in the title track, something that evidently was already discussed way back in 1989, but not done much about in the years since.



"Holidays in Eden" was probably the last true effort to achieve commercial success, at the behest of EMI, who wanted big single hits. "Cover My Eyes", "No One Can" and a re-recording of "Dry Land" by How We Live all had potential but didn't chart as highly as expected. The reaction was a long, dark and dense concept album called "Brave", which for the first time saw Hogarth and Marillion properly playing to each others' strengths and all pulling in the same direction. Nonetheless, the company was unhappy both with the long gestation period and the fact that the album was so hard to market. They made just one more record for EMI, the very highly praised but again not really big selling "Afraid of Sunlight". This was a more relaxed sounding album that fused many of their trademarks together, all the while opening up into new directions of sophisticated pop.



So now Marillion were on their own. The next three albums, "This Strange Engine", "Radiation" and "marillion.com" (co-produced by Steven Wilson, who'd already worked with Fish for "Sunsets on Empire") all appeared on smaller labels and showed a band somewhat searching for a new direction. All of those albums contained some great songs but also some failed experiments.



The positive experience with a US tour financed by the dedicated fans eventually got Marillion to realize they could release albums without the aid of a record company, thus becoming the pioneers of crowd-funding. 2001 saw the band reconnected with Dave Meegan (producer of "Brave" and "Afraid of Sunlight") and back with a much more focused record.  The album was titled, quite cleverly, "Anoraknophobia", the cover adorned with the cute comic character "Barry". What sounds like "arachnophobia" (fear of spiders) is a nice tribute to the fact that Marillion tended to appeal to a "nerdy" audience, people who feel cast out, uncool or in some other way not quite capable of fitting in. The song "Separated Out" directly deals with this, and it wasn't the band's first ode to outsiders - Fish had already written "Freaks" (1985 b-side) in much the same vein. 



The next album was a major undertaking, "Marbles" turned out to be Marillion's first official double album (unless you count "Brave", which occupies two vinyl records, but fits on one CD), although the full opus was initially only available through the band and the wider public got a scaled-down single CD. (Thankfully, the 2CD edition has been reissued and is now the de facto standard.) This somewhat conceptual piece of music, in its full glory, contains no less than three 10+ minute epics, including the absolutely glorious finale "Neverland", which in my humble opinion might just be the best song ever written and recorded by anyone – but that's just me.



Thanks to their eager fan base, the singles "You're Gone" and "Don't Hurt Myself" saw Marillion return to the British charts, the former even was their first Top Ten hit since 1987! Marillion had regained their position as a respectable band, and were no longer dependent on their fans. But here's the surprising thing: The fans really wanted to continue supporting the band. So, essentially, all the albums after "Somewhere Else" were pre-financed by the fan base.




I could go on and on about Marillion but to be honest, the Wikipedia entry does all this better (and I've nicked some bits from there too). But the relationship to the fans (aka "freaks" or "anoraks") deserves an even closer look. What is it that Marillion do differently? Well, for a start, they know how to satisfy fans hungry for music by their favourite band. This is why there are so many live releases (some only as downloads or fan-club exclusive releases), and why Marillion have also issued "making of" discs containing demos and writing sessions. They're not fussed about putting out material that they may themselves not be entirely happy with. They're not greedy and picky in that regard, which is a total opposite from many artists who like to control their public image so much that they don't release anything from their archives, or only a few precious outtakes. Marillion, on the other hand, don't mind being self-deprecating with titles such as "Proggin' Around the Christmas Tree" (for a while, they would release Christmas mini-albums for the fans, containing one festive classic and a couple of band rarities), "Unzipped" or "Keep the Noise Down". In fact, contrary to the main tenor of their music – which is definitely on the melancholy side of the spectrum – they have exhibited quite a bit of humour over the years with album titles and cover artwork.


