Caravan: The Show Of Our Lives

CARAVAN: THE SHOW OF OUR LIVES: LIVE AT THE BBC (1968-1975; 2007)

1) Place Of My Own; 2) Ride; 3) If I Could Do It All Over Again I'd Do It All Over You; 4) Hello Hello; 5) As I Feel I Die; 6) Love To Love You; 7) Love Song Without Flute; 8) In The Land Of Grey And Pink; 9) Nine Feet Underground; 10) Feelin', Reelin', Squealin'; 11) A-Hunting We Shall Go; 12) Waffle (Be Alright / Chance Of A Lifetime); 13) Memory Lain Hugh; 14) Headloss; 15) The Love In Your Eye; 16) Mirror For The Day; 17) Virgin On The Ridiculous; 18) For Richard; 19) The Dabsong Conshirtoe; 20) Stuck In A Hole; 21) The Show Of Our Lives.

It makes perfect sense to round out the Caravan retrospective with this huge 2-CD package that spans their entire «prog years» career. Prior to this, there have been several rather chaotic releases of BBC material recorded by the band at various occasions; the only one I'd previously heard was BBC Radio 1 In Concert, recorded March 21, 1975 at the Paris Theatre, and it has been almost completely integrated here (strangely, though, without a complete overlap — the original release had ʽHoedownʼ, which is not included here, while the new package adds ʽMirror For The Dayʼ and ʽVirgin On The Ridiculousʼ that were omitted from the 1991 album, so go figure).

Anyway, this here is a solid and well-balanced mix of performances from various John Peel and BBC In Concert sessions that, among other things, allows you to get a peek at live interpretations of some of the early material that never survived the transition into the «golden age» — songs from the self-titled debut (including ʽLove Song With Fluteʼ, which is transformed here into ʽLove Song Without Fluteʼ because they could not get brother Jimmy to appear with them, so Dave has to fill his shoes with an organ equivalent of the flute part) and «filler tracks» from the second album, like ʽAs I Feel I Dieʼ. Once we get to the Grey And Pink period, performances start to become more familiar and predictable, but there is still at least one super-curious rarity: ʽFeelin', Reelin', Squealin'ʼ, a 10-minute epic that starts out in inconspicuously default soft-rock mode, but then quickly becomes an improvised psychedelic extravaganza — a free-form freakout that alternately reminds one of The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, and The Soft Machine. I would not call it particularly mind-blowing or anything, but it's a bold side of Caravan that had blipped for a few seconds around 1970, then was wiped out completely with the emergence of the Grey And Pink style, and it is interesting to learn that they could occasionally allow themselves to go crazy like this as late as May 1971, by which time ʽGolf Girlʼ had already become their trade­mark song (ironically, there is no ʽGolf Girlʼ on this package).

The second disc, covering 1973-75, is clearly less exciting for those who have already heard all the regular live albums — I mean, there's only so many live versions of ʽThe Love In Your Eyeʼ and ʽFor Richardʼ that I'd care to have in my collection — but it does include a rare occasion of the complete live performance of ʽThe Dabsong Conshirtoeʼ and other songs from Cunning Stunts that might help rekindle your interest in that transitional album. They could have gone further: if you are genuinely curious about continuing this experience, the earlier package Ether Way: BBC Sessions 1975-77, overlapping with this one in regard to the Cunning Stunts tracks, also adds some live renditions of material from Blind Dog At St. Dunstan's (could be entertai­ning) and Better By Far (probably couldn't) — but on the whole, I understand the decision of the compilers to stop at 1975 and have ʽThe Show Of Our Livesʼ round out the album in gloriously anthemic mode.

Caravan: Live At The Fairfield Halls

CARAVAN: LIVE AT THE FAIRFIELD HALLS (1974; 2002)

1) Memory Lain, Hugh / Headloss; 2) Virgin On The Ridiculous; 3) Be Alright / Chance Of A Lifetime; 4) The Love In Your Eye; 5) L'Auberge Du Sanglier / A-Hunting We Shall Go / Pengola; 6) The Dog, The Dog, He's At It Again; 7) For Richard; 8) Hoedown.

Of all the live archival releases by Caravan covering single-date (or double-date) performances, I select only Live At The Fairfield Halls as an example, since it has a certain priority over every­thing else: it was originally released, in a slightly abbreviated version, as The Best Of Caravan Live in 1980, for the European market. The actual show took place on September 1, 1974, in London, appro­ximately one year after the show with the New Symphonia and also introducing new member Mike Wedgwood on bass — just a few weeks before the once-again-revamped band entered the studio to record Cunning Stunts. Consequently, the setlist here is pretty much the same as on the expanded version of Caravan & The New Symphonia: lots of tracks from their most recent offering (Plump In The Night), ʽLove In Your Eyeʼ and ʽFor Richardʼ as stabilized mega-epic-classics, and a few non-studio LP rarities — ʽVirgin On The Ridiculousʼ is done here without orchestral support as it was on the New Symphonia album, and ʽBe Alright / Chance Of A Life­timeʼ is an outtake from the Plump In The Night sessions that did not make it onto the original album (but a studio version of which is now also available on the expanded CD edition).

Since, predictably, there is not a lot of difference between the live performances and the studio originals, that's pretty much all you need to know — well, I might add that the show, also predic­tably, was a good one, and that Richardson's viola parts more than make up for the lack of a com­plete orchestra on ʽVirginʼ. The audience participation bit on ʽHoedownʼ is rather cheesy, but an unavoidable evil, especially for a band as audience-friendly and cheerful as Caravan; luckily, at least the in-between song banter is kept short and to the point. Otherwise, I am not really sure why anybody would want to bother with the record, given the availability of New Symphonia which at least adds a fresh twist to these songs. Perhaps in 1980, with Caravan arguably hitting rock bottom and all, a release like this made sense — just to remind the record-buying public of how great these guys used to be. Today, it is only for dedicated fans who wish to spend some time picking up all the little nuances that separate loyal live reproductions from the originals. Like, for instance, ʽFor Richardʼ is three minutes longer than the studio version here — I am still not sure if this is because they extend some of the jam sessions or because they take it such a leadenly slow tempo at the beginning, but I am too lazy to go check it out.

Caravan: Canterbury Comes To London

CARAVAN: CANTERBURY COMES TO LONDON (1997; 1999)

1) Memory Lain Hugh; 2) Headloss; 3) Nine Feet Underground; 4) The Dog, The Dog, He's At It Again; 5) Cold As Ice; 6) Somewhere In Your Heart; 7) I Know Why You're Laughing; 8) Liar; 9) For Richard; 10) Golf Girl.

For a band that was never really known for virtuoso musicianship, unusual stage behavior, or at least a dedicated arena-size fan following, Caravan have had a fairly insane number of archival releases out in the past thirty years — not on the Grateful Dead level, of course, but still at least a dozen live documents of various tours over the decades, collecting and reviewing all of which would require an arch-obsessed mind. For this reason, I will pick out only a few representative points, even if they might not necessarily be the absolute best ones; but then again, it seems that Caravan had always had a decent live sound, and ultimately it all comes down to differences in set lists or sound quality.

This one, technically, should not even be counted as an archival document: released in 1999, it documents the band on their promotional tour for The Battle Of Hastings, containing all or most of the show played at The Astoria, London, on September 17, 1997. In this setting, they are already augmented by Doug Boyle (who would remain with them for the Breakfast Item album), and Dave Sinclair is still in. The setlist, as the track listing quickly tells you, includes a large chunk of Battle Of Hastings material in the middle, bookmarked by classics from In The Land Of Grey And Pink and Plump In The Night, plus the perennial ʽFor Richardʼ — a fairly good flow control here, since interspersing the recent pop-style material with long-winded epics of the band's heroic past would probably work much to the new material's detriment.

