Review – Rog Patterson – Flightless – by James R. Turner

Whilst most people who have read my reviews over the past 20 odd years for various places like the Classic Rock Society and here know I love me my prog, what you probably don’t realise, or hadn’t noticed was how much I love my folk music as well. I think it’s probably the yin to the yang, with the less is more emphasis that folk music has being as fulfilling as the intricate complexity of progressive releases.

David Elliott of Bad Elephant Music is also a massive folk, folk/rock music fan as well, and after the success of their reissue of Twice Bitten’s ‘Late Cut’ album late 2015, there has been demand for the reissue of ‘Flightless’, Rog Patterson’s solo album originally released back in 1989 on vinyl.

So here it is, finally on CD and download, the original 6 tracks remastered and enhanced by three demo versions of tracks that would have appeared on the next album, had Rog actually recorded it!

When ‘Flightless’ was released Rog toured extensively, supporting such luminaries as Fairport Convention, Roy Harper and John Martyn amongst others, and it is into this arena that ‘Flightless’ nicely sits.

A solo album in the complete sense, where Rog plays guitar, basses, vocals and pretty much everything else, the 6 tracks on this album, are some mighty fine English folk prog, and the emphasis here is as much on the vocals as the music, as whilst Rog is an absolutely sublime guitarist (a touch of the Ant Phillips here, the Bert Jansch’s there) he is also an incredibly intelligent lyricist and observer. In fact both vocally and lyrically there is a shade of Bob Pegg about him, but I think that’s as much to do with the accent and attitude, as both men have a unique rather specific political world view, and this is reflected in the songs on here.

To a lot of people folk music is stereotyped as some twiddly nonsense with violins and Morris dancers, to those people who think that way I say ‘Poppycock’, folk music in its truest and strongest sense is the voice of the people, the voice of protest and the most potent form of politicised music possible, and like many others in that ilk, Rog uses this music to put across his concerns in a strong musical style.

From the opening An Englishman’s Home, with it’s well observed vocals and intricate guitar work from Rog, a pattern that will repeat throughout the album, it sets the tone for the rest of the album, and is the shortest track on the album.

Rogs acoustic prog roots show throughout the album, with Ergo Sum clocking in at 9 minutes plus has some of Rogs beautifully intricate guitar playing and strong lyrics railing against the Lords of the manor taking what they think is there right, the pounding bass and acoustic guitar drives the song along as Rogs passionate vocals weave in elements of Robin Hood, and rail against Mans stupidity in following the wrong leader (as apt now as it was then, maybe even more so) and as it builds, it draws you in and it astonishes me how a complex and intricate piece of music like this achieves its power by minimal instrumentation.

Party Piece has a wonderful cyclical riff, with some great lyrics about the human condition, Rogs observant lyrics reflecting the obsessions of youth, and, as is evident throughout the album, Rog is one of those vocalists who doesn’t just sing a song, he lives it, and the closing part has an element of Jethro Tull to it, which is no bad comparison, as both Rog and Ian Anderson have a keen eye for human observations.

Speak for Yourself has a funky riff and another politically astute lyric, suggesting that people think for themselves rather than following the pack.

Conclusions is another epic on the album, clocking in at over 7 minutes long, with it’s brilliant guitar work, and the way Rog manages to make the guitars and bass sound like a much larger band, is a great skill, and brings the most out of this fantastic track that has some fantastic acoustic and slide guitar work, with an almost classical feel, again reminiscent of the work of Ant Phillips, and another impassioned vocal, as Rog lives the song, and builds it to it’s epic conclusion.

Another great example of where less is more when it comes to instrumentation and production.

The original closing track Flightless, the 12 minutes title track, is, as Rog describes the musical interpretation of Becketts Knapps Last Tape, which is a song about itself basically, referencing how it came to be, and how Rog ended up where he ended up, again wrapped up in some of that wonderful guitar work and vocals, rounding the original album on a high.

The three bonus tracks (Alien, Couldn’t Happen Here & The Name Of The Rose) all showcase the way that Rog was intending to go if he’d managed to get his next solo album finished (a work rate that makes Tom Slatter look like Prince by comparison..) and are fantastic additions to the album, rounding out the work of this period.

This is a great-lost folk/prog/protest album that ticks all the right boxes musically and lyrically, well observed, well produced and an intelligent and emotive listen that will finally get the recognition it deserves.

