ARTHUR BROWN: ORDER FROM CHAOS: LIVE 1993 (1993)
1) When You Open The Door; 2)
When You Open The Door Pt. 2; 3) King Of England; 4) Juices Of Love; 5) Nightmare;
6) Fire Poem; 7) Fire; 8) Come And Buy; 9) Pick It Up; 10) Mandela; 11) Time
Captives; 12) I Put A Spell On You.
Mr. Brown hit fifty in 1991, not a particularly
bad year for music — and I have no idea if his decision to reactivate his motor
was due to the fact that he sensed fashions changing and maybe even a renewed
demand for his kind of music in the
air, or if he just woke up one morning with a nagging sense of having wasted a
decade of his life on «Nothing Much». Whatever be, the early 1990s saw the man
returning, if not to creating new music, then at least to reliving the old one
— obviously, he was not much of a stadium seller, but all the small elitist
clubs could have him, particularly if he came with a guarantee of craziness.
This live album, released on the small
Voiceprint label, captures Arthur during one of these shows, at the Marquee
Club in London, June 25, 1993 — apparently, one day after his fifty-second
anniversary, since birthday announcements are made several times and ʽHappy
Birthdayʼ rips out of the blue at one point during an instrumental jam section.
Judging by the atmosphere, it was a pretty fun birthday, considering that he
hadn't played live in England for something like a decade and a half — and
certainly more fun than one year later, when he passed out on stage in the
middle of a brain haemorrhage, which led to a six-month hospital stay and
brought the whole «live revival» thing to an abrupt stop. A temporary one, of
course: «The God Of Hellfire» would never let himself be brought down by such a
trivial thing as a cerebrovascular accident.
Brown's touring band consists mainly of
unknowns here: the playing is fine enough (Jeff Danford does a particularly respectable
job of filling in for the late Vincent Crane on all the classic numbers), but
the chief emphasis is on the show (either the whole thing or parts of it were
supposedly filmed as well, and available on Youtube for all those who like
seeing aging glam-art-rock stars doing crazy stuff on stage) and Arthur's
persona — predictably enough. The setlist, as can be easily seen, is heavily
tilted towards Crazy World, since,
by 1993, if anybody vaguely remembered anything about Arthur Brown, it all had
to be tied to the 1969 album, and the God of Hellfire obliged — coming up with
solid recreations of ʽNightmareʼ, ʽFireʼ, ʽCome And Buyʼ, and, of course, ʽI
Put A Spell On Youʼ.
But he does go further than that, and in a much
less predictable fashion. Kingdom Come is paid tribute with ʽTime Captivesʼ
(actually a medley here, with ʽSpirit Of Joyʼ thrown in the middle as well),
and Arthur's early 1980s synthesizer experiments are honored with bits from
ʽThe Fire Antʼ (incorporated inside ʽMandelaʼ), while ʽKing Of Englandʼ gets a
more guitar-oriented rearrangement than it had on Speak No Tech (not necessarily becoming more interesting in the
process). And then there is some new material, including the opening two-part
suite ʽWhen You Open The Doorʼ, also written and performed much in the style of
Kingdom Come. Was it a shelved outtake or something?
Overall, the impression is positive. The worst possible impression from such
things is that of a desperate old wreck, cashing in on fossilized bits and
pieces of former success, out of time, out of mind, and very transparently out
of money. But here, even without the video, it is clear that the man is nimble,
agile, and still feeling quite cozy in his «Supernatural Shoes»: neither the
voice nor the spirit have aged a bit (actually, Arthur has got quite an
advantage here: like Ian Anderson, he was intentionally downplaying his
youthfulness in his prime, looking and sounding about twenty years older than
he actually was, and this paid off handsomely in the long run — he never had
the Mick Jagger problem weighing on his shoulders).
The new numbers on their own may not give
enough of an incentive to rush out and grab the album: ʽWhen You Open The
Doorʼ is strictly for major fans of Kingdom Come; ʽJuices Of Loveʼ is an
artsified R'n'B number that is neither too stupendous nor too memorable; and
ʽPick It Upʼ is a somewhat formulaic blues-rock shuffle that is a bit too heavy
on synthesizers for my taste. But they fit in well with the golden oldies, and
the resulting mix is quite a faithful and sympathetic portrait of Arthur Brown
at fifty-two. Too bad that Requiem
is underrepresented, of course, but honoring the short memories and limited
knowledge of Marquee Club audiences was an understandable priority, I guess,
so thumbs up
all the same.
Fifty-first birthday, actually.
ReplyDeleteI thought so, too, but he says "fifty-second" himself.
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