All the performances are carried off quite respectfully: the new guitarist does have a bit of that Eighties leftover flair (after all, he did spend a lot of time playing for Robert Plant in the decade of hair metal), but only about as much as is needed to give the songs a bit of an extra energy punch, not a bad thing for a band that somehow has to compensate for the age (and general chronological irrelevancy) factor. Also, bass player Jim Leverton is no Richard Sinclair when it comes to singing, so I do believe that ʽGolf Girlʼ is sung by Pye instead, while the final vocal section of ʽNine Feet Undergroundʼ sorely loses in the beauty department (in fact, Leverton has to struggle to stay in tune on that one).

As for the new material, they took most of the highlights from Battle Of Hastings without carrying over the slower, drearier stuff (ʽCold As Iceʼ is the only exception — I'd much prefer ʽIt's A Sad, Sad Affairʼ); the insane guitar solo on ʽI Know Why You're Laughingʼ is almost as effective as the studio version (not quite, because the studio version was immaculately construc­ted, and this one has moments of unfocused improvisation that sometimes kill the tension), but ʽLiarʼ is extended by means of an additional solo and played rawer and with more aggression than in the studio, so it's really fun to hear these songs taken to the stage.

Nevertheless, apart from a two-minute tricky introduction to ʽGolf Girlʼ that has the audience clapping along and trying to guess if they are really going where the fans think they should be going, the album offers no surprises — this is just Pye Hastings' Caravan giving old prog rock fans a deserved good time for their money. We do have evidence, though, that as late as the late Nineties they could still sound like goddamn Caravan on that stage. Whether the same judgement would apply to their shows in the 2010s, I honestly have no idea, though.

Caravan: Cool Water

CARAVAN: COOL WATER (1977; 1994)

1) Cool Water; 2) Just The Way You Are; 3) Tuesday Is Rock And Roll Nite; 4) The Crack Of The Willow; 5) Ansaphone; 6) Cold Fright; 7) Side By Side; 8) You Won't Get Me Up In One Of Those; 9) To The Land Of My Fathers; 10) Poor Molly; 11) Send Reinforcements.

I do realize that a «from-the-vaults» release of an entire album that was originally deemed unfit for release by Caravan's record label at a time of general decline for Caravan is hardly going to be exciting news for the non-diehard fan. But yes indeed, after the critical and commercial failure of Better By Far, Caravan did record a second album for Arista, scheduled for release in 1978; and Arista did reject it, shelving the tapes for more than 15 years, before Pye got hold of them, dusted them off and released them pretty much as they were, on a minor label. And the most surprising thing about it is — Cool Water is, by all means, «better by far» than Better By Far, or, for that matter, anything else that Caravan did in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Actually, if I am correct, only the first seven tracks here really come from the promised album; the surprisingly short length (32 minutes) is explained by the fact that the release only gives us the compositions by Hastings, leaving out a few contributions by Richard Sinclair — who did, as it turns out, temporarily return to the band in 1977 before leaving again to join Camel; apparently, one of the songs that he'd originally recorded with Caravan in that period eventually became Camel's ʽDown On The Farmʼ (which is hardly surprising, since it always had that lightweight, downhome, facetious Caravan groove to it). The CD release is further padded with four tracks from a later session — not sure about the year, but the only Caravan member on that session was Pye, accompanied by Roxy Music's John Gustafson on bass and future Marillion member Ian Mosley on drums. The songs do sound stylistically similar to the main material, though, so there will be no jarring break in perception.

Anyway, the key difference from typical Caravan output of the period is that, although this is still strictly a pop album, the songs are somewhat tighter written and contain more seductive melodic moves than usual. Formally, the title track might be one of those smooth-jazz-meets-adult-contemporary borefests, but Schelhaas chooses some epic keyboard tones (and it is cool how the song has Minimoog, electric piano, and organ all going on at the same time), and the chorus transforms the song into a heartfelt prayer — and we do not know many Caravan songs that sound like prayers, do we? Unfortunately, nobody seemed to take that request literally and give Mr. Hastings some cool water as requested.

But even if you still get bored with the song's slow tempo and way-too-soothing arrangement, ʽJust The Way You Areʼ is the first in a series of upbeat pop tracks with cute 'n' catchy singalong choruses that show Hastings had definitely not run out of ideas by that time — there's also ʽCold Frightʼ, a piece of funny funk-pop, and, among the later bonuses, ʽPoor Mollyʼ, one of Caravan's (or, in this case, solo Hastings') rare forays into disco, and the calypso-influenced ʽYou Won't Get Me Up In One Of Thoseʼ, both of which are passable. Things get worse on deliberate attempts to «rock out»: ʽTuesday Is Rock And Roll Niteʼ is pretty cringeworthy — Pye Hastings and boogie are about as compatible as Bill Gates and WWE, and unless you take Pye's invitation to «rock and roll!» with a heavy side of irony, I don't see any grounds for competing with contemporary rockers here. Did Pye intend this to be an ironic send-up? Not sure.

Then there are the other slow ballads: ʽCrack Of The Willowʼ has a memorable, old-fashioned synth riff, good for a decent traditional country dance; ʽSide By Sideʼ has an equally memorable voice-guitar duet, though the song's steady waltz tempo is far from the peak of Hastings' creative inventiveness; and ʽSend Reinforcementsʼ ends the CD on a very uplifting note — with the single best use of falsetto on the whole album. I realize that I am not shedding much light on particula­rities here, but these particularities are hard to comment upon — it's just good old Pye in his friendly-glowing mode, taxing his brain and his soul for a few more melodic lines that would accentuate the glowing.

So why exactly is this piece better than the albums that surround it on both sides, and is it pure coincidence that Cool Water had to stay in the vaults for so long when melodically inferior pro­duct was made available? My guess would be as good as anybody's, but Cool Water has a more homely and personal feel, where something like The Album would strive more for arena-rock values. As for Better By Far, it was homely, too, but somehow it just did not have the same amount of vocal and instrumental hooks — a slip-up, perhaps, that could be corrected with the follow-up level if the band had not been so cruelly let down by its label. Not that I am implying that Cool Water is a forgotten masterpiece: at best, it is just evidence that the genius of Caravan did not evaporate in one day, but kept fluctuating for a while, before the turbulence of the Eigh­ties shut it off completely. But it is indeed an album worth owning, and it is good to see it rein­stated in the regular Caravan chronology, so a thumbs up without any second thoughts.

Caravan: Paradise Filter

CARAVAN: PARADISE FILTER (2013)

1) All This Could Be Yours; 2) I'm On My Way; 3) Fingers In The Till; 4) This Is What We Are; 5) Dead Man Walking; 6) Farewell My Old Friend; 7) Pain In The Arse; 8) Trust Me I Am A Doctor; 9) I'll Be There For You; 10) The Paradise Filter.

Ten more years and another attempt to get back in the saddle. The funds for this, apparently, were raised through crowdfunding, and the recordings took place at the same time that Richard Cough­lan was fighting his last battle — his passing and the release of Paradise Filter both happened in December 2013. And whether it was Coughlan's state of health or just the usual aging process for everybody, Paradise Filter is quite obsessed with issues of health and dying. In 1975, a song with the title ʽTrust Me I Am Your Doctorʼ could have only had one meaning, and quite a sala­cious one at that. But considering that all of the band's members are well in their sixties now, who knows, maybe it is a song about how you should trust your doctor. (Well, not really, but then again, the album comes without a lyric sheet, and I'm too lazy to make it out on my own).

The lineup for Paradise Filter is the same as for the previous album, with the obvious exception of Coughlan, replaced by newcomer Mark Walker; Jimmy Hastings is not involved, either, nor is Dave Sinclair, so most of the extra instrumentation is provided by Richardson (viola, cello, flute, mandolin, you name it), while the bulk of the material is written by Pye. Fortunately, there is no attempt to repeat the «limp-prog» formula of Breakfast Item — once again, this is a straight­forward pop-rock album, with a bit more emphasis on rock this time around: after a brief organ introduction, ʽAll This Could Be Yoursʼ kicks in with a colorfully distorted guitar that immedi­ately makes it more likable, if no less stereotypical, in a power-pop mode, than ʽSmoking Gunʼ. Do these guys show renewed energy? Probably not, but at least the upbeat melodic fun is back, and Richardson's viola solo gives the song a nice lightweight classical edge in addition.

