GONZO WEEKLY: Judge Smith talks about Mr Averell

GOOD MORNING JUDGE

There is something particularly English about Judge Smith.  His career has taken a singular path that has very little to do with commercial considerations and everything to do with one man and his art.  I have been aware of him for decades, but it wasn't until about a year ago, when I started working for Gonzo, and received his three song stories, that I sat down and listened to him properly for the first time.

I very much enjoyed what I heard, and over the course of several long telephone calls (I won't use the word 'interview', because they were too self indulgent and rambling to be dignified with the term) I began to like him very much, both as an artist and as a person.

The most recent of the three song stories is Orfeas which retells the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in a modern idiom, and does so with, aplomb, and flair.  An important collaborator on this album was David Minnick, doyen of the American ska scene of the late 1980s, who collaborated with Judge on the 'speech-music' sections of the album.  The two maverick musicians got on so well that they decided that they should collaborate on a full project together.  Judge told me all this about a year ago, and I have been looking forward to hearing the results.  On Saturday, a CD-shaped jiffy bag came through my letterbox.  I was in the process of masterminding the kids putting a new pond into what is eventually going to be my water garden, so I put the package on one side unopened, and it wasn't until later in the day that I discovered that it contained Zoot Suit - the long awaited new album by Judge Smith, produced and arranged by David Minnick.

Fast forward to Sunday evening.  I have not been well for the last few days, and I spent much of today asleep.  However, I got up at about 7:30, came downstairs, did a little bit of work, and then settled down to eat scrambled eggs and listen to Zoot Suit.  I am happy to say that the two activities actually went very well together.

This is probably the most peculiar ska-based record that I have ever heard.  Certainly the most cerebral! The opening track Weird Beard includes the line 'My baby likes Jean-Paul Satre', and goes uphill from there.  I have listened to the album twice so far, and it is still growing on me.  Historically, Ska and Bluebeat music has been to dance to; its frenetic rhythms and contrapuntal brass are not conducive to more intellectual pursuits, or indeed to make it very good 'make out music'.  At least that, is what I have always thought.  Golly I was wrong.

This album is a bubbling cauldron of delight, sparkling with so many ideas and concepts that, I have a sneaking suspicion - that like most of my favourite books, and all my favourite music - each time you listen to it you realise that there are hidden depths of sophistication that you hadn't even dreamed of before.  Trying to review it after only two listens is pretty nigh on impossible.

And as I said before, there is something particularly English about Judge Smith.  Whether it is his valedictory track The Selfish Shellfish which channels the zeitgeist of Flanders and Swann, adding an orchestration that the Beatles would have been proud of, the penultimate track which delighted my mother-in-law by name-checking Uxbridge, or my personal favourite: F*ck me shoes this album has more to do with a mythical past when England wasn't just a junior member of the EU and NATO, and British culture was something to be proud of, rather than something to be embarrassed by because it's exactly the same as the culture in a dozen different countries all controlled by the same corporate behemoths. I love it. Simon Cowell would hate it, and most of the people who watch Britain's got Talent just wouldn't be able to understand it, although they could certainly dance to it.  Can there be any higher recommendation?

Expect a proper review sometime later down the road.

PS: Dear Judge (you rotten bugger). Your extract from The Book of Hours does what I tried to do in a song called I hate Rock and Roll, but does it much better. My lyrics include the line "I hate Rock & Roll, it's stupid and it's trite and it keeps me out of bed at night/I hate Rock & Roll, I've been doing it so long that I don't think I can get it right".

Yours is better.

Bah!

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FROM GONZO

Curly's Airships 2CD - �11.99

The Climber CD - �9.99

Orfeas CD - �9.99

WHO THE HELL IS MR AVERELL?

Well, who the hell is Mr Averell? One one level that is an easy question to answer; he is René van Commenée - a Dutch percussionist, composer and artist. Another way of looking at it is that Mr Averell is a band. The man himself says:

"As a musician I work mainly as a percussionist, electronic music performer and sound designer. I am a member of the trio The Art of Doing Nothing with Pipe Organ master Willem Tanke and MIDI-wind-controller/flutist Martijn Alsters. With Alsters I formed a duo for live-surround concerts and installations also. Separate from this I create visual sound art installations. I always like to use my voice though. I was a singer in several Dutch rock bands in the seventies and eighties, and like to write, record and perform more song-based music as I call it. But if you do so many diverse things I think you have to make clear to your audience what it is they can expect when buying your work or attending your concerts/performances. Therefore I chose to give my song-based projects a separate name, Mr Averell; a band in which I am the main writer and performer."

