Early Ultravox on CD
Al Crawford
John Foxx' first three solo albums out on CD I'm bowing to requests from
a number of the signatories to the Foxx letter to start something similar
rolling for the first three Ultravox albums.
It's a great shame that these albums ("Ultravox!", "Ha! Ha! Ha!" and
"Systems Of Romance") have never made it to the silver discs in their
entirety - Island *have* released a single disc compilation "Three Into One"
but it misses out a lot of good material. Hence, I'm going to put together
a letter to Island, hopefully accompanied by a lot of names and addresses,
asking them to consider releasing these albums on CD. The more names the
better, since this will give them an indication of the amount of interest
there would be in the albums. If you want to be included, read on...
E-mail me your name and conventional (ie snail) mail address to either the
address given in my signature or aw...@lfcs.ed.ac.uk. The first address is
preferable but I've found that some folks mailers go into hysterics when
faced with underscores. I'm fairly busy so I'll let the list of names stew
for a month or so before actually drafting a letter and mailing it around the
list for suggestions. I'll also post it here so that people can confirm their
names have been received if I can't get mail to them (Kenneth Stuart - your
name was added to the Foxx list but every piece of mail I've tried to get to
you confirming this bounced).
If you are already on the Foxx list, there's no need to mail me your details
again as I'm carrying forward all the names from that list by default. If
you *don't* want to be on this list, drop me a line and I'll remove you.
--
Al Crawford - Al_Cr...@edinburgh.ac.uk
"All the same, we talk on telephones across the haze."
hal
As its name implies, the Civic Plaza forms an open space between the Roman
grandeur of San Francisco's city hall, large enough for a state capital
building, and the equally intimidating auditorium, library, and other
imposing features of the city-state. A pool, its waters absent because
of drought, would have mirrored city hall at one end and the stage for
the rally musicians at the other, but instead served as a play area for the
people gathering for the event. Tour buses whizzed right behind the
stage platform, occupants of the second tier bemusedly at eye level with
the performers who were no more than twenty feet away.
I had driven in early, fearful of parking conditions, but the rally lurched
from a slow start to finally fill during Country Joe MacDonald's set.
Using the time beforehand, I walked between the trees that formed a setting
like that at the Bandshell in Golden Gate Park, their pruning making a
giant vineyard plonked in the middle of a concrete field, and browsed the
many booths. Interests reflected the people attending: lone waifs with
sandwich signs crying "test on rapists not rabbits"; Green Queers; Airplane
fans sporting tour shirts and walking their dogs; punks, bikers, surfers,
hippies, Cosmic Eggplant buses, and the general street riff-raff that
any installation of a stage and speakers would attract.
Booths on saving Mexican sea-turtles were lined up with those selling
animal tiles; a large group of animal behavioralists pitched their cause
of taming feral animals next to hawkers of herbal remedies for men.
Pausing before one t-shirt booth, I found myself gazing on an item with
a raccoon, gunsite markers over its head and the caption "fashion victim";
to my left the same shirt was being admired by a lady in black stretch pants
and black light jacket, and sportively shoed in tennies and short white
leg-warmers. Finding myself thinking that her long frizzled black hair made
her look like Grace Slick, I was suddenly startled by the fact that it was.
That chin! It had to be Grace!
Now many fans would be obnoxious and shout out "hey Grace!" and ask a silly
on-the-spot question or two, and in this respect I was nowise different; a
mild panic set in, because who would have imagined running into her away from
the balconies?
Having heard a loudspeaker announcement earlier which asked Paul Kantner to go
to stage left, I pondered a nervous second before asking "are you and Paul
going to play something from the new album?"
She looked at me as if a banana slug which she didn't want to hurt had just
taken up residency on her tennies.
"That's something that Elliot [one of the animal activists organizing the
event] put on--no, we're not; I'm not having anything to do with that."
"You mean you aren't on the album Paul is working on?"
"No." The answer seemed definitive, and if Kantner was on hand during the
long day, I didn't see him. This was ladies day, and neither she nor China
needed his help.
But animal rights activism, as her fans know, is a fairly new development
in her long career, and one in which:
"I just got into . . . a couple of years ago--to show how naive I was, I
went out and wanted to buy a panda as a pet! But these people [In Defense of
Animals] sent me some literature which taught me a lot, and changed how I
looked at things--you know, we test animals but that's not how _we_ are, and
I nearly died after taking a drug called Zomax, which had only been tested on
animals."
Unfortunately, as one does in such moments, I didn't have presence of mind to
find out more about her medically-prescribed brush with death, and could
only ask one more safe question--was she going to play the panda song?