Not that the whole album is amusing: like I said, there is a clear fixation on death and all sorts of problems that usually lead to it — apparently, Pye is not growing happy as time goes by, and from a musical standpoint, I actually welcome the fact that he is becoming more grumbly and leads the band in a darker direction, that is, back to the disposition he showed on Battle Of Has­tings. This is not to say that blues-rocky songs like ʽI'm On My Wayʼ and ʽPain In The Arseʼ have any staying potential: their riffs are dusted off from fifty-year old stock or so, their atmo­spheric effect is undermined by excessive restraint, and even a thoroughly pissed-off Pye Has­tings is never quite as convincing as a sunshine-radiating happy Pye Hastings. But it all feels sincere — enough to make me vaguely interested in hearing what a sixty-year old Pye Hastings has to say about the state of the world, or, rather, how he is saying that.

The darkest songs are in the middle: ʽDead Man Walkingʼ and ʽFarewell My Old Friendʼ need no special explanation and trigger no special endorsement — a dark acoustic folk-rocker and a mournful piano ballad with predictable effects, although Richardson's viola always makes things a tad more exquisite than they could be. As things roll by, the mood eventually lightens up and Pye starts throwing some of his stock sugar around (ʽI'll Be There For Youʼ — the song sounds exactly as its title could suggest), before winding things down with a yawn, on a completely adult contemporary note with the title track (ironically, this is the only non-Pye song on the album).

As of 2017, it is quite possible that this is going to be the last new Caravan record: the guys are not getting any younger, there has been very little activity from them since 2014, and Paradise Filter gives off an even stronger impression of a musical testament than Battle Of Hastings did (come to think of it, these guys seemed really old in 1995, and there's almost twenty years lying in between these two albums!). If it is, at least it is definitely a better bet than Breakfast Item: it feels more true to Hastings' real state of mind and less bent on trying to «recapture the magic» that can no longer be recaptured by any means. With a modest thumbs up, I can recommend the record to any major fan of Caravan — its mix of elderly grimness and cheerfulness is a useful last brushstroke to the life picture of Pye Hastings. And if it happens not to be the last, well, I'd be happy to be proven wrong in my predictions.

Caravan: The Unauthorized Breakfast Item

CARAVAN: THE UNAUTHORISED BREAKFAST ITEM (2003)

1) Smoking Gun; 2) Revenge; 3) The Unauthorised Breakfast Item; 4) Tell Me Why; 5) It's Getting A Whole Lot Better; 6) Head Above The Clouds; 7) Straight Through The Heart; 8) Wild West Street; 9) Nowhere To Hide; 10) Linders Field.

The Battle Of Hastings, with its subtle, but special atmosphere of cold melancholy and nostalgia, could have been a highly appropriate and intelligent last goodbye for Caravan — one of those nice turns of events when a formerly great and then degenerated band comes together for one last statement; not a huge one, but reflecting a certain degree of wisdom and experience. Too often, however, the temptation to mistake a successful «last goodbye» for a sign of self-permission to go on recording new stuff, so to speak, becomes impossible to overcome. And thus, at the turn of the new millennium, Caravan come together once again — to make a record that, to me at least, sounds completely superfluous.

Again, this lineup only includes Hastings and Coughlan from the original band, although Dave Sinclair was still a member when they went into the studio: he contributes and plays on ʽNowhere To Hideʼ. Reportedly, though, he split with the band again over «creative differences», and all the other tracks feature Jan Schelhaas, the band's old keyboard player from the Blind Dog At St. Dunstan's period. Richardson and Leverton reprise their roles from The Battle Of Hastings, and an extra lead guitarist, Doug Boyle (who'd previously played with Robert Plant's band) is brought over to lend a hand. With the Hastings / Richardson / Schelhaas core, you might faintly expect them to deliver another Blind Dog — unfortunately, instead of this they deliver another Better By Far, albeit with some technical flaws that were typical of the late 1970s corrected and repla­ced with some technical flaws that are typical of the early 2000s.

If you have heard the opening track, ʽSmoking Gunʼ, you have already assessed the overall sound of the record — grimly optimistic pop music created by prog survivors and released in a world where neither distorted guitars nor cosmic-sounding electronic sounds no longer make anybody bat an eye just because they are, you know, distorted and/or cosmic-sounding. It's a nice sound, but it no longer has the added bonus of The Battle's world-weariness, because these guys have survived their mid-life crises and seem fairly happy now to occupy their parliamentary seats in the post-prog world of elder(ly) statesmen — making professional, but pizzazz-free music. The production is marvelous: all the most subtle guitar overtones reveal themselves instantaneously. There is hardly anything substantial behind that production, though. The second track, ʽRevengeʼ, sounds almost exactly like the first one, and that is just the beginning.

Eventually, after about four numbers that are completely interchangeable, they arrive at a point where they remember that they used to be a progressive band with long-winded epics, and begin to pump out 7-8-minute long epics that, unfortunately, fall more into the «adult contemporary» pattern than into the «progressive rock» scheme (amusingly, something very similar had earlier happened to Genesis, with their pseudo-prog monsters like ʽDriving The Last Spikeʼ, etc.). ʽIt's Getting A Whole Lot Betterʼ, for instance, is an unmemorable chunk of smooth blues-jazz with Kenny G-style sax solos; ʽHead Above The Cloudsʼ is at least speedier, but essentially it's the same smooth jazz taken at a faster tempo. One might have hoped that ʽNowhere To Hideʼ, the only track left behind by Dave Sinclair (and sung by Jim Leverton rather than Hastings), would be better — but its first half is exactly the same jazz-pop as everything else, and its second half largely consists of a fusion synth solo from Sinclair that sounds like... well, I have no idea why I should be listening to any of this instead of, say, Al Di Meola. At least Al Di Meola had pyro­tech

nics. Why should you need Al Di Meola-like music without pyrotechnics?

In the end, the only track that has shown a few signs of life to me was the instrumental finale, ʽLinders Fieldʼ, mainly because they hit upon a different kind of sound here — multi-tracked folksy jangle mixed with smooth, ambient-like keyboards. It's a pretty and unassuming coda with a curious (probably unintentional) psychedelic effect on the brain. But having to sit through 50 minutes of professional, clear-sounding, thoroughly monotonous, humorless, and essentially meaningless adult pop to get to it? Honestly, I'd much rather live my life knowing that the door on Caravan was slammed with the last power chord of ʽI Know Why You're Laughingʼ. Recommended only for major Pye fans and hardcore sentimentalists; for everybody else, definitely a thumbs down.

Caravan: All Over You

CARAVAN: ALL OVER YOU (1996)

1) If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You; 2) Place Of My Own; 3) The Love In Your Eye / To Catch Me A Brother; 4) In The Land Of Grey And Pink; 5) Golf Girl; 6) Disassociation (Nine Feet Underground); 7) Hello Hello; 8) Asforteri 25; 9) For Richard; 10) Memory Lain, Hugh; 11) Headloss.

Re-recordings of your own classics are not just pitiful: as a rule, they brand you very concisely as a «second-rate» artist — I think Page and Plant were the only ones who could properly get away with this shit, because most of the stuff they did was re-inventions rather than re-recordings, but other than that, Caravan here are joining the league of Blue Öyster Cult and The Animals, for no reason whatsoever — of course, it is understandable if you want to nostalgize in the confines of a studio, but what good are the results for even a dedicated fan? This is not a bad album, just utterly pointless. Unless the point is just admitting defeat: «hey guys, none of you bought The Battle Of Hastings when it came out — so I guess you like the old shit more, here's an acoustic version of ʽThe Love In Your Eyeʼ for you, enjoy».

