GRAHAM BOND LIVE AT THE BBC AND OTHER STORIES

Covering a ten year period starting in 1962, Live at the BBC and Other Stories is another four-CD set of Graham Bond material from Repertoire following their acclaimed Wade In The Water in 2012 and digs deeper to uncover all of Bond’s BBC output – under his own name and featured with other artists – plus bonus material sourced from private home recordings, early jam sessions and rare EP material.

There’s a strong focus on the less celebrated chapters of Bond’s career, namely pre and post the classic Organization line-up. His first recordings, as a member of the Don Rendell Quintet (check Roarin’ from 1961), was as an alto saxophonist and a September ‘62 session gives evidence why he’d claim runner up in Melody Maker’s “New Star” jazz poll that year. Weeks later, foreseeing the changing club landscape, he left Rendell and would then be found behind a Hammond organ – with his name centre-stage - creating a tough, uncompromising amalgamation of R&B, soul, jazz and blues. Introductions by BBC presenters Steve Race, George Melly, Pete Drummond and John Peel have been retained and provide valuable background context to the fractious jazz scene as well as many droll moments. “Ginger Baker looking like a Francis Bacon portrait in 3D,” suggests, not unreasonably, Melly.

Bond’s final years saw deepening drug addiction, deteriorating mental health and a preoccupation with the occult, but his fiery rhythmic 1972 set with Pete Brown demonstrates despite personal distractions he had he could still conjure musical magic. These live versions are far more vigorous than the ones found on Bond’s studio albums of the era. Even more spectacular are two 1970 sessions by the Graham Bond Initiation. Quarter of an hour versions of ‘Wade In The Water’ aren’t for the faint hearted but Bond’s flamboyance and relentless, driving power make them a spectacular tour de force. There are five takes on ‘Wade In The Water’ in total, a track to which Bond repeatedly returned and one perfect for allowing his bands freedom to stretch in whatever direction they felt.

Some of the audio quality of the non-BBC material falls into the collectors-only category and interrupts the flow of the collection. Although at a running time of four and a half hours the set works best by picking and choosing individual sessions at a time. There are also points deducted for the disappointing packaging: two jewel-cases wrapped in a thin card cover with information spread awkwardly across two booklets. It’s a real pity the packaging doesn’t match the book-style and quality of the previous Repertoire box. However, these quibbles don’t’ negate this as a treasure trove from a tremendously talented and magnetic performer. 

A version of this review first appeared in Shindig! issue 53, available now, £4.95.

BEWARE OF MR. BAKER (2013)

Jay Bulger climbs into the seat of his car after conducting the last interview with the subject of his film. Ginger Baker, mad-eyed and screaming, is doing his pieces, jabbing the heavy silver handle of his walking cane through the open window. “Are you really going to hit me with your stick?” asks Bulger nervously but with a hint of a come-on. “I fucking am! I’m gonna put you in fucking hospital!” WHACK. Blood streams for the bridge of his nose.

If it can ever be considered lucky to get walloped in the face by a crazed pensioner Jay Bulger struck lucky there as it gave a handy framework to his film and underscored (should it need underscoring) what an unpleasant individual Ginger Baker is. The sign at the entrance to his South African home - “Beware of Mr Baker” - was no idle threat.

When Ginger was four his dad died in war but left him a letter to be opened when he reached fourteen. In it he advised, “Be a man at all times. Your fists are your best pals”. As Beware of Mr. Baker unravels (the title taken from the sign that greets visitors to Baker’s South African home) it appears to be the only advice Ginger has ever taken.     

The story of his colourful life is mostly told - often begrudgingly - by Ginger himself; propped up in his armchair, shaking smoking and swearing like a thirsty Father Jack Hackett. A raft of famous musicians chip in about what an incredible talent he is whilst a host of family members talk about what a dreadful man he is. His first wife (four and counting) and children deserve credit for telling their parts with such good humour considering the awful episodes he put them through.

Beware of Mr. Baker is no Searching For Sugar Man; no heart-warming tale. It is, however, frequently funny due to Ginger being, how shall I put it, a bit of a character. When Bulger asks a question he doesn’t like he quickly snaps. When recounting his early days in the jazz clubs with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated he mentions “Graham”. Bulger asks him to clarify, for the sake of the film, who Graham was. An exasperated Baker replies through gritted teeth and thinks of the money, “Graham Bond was a fat guy”. It is left to the likes of Jack Bruce and a debonair Charlie Watts to fill in the gaps.