But on the other hand... I have no idea. I have a sneaking suspicion that Mr Averell is the avatar of an ancient race, living out eternity in a little tea shop somewhere, eating cream buns and living out his musical fantasies through the medium of a bunch of talented musician-types including Mike Garson (David Bowie), David Jackson, Hugh Banton and Judge Smith (Van der Graaf Generator), John Ellis (Peter Gabriel, Peter Hammill, The Stranglers), Lene Lovich, along with Stuart Gordon (Peter Hammill, Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack), Dyane Donck (Daisy Bell), Martijn Alsters, Willem Tanke, Ninca Leece, Tammo Heikens and Lisa Weiss..

The album - apparently their second - is a masterpiece of sonic invention. It is one of the best things that I have heard all year. It is also very silly. It ranges from avant-noise to tunes that sound like they came from the soundtrack of The Magic Roundabout. There are sensitive and chilling ballads and imposing waves of brassy soundscape. There is a story, but what the hell that story is I have no idea. The nearest reference point I can give is Tom Wait's sublime retelling of Alice in Wonderland, but in point of fact the two records sound nothing like each other. I merely suspect that they inhabit the same universe. I may be wrong. I often am.

But I am intrigued. I have booked an interview with him this weekend, and I am also approaching some of the other folk on the album to try and find out what on earth this is all about? And I want to find out who the hell is Mr Averell?

CHECK HIM OUT AT GONZO
Gridlock
CD - �9.99

GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Judge Smith / David Jackson - Been Alone So Long (Triuggio 15th May)

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE AT GONZO

Curly's Airships 2CD - £11.99

The Climber CD - £9.99

Orfeas CD - £9.99

EXCLUSIVE: Judge Smith Interview (Part Four)

And so my mammoth conversation with Judge Smith about his songstory Curly's Airships trundles on.

Talking to Judge is always a pleasure, but my dear wife Corinna told me that transcribing interviews with him is so mucheasier than with some people whom I could mention, because he speaks slowly, in well-modulated tones, and is easy to follow.

Today's episode is quite possibly the most arcane interview we have ever posted as it covers so many peculiar, and disparate, things whilst always coming back to Curly McLeod and his airships..

Jon: So how did the idea for Curly come about in the first place

Judge: I wanted to do a long narrative piece because I thought it could be done and it was something that I’d always been interested in. You know that Van der Graaf Generator went in for the long song and it always irks me somewhat that rock music was still expected to fit into a relatively short timeframe and I wanted to do something that I could stretch out and tell a whole story. And so what I had to do was find a story to tell and I like airships, I knew the story of the R101 and thought it covered a lot of bases that appealed to me; airships, the 1920s, the British character, the language and slang of the first part of the 20th Century and the paranormal, all of which I am very interested in so that’s what led me to do it. So it was finding a subject to do the song story, it wasn’t I am desperate to tell the story of the R10, how can I possibly do it? I knew it had to be something that I found really, really interesting because I knew it was going to take a long time. I didn’t anticipate 7 years.

Jon: A project of yours which keeps on getting referenced whenever I’m writing anything about you is the Kibbo Kift musical.

Judge: That was one of the ones written with Maxwell Hutchinson. And in fact Mel Smith also directed a production of that musical as well.

Jon: Was that ever recorded?

Judge: There is a demo of most of the songs. But the only recording we have is a so called – a pair of microphones hung up on the ceiling and they record everything I think for legal purposes in case there is a disaster and I’ve got a tape of the show like that, but it’s not a listenable proper edition really

Jon: Oh what a pity, because again after talking to you I did some research into it. Very interesting. Particularly as I did some research into Ernest Thompson Seton some years ago.
I was writing about him 15 years ago because I did a lot of research into singing mice.

Judge: Singing mice?

Jon: They were things that were sold in pet shops in the late 19th and early 20th Century and there was a vogue for singing mice and dancing mice in late Victorian times. Singing mice were mice that were bred with lung conditions and squeaked like canaries, and dancing mice went round and round in circles because they were epileptic.