As you can see from the track list, this is a representative retrospective of the classic years of Caravan, covering every album from the self-titled debut and up to Plump In The Night. The sonic structure is a little weird: about two-thirds of the record is almost completely acoustic (ex­cept for a few lead electric parts every now and then), up to the first part of ʽFor Richardʼ — after which the distorted guitars kick in with full force, and the album continues as an electric appearance until the end. The musicianship remains strong through the entire album, and Hastings continues to be in fine voice — and these are all great songs, so, formally, one cannot complain. But I struggle to find any specific points for which these arrangements should be re­commended. If anything, there are some weak points — namely, the production, which sounds strangely cluttered and disorienting: lots of gratuitous percussive overdubs, special effects, echoes, sometimes giving the songs a cavernous feel that they really do not deserve.

Additional odd ideas include, for instance, the overdub of fake stadium audience cheer and applause over the last two tracks — well, sure, those Plump In The Night tracks could be played in an arena setting, but why should we be told that? Is it some sort of poorly hidden envy on Pye's part, that he never got to play in a proper arena? Anyway, those crowd noises splattered all over ʽHeadlossʼ are really very annoying and distracting and, might I say, in poor taste.

Thus, unless you are interested in a couple of nice jazzy acoustic solos here and there (with a Spanish touch on ʽThe Love In Your Eyeʼ), it is probably better to just forget this record ever existed. Apparently, that was not the end of the story: a couple of years later, Hastings and Co. followed it up with All Over You Too, featuring a second batch of re-recordings, this time from 1973 to 1976; and that one, according to rumors, was even more tasteless than the first one, so I have not bothered to search it out. All in all, a very silly decision.

Caravan: The Battle Of Hastings

CARAVAN: THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS (1995)

1) It's A Sad, Sad Affair; 2) Somewhere In Your Heart; 3) Cold As Ice; 4) Liar; 5) Don't Want Love; 6) Travelling Ways; 7) This Time; 8) If It Wasn't For Your Ego; 9) It's Not Real; 10) Wendy Wants Another 6" Mole; 11) I Know Why You're Laughing.

The Battle of Hastings, fought on October 14, 1066, is generally considered a key event in the political, social, and cultural history of England, leading to a decisive victory on the part of Nor­man forces led by William the Conqueror and initiating a major period of transformation for the entire English society. Precisely one year later, in 1067, the old cathedral of Canterbury was completely destroyed by fire, and starting in 1070, rebuilt under the supervision of the first Norman archbishop; the new marvels of Norman architecture, along with the subsequent murder of Thomas Becket on the steps of the cathedral, led to a major increase in its popularity and, consequently, the popularity of Canterbury as such, directly reflected in such artistic highs as the works of Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (A Canterbury Tale), and English progressive rock bands such as The Soft Machine, Gong, National Health, and, of course, Caravan. In addition, the Norman conquest led to major changes in the English musical tradition, with new styles of court, sacred, and even folk music complementing and sometimes replacing older Saxon traditions — echoes of which still survived in English popular music in the 20th century, and were merged by progressive and experimental artists with African and American elements to form the basis for progressive rock music, including the Can­terbury school, in the late Sixties and early Seventies. All of these connections are brought back to us with the front cover of the album, a partial reproduction of the monumental Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the key elements of the Ba...

...wait a minute, what? You're telling me it is all just a lame pun on the last name of Pye Hastings, the de-facto leader of Caravan since at least 1973? Oh. Bummer. Could we please get Mr. Hastings on the phone here, to confirm this? What's that? He's got no memory of making this album, so he can neither confirm nor deny? Double bummer.

Admittedly, it is true that The Battle Of Hastings, released 929 years after the epochal event and 13 years after the last attempt at a Caravan reunion, sank to the bottom even quicker than Back To Front, and continues to be largely ignored by prog and pop fans alike: in 1995, it was hard to imagine a style less out of touch with the times than Pye Hastings' brand of «soft prog», and good luck to anybody wishing to find a comprehensive and serious review of the record. And yet, it was a serious record. Most of the songs were indeed composed by Hastings, but the band also included Coughlan on drums, Dave Sinclair on keyboards (he is also credited for at least one song, ʽTravelling Waysʼ), a returning Geoff Richardson on viola and 50,000 other instruments, and even brother and long-time sideman companion Jimmy Hastings on the usual flutes and saxes. The only new member is bassist Jim Leverton, and even that guy is a true veteran (of Noel Red­ding's Fat Mattress, Juicy Lucy, Hemlock, Savoy Brown, and whoever else's fame).

Naturally, the lineup alone does not matter: what matters is whether the songs, the production, and the level of energy/inspiration makes the record any better than the lackluster works by the 1977–1982 versions of the band. According to a few disappointed fans whose opinions may be gathered from various prog review sites, the answer seems to be a firm «no». The Battle Of Has­tings is, indeed, a collection of acoustic-based pop songs, with very little by way of «listening challenges», very low-key in execution, rather monotonous in atmosphere, and sort of embarras­sing when it comes to the occasional quirk such as that ʽWendyʼ song. So it would seem that if you were bored stiff by Better By Far and The Album, the same should be expected of this re­cord. And yet, this is not how it works for me.

Two things in particular make enough of a difference to make me want to embrace and recom­mend the album. The first and lesser one is the production: everything here sounds a ton better than the muffled, hollow production of the 1977–1982 albums. This is obvious from the opening lively acoustic guitar chords and old-fashioned background organ hum on ʽIt's A Sad, Sad, Af­fairʼ — a good sign that even if the songwriting will not be up to par, at least the overall sound will remind you more of classic Caravan than of the late-period plastic Caravan. It is not always like that (occasionally, the ugly synth tones and the silkbox-enclosed guitar echoes will come back to haunt you), but it is the rule rather than the exception.

The major difference, however, is that, apparently, Pye Hastings had grown himself a few de­mons to exorcise in the 13 years that we hadn't heard from him. Most of the songs here do not sound like commercially-oriented sentimental pop songs: this is more of a gloomy, melancholic, nostalgic singer-songwriter record, formally dressed up as a collection of pop tunes. There is in­deed a «battle» fought here, and I do not know how personal it was (information on Pye's per­sonal life is quite scarce to come by), but most songs are about cheating, rejection, bitterness, reproaches — I mean, just look at the titles: ʽIt's A Sad, Sad Affairʼ, ʽCold As Iceʼ (no, not Forei­gner!), ʽLiarʼ (no, not Argent!), ʽIf It Wasn't For Your Egoʼ, etc. It might not necessarily be about one's love life as such — might be a general allegory for the bitterness at feeling forgotten and rejected, which had pretty much been Caravan's ordeal for the past 15 years. Regardless, it feels very sincere when you really get into it, and, oddly enough, I find myself returning to some of these songs far more often than I'd expect myself to, usually in times of trouble.

Describing the individual songs is hard, though, because they are really all unified in terms of style and substance. Some are a little slower, some a little faster, most float by on a double-layer bed of acoustic guitars and keyboards with whatever additional instrumentation Richardson and Jimmy Hastings decide to throw in for fullness' effect (flutes, mandolins, accordions, etc.). Pro­bably worth singling out is that opener, ʽSad, Sad Affairʼ, slightly more upbeat and precisely shaped than the rest (what with Pye playing and singing the exact same catchy folk-pop melody); the sax-embellished waltz of ʽCold As Iceʼ; and the squint-eyed, stop-and-start menace of ʽLiarʼ (which was probably influenced by the old Argent song after all — at least, the stop-and-start trick, followed by the massive eruption of "LIAR!", follows the same formula, and I do not be­lieve this is a coincidence).

