Original Album Series: Brinsley Schwarz (2015) Re-up

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Original Album Series: Brinsley Schwarz (2015) Re-up

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Yet another winner in the 'Original Album Series' sets. Brinsley Schwarz will always be known as the band in which Nick Lowe really started to craft his style. As Lowe himself has later admitted, the Brinsleys albums, although hugely charming, are a little under-cooked and under-developed. He ascribes this to the fact that the band often produced themselves, and lacked the knowledge of the then new multi-track technology that would have helped them sound better. In fact, the best-sounding Brinsleys album, 'The New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz', produced by Dave Edmunds isn't in this set, sadly - it's the one that contains '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding', a real classic that has been much-covered. That being said, these five albums exude charm and British Pub Rock grace. The first album is really Crosby Stills & Nash / Band influenced. The second, 'Despite It All' (which lacks the original gatefold sleeve) is more developed, and features the fabulous 'Country Girl', and there is a feast of lovely music, fine songs, but thin sound in places. Better live, of course, but still good to listen to, forty years later. Ridiculously good value.

By Og Oggilby, amazon

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Original Album Series: Brinsley Schwarz (2015) Re-up

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Original Album Series: Brinsley Schwarz (2015) Re-up

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Brinsley Schwarz's eponymous debut is the stuff of rock legend because it is the punch line to a great story. It arrived after a disastrous publicity blitz, where the band's management arranged for prominent British journalists to cross the ocean to hear the Brinsleys' showcase performance at the Fillmore East. In a series of mishaps that would shame Spinal Tap, the band arrived in New York hours before their show and the journalists, who dipped heavily into the courtesy bar when their plane nearly crashed, arrived minutes before the concert. The press was underwhelmed to say the least and savaged the band and the record. Listening to Brinsley Schwarz, it's easy to see why they weren't turned on by the Brinsleys: this is a bizarre, naïve blend of Crosby, Stills & Nash, Dylan & the Band, and Buffalo Springfield, with a heavy dose of early Yes. It's filled with awkward steps and bad judgments, fueled by the group's romanticized view of Californian hippies. Consequently, it's hard not to cringe or chuckle by their hippie affectations, whether it's the lyrics ("she was my lady/had no plans to make her my wife") or the a cappella folk-rock harmonies that come out of nowhere on "Lady Constant" (it doesn't help that they sing "colored serpent coiled around your waist") or the bongo solo that ends "Shining Brightly." But, amidst all this hippie posturing, there some weird touches, like the multi-octave chromatic guitar break on "Hymn to Me" or the heavy prog jam of "What Do You Suggest?" and "Ballad of a Has-Been Beauty Queen" that illustrate how English the Brinsleys still were at this stage. All of this adds up to a debut that's decidedly uneven and unsure, but in retrospect, it's easy for sympathetic listeners to be charmed by their eccentricities.

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG

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Brinsley Schwarz was hit hard by the terrible performance of their debut, so they rented a communal house and concentrated on becoming a real, organic band. They also recorded a second album swiftly, releasing Despite It All by the end of 1970. As soon as the folksy, fiddle-driven "Country Girl" amiably ambles out of the gates, the difference between the two records is apparent. They tried this kind of rootsy country-rock before, but it sounded awkward. Here, it rings true, not just because the songwriting is stronger, but because the band knows what they're doing, adding real grit and passion to the performances. Despite It All benefits from this looser playing, and for a while, it sounds like the group accomplished everything it wanted to do, since the first three songs are all early Nick Lowe masterpieces - "Country Girl," the fine ballad "The Slow One" and the flat-out terrific "Funk Angel," which is the first real flowering of his gifts as a pop tunesmith and sly humorist. After this, the record doesn't go off the rails, but it slowly loses its momentum, deteriorating to pleasant aping of CSN and Band plus the prog-inflected jams that were the bane of their debut. Some of this works - "Love Song" is a sweet tune, "Ebury Down" has a campfire charm - but when it ends with the drawn-out "Old Jarrow" (which does boast the timeless question "why don't you financially back her?" in its refrain) it's clear that the group is still in the process of finding of its voice. Their stumbles are brought into perspective by those three wonderful songs that begin the album, which not only make the record, but prove that the group does indeed have greatness in them.