Knowing that they have a steady and devoted audience that will likely purchase most of what they put out, Marillion have been able to make a decent living and are now actually making more money from their music than during what seemed to be their heyday. Even so, you can't really accuse the band of being money-grabbers. They give the fans what they want and the fans reward this with buying the CDs and concert tickets. Win-win situation!


There is a feeling of familiar closeness between the band and their fan clubs, too. Out of the fan conventions with small, intimate acoustic gigs (some of which were recorded for posterity), something much bigger grew: The Marillion Weekend! This is probably the - excuse me - wet dream of any devoted fan of a band. Just imagine: You spend an entire weekend with like-minded people and not only get to enjoy three (initially two) concerts by your favourite band, but can also interact with them during various activities such as "Swap the band" (jamming Marillion songs with the members themselves!).


Of course, virtually all the Weekends were filmed and recorded and released in the form of live DVDs and CDs, which partially explains why Marillion have released sooooo many live albums. Surprisingly, they aren't as redundant as one might think, because…  a) Marillion songs have a tendency to improve live . For all the band's perfectionism in the studio, desire to recreate the studio recordings as closely as possible and not particularly jam-friendly nature, they often get elevated by the feedback of the audience inspiring the band to perform the songs more passionately. b) When you confront an audience of dyed-in-the-wool fans that know your catalogue inside out, you can't knock out your greatest hits and be done with it. Especially not if you see the same people the next night, and the night after that! Not to mention that they pay a lot to see different setlists, so Marillion always deliver. Often, these are themed setlists, and the most common one is simply playing an entire album (given that the Weekends happened long after Fish it's not surprising that it's only the post-Fish albums that have been played in full):


1989's Seasons End (2009, "Out of Season" and "Live in Montreal")

1991's Holidays in Eden (2011, "Holidays in Zélande")

1994's Brave (2002 and 2013)

1995's Afraid of Sunlight (2003, "Before First Light" and reissued as part of "Breaking Records")

1997's This Strange Engine (2007, "This Strange Convention")

1998's Radiation (2013, "Clocks Already Ticking" reissued as "Breaking Records")

1999's marillion.com (2017, "marillion.cl")

2001's Anoraknophobia (2015, "Out of the Box")

2004's Marbles (2005, "Marbles by the Sea", 2015, "Out of the Box")


2008's Happiness is the Road: Essence (2019, not released yet)

2012's Sounds That Can't Be Made (2013, "A Sunday Night Above the Rain" – but it's out of order)

2016's F*** Everyone and Run (2017, not released but probably because "All One Tonight" already contains a full live version of the album)


Other setlists have centered around singles, covers and rarities or – yes – the Fish era.


But even on a normal tour, Marillion tend to defy expectations. This doesn't come without drawbacks; I remember seeing the band in late 2018 (shortly after Mark Kelly had managed to somehow collide with a truck while running - but he was back on stage within days after the accident!) and trying to point out to a woman after the gig that there isn't really much point in Hogarth trying to sing "Kayleigh" when there is so much more material from his period with the band (13 albums vs. 4 with Fish) that also suits his voice better. Even then, they might sometimes overstep the line a bit by focusing on the long, dark material that mainly appeals to their hard-core fans, when they could also charm the casual concertgoers with more accessible songs like "Map of the World", "You're Gone", "Don't Hurt Yourself" or "The Damage".

  

All in all, Marillion are an admirable group of people. They have stayed around in spite of trends and fads, and have somehow managed to cement their place in the rock scene. Their music is instantly recognizable and unlike every other band - taking cues from Pink Floyd, Genesis, U2, Talk Talk, or even younger bands like Radiohead and Coldplay, they still managed to create an identity that's simply Marillion. The characteristic voices of (first) Fish and (later) Steve Hogarth, coupled with Steve Rothery's crystalline arpeggios and soaring leads and Mark Kelly's cinematic keyboard soundscapes, are the main columns of Marillion.



Their catalogue is well worth exploring. :-)