The only «objective» standouts, however, are the last two tracks. ʽWendy Wants Another 6" Moleʼ is the specially incubated ugly duckling — a song that sounds more 10cc than Caravan with its vaudeville-pop rhythmics and caricaturesque vocals, not to mention grotesque (though not very funny) lyrics, although even 10cc would probably have never dared to end any of their tracks with a bunch of raspberries (literally!). Apparently, Pye remembered at the last moment that he had neglected to imbue enough of his sick humor into the songs, and synthesized it all within a single short track. It's okay to feel offended, though I'd guess that for some people, it would at least be a nice breakup of the overall monotonousness.

The real kicker, however, is the last song, ʽI Know Why You're Laughingʼ. It begins by skilfully deceiving you into thinking of it as a lazy adult contemporary ballad of a conclusion, then quickly kicks into high gear and becomes the fastest, catchiest, and most grim-faced pop-rocker that Pye had ever written up to that point. I really mean it — the song rocks, and at 3:36 it goes into genu­ine hard rock mode, with a fluent, furious, and perfectly constructed guitar solo that may remind one of Lindsey Buckingham (think ʽGo Your Own Wayʼ and suchlike). It is the kind of song that I would never in a million years expect out of Caravan, and it's been one of my favorites of theirs ever since I heard it — a criminally underrated pop-rock masterpiece that could have gotten its due were it released in 1975 rather than 1995... but it is never too late to make amends.

So, is this really the «comeback» we'd been hoping for? Certainly not for those who expected long-winded progressive structures, and probably not even for those who hoped for the bright, shining fun of Blind Dog. It is a monotonous, morose, autumnal record, good for the mood on one of those days where the rain just won't stop, but it is authentically atmospheric and perhaps even subtly allegorical, so much so that I could easily see it becoming the favorite album of the defeated King Harold Godwinson, had he had the (mis)fortune to survive the battle of Hastings and live into his late 920s. Thumbs up.

Caravan: Back To Front

CARAVAN: BACK TO FRONT (1982)

1) Back To Herne Bay Front; 2) Bet You Wanna Take It All / Hold On, Hold On; 3) A. A. Man; 4) Videos Of Holly­wood; 5) Sally Don't Change It; 6) All Aboard; 7) Taken My Breath Away; 8) Proper Job / Back To Front.

Look — a reunion! The band may have folded after The Album, but in less than two years, they are back, and look at the lineup: Pye Hastings on guitar! Richard Coughlan on drums! Dave Sinclair on keyboards! Richard Sinclair on bass! All songs written by Hastings, Sinclair, and Sinclair! It's 1968 all over again — or, perchance, even 1971?..

The most interesting thing about Back To Front is that it is heavily nostalgic. For most prog veterans, the early Eighties were not yet a time, usually, when they would look back with sadness and yearning on their glory days. Many were too busy tripling their hair volumes, learning drum machine programming, or finding other ways to compete with the new romantic youngsters on the charts (usually unsuccessfully, but at least it seemed to keep them alive at the time). With Back To Front, you can certainly sense by the production that it probably belongs in the early Eighties — but mostly it looks as if they are trying to recapture the inspiration of the days of Grey And Pink. There is even an epic track with instrumental jamming (ʽProper Job / Back To Frontʼ), although they do not dare to launch into full-scale multi-part suite mode.

I am not sure, however, that the final result would genuinely appeal to veteran fans of Caravan at their peak. Admittedly, the two-part finale is a grower, particularly the ʽBack To Frontʼ part, an ominous riff-based jam shaped as a crescendo, with the doom-struck bass groove gradually enhanced by more and more layers of keyboards, and then finally evaporating into nothing and leaving you in a state of dark anxiety — just like in the old days, when they used to end their records on suspenseful notes rather than landing them softly with some soothing Pye Hastings lullaby. Even so, the entire thing hardly holds a candle to the classic suites, since the overall sound is somehow too close to generically tepid jazz-fusion grooves: Sinclair's bass lines on ʽProper Jobʼ seem taken out of the fusion textbook, and Dave's synth tones are... well, too syn­thetic for my tastes at least.

The biggest problem is that everything else is, at best, trying to hold up to the level of ʽBack To Frontʼ, and, at worst, not even trying. The presence of Richard adds extra spice if you like his above-mentioned fusion-esque bass playing on the album (polished and perfected due to years of playing with Hatfield & The North), but hardly so if you have high hopes about his songwriting: ʽBack To Herne Bay Frontʼ is a rather non-descript exercise in nostalgia, and the wannabe-arena-rocker ʽA. A. Manʼ is really just another mid-tempo pop song with a boring anthemic chorus that cannot seem to decide if it wants to be soft and tender or powerful and angry. Dave, meanwhile, is credited for the writing of the closing suite, but he is also responsible for ʽVideos Of Holly­woodʼ, a draggy rhythmic ballad that seems to share the sentimentality, but not the charm of the Kinks' ʽCelluloid Heroesʼ, and for ʽSally Don't Change Itʼ, an even slower ballad that sounds... well, like an unfunny parody on a Billy Joel ballad, I'd say.

This leaves us with Pye, and Pye is the same Pye as he's been on the previous two albums. An oddly out of place tender rockabilly number (ʽBet You Wanna Take It Allʼ), seguing into a slow R&B ballad (ʽHold On Hold Onʼ), and a couple faceless pop numbers on the second side all seem to be rather jello-like — not hopeless choruses, perhaps, but everything sounds so silky, so fragile, so muffled and cuddled that whenever I try to concentrate on this stuff, I find myself figuratively drowning in some imaginary viscous fruit drink. Fun bit of trivia: the near-rapped mid-section on ʽTaken My Breath Awayʼ has the same vocal melody as Suzanne Vega's ʽTom's Dinerʼ — almost certainly a coincidence, since I cannot imagine Vega taking cues from a nearly unknown Caravan album. But what's up with the spelling of that title? Is ʽTaken My Breath Awayʼ an implicit tribute to AC/DC's ʽGiven The Dog A Boneʼ? That might not be a total coincidence.

Overall, the record is still a major improvement over the previous two albums — at the very least, there are no obvious embarrassments (like trying to do a reggae song or going disco at the wrong time), and that final suite is surprisingly better than I could have guessed. But it is also easy to see why the reunion did not hold up: trying to revive the classic Caravan vibe in the early Eighties was a bit like setting up a pro-Britain party in 1783. Absolutely nobody needed this at the time, and the reunited Caravan quickly split up again, even before it became obvious that the album would not sell, I believe — which, might I add, was a very good thing, because I shudder to think what the fate of a slightly cohesive Caravan could have been in the mid- to late Eighties. As it is, the Caravan finally took enough time to unpack, rest its weary legs, take a long drink, and sit out the rough times without getting into the heart of the shitstorm.

Caravan: The Album

CARAVAN: THE ALBUM (1980)

1) Heartbreaker; 2) Corner Of My Eye; 3) Watcha Gonna Tell Me; 4) Piano Player; 5) Make Yourself At Home; 6) Golden Mile; 7) Bright Shiny Day; 8) Clear Blue Sky; 9) Keepin' Up De Fences.

By the early Eighties, Caravan were in a total state of flux: their Arista contract fizzled out, some of the band members quietly quit, and so it was almost by accident that somehow, in 1980, they found themselves in the studio once again — and with Dave Sinclair in person returning for the third time, no less. Now they found themselves signed exclusively to Kingdom Records, the small label of their former manager Terry King (which used to distribute their recordings in Europe), they had three of the original members, and they split the songwriting three ways, with Hastings, Sinclair, and Richardson each taking a near-equal share. Perhaps one could hope for a slight improvement over the mediocrity of Better By Far?