Blues Incorporated, Graham Bond Organisation, Cream, Blind Faith, Airforce and his later musical excursions get covered as does his restless wanderings and lunatic capers in Hawaii, Jamaica, Nigeria, America, Italy and South Africa where the only things he gave a toss about were his polo horses, his dogs and his drums.  

Cream - we are told by a succession of rock star drummers - were the first progressive band, the first super group, the first band to play big arenas, the first band to play long jams, the first band to break away from the chains of pop, the band instrumental in giving birth to heavy metal and Ginger was the pioneer of the rock drummer. If that’s not a terrible rap sheet I don’t know what is.

But do not, under any circumstances, refer to Ginger as a “rock drummer”. He is, he insists, a “jazz drummer” and claims his gods are Phil Seamen, Max Roach, Art Blakey and Elvin Jones who are now dear friends who are “worth more to me than anything in the world”. I doubt his son - who Baker told he didn’t care what happened to him - would contradict that statement. The footage of Ginger playing drums alongside those fellas is brilliant and maybe, just maybe, he is almost as great as he thinks he is. “It’s a gift from God. You’ve either got it or you haven’t; and I had it.”

I disliked Baker after reading his autobiography Hellraiser and there’s little here to change my opinion but as an entertaining subject for a film, he’s box-office gold.

Beware of Mr. Baker, written and directed by Jay Bulger, is in selected cinemas or can be watched on-line (£10) at Curzon Home Cinema.

MARCH PLAYLIST

Ten tracks currently on rotation in Monkey Mansions.

1.  Leadbelly – “The Bourgeois Blues” (1938)

Washington DC was the bourgeois town in question when Leadbelly, Alan Lomax and their respective wives tried checking into hotels as an multi-racial group. “Well, me and my wife we were standing upstairs/ We heard the white man sayin’ I don't want no niggers up there”.

2.  Jimmy Jones – “A Wondrous Place” (1960)

My Saturday morning routine involves tuning into old Brian Matthew on Radio 2 for his Sounds of The 60s show. What makes it essential is the way he mixes the familiar with things I’ve never heard before like this, which Billy Fury quickly covered (without Jones's warm, rich vocal).

3.  Graham Bond Organization – “So-Ho” (1964)

Neglected by the reissue market to the point where I’ve never even seen a Best of Graham Bond CD, the recent Wade In The Water: Classics, Origins & Oddities 4-CD set puts that right with aplomb. This swinging jazz instrumental was originally released on an EP by Ernest Ranglin and the GBs and features Ranglin on guitar, Bond on organ, Jack Bruce on bass, Ginger Baker on drums and is one of 96 fantastic (many previously unreleased) tracks in the box.

4.  Johnny Mae Mathews (Johnnie Mae Matthews)  – “I Have No Choice” (1969)

One of those records that stops you in your tracks. Released on Big Hit, it was no such thing, but it is one of the classiest soul records to ever come out of Detroit, where Matthews was the first African-American woman to own a record label and a big influence on an enterprising young Berry Gordy Jr.

5.  Ramones – “Oh Oh I Love Her So” (1978)

I saw a photograph the other day of one of the punchable scrots from One Direction wearing a box-fresh Ramones t-shirt. I’d love to ask him what his favourite track from Leave Home is.

6.  23 Skidoo – “Vegas El Bandito” (1982)

Like a malfunctioning fruit machine attempting to break dance down the Strip only to be confronted by an elephant on the loose.        

7.  Primal Scream – “So Sad About Us” (1987)

Unlike all the other versions - The Who, The Merseys, The Jam etc - Primal Scream actually sound sad about their breakup. Brilliant stuff Bobby, brilliant.       

8.  The Lemonheads – “Pin Your Heart To Me” (1996)

It sneaked out to little fanfare in 2011 but the 47-track Laughing All The Way To The Cleaners/The Best Of shows how many great songs they’ve done including Dando’s masterly covers like this, tucked away on the B-side of “The Outdoor Type” and originally released by Jacobites in 1985.