Her eyes lit up momentarily as she turned toward me--wearing a panda t-shirt.
Briskly moving to the next booth without further gaze, she called back flatly
"I'll try to work that one in."
Go for it!
Even without the late-summer warmth of the June day I would have been in a
good mood after that, so I sauntered back to the main booth to buy a poster
and some raffle tickets, hoping that my lucky streak would continue toward
Grace's artwork contribution, an ink drawing of a panda's face.
On stage a short, lithe female figure in matching black stretch pants but
without the socks kicked-off the rally with a sarcastic comment about the
"ten thousand people who showed up"; it was a premature statement by China
Kantner, who has her mother's face and her father's hair, but she gamely
gave the animal rights pitch and did her best to introduce the musicians.
As Laura Mauro and Rosemary Richards warmed-up the crowd, more and more
people walked up and sat down in front of the stage. Dogs were the most
prominent animal apart from the people, and both managed to enjoy themselves
as they sniffed around the lazy and relaxed Saturday afternoon without too
many untoward incidents. Beer was even on sale, and vegetarian smells
wafted with the somewhat breezy air. Al Rapone and the Zydeco Express
started the dancing with Cajun calls, and Michael Marx of the Rainforest Action
Network was the first of many speakers, somewhat breathless for having jetted
there in-between official business.
Comfortably seated on the concrete rim of the empty pool, I sipped my Redhook
ale and listened to Country Joe MacDonald's set; he was joined by a thin
tall guy with a long brown pony tail who played along with an instrument
that was a fraternal siamese twin cross between a mandolin and a guitar.
Instead of the national anthem, we heard a spirited version from Country Joe's
acoustic guitar of "This Land is Your Land"; the Woody Guthrie tune, not to
mention the entire set, was influenced by the military ticker-tape parade which
the crowd was paying for from Washington, D.C. Let the participants of
Desert Storm be aware of this gathering: "did you know that 30% of SF's
homeless were Vietnam vets?" Country Joe remarked; "Hell no!!!" the many vets
in attendance shouted back, "it's 45%--shame on you Joe for not knowing!"
The acoustic duo sound was so good that I couldn't help yelling: "who's playing
with you?" MacDonald looked at the guy, who was almost about to burst with
happiness over being singled out, "that's Nicky Fisher and that's a mandolin
guitar that he made; just ask him, or offer him something to smoke, and he
might just make one for ya, too!"
The folk tunes continued with "Tennesse Stud" and the newish "Entertainment
Tonight"; and "give me an 'f'!" C.J. started as his usual old joke. A spiel
for the vets continued with "1-2-3-4," but he finally got around to animals
with a fine version of "Coyote." With rainforests in mind, he appeased the
deadheads with "Clara Barton," his collaboration with Jerry Garcia, then went
into the expected "Save the Whales" which humored the throng to no end. It
was but one highlight of many that day, and he fleshed it out with an encore
of the old Buffalo Springfield song, "For What it's Worth." Only one
little complaint--no dolphin song.
A sharp transition was instituted by Consolidated, white boy rappers who
grabbed crotch and break-danced to a tune of anti-homophobia; "there's lots
of groups represented today, and we have to show we're all family." The
hippies in the crowd grinned to find themselves moving to this rap, as if
such a thing were ludicrous yet they couldn't help but dance madly anyway.
Some patches of China muttering animal rights messages were woven
into the heavily synthesised bass line, echo, echo, and the Green Queers
and punkettes had their dancing moment.
More speakers followed, and after each set a raffle was held--not believing
my luck, I was startled to hear my name called out during the second one, which
provoked a long meander from booth to booth to find out what I had just won.
The ladies running the lottery could have easily been from a garden club,
and chirpily told me to wait until the end of day: "don't you want to keep
your prize a suspense?" Grace later remarked to the many winners, who jumped
around from place to place, smiles on their faces but anticipation keeping
their brows knit.
"I don't need a cue card for this one," China dead-panned before her mother's
set, and then promptly started a rag about "this lady used to be known as the
acid queen of the sixties, and given how many drugs she has taken, it's sur-
prising that I turned out normal!"
Grace arched a cynical eyebrow toward her daughter, somewhat taken aback,
"normal? who said anything about _normal_?" She quickly walked up to the mic,
commandeering it, but China was wise enough to change the subject. "This
person has lots of raccoon pictures all around the house"--aha, add that
to balconies as her favorite things 8')--"and gives lots of her time--and
MONEY--to animal causes . . . my mother, Grace Slick!"