Well, look no further than ʽHeartbreakerʼ, the opening single (no relation to Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones), for the revelation. It opens with a broken-hearted (yeah right) bluesy riff, so muffled, so glossy, so tight-wedged in the hum-hum-humming of the synthesizer wraps, that it is clear from the first fifteen seconds: whatever melodic potential there is here, it is going to be smothered by awful production, and once again what used to be the strong side of Caravan — a sense of sentimental humility — is going to work to their absolute disadvantage. But that is only the beginning of our problems: by the time we get to the chorus, it is clear that Caravan have pretty much mutated into Air Supply, or America, or any of those limp soft-rock outfits who thought that the more shallow they made their tenderness, the more appeal it would find among those people for whom even ʽHere, There And Everywhereʼ was too deep. The hookline of ʽHeart­breakerʼ — "while with you was a heartache, without you is a hell" — is not only barely grammatical and barely pronounceable, but is also unsingable with a straight face.

Still, at least Pye's other two contributions are arguably the highest points of this sorry mess of an album: ʽBright Shiny Dayʼ has him in solid McCartney mode, with a sunshiny chorus that makes good use of his high-pitched modulation and heavier emphasis on catchy guitar licks than on the synthesizers, and ʽKeepin' Up De Fencesʼ — if you can make peace with the idea of disco bass­lines on a Caravan song (and we all knew it was coming, sooner or later... in 1980, though? what a bunch of retards!), it is the only song on this album that genuinely rocks, with a fine flashy guitar solo at the end and true proof that Richard Coughlan can keep a fast, steady, tight beat and ornate it with expressive fills at the same time.

I wish I could be just as empathetic to Richardson; but ʽCorner Of My Eyeʼ is just another one of these taking-itself-too-seriously soft-rock cornballs, not helped much by the surprising transfor­mation into rollickin' pop-rock in the bridge section — and ʽClear Blue Skyʼ is Caravan's first and last foray into the distant world of reggae, a track that they try to make more psychedelic by adding «cloudy» synth swirls all over the place, but Richardson's strained vocals are awful, his scat singing over the syncopated rhythm chords is even worse, and at six and a half minutes, the song tries to present itself as something epic when in reality it seems to simply follow the guide­line of "hey wait, we've never done a reggae song yet? come on now, everybody's done at least one reggae song! this will be fun, like a ʽBob Marley goes to Canterburyʼ kind of thing!"

Which leaves us with the Dave Sinclair songs, and I don't remember much about them after three or four listens, except that they kinda sounded like a mix of Elton John and Billy Joel (heck, one of them is even called ʽPiano Playerʼ, for Chrissake!). ʽMake Yourself At Homeʼ is ʽHonky Catʼ-like funk-pop that could really benefit from a strong singer like Elton, but has absolutely no future with these totally disinterested vocals (is that bass player Dek Messecar singing? he has no personality whatsoever).

I would not say that The Album is a significant drop down from the level of 1977 — the only difference is that here, there is not even a single superficial attempt to retain the «progressive» legacy of classic Caravan, but then, this is not necessarily a bad thing: from a certain point of view, it makes them more honest about what they are trying to do. The problem is that Caravan as a bona fide pop band, with no additional ambition, is a suicidal proposal — they never had the cockiness, the energy, the great guitar tones, the vivaciousness that should go along with a great pop band. They almost succeeded with Blind Dog, though, but then they ran out of inspiration and sheer power altogether, and now all we have is utter blandness. Thumbs down.

Caravan: Better By Far

CARAVAN: BETTER BY FAR (1977)

1) Feelin' Alright; 2) Behind You; 3) Better By Far; 4) Silver Strings; 5) The Last Unicorn; 6) Give Me More; 7) Man In A Car; 8) Let It Shine; 9) Nightmare.

Okay, so if you want a proverbial example of what a «major drop in quality» truly means, look no further than the alarming gap that divides Blind Dog At St. Dunstan's, an energetic, inspired, and emotional pop album with progressive overtones, from Better By Far, a limp, mechanical, openly boring exercise in radio-friendly MOR music with no overtones whatsoever. It is always a puzzle to me how the exact same band can go from exciting to insipid in the short span separating one record from another, but yes, these things do happen.

First, this record does not rock, not in the slightest. Where Blind Dog gave us some nifty funky grooves, nicely steeped in a sharp, sarcastic attitude, Better By Far is almost completely given over to quiet, inoffensive soft-rock workouts, with completely conventional musical skeletons, generic (and heavily synth-based) musical arrangements, and energy levels that often sound pitiful compared to The Eagles, let alone the new blood of the punk movement of 1977. The opening number, ʽFeelin' Alrightʼ (not a Traffic cover), should be getting me up on my feet, cheering and clapping and welcoming a brand new day — instead, despite all the formal upbeat­ness, it feels drab and colorless, most of the «excitement» provided by Schelhaas' ugly and boring synth tone, and Pye's vocals inexplicably drowning in the sea of lackluster instrumentation instead of soaring on top of them. And that chorus? Other than a slight, predictable, pitch rise on the "feeling alRIGHT" bit, it does not even try too hard to separate itself from the pedestrian march of the verses. Awfully disappointing.

And it never gets better — all of these songs sound as if Pye and the others wrote them in about half an hour. The second song, ʽBehind Youʼ, rests on the same melodic foundations as ʽFeelin' Alrightʼ and tries to produce the exact same mood, except that it also incorporates a funky mid-section, again, dominated by ugly keyboards. The title track leads us into balladeering territory and ends up sounding even more like contemporary Bee Gees than like contemporary Wings, Pye's sweet voice being pretty much the song's only saving grace as it finally manages to elevate itself above the MOR arrangement. But all of that is nothing compared to Richardson's ʽSilver Stringsʼ, which actually seems to intentionally sound like modern Bee Gees — disco basslines, falsetto harmonies, and a silly artistic gimmick where the "let me hear the silver strings" refrain is followed by some lazy mandolin plucking.

Some of the (usually just as bitterly disappointed) reviews of the album single out the last track, ʽNightmareʼ, as the LP's high point — most likely because it is the longest, most complex, and most «progressively oriented» song of the lot (and also features the most enigmatic, introspective, and noticeably troubled lyrics on the album). My impression, however, is that it is just as boring and mushy as everything here — a slow trotter, all atmosphere and very little proper melody, not to mention zero energy: even the violin and guitar solos, though technically melodic, mostly just meander on the spot and never end up going anywhere. I mean, you'd think a song called ʽNight­mareʼ should have something nightmarish about it, right? Well, there's hardly anything more «nightmarish» about it than there is about, say, an Elton John ballad from Blue Moves.

Vainly do I try to find anything here that would even remotely repeat, for instance, the triumph of the chorus of ʽAll The Wayʼ — now there, too, was a slow, sentimental, conventionally written epic ballad, but it did sound epic: it was an anthem, played out with a winning mix of tenderness and determination, gaining more and more strength and spirit as it went by. Strength and spirit are sorely lacking on this sucker, though — and, okay, if you don't have strength and spirit, give us bleakness, weakness, and chaos, show us a shining example of depression, but do not feed us with this gray blandness. Better By Far? «Better by far» than what, I wonder? The title alone is so irritating that I have no choice other than to give the record a thumbs down — the first truly bad record in Caravan history; yes, this is definitely one of those albums that may be counted as «one of the reasons punk had to happen», except the commercial fortunes of Caravan were so low at the time that most punks probably never heard it in the first place.

Caravan: Blind Dog At St. Dunstan's

CARAVAN: BLIND DOG AT ST. DUNSTAN'S (1976)

1) Here Am I; 2) Chiefs And Indians; 3) A Very Smelly, Grubby Little Oik; 4) Bobbing Wide; 5) Come On Back; 6) Oik (reprise); 7) Jack And Jill; 8) Can You Hear Me?; 9) All The Way (With John Wayne's Single-Handed Liberation Of Paris).