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG

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Silver Pistol isn't the definitive pub rock album, but it is the first great record to surface from the scene. Like much of the first wave of pub rock, Silver Pistol is quiet, laid-backm and low-key – with its warm, rustic sound and a gentleness that infuses even the rockers, this is the closest to the Band that the Brinsleys got. There are some major differences, most of them coming from Nick Lowe. That's not to denigrate new guitarist/songwriter Ian Gomm, since his four numbers (particularly "Dry Land" and "Range War") reveal a fine songwriter with a keen sense of melody and a knack for synthesizing country, rock, and folk into something distinctive, but Lowe really hits his stride with this record. This is in to some degree due to the influence of Jim Ford, a renegade American roots-rocker who Brinsley Schwarz backed on an unreleased and subsequently lost 1971 album. The group covers two of his songs, "Niki Hoeke Speedway" and "Ju Ju Man," on Silver Pistol, and these numbers reveal the appealingly off-kilter sense of humor and pop hooks that would form the foundation of Lowe's style. Those sensibilities are just beginning to creep into his songwriting on Silver Pistol, on the Beatles-meets-Band "Unknown Number," the lovely "Nightingale," the wonderful pop tune "The Last Time I Was Fooled," and the epic "Silver Pistol." His other two songs are sturdy country-rock numbers a notch below Gomm's best on the record, but still very good, and it all adds up to an endearing low-key roots rock album that doesn't just find Brinsley Schwarz coming into their own, it stands as one of the most appealing records of its kind.

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG

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Silver Pistol wrote the blueprint for Brinsley Schwarz's pub rock, but Nervous on the Road perfected the group's sound, helping Brinsley to become the definitive pub rock band in the process. Nervous on the Road has a fuller, more detailed production than its predecessor, as well as a looser feeling – even with the smooth production, it sounds like the band was captured on a good night at the Tally Ho. But what really makes the record is its excellent selection of songs, almost all of which were written by Nick Lowe. "Happy Doing What We're Doing," "Surrender to the Rhythm," and "Nervous on the Road" are all great rock & roll songs about rock & roll, spiked with an off-kilter sense of humor. "Don't Lose Your Grip on Love" is Lowe's first great ballad, while Ian Gomm's "It's Been So Long" is one of his best songs. And the covers of "I Like It Like That" and "Home in My Hand" are wonderful pub rockers, giving the album the feeling of an excellent concert. Nevertheless, what makes Nervous on the Road such a fine record is the combination of empathetic performances, unpredictable songwriting, and charming unpretentiousness, all of which help make the album one of the great forgotten rock & roll records.

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG

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Released in 1973 as Brinsley Schwarz was busy touring and recording the follow-up to Nervous on the Road, Please Don't Ever Change is a collection of singles, live cuts, and radio sessions from the early '70s. The odds-and-sods nature of the record actually works in its favor, since it accentuates the group's ramshackle nature. Sure, there's a fair amount of filler on the record – their ill-advised reggae excursion "The Version (Hypocrite)" is simply mystifying – but unevenness was part of the Brinsleys' charm, and the simply enjoyable cuts make the best tracks feel like classics. And some of them are definitive Brinsley cuts. "I Worry ('Bout You Baby)" is a revamped R&B number, the live "Home in My Hand" speeds along with a relentless energy, the cover of Goffin/King's "Don't Ever Change" indicates Nick Lowe's latent pop roots, "Down in Mexico" is a hysterical travelogue, and "Play That Fast Thing (One More Time)" is among the classic pub rock singles, distilling the essence of pub rock into one piledriving song.

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG

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