Judge: That’s awful

Jon: That’s terrible, but one of these singing mice became a star on the very early BBC and its name was Mickey, and having somewhat of a hatred for Walt Disney I spent about three years trying to build up a thesis which turned out not to be buildable that the whole Walt Disney empire was built on a piece of animal abuse around a mouse with tuberculosis. Then I got involved with Seton. He wrote a book called Ralph of the Woods and in that there is a red Indian who tells the story of the singing mouse..

Judge: Well John Hargrave, the founder of the Kibbo Kift was very much influenced by Thompson Seton and it was the beginning of the Kibbo Kift. As a result of writing this musical a lot of the old membership came out from the woodwork and the result was the formation of the Kibbo Kift foundation which is a body set up to gather in and preserve all the records and memorabilia of the movement and an amazing amount of material still existed and I was inducted as a trustee of the foundation – a very junior member, myself and Maxwell, because we had written this musical regenerated some interest in the movement and of course with the way of the world I am one of the few people left, most of the members have now passed on. And so I really am running the foundation more or less single handed.

Check out: http://www.kibbokift.org/

Jon: That’s a song story in itself.

Judge: Well we’ve achieved our aims in that all the collection of objects and regalia, robes, costumes, carvings, illuminated manuscripts are all in the Museum of London and the archive or written records is at the LSE Library. And it is now done and only recently I finished doing the cataloguing of the last part of the archives so our job is pretty well done now.

Jon: Are you going to being doing a book on it?

Judge: I was offered a commission to do Hargrave's biography by a grown-up Bloomsbury publisher years ago, but I turned it down. I am not a professional writer. I would have to become a professional writer – you know Jon, you are a writer...biographers....

Jon: It’s a horrible job

Judge: What a ghastly job, you know it just goes on and on and then you don’t make any money at the end of it – a bit like rock ‘n’ roll really ... but I thought it was better to have those working conditions and come out with stuff of my own rather than burying myself in another man’s past. There is a book there – a very good book there for somebody, an extraordinary story.

Jon: And I want to hear the Kibbo Kift songs.

Judge: Most certainly. I would be interested to know what you think. I can send you the script as well. But again, whether it would see the light of day again I don’t know. It’s half my project and so obviously I am more inclined to spend time on projects that are entirely mine.

Jon: I like the way that when you and I start talking about things, these are the least formal interviews that I do. We end up talking about different things.

And that was it. Judge and I chatted about non interview stuff for about ten minutes, we said our goodbyes and parted company. I am certain, however, that we shall be talking again soon.

EXCLUSIVE: Judge Smith interview part three

I really enjoyed talking to Judge Smith the other evening. We were supposed to be talking about the imminent re-release of the Curly's Airships songstory, but we ended up talking about all sorts of other things as well.

Check out:

Part one
Part two

..and you will see what I mean.

As today's segment opens, we were talking about the musical version of The Fall of the House of Usher that he did with Peter Hammill et al about 20 years ago:

Judge: There are some magnificent tunes on that piece. I think it’s got some of Peter’s most wonderful melodies ever on that piece. It’s recorded in quite an austere fashion, but it has no compromises but the tunes themselves are just magnificent I think.

Jon: That’s something it’s a pity you didn’t get to a wider audience

Judge: Well at one time it was going to be put on at the Barcelona Olympics (1992). It was scheduled to be produced as a site-specific production, I think in the old Ministry of Health building in Barcelona.

But unfortunately really quite late in the day it fell through. Local and regional politics, local and euro funding and all the rest of it. It was a big, big disappointment so it did almost get produced.

Jon: Then it finally came out in 91 or 92? And then disappeared again and came out again in the late ’90s.

Judge: Yes, the first release was not very auspicious in terms of the actual record company involved and then Peter wanted to rework it and do a lot of really quite radical changes to the musical arrangements and the vocals and put it out again on his own label. And they’re both very interesting recordings I think

Jon: Well I think that was the nearest reference point to Curly

Judge: That’s interesting.

Jon: I think there were a lot of points between the two and not just because it had Peter on it, but they both had a very similar feel to them

Judge: Oh that’s interesting. It’s not a connection that I’ve would have made.

Jon: They’ve certainly got more in common than I think than Curly has to either of the other two song stories

Judge: Quite possibly. Well being around someone who writes extraordinary tunes it does rub off on one. It tends to raise your game and working with Peter, of course knowing his stuff, has raised the threshold at which a tune becomes acceptable to me. I think that won’t do, that’s predictable, and I am sure that being somewhat in the shadow there has had at least that beneficial effect.