Giving evidence that Paul was an unnecessary part of her post-retirement life,
she gave the usual denials that she could do anything more than a mediocre
turn at the piano, and then launched solo into a trilogy of songs that sand-
whiched the "Panda" tune; first and last were new to me, having the air of
self-therapy that you find on her solo albums. All those times at the keyboard
during the last Airplane tour taught her self-confidence, and as she played
the synthesised wood-wind, oboe, and hint of bell settings, it was easy to
imagine the tunes as coming from the "Dreams" album.
"Goddess of Greed" mocked the economic interest that drives the destruction
of the environment from a selfish personal point of view; it was followed by
the obligatory "Panda" song wherein Grace demonstrated that her self-imposed
retirement had not impaired her voice at all; in fact, fresh
from rest, it transcended any of the versions done during the taxing last
Airplane tour: she could comfortably go up into higher notes and not have to
worry about straining her voice.
The crowd ate it up and pressed against the stage; "back, back," security
chanted, while Grace remarked that "don't worry, compared to that heavy metal
crowd, this kind of audience is dead." From the crowd erupted some hoots and
laughs that caused her to put on a severe face and riposte--"not THAT kind of
Dead!" When a skinhead staff member came up, she laughingly autographed his
head.
Third of the set was the lengthiest, I gather called "Shining Soul of Man,"
which effectively summed-up and ended her thirty-minute set in a seamless
series of tunes; head kicked back and strong voice thrown forward, she
entranced all, including the passing tour bus patrons gawking on.
As she prepared to leave, the crowd wouldn't let her--"White Rabbit! White
Rabbit! --That's an animal song!!!"
"Oh no," she demurred, "I don't have a band for that: the Airplane are dead
and the Starship are dead." That would have been the end of it, except that
the stage was then crowded by promoters urging her on with the band setting
up next, Buffalo Roam. They started the familiar bass runs and drumming that
marks the famous song, and when she finally caved in with reassurances that
they had played it before, with remarks that "this is most sloppy version
that you'll ever hear," which it was, and deliciously so, she began with
her index finger, "ONE pill. . . ."
Pity the guitar player for Buffalo Roam: attacking his instrument in zest
for having the opportunity, he promptly discovered that it wasn't working;
Grace sang on, beginning one line with a pointed "mumble, mumble, oh, the
white knight is talking backward", but the crowd joined in to help
her with a joyous sing-along that had everyone shouting to the startled
bus passengers "FEED YOUUUUURRR HEADDDD!"
Buffalo Roam fared better after that when the guitarist finally had his
instrument in order; he's of a breed of guitar players that San Francisco
seems to nourish, looking and playing like a hybrid of Carlos Santana and
Jimi Hendrix.
Perhaps the best dancing, however, came with a band that China Kantner,
attempting a "proper introduction," a service she gave up on in favor of
her mother later, hyped as "the best live scene of any party band".
It was Fungo Mungo, some typical California mall-rat white boys who showed
they could really funk-party as she said. By now the people scattered about
the huge rectangle of concrete were in a frenzy, and while they slowed down
a bit with the Manly Vegetarians, it was Gahundza (that odd thing, an eighties
revival band which touted inspiration from Gentle Giant to Janis covers--
are we ready for the '80's revival yet?) who pepped 'em up again.
And thus the day went on, Grace appearing between sets to carry the torch;
"a word of warning," she said, "if you go to the Haight Festival tomorrow,
remember that the cops will be out in force." Given the riot last year after
Merle Saunders set, that was not surprising, although from a young black
woman in yellow from the crowd came the remark "yeah, and they were invited,
too!"
"A piss bitch!" Grace commented: "I was a piss bitch too twenty years ago,
but I've calmed down a lot since; don't go thinking that you should, too, as
I hope you keep bitching! I'm too old, but you young folks keep it up."
And that goes for you, too, lady.
Finally succumbing to the sun, unusually intense for this time of year, I
went to the main booth and listened to the artwork draw: 119033, and I had
119041-119048. "Just hang around," the lady in charge suggested, "if no
one claims the panda drawing you can take that as your prize." Too good
to hope for, of course! as a lucky young lady walked off with it, but not
before giving me a look at its face, the eyes heavily rounded in Grace's
usual style. As a consolation I took as my prize a framed poster of the day's
events. "I hope that will do" the dear in charge asked, clucking in a
mother-like tone at my obviously badly sun-burnt face. I knew I had hell
to pay for the sunburn, but hey: who would have been so ungrateful to have
asked for a nicer day?
hal