Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

John Wetton: Jack-Knife

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:01:03 -0700

I was in the ninth grade when I discovered the "imports" section at the local record store (Waxie Maxie's), filled with stuff that looked downright weird. Even better, though, was the discounted imports bin, and one day when I had five dollars to spend I waffled between Chrome's Red Exposure, which looked strange and interesting, and Jack-Knife's I Wish You Would, which had John Wetton, who was a known quantity to me, on bass. I opted for Jack-Knife; years later I got really into Chrome and eventually found another copy of Red Exposure to buy. Would having bought it the first time have changed the trajectory of my musical fandom? Chrome was decidedly different, and I sometimes wished I'd gotten an earlier start in alternative music. But a few tunes on the Jack-Knife album hold up well; on the title track Wetton plays one of his most kinetic basslines, and Curt Cress opens the song with the funkiest drumming you'll ever hear on a rock record. Then there's the fantastic guitar solo by Richard Palmer-James which, when it sounds like it's over, picks up again for another several bars of wah-wah ecstasy:

A1 I Wish You Would

Jack-Knife

Jack-Knife was a one-off, Wetton getting some old bandmates together to have some fun between U.K. recording sessions in 1979. As such it's surprisingly good, and groove miners can find a lot of first-rate breaks (some with cowbell!) to sample.

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GOB Bluth and the Continents

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:14:33 -0800

Mrs. Veneer and I have never been able to watch a television show regularly, at least not until we got a DVR and found a show worth watching regularly (Ugly Betty). Then along comes the writers' strike, and kablooey. But the strike gave us time to catch up on a show we missed the first time around, Arrested Development. That's got t o be the funniest American TV show of this century (that's an easy claim to bandy about, with the century being just eight years old, but still), and it leaves Seinfeld in the dust. In only a month or so we managed to watch the entire three seasons, and now that we're done we quote it all the time. But what comes back more than anything is the "majestic" keyboard line from Europe's "The Final Countdown," which hapless magician GOB ("jobe") Bluth (Will Arnett) used as the backing music to every one of his doomed magic acts. Will Arnett is a masterful character actor, as long as the character he is playing is venal, conceited, insensitive, cowardly, self-pitying, blustering, immature, mean, or just plain evil. So in honor of Will Arnett and GOB Bluth, here's the song:

Europe - The Final Countdown

EUROPE

What a ridiculous song; perfect for GOB's ridiculous tricks! And it sounds suspiciously like an earlier song (1982 vs. 1986) by another band named after a continent, Asia's "Only Time Will Tell"--

Asia - Only Time Will Tell

"But where did the lighter fluid come from?" -- GOB Bluth

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Deferred listening: UK

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:27:43 -0700

Have you ever heard a song on the radio, liked it, and meant to buy it, but didn't get around to it until much later? So it is with me and "Nothing to Lose" by UK. During the heyday of Album Oriented Rock (the late 70s), many of the second-tier, less-played songs were better than the rock staples. I would often tune in WAVA on the family stereo and sit by the tape deck to listen for key tunes and record them, but I never caught "Nothing to Lose." And I never managed to buy the album, either, though I did secure a copy of UK's eponymous first album from 1978. That was the album that got UK accorded "supergroup" status (being comprised of John Wetton, Eddie Jobson, Bill Bruford, and Allan Holdsworth; between them they had played in just about every progressive rock band that mattered), but it didn't contain anything like a single. By the second album, Danger Money, Bruford and Holdsworth had left, with Terry Bozzio taking over on drums and Eddie Jobson doing more keyboard and violin overdubs to compensate for the lack of a guitarist. Unlike the first album, the second got some radio play with "Nothing to Lose," which was moderately catchy and, unlike most other UK songs, short enough for radio. This past weekend, 28 years after deciding I wanted "Nothing to Lose," I finally got it. And it sounds exactly like I remembered it.

05. Nothing To Lose

In hindsight, the song is not far from Wetton's output with his next supergroup, Asia, three years later. So why was I so disappointed with that first Asia album? The two explanations are (1) there was not enough musical virtuosity on it, i.e. lots of different notes played quickly; and (2) by 1982 I had converted from AOR to New Wave, and Asia was an AOR behemoth.

(Two more UK songs are available at progarchives.com.)

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