Jon: That’s something that all three of the song stories – to me anyway – have got in common. Being a musician , when I’m listening to something I sing along with it and you usually know where the tune is going to go, and with yours, you don’t. You get wrongfooted, because you go off at a tangent that one wasn't expecting.

Judge: Oh yes, I’m very pleased to hear that. I like stuff that jumps around a bit. I like wrong-footing people’s musical anticipation.

Jon: I think there’s as much cheeky humour in the way that you write the music as you do the words.

Judge: Thank you again. I find it difficult to do things without jokes in them. I find it difficult to take things seriously, even though I take them very seriously

Jon: I know exactly what you mean

Judge: I am currently what my friend John Ellis would say, ‘cream-crackered’

Jon: You sound exhausted

Judge: I am a bit to be honest. David Minnick is doing all the heavy lifting on this project but he wants me to record my vocals in a particular way, and that is very demanding for me. I have to provide two identical vocals. I’m double tracking my vocals. And because I’m quite a random sort of singer, it’s very, very difficult to do. And I find it pretty tiring, but the results are very interesting. It’s not something I do myself, but he’s said ‘that’s how I want to do it’, and the whole point of getting him involved is for him to be the producer.

I’m really looking forward to hearing it

It’s extraordinary stuff to be honest. The sound...he is a wonderful musician. Absolutely extraordinary musician so I am very, very lucky indeed to have that relationship.

And there, once more, we shall knock it on the head for today. We will be back with more tomorrow, and quite possibly the next day as well..

EXCLUSIVE: Judge Smith, the 'Curly's Airships' interview (Part Two)

Yesterday I posted the first part of a long and rambling interview that I did the other evening with the incomparable Judge Smith. It was meant to be about the imminent rerelease of the first of his groundbreaking songstory albums which tells the story of the Imperial Airship Scheme and the R101 disaster, but in fact we talked about all sorts of other things as well.

That's the problem when you have someone like me whbo has a grasshopper mind, interviewing a polymath like Judge. The conversation gets so engrossing that before long you completely forget that you are supposed to be conducting an interview...

Jon: You’ve got so many other things you are doing always.

Judge: It has been a rather long run of projects. Once The Climber started it hasn’t stopped really and it’s been too much to be honest. It’s been one thing after another really. The Climber and Orfeas happened – not simultaneously, but half of one and then half of the other. I got half way with Orfeas and then had to put it aside to do The Climber because there was the opportunity to do it and then I had to go back to Orfeas and once I had finished that I spent a long time making a demo of my Requiem Mass which is the first big piece I ever wrote in the mid-70s and it was written at that time.

It is a big piece; choir, brass and a rock band and it was put into a full score by my friend Michael Brand, the arranger, who helped me turn my imaginings into a musical manuscript. The connection is, he arranged a big orchestral piece on a Peter Hammill album, and it’s never been recorded.

My friend Ricardo Odriozola, who has been so helpful for me on Orfeas offered to get this pencil score into the 21st Century and get it digitised and give me the opportunity to revise it and make some changes I always had in mind for it. And we did that work which was fantastic and then I had to put it on to tape, just as a demo, so it’s done with samples, just to – as a proof of concept – to show what it might sound like and sooner or later I’ve got to make a decision as to whether I try and actually record it, but it would be a very big undertaking and would cost a lot of money. A full choir, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, a rock band and a good vocalist, because I can’t sing it. It needs a proper rock singer, a good singer. So I don’t know whether that will ever happen, but that took up a long time and then immediately I dived into the present project which is an album I’m doing with the American producer David Minnick..

Jon: Oh the guy who did the speech music?

Judge: That’s it, the guy who worked on those narrative passages in Orfeas. Speech music is what I call it. It doesn’t actually have a name. It’s got a history – it’s got quite an underground thread running through - the experimental music of the 20th Century, but as far as I know it hasn’t got a name so I called it speech music just for my own convenience.

Jon: I love the concept.

Judge: It’s fascinating stuff. I think I probably will go back to it but I am not sure what form or for what project. But it is very demanding for me, you really need to be a better musician than I am to make the most out of it. But even though David is an expert, it doesn’t feature on this next project of ours which is an album of songs - a relatively conventional song format album.

Jon: Does it tell stories?

