Monday 13 May 2019

Fred Frith ‎– "Guitar Solos" (Caroline Records ‎– C 1508) 1974


With an album cover set in the very English setting of a cricket pitch,and the very English take on the electric guitar, One would expect a very perpendicular angle away from rock'n'roll culture, but unfortunately Virgin/caroline stick very closely to the traditional sexual exploitation angle with the label logo featuring a naked pubescent girl.Rather like the cover of that inexcusable 'Blind Faith' album, and that fucking horrific Scorpions album cover, "Virgin Killer".Real life versions of Spinal Taps "Smell The Glove" album cover.
 All those hideous bastards were at it. Once the historic sexual abuse mob turns its attention away from Hollywood and on to the creepy world of Rock Music,there's gonna be no-one left out of jail to make their awful racket ever again....which is a good thing.
Not that Fred Frith had anything to do with it. Coming from the intelligent section of the musical pie,the music on this Solo LP has as little to do with Rock music, and Frith had to do with under-age sex.....ie Nothing....I hope! Its bad enough that I can't sing the praises of Gary Glitter anymore, never mind Fred Frith or Henry Cow!

Tracklist:

A1 Hello Music 1:31
A2 Glass C/W Steel 5:35
A3 Ghosts 3:12
A4 Out Of Their Heads (On Locoweed) 8:24
B1 Not Forgotten 1:55
B2 Hollow Music 2:44
B3 Heat C/W Moment 1:43
B4 No Birds 12:46


2 comments:

RSTVMO said...

1979 https://rsteviemoore.bandcamp.com/track/freb-frith

rev.b said...

Your ‘rock music’ reference reminds me of the time a group of us drove down to Richmond to see Fred solo in a little repurposed store front downtown. This was in the early 80s when he’d chucked the guitars for 2 x 4 boards of wood laid on a table top on which he’d mounted guitar pickups, and screws with strings strung over them. He had a collection of devices to manipulate the strings; toys, a metronomes, transistor radio, etc and maintained this cloud of odd sound. At one point, he picked up a conventional guitar and someone in the crowd yelled “YEAH!” Fred looked up and said “naw” and proceeded to produce a squalling wall of distorted noise, very much like towards the end of Out Of Their Heads (On Locoweed) before the echoplex takes over. Well worth the drive down.