9.  Comet Gain – “The Kids In The Club” (2008)

The best Comet Gain songs are their garage drunk northern soul ones that sound like they were recorded on a cheap cassette player. 

10.  The Primitives – “Lose The Reason” (2013)

Our friends Tracy Tracy and Paul Court duet on a swirling self-penned new single which teases at the promise of a new album.

JUNE PLAYLIST

This month’s trawl through the sounds currently rocking Monkey Mansions.

1.  The Ravens – “Rock Me All Night Long” (1952)

Jimmy Ricks’s big bass voice was one of the most instantly recognisable in doo-wop.  When he wanted rocking, he wanted rocking. This track is taken from a splendid new compilation on Bear Family Records, Street Corner Symphonies. The Complete Story of Doo Wop Volume 4: 1952.   

2.  Wanda Jackson – “Tongue Tied” (1961)

It is difficult to choose between Wanda’s rockabilly sides and her country sides but this puts forward a case for the former.

3.  Wes Montgomery – “Besame Mucho” (1963)

For me, what separates jazz guitarists like Wes and Grant Green from their rock counterparts is they understood space and time.  Wes’s crazy flipper fingers do tons of work yet there’s room to breathe between the notes and I can’t imagine him going all squinty eyed and grimacing whist he’s doing it. Featured on his rather good Boss Guitar LP with Mel Rhyne on Hammond and Jimmy Cobb on drums (jazzers like to name the whole band).  Muchos besos para Wes.
  

4.  Oscar Brown Jr – “Forty Acres and a Mule” (1965)

Brown recalls learning in school that all freed slaves were entitled to forty acres and a mule.  Now he wants his. 

5.  Jackie Mittoo – “Get Up and Get It” (1969)

Mittoo started out playing piano in the Skatalites before becoming musical arranger for Jamaica’s Studio One recordings.  “Get Up and Get It” is firmly in the funky-soul-jazz territory occupied elsewhere at the time by Booker T. & The MGs and The Meters. 

6.  Bond and Brown – “Scunthorpe Crabmeat Train Sideways Boogie Shuffle Stomp” (1972)

Graham Bond made Two Heads Are Better Than One with Pete Brown and is, as this title suggests, a doolally jazz poetry affair.  It would be his last LP and a suitably bonkers one to leave on.

7.  J.P. Robinson – “George Jackson” (1972)

In April’s Playlist I raved about Bob Dylan’s original version but hot on its heels came this soul stirrer.  One of the best Dylan covers I’ve ever heard.

8.  The Who – “The Real Me” (1973)

If you missed Can You See The Real Me? The Making of Quadrophenia on the telly last night you missed a treat.  Far from covering old ground about the record there was rarely seen live footage, new interviews with Townshend and Daltrey, old clips of Entwistle and Moon, Pete revealing notes and letters from his archive, interviews with some of the kids featured in the album booklet, Irish Jack revisiting the Goldhawk Road Social Club and loads more including Mark Kermode helpfully explaining what a double album was.     

9.  Devo – “Jocko Homo” (1977)

“Are we not men? We are Devo.”

10.  Crass – “Poison In A Pretty Pill” (1981)

When Jonny Wilks and I walked home from school we’d either sing Smiths albums from start to finish or repeat the title of Crass’s Penis Envy LP in as many ridiculous voices as possible.  I only heard the record for the first time this week.  Me and Jonny took great delight in serenading Ickenham residents to Morrissey’s “You can pin and mount me like a butterfly”; I’m sure “I want to rape the substance of your downy hair” would’ve gone down just as well.

JANUARY PLAYLIST

Some favourites this month.

1. Henry “The Hipster” Gibson – “Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs Murphy’s Ovaltine?” (1944)
Mrs Murphy liked a cup of Ovaltine at night to help her sleep, until one night somebody spiked it with Benzedrine. Things were never quite the same again.

2. Screaming Gospel Chordettes – “I Can’t Believe It” (1958)
The Screaming Gospel Chordettes hurtle along chasing an organ accompaniment and surveying the troubles, wars, bloodshed and even sputniks around them.

3. The Alan Bown Set – “Jeu De Massacre” (1967)
Write a bunch of songs for a soundtrack album and then stich them together to make a single instead. The result is suitably madcap not least for the playground gun-shot sounds.