Judge: Well the individual songs tell stories because that tends to be what I do. But no there isn’t one over-arching narrative. It’s a bunch of songs, like a proper album.

Jon: When is it going to be out?

Judge: Well, I don’t know – I’ve got several more vocals to do. David has some sessions with brass and strings to go and it’ll be finished when we are both happy with it. Later this year, when I can raise the finance to press it and issue it..

Jon: I didn’t realise the other day that you had done the songs for Not the Nine O’clock News.

Judge: Yes I did a few. That was fun.

Jon: Which were yours?

Judge: Well the one that people remember is Gob on You.


Jon: I used to sing that with a terrible punk band back in the day

Judge: Really? [laughs]

Jon: We did an absolutely diabolical version of it and I stole two of the lines for a song I did as well.

Judge: It has actually been covered by a perfectly legitimate punk band.

Jon: There is such a thing as a legitimate punk band?

Judge: Well... yes I see what you mean. Chaos UK.

Jon: That’s a name I never thought I would hear again.

Judge: Chaos UK have covered 'Gob on You' which I suppose is a legitimate piece of pride for me.



Jon: Well I stole the line "sex is boring, pain is fun, I wanna cut my fingers off one by one, there ain't no point in staying alive, I wanna be dead by 25" for one of my soungs thirty years ago so I owe you a couple of beers.

Judge: I did several others. And I can’t remember which ones get done and which ones were rejected so if I said I did that one but not that one, some Not the Nine O’clock News completist would say...that was never broadcast

I submitted a lot – I think there were about three in the end that they actually did. The big disappointment was they did one of my numbers for the very last song on the very last show which was called 'Happy Bloody Christmas', and it was very elaborate set-up done with a live audience and members of the cast came out into the audience and beat them up for not singing along and so forth. Only unfortunately, they handed Rowan who is an absolutely delightful man by the way, they handed him his microphone the wrong way round, so he sang the whole thing into the little wire coming out of the end. And so, of course, it was unusable so they went for... they did something dramatic and serious. They did 'Imagine' or something like that. The last segment of the last show. So it was a great shame and that was quite a good song.

Jon: How did you get involved with doing that?

Judge: Because before Mel was a TV performer he was a theatrical director and he directed a musical of mine at the Sheffield Crucible. A musical called The Ascent of Wilberforce Three which I wrote with Maxwell Hutchinson. We were a sort of musical writing team for a considerable length of time. We wrote several musicals together and Mel directed it. And that is how I got to know Mel. So when he joined this new comedy programme, I had an opportunity to submit songs.

Jon: I suppose that is the way the business works

Judge: Yes. But I’m not facile enough to get anywhere in television. You’ve got to be able to do things quick, which I can’t do.

Jon: But then again, if you had done that you might not have got around to writing Curly.

Judge: Possibly yes. Perhaps if I’d of had any legitimate career I wouldn’t have done anything so incredibly stupid as to do Curly.

Jon: The thing I found interesting. I listened to the three song stories in exactly the wrong order. I listened to Orfeas first, the The Climber and then Curly last of all. And the nearest reference point I got to that was the musical version of Edgar Allan Poe that you did with Peter Hammill twenty odd years ago?

Judge: Oh right yes. The Fall of the House of Usher – that was a good experience.

Jon: Because Richard and I got hold of a copy of that I can’t remember how we got it, or from where it came, but I remember sitting down with Richard listening to it far too loud, years ago and totally, totally getting it.

And so this seems to be a convenient place to break for today. There will be more tomorrow, and quite possibly the day after that...

JUDGE SMITH: The 'Curly's Airships' interview... (Part One)

..in fact it turned out to be our widest and most rambling talk yet. Partly because the two of us are now comfortable with each other, partly because Judge is exhausted after what would be a punishing schedule for a man half his age, and partly because I am in a spectacularly unfocussed headspace at the moment, this interview, was possibly the least formal that I have ever done.

I enjoyed it. I am pretty sure Judge enjoyed it, and I hope that you will too...

Jon: I was very impressed with Curly

Judge: You’ve done a wonderful review of it. I am so touched, Jonathan. A very kind and generous review.

Jon: It’s no more than it deserves. It is a remarkable piece of work.

Judge: Thank you. I have had some wonderful responses from people which I’ve collected since it first came out, and if it’s right for people it’s very right for people.