The first Caravan album to completely drop all pretense and be qualified as a pure pop record is naturally despised by large amounts of progressive rock fans, judasing it for all it's worth, and just as naturally ignored by the majority of pop fans — unlike Genesis, Caravan were unable to adapt sufficiently well to the new reality and find themselves an entirely new base of support. By­passed by main audiences for being too unattractive and lambasted by critics by being too slick and commercial, Blind Dog At St. Dunstan's fell through the cracks and sank like a stone. Never mind the unimportant fact that it incidentally happened to be one of the best pop albums released in the small chronological interim between the Golden Age of Art Rock and the radical change in musical fashion arriving with punk and New Wave.

There is no conceptuality here (other than four songs on Side A joined together in a single suite, but this time they are not even listed under any single title), no musical innovation, no lengthy instrumental passages, no avantgarde influences, no spiritual messages — only a bunch of pop songs with influences from music hall, folk rock, funk, R&B, and even a bit of proto-disco. But now that the transition is made complete, the band happens to embrace the new light style with verve. Dave Sinclair is once again temporarily out of the band, replaced by Jan Schelhaas, a new guy with good technique and few ambitions, being perfectly happy to simply be one of the boys and, for the most part, keeping out of the spotlight; but his playing agrees very well with Hastings and Wedgewood, and Richardson's viola and flute, though applied now to seriously different types of material, are still vital to the overall sound.

The only non-Hastings song on the entire record is Wedgewood's ʽChiefs And Indiansʼ, and it is a major improvement over his contributions on Cunning Stunts. A simple tale of discord between two lovers, it begins as a soft British music hall piece, somewhere in between Ray Davies and Alan Price, then launches into an angry funk-rock escapade with all the band members taking short, snappy solos (Wedgewood's bit of bass, eventually sliding down into a pool of nasty fuzz, is the best one, but everybody else shines as well) before returning back to music hall mode for the outro. What really sells the song, apart from all the snappy energy, is that it actually manages to sound cool — not too serious and pathetic, like ʽWelcome The Dayʼ on the previous record, but not straightforwardly comical, either. The lyrics, the vocals, the instrumental passages all have this air of sharp, witty sarcasm, and it is a defining feature of the album in general.

Take a seemingly silly, superficial funk-pop song like ʽJack And Jillʼ: its very title places it in the ʽMary Had A Little Lambʼ category, and its lyrics are, indeed, a modern-day expansion of the old nursery rhyme with its potential sexual innuendos (well, leave it to Pye to find the subtext of physical romance in virtually everything — and, for that matter, the very title of the album is also a masked allusion to physical romance, spelled out in more detail during a well-audible bit of dialog at the end of the song: "what are those two doggies doing over there?" — "well, the first one is blind and his friend behind is pushing him all the way to St. Dunstan's!"). But really, the song is made by Wedgewood's spin­ning bass line and its interaction with Richardson's syn­copated viola (how often do you hear funky bits played on a viola, anyway?), implying a sort of «trickster» atmosphere, friendly and mischievous at the same time. As simple as the song is, it's got some bottom to it — both in the direct musical sense (cool bass!) and in the artistic one.

Each song has its fair share of hooks and attractions. ʽA Very Smelly, Grubby Little Oikʼ has not only enriched my knowledge of non-literary English language (next time somebody offends you, just call him a "grubby oik" in response and watch him spend the rest of his days in confusion), it also gave me a fun pop-rock riff and a catchy chorus — which then makes a masterful transition, by means of the vocal-synth merge, into the slow atmospheric instrumental ʽBobbing Wideʼ and then back into the realms of catchy soft-pop with ʽCome On Backʼ. Now ʽCome On Backʼ could be thought of as a pretty straightforward and «bottom-less» tune (although it really depends on which way you want to interpret the line "only when you come, you know that we'll be one"); but the real fun thing about it is that as soon as it is over, it is immediately reprised in the form of a gospel-pop coda, combining the melody of ʽCome On Backʼ with the lyrical subject of ʽGrubby Little Oikʼ with guest-starring Chanter Sisters providing the vocals. So is this really a four-part thematic suite about the adventures of a representative of the lower classes, or is it rather an exer­cise in sarcastic absurdism, firmly placing melodic fun over serious content?..

I have mentioned Ray Davies and Alan Price, but I think an even more substantial comparison here would be with Wings — the album shares a lot in common with McCartney's style in the Seventies, what with all the soft keyboards, sweet vocals, stylistic variety, and preference of humor over seriousness; no wonder, then, that it tends to get underrated in exactly the same ways in which people still like to criticize Wings At The Speed Of Sound or London Town, and that I, personally, find myself fond of it in much the same way I am fond of those records. In fact, the last and longest song, ʽAll The Wayʼ, starts out with Pye sounding almost like Macca at his most sentimental (think ʽMy Loveʼ?) — and then transitions into a perfectly McCartney-esque chorus, simple, instantly memorable, and so sincere and touching that looping it for a very lengthy coda just seems like the most logical decision to take (especially because it's hard to think of a perfect resolution for the rising line "better than before, better than all after", so the only thing to do is just let it roll on and on and slowly fizzle away into a quiet whistle pattern). For the record: the reference to John Wayne in the subtitle is completely gratuitous (actually, ʽAll The Wayʼ is the only song on the album that begs to be taken completely seriously, with no signs of tongue-in-cheek attitude anywhere in sight).

Overall, the correct approach here is not to get worried about the lack of challenge or experi­mentation and simply to let yourself get carried away by the waves of vocal hooks and instrumen­tal sharpness — the music, that is, and not the supra-musical ambition, for which we also have a time and a place, but different ones. Pretty soon afterwards, Caravan would finally start losing their way in a world of rapidly changing fashions; but just for this once, their fine-tuned pop instincts worked out perfectly. Big thumbs up.

Caravan: Cunning Stunts

CARAVAN: CUNNING STUNTS (1975)

1) The Show Of Our Lives; 2) Stuck In A Hole; 3) Lover; 4) No Backstage Pass; 5) Welcome The Day; 6) The Dabsong Conshirtoe; 7) The Fear And Loathing In Tollington Park Rag.

While the band's obsessive attraction to sexual jokes and innuendos seems to have become a per­manent fixture — as witnessed by the current title — the musical direction that the Hastings-led Caravan was taking clearly took a sharp turn in between 1973 and 1975. Technically, Cunning Stunts is still a progressive rock album, what with most of the second side being given over to yet another complex, multi-part suite, and some of the other songs still showing a strong classical and/or jazz influence. But in reality, the whole thing sounds more like «art pop» now, hook-based, potentially radio-friendly and mass-accessible songs without anything particularly unpredictable, bizarre, or musically challenging about them.

Part of the blame could be lifted off Pye's shoulders and placed on the new band member, bass player Mike Wedgwood, who is, for instance, guilty of bringing with him arguably the least Caravan-like song so far in their catalog — the soft funk-rocker ʽWelcome The Dayʼ, which, honestly, sounds more like The Average White Band than anything Canterbury-related, and is only salvageable due to Geoffery Richardson's viola accompaniment (it is not every day, after all, that you hear a viola take an integral part in a funk rocker) and Hastings' inspired wah-wah solo, which he somehow manages to deliver with suitably hard rocking fiery aggression, though, un­fortunately, the rest of the band still sleepwalks through it while he is kicking their asses. Also, for that matter, Wedgwood's vocals are quite a heavy blow for all those accustomed to Sinclair's and Hastings' sweet, disarmingly childlike tones — Wedgwood introduces a belt-it-out arena-rock component, bringing on unnecessary associations with Foreigner way before Foreigner even formed, so there's definitely something evil going on.