4. The Lloyd Alexander Real Estate – “Watcha’ Gonna Do (When Your Baby Leaves You)” (1967)
Swinging club soul from the Far East: Hackney.

5. Grahame Bond – “Moving Towards The Light” (1968)
By 1968 Graham had taken an E and in his music was all sunshine and flowers, make love not war. His Love Is The Law album is hippy Age of Aquarius claptrap from start to finish yet curiously engaging.

6. Felt – “I Will Die With My Head In Flames” (1986)
Felt’s ten albums neatly straddle the whole of the 80s; not that I was listening. Now, I hear the past and the future in them.

7. Morrissey – “I’ve Changed My Plea To Guilty” (1991)
When the Queen famously accused Morrissey of not being able to sing in 1986 he replied “that’s nothing, you should hear me play piano”. Unbelievers may scoff at the very thought, but here Moz – just backed with a piano – gives the vocal of his life.

8. The Pink Mountaintops – “The Gayest of Sunbeams” (2009)
When I was at school I was accused of making up bands. Whaddya mean you’ve never heard of the Direct Hits? This looks like I’ve made up the band and the song title.

9. Lumerians – “Burning Mirror” (2010)
Hold on tightly, we’re going for a white-knuckle lysergic ride.

10. The Electric Stars – “Between The Streets and The Stars” (2012)
How you view The Electric Stars will depend almost entirely on how you view the Brit-Pop era. “Between The Streets and The Stars” may have got lost in the scrum back then but now it's so out of step it almost sounds subversive. The chorus has most definitely infiltrated my brain.

JANUARY PLAYLIST

It’s that time again to look back on what’s been playing in Monkey Mansions. Feel a bit guilty about not including a Bob Dylan track seeing as how I played over twenty of his LPs this month but competition is tough. Ten songs in 27 minutes and a winner every one.

1. Sister Rosetta Tharpe – “This Train” (1946)
Wonderful to see Tharpe gather a new batch of admirers this month. Easy to hear why.

2. Graham Bond Organization – “Long Legged Baby” (1964)
Mr. Bond, ably assisted by Messer’s Baker, Bruce and especially Heckstall-Smith, tears it up.

3. Melvin Davis – “It’s No News” (1964)
A clippity-cloppity dancer featuring the immortal lines “If a monkey rode a donkey on a trip to the moon and got back by noon – that’s news” is more than enough to secure a place in this month’s highlights.

4. Q65 – “Cry In The Night” (1966)
Few beat combos could out-punk the Pretty Things like Dutch delinquents Q65.

5. The Golden Dawn – “My Time” (1967)
This is the way to make a psychedelic garage record.

6. Jim Sullivan – “U.F.O.” (1969)
Jim Sullivan had the voice of a giant singing marshmallow. Maybe he still has, but he vanished into thin air in 1975. An alien abduction seems the most likely explanation.

7. New York Dolls – “(There’s Gonna Be A) Showdown” (1974)
My money’s on the other guy. Johansen and the other Dolls can hardly stand, bless ‘em.

8. The Sea Urchins – “Pristine Christine” (1987)
The Sea Urchins were hindered by having a singer whose voice peeled the paper from damp bedsit walls but with the jingle-jangle set to ten it provides just enough distraction.

9. Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan – “Hawk” (2010)
How can fair maiden Isobel be responsible for this junkyard howl “Green Onions”?

10. Lloyd Cole – “Westchester County Jail” (2010)
There were about four contenders from Broken Record. This is the most “instant”.

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AUGUST PLAYLIST

Been having a dig back through some oldies this month, helped by a mysterious white cat.

1. Ed Bruce – “I’m Gonna Have A Party” (1964)
According to Wikipedia, Ed Bruce is a country music songwriter and singer best known for his 1975 hit “Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys”. I’ll have to listen to that one in bit but around here he’s best known for a couple of big voiced, string laden singles for Wand including this morose mid-tempo mover where he invites only heartache, blues, misery and memories of you to his party.

2. The Graham Bond Organization – “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Wolf?” (1965)
Bond, Baker, Bruce and Heckstall-Smith all hurtle headlong into Jimmy Smith’s instrumental desperate to steal the limelight. Bond wins of course, managing to play organ and mellotron simultaneously, and then organ and alto simultaneously. Magick.