Jon: It is the one of the song stories that most sounds like you were once in Van de Graaf Generator

Judge: Oh yes. It’s got Hugh Banton all over it basically. That’s so distinctive.

Jon: I thought his organ playing was absolutely extraordinary on it.

Judge: Yeah, he’s amazing. He runs a successful organ building company so it and he gives every impression of being a middle-aged business man, and stick him behind the keyboard and you get extreme, violent, astonishing organ playing that you would expect from a kind of long-haired madman.

Jon: It is, some of that playing is completely insane.

Judge: Yeah, he’s just fantastic. It was a very complicated thing to do because Curly was recorded in analogue on a 16-track machine that I had to take up to Cheshire to his home on numerous occasions to record the organ stuff. It was a very complex procedure to get all his organ stuff done.

Jon: I was thinking that. When I was reading the liner notes it almost the last great dance of analogue recording. Three or four years later it would have been done completely different.

Judge: Yes, it was the last thing I did analogue. As soon as it was finished I dismantled the studio so I knew I wasn’t going to go on any longer with it, and sold all my kit and braced myself to join the digital world. Which I don’t regret at all – it certainly makes my life more easier. I’m not particularly romantic about analogue.

Jon: It’s actually interesting, because half the people I talk to now for Gonzo are telling me how they make incredibly complicated albums all on a laptop and it is interesting to hear something that was recorded in the old fashioned way.

Judge: There’s a lot to be said for it, but for my particular circumstances being not a performer of music, being a writer rather than a performer, being digital is a huge advantage. I am an old-fashioned writer in many ways, but it is still an awful lot easier for me to get that stuff down onto a computer than it is onto reels of iron oxide.

Jon: I am itching to see Curly done live.

Judge: Well, I like performing very much on stage. I haven’t done nearly as much of it as I’d like, particularly in recent decades. I did perform quite regularly with a band in the ‘70s called The Modern Beats which was a London pub band, which was great fun. We gigged quite a lot and I did enjoy that ever so much. But that wasn’t doing original material. We did early ‘60s pop songs played in a very new wave, or punk-style. Our by-line was 'Too fast, too loud and twenty years too late'. But it was a fun band. But since then, it has been few and far between really. Both recording and performing are costly things to do. They require a lot of resources and a lot of time to get a band together for example. And I felt I wanted to spend what time I had, and what resources I had at my disposal, on making records rather than running a band. It is a regret in many ways. I do enjoy performing live.

Jon: I would love to see Curly on the stage.

Judge: I think it could be done. I do have a scheme for doing it, mind you I’m getting a bit long in the tooth to carry it off now, but it would be possible to do. I would like to. It could be done as an illustrated lantern slide show where Curly McLeod presents an old-fashioned lantern slide show with a long pointer as if he’s giving a lecture to the Women’s Institute.

Jon: Gosh what a lovely idea

Judge: So it could be done as a one man show.

Jon: And with backing tapes rather than a band?

Judge: Yes. In fact, when I mixed Curly’s Airships with the amazing David Lord, we mixed everything two ways, with and without the lead voice so it would in theory be possible to put together a performance tape as it were that could be sung to live. But I rather doubt if it is every going to happen.

Pushing a project like that is a full time job, and it is a full time job for someone with a lot more drive and chutzpah, and bottle than I can generally summon up.

We will continue tomorrow, and the next day after that, and quite possibly after that as well. However, for the record, I would love to see Curly staged the way that The Who did Quadrophenia about fifteen years ago (released on DVD about five years back) with a band playing it live interspersed by narration and film clips. If I had the resources I would do my best to persuade Judge to stage it. But I haven't, so this must remain just a rather pointless pipe dream...

Check out Judge's artist page at Gonzo: http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/artists/6774/Judge%20Smith

LINK: Judge Smith review

http://www.musicstreetjournal.com/index_cdreviews_display.cfm?id=103510

Judge Smith Orfeas: A Song Story Review by G. W. Hill While this album didn’t completely blow me away in terms of being something I’d listen to a lot, I was quite taken by the artistic nature of it. The term “rock opera” certainly applies, but this is even more theatrical than that. I love the story, what I can figure out of it, and its modernization of classic mythology. There are bits here that are purely theatrical and then other parts that rock. The truth is, though, those who like a continuing story with their music will love this. It’s really musical theater gone prog. It’s also very well done. Considering Smith was a founding member of Van der Graaf Generator, that kind of quality is to be expected, though.