It’s just a shame that nearly 30 years on from it’s release, the political and human concerns observed on here are still current, and still causes for concern today.

Released 3rd February 2017.

Buy ‘Flightless’ from Bad Elephant Music’s bandcamp page.

Review – Twice Bitten – Late Cut – by David Rickinson

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David Rickinson’s first review for Progradar is the excellent ‘Late Cut’ by Twice Bitten……

The 1980s……

I abandoned, to a large extent, Progressive Rock in favour of bands like Eurythmics and China Crisis and then, later on, Prefab Sprout and Deacon Blue. But then it was a strange time for music – all that weird electronic synthesiser stuff, and the New Romantics. Prog was hiding in a cupboard, licking its wounds.

It was the age of MTV – video didn’t only kill the radio star, it dressed him up in a pastel suit with the sleeves pushed up, buried him and then danced on his grave.

This is important, because it goes some way to explain why Twice Bitten never achieved any real success – they were terminally untrendy in a decade where style was much more important than substance.

Laid back

Rog Patterson and Greg Smith met as philosophy students at Nottingham University. A shared love of 12-string guitars, a passion for real ale and a conspicuous absence of dress sense made it inevitable that they would form a band.

Somehow they combined their studies with playing hundreds of gigs around the country supporting bands in the Progressive Rock scene, but unsurprisingly commercial success eluded them and after nearly four years, a couple of independently-released cassette albums and a track on a compilation long player, they called it a day.

One of those cassette albums (1985’s ‘No Third Man’) makes up the bulk of this release – the 7 tracks of that album have been transferred from a cassette master tape into the binary world and cleaned up. I have to congratulate David Elliott for his efforts here – I think he has done a great job.

Band with DE

The album’s opening track, Kingdom of the Blind, sets out Twice Bitten’s “heavy wood” stall for all to hear – a combination of staccato strumming and delicate picking on 12 string guitars.

Rain stops Play is an instrumental led by some very tasteful bass playing

Two of the songs really stand out for me, Swallowsong and Blue Sky Century – A pair of lovely songs, one with the bass very prominent as a lead instrument and the other a particularly gorgeous song with long vocal phrases over a delicate backing of 12 string guitars.

West End – the closing track on the original album, at just over 10.5 minutes, is covered with phasing, flanging, fuzzing and probably all manner of other electrickery as it tells its dystopian tale of surviving in the ruins of London. I like a bit of dystopia!

Special mention must be made of the album’s final track, the epic Crocus Point. Recorded in 2015 (because it took 30 years to get the 12 string guitars to stay in tune long enough to record the whole song) and mixed superbly by Kevin Feazey of The Fierce and The Dead fame. For eight minutes we are treated to some great 12 string work, with lots of delicious suspended chords and a gentle vocal line, and then suddenly all hell breaks loose as the electricity is turned on for an extended solo of great swooping curves before gradually calming down and drifting gently off into the sunset.

One of the things which surprises me about this album is how well it fills the soundstage of my living room, even though it‘s only two blokes with guitars. There are no keyboards or drums, and it is all the better for it.

Despite being very firmly rooted in the 1970s and stylistically very reminiscent of Anthony Phillips-era Genesis and Nigel Mazlyn Jones’ classic album ‘Ship to Shore’, there is a timeless quality to these songs which I really like. I could have listened to, and enjoyed, this album at any point in my life, it’s a shame I didn’t discover Twice Bitten until 2015.

Band

Released 2nd October 2015 via Bad Elephant Music.

But ‘Late Cut’ from bandcamp

David Rickinson

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I’ve been affected by music all my life – I still get shivers down my spine when I hear the intros to “I want to hold your hand” and “She loves you”, just as I did as a 4 year old when I first heard them.

For the last couple of years I have consciously decided to listen to full albums without skipping tracks. It is how the artists put them together. Last year I managed 687 albums (422 different ones) by 198 different artists.

My biggest musical regret is deciding to buy a textbook at university in 1977, rather than spending the money on a ticket to see Yes at Stafford Bingley Hall.

I’ve worked in IT since 1978, starting as a trainee computer operator, where I used to amuse myself by singing albums such as T’he Lamb lies down on Broadway’ from start to finish to while away the hours.