3. The Distant Cousins – “Let It Ring” (1965)
I always imagined The Distant Cousins as a groovy moptopped beat combo a la Standells. They weren’t. Raymond L Bloodworth and L Russell Brown actually looked disappointingly square, not that you’d ever have guessed from this infectious and irresistible would-be Merseybeat stomper.

4. Etta James – The Same Rope (1967)
The indomitable Ms James has a message for her wayward lover: “The same rope that pulls you up – sure can hang you”. Consider yourself warned, boy.

5. The Us Too – “The Girl With The Golden Hair” (1967)
Like countless others, Cincinnati band The Us Too served up covers to the local kids at the hop. What those kids made of this moody garage rocker with a wonky organ and a runaway flute is anyone’s guess.

6. Powder – “Gladly” (1968)
I’d forgotten how brilliant Powder were until revisiting their Biff! Bang! Powder compilation the other day. The closest thing the US had to The Who in their pop art pomp.

7. Big Joe Turner – “Two Loves Have I” (1969)
“Two loves have I, and both of them are you”. Big Joe’s ode to his schitzo girlfriend was a big hit around Shoreditch and Old Street back in the halcyon days of 2002. “Shoobie-doo, shoobie-doo”.

8. The Stairs – “Fall Down The Rain” (1992)
Seems appropriate.

9. The Coral – “Two Faces” (2010)
Sounds more like an amalgamation of The Byrds, The Hollies and Buffalo Springfield than even Crosby, Stills and Nash.

10. Pocketbooks – “Sweetness and Light” (2010)
Who or what replaced yuppies? Pocketbooks sound like a bunch of them who, when collecting Joshua and Honeypot from playgroup, pinch their kids’ instruments and tunelessly lisp passages from their novels-in-progress over the backing of toy drums and Bontempi organ. I can find no rational explanation for playing their Flight Paths album at least twenty times this month but I have, and bizarrely love it.

HELLRAISER by GINGER BAKER

I wouldn’t expect Nick Kent to challenge Art Blakey to a drum battle and I don’t expect Ginger Baker to raise the bar in music writing but even by rock autobiography standard this is disappointing. Never the easiest person to warm to, there’s little here to thaw Baker’s public persona. Showing little emotion (beyond the occasional burst of anger) he comes firmly from an era and a mindset where men were men and spoke with their fists, women were always chicks, and homosexuals were nancy boys. He leaves an impression of a sexist, snobbish, arrogant thug full of an inflated sense of self importance.

There’s no disputing his prowess behind the drums (as he relates countless times) nor the standard of bands he played with during the early 60s jazz scene and then the Graham Bond Organisation, Cream, Blind Faith, Airforce and all his African projects yet nothing is given a context; there’s no sense of changing eras or environments, just a loop of drums-drugs-chicks-fights, with a few road traffic accidents and horses thrown in. When a book about a musician doesn’t create the urge to discover or rediscover their music you know there’s something wrong. And when all the would-be interesting music stuff is confined to the first half of the book the second half is a chore.

I had to laugh though when he bleats like a child about his lack of song writing royalties from Cream. The way he tells it he should be entitled to a share of the royalties because he changed the intro to “White Room” from 4/4 time into a 5/4 bolero. That’s not really how song writing works dear boy. I might record Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” in the style of the Ramones tomorrow and see if Eric will cut me in for a slice.

There’s no need for another Rock Star’s My Drug Hell saga but his drug addiction is so lightly touched on there’s little appreciation for it. Maybe it was no big deal. The most memorable thing about first taking smack was it enabled him the complete a couple of crosswords. Elsewhere his callousness is startling: events such as abortions are passed over in two lines. He then gives up said chick as his polo club deems she comes from too poor a family. Charmed, I’m sure. Likewise, if he refers to the death of a close friend as “sad” you can call that a deep show of emotion. At his own son’s wedding service he fell asleep and acted like a dick all day without a shred of remorse.

Baker also whinges about – and stopped publication of – other biographies about him, referring to them as “crap”. Hellraiser, and his reluctance to open up and move beyond A to B to C, leaves the reader wondering if instead of being crap they merely got closer to an even more uncomfortable truth.

Hellraiser by Ginger Baker is published by John Blake, priced £18.99

PS: How bloody great does Eric Clapton look in that picture?