Track by Track Review

The Bard - One This is a weird little old worlde section, like something you’d expect to hear at a renaissance faire.

Rundown Rudi After a stage introduction, the group launches out into something akin to serious 1970s hard rock sound. It works to more progressive territory as it drops back a bit. This instrumental works through a number of changes and feels a little like Pink Floyd at times. There’s a section later that feels a bit like Focus.

Soliloquy - One Bouncy and fun, this is very British and rather like English pop music that was common in the early part of the 20th century – you know, the kind of thing Queen often referenced in their music.

Seven Yard Promenade This is similar to “Rundown Rudi,” but has its own identity, too. It’s also an instrumental and runs through a number of shifts and changes.

Interview - One After a little radio jingle introducing the “show” we get classical instrumentation dancing around behind an “interview” that’s part of the show.

Orphic Lullaby This instrumental is rather Beatles-like, but the proggier side of The Beatles, think later period. It’s quite tasty.

Soliloquy - Two Bouncy little bits of music are the backdrop for a spoken bit.

Wolfman George Somehow this instrumental, while a lot like the others, feels a bit more playful and light-hearted. It’s got some smoking hot guitar soloing. There’s also an accordion solo.

Soliloquy - Three The music to this spoken section is much more progressive rock, being playful and fun at the beginning. Then, as the main character realizes his prize guitar (much of the interview discussed it) is missing, the music becomes frantic.

The Bard - Two Here we get another of the renaissance faire numbers.

Soliloquy - Four Some world music is built into this spoken piece. Still, it’s some of the most pure prog of the set. As it ends in the sound of a car crash, we realize that the main character’s day just keeps getting worse.

In-Flight Movie - One Delirium or crossing over to the afterlife make up this piece. It starts with very spacey music, but then works out to energetic electronic sounds. Then it turns out to dance club elements.

Orfeas and Eurydice – One Our hero seems to wind up in heaven, but it’s unclear if he’s supposed to be there. The music is very much old-fashioned theatrical textured sound. It gets more electronic as it continues. This is campy, but also fun in a real musical theater way. It’s basically a dialog delivered as a duet.

In-Flight Movie - Two This one feels more like traveling music. It’s bouncy and a little funky, but also very cool.

In Hell - One Less than half a minute in length, this is just a quick bit of female vocals over some music.

Carpet of Bones Dark and atmospheric, there are some seriously theatrical vocals. There are also bursts of metallic guitar. There are some later sections that really fit under the heading of “heavy metal” quite well.

In Hell – Two The story continues with this theatrical dialog bit.

In-Flight Movie - Three This is more traditional progressive rock in texture. It’s a cool bit.

Orfeas and Eurydice - Two We get more theatrical dialog over playful music.

The Crab Nebula More theatrical prog, the lyrics to this talk about a lot of famous musicians hanging out together in the after-life.

Orfeas and Eurydice - Three This is more theatrical dialog.

Orfeas' Audition Starting with some seriously hard rocking guitar, this instrumental is a killer progressive rock jam. It works through a number of changes and alterations and is just plain tasty. After some guitar soloing later, the bass leads into a section that is almost like surf music turned prog. It’s great. This might be the most effective piece of the whole thing.

Don't Look Back Here’s another that’s more like musical theater, but with some progressive rock added to the mix.

In-Flight Movie - Four We have another bit of traveling music here. It’s like electronica.

Interview - Two And, now we get another interview segment, starting with the same jingle. Like the previous one, classical strings swim in the background as the interview is conducted.

Fishin' in the Styx This proggy jam has some hip hop scratching in the mix, but is also quite fusion-like at times. It wanders out into some seriously soaring progressive rock later.

Soliloquy - Five Another spoken bit with some interesting guitar based music continues the story.

Don't Deafen Me, Persephone Here we get another jazzy tune. There is a rapper on this thing. There’s some extremely tasty guitar soloing on the cut.

The Bard - Three This bard bit is quite short and the guitar playing is in the mode of Spanish guitar.

Soliloquy - Six This spoken section comes with some harder rocking music mixed with Latin sounds. It’s interesting and short.

Catastrophe in Czecho Fast paced prog jamming with accordion makes up this one.

An Announcement This is just a spoken bit on stage.

Tear Him Asunder We get some seriously weird, thrashy metal for this cut.

The Bard – Four The final bard song closes things much the same way as it began.