Still, it was Pye who okayed Wedgwood in the first place, and it is Dave Sinclair who is respon­sible for much of the songwriting on the album, so blame it on the new times, not the new people. And, besides, why should one necessarily talk in terms of blaming? So now the band does sound, occasionally, more like Elton John than Caravan: this is particularly evident on Pye's muscular pop-rocker ʽStuck In A Holeʼ, which (perhaps, quite subconsciously, as a result of too much radio listening) borrows the rhythmic pattern from Elton's ʽPhiladelphia Freedomʼ, and on Wedgwood's second contribution, the slow, power-chord driven ballad ʽLoverʼ, where some of the vocal moves instinctively echo Elton's tragic-redemptional intonations on ʽSomeone Saved My Life Tonightʼ (is it really a coincidence that we are talking about two back-to-back Caravan songs here reflecting the possible influence of two back-to-back Elton John singles released in the same year?). But while ʽLoverʼ certainly drags, and its orchestral climax also comes out as meandering and muzak-y rather than properly climactic à la Buckmaster, ʽStuck In A Holeʼ is fun and catchy, and I am not ready to count an Elton John influence on a prog-rock band as necessarily denigra­ting — hey, as long as you are cleverly ripping off Captain Fantastic-era material, you may have any pedigree you like without dishonoring yourself.

At other times, they sound like the pompous, anthemic symph-pop of Argent — ʽThe Show Of Our Livesʼ, for the first time in Caravan history, tries to introduce them grandly and ceremo­niously, with a slow celebratory march and a genuine wall of sound. It's done with taste, and Pye, in particular, contributes fabulously melodic guitar passages; as the multi-tracked choir steps in with the final "ring the bells and sing, gather 'round and sing" incantation, we enter ʽHey Judeʼ mode, not as boldly and full-heartedly, perhaps, as should be done for full cathartic effect, but to some effect, sure. Is this «commercialization»? From a certain point of view, most naturally: a bit of straightforward grandioseness, in the age of arena-rock and AOR, could be regarded as a gamble for extra popularity. On the other hand, just how legitimate a prog-rock band could be without having at least one Big Universalist Anthem to its name?..

As to the oddly titled ʽDabsong Conshirtoeʼ, it is far from the best Caravan epic, but it's a good piece of work all the same. It has far more lyrics and vocals than their usual epics, and could, in fact, be construed as merely a sequence of autonomous ballads and rockers, but it still finds some space in the middle to incorporate a waltzing jazz-rock jam, and it also features an unusual ending: the last part is a lengthy, repetitive vamp centered around a loud, paranoid hard rock riff with quasi-chaotic walls of sonic noise gradually rising against it, before the stormy rumble ends up drowning itself in a reprise of the "ring the bells and sing" part of ʽThe Show Of Our Livesʼ. I guess this symbolizes the ultimate triumph of Harmony over Chaos — well, it would be strange to expect anything less than that from a band as naturally optimistic as Caravan.

Upon some deliberation, I'm still inclined to call Cunning Stunts a thumbs up-worthy success. It's a little slow and draggy in places, and a little out-of-their-league in others, and a clear drop­down off the Plump In The Night level, but overall, they are in good shape to survive the crisis of the mid-Seventies if you grant them the permission to move one step away from the classic Caravan spirit and incorporate all these other influences. On the other hand, it is also a transiti­onal album, suffering from a lack of clear understanding of what exactly it is that they want to be at the moment: Blind Dog At St. Dunstan's would soon be spelling out the new status in a far more transparent manner. Still, no reason whatsoever to ignore this work — as far as I'm con­cerned, it still forms an essential part of the band's «classic streak».

Caravan: Caravan & The New Symphonia

CARAVAN: CARAVAN & THE NEW SYMPHONIA (1974)

1) Introduction; 2) Mirror For The Day; 3) The Love In Your Eye; 4) Virgin On The Ridiculous; 5) For Richard.

«Do it with an orchestra» was quite a heavy trend back in the days when symphonic rock was king, although, when you really think about it, not that many heavyweights actually went for this: Deep Purple in 1969, Procol Harum in 1972, and... well, ELP and Renaissance joined in some­what later, I guess. Essentially, though, this Caravan album repeats the formula of Procol Harum's Live With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra: use the symphonic potential of the orchestra to enhance the effect of originally non-orchestrated material, rather than blend it with the rock group format in some particularly innovative, genre-fusing way (like Deep Purple did, albeit with questionable results). Not that this is a bad idea: Caravan's highly melodic and already classically influenced melodies seem like a natural fit with symphonic orchestration, and, in fact, the whole idea seemingly came out not out of the desire to jump on the Procol Harum bandwagon, but out of the experience of working with a full orchestra on the Plump In The Night sessions.

I have not been able to uncover any additional activities of this «New Symphonia» orchestra, but I do know that it was essentially the creation of conductor Martyn Ford, who had already specia­lized in working with contemporary non-classical musicians, and that the orchestral ʽIntroduc­tionʼ here was credited to Simon Jeffes, founder and leader of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra — meaning that, unlike Procol Harum, who could actually afford an authentic classical orchestra to work with them, Caravan went along with relative neophytes and barrier-breakers. Nevertheless, an orchestra is an orchestra, and you won't be hearing any classical musicians trying out rock riffs during this concert.

The recently released expanded edition of the album shows that the actual performance consisted of a short first set, during which the band played highlights from the Plump In The Night album on its own; a larger second set with the orchestra, all of which was released on the original LP; and an encore of ʽA Hunting We Shall Goʼ, for which the orchestra stayed on to reproduce the original arrangement (although, as the liner notes state with a whiff of reproach, not before a little blackmail-and-bluff took place backstage, since the musicians wanted their pay enlarged for the encore, and only went ahead after Pye threatened they'd do it without them anyway). The main set, apart from the already mentioned ʽIntroductionʼ, included two new compositions written specially for the concert, and two old multi-part epics, perfectly suitable for orchestration — not a lot, really, but I guess that budget concerns played a large part in this, too.

So, how well does Caravan work with an orchestra? I'd say that this is a good match on the whole, especially as far as the bombastic instrumental passages on the epic numbers are concerned, such as the martial brass fanfares in ʽThe Love In Your Eyeʼ and the last, hard-rocking, movement of the ʽFor Richardʼ suite, where the orchestra replaces Sinclair's distorted organ riffs. The new arrangements are not necessarily better, but the orchestra does lend extra romanticist power to the material without dumbing it down; in a way, one might even argue that The New Symphonia is really that one last crucial ingredient they'd always needed to evolve into a massively powerful music-making machine — the catch is, it's far from certain that they ever needed to evolve into a massively powerful machine, but if you thought they did, here is where they do, or at least come fairly close to doing. Pye's thin, frail, slightly effeminate voice almost feels a bit pitiful against this massive background, though — perhaps they should have hired Ian Gillan for this night... then again, perhaps not. At least his mike stayed in good shape.

Of the two new compositions I have to say that ʽMirror For The Dayʼ is a lush sentimental pop ballad in Pye's already fully-crystallized style (presaging more and more of this material on the band's next records), made somewhat more distinct by using a background vocalist choir with gospel overtones; and ʽVirgin On The Ridiculousʼ is mostly memorable for its self-explanatory title — otherwise, it is an even slower, longer, and more pompous ballad without any particularly notable musical ideas. However, in both cases the synergy between the band and the orchestra is well-balanced, and on ʽVirginʼ at least, much of the main melody is provided by strings in the first place (except for the instrumental bridge, dominated by the organ), so we can all just take this as rehearsal materials for Pye Hastings' Canterbury Oratorio.

Naturally, this is not an essential release to have in your collection, and naturally, it is atypical of the usual Caravan live sound — with which you can easily acquaint yourself on ten thousand archival releases from the BBC and various venues — but on the whole, it's an intelligent and resonant fusion, in which the power and the subtlety of the orchestra are anything but wasted. And I even like the ʽIntroductionʼ, especially the clever way in which the orchestra first intro­duces itself with an impressionist piece, then passes the baton over to the band for some blues-rock jamming, then smartly fills in the gaps around the band to become one with them: that Simon Jeffes is one darn fine fella when it comes to synthesizing rock with classical. So, overall, this is a very easy thumbs up for me, and a moderately tasteful success for Caravan in the year when clouds began seriously darkening around the pillars of the symph-rock movement.