Decent!
So I have just enough time to pop around the corner and drop off my PRESCRIPTION at the chemist...
Around 1983 to 1984, JOHNSON'S GRIDLING BAND conceived of an ambitious musical project that would have been the follow-up to the mildly successful cassette album "THE WINKY ELVES ARE COMING!". A number of individual tracks were recorded (or half-finished) over an eighteen month period, but the whole thing proved to be FAR too ambitious for the recording technology and budget available to us at the time. I mean!? in those days we didn't even have access to multitrack TAPE, let alone any kind of computerized doodads! The most EPIC of the songs partially recorded for "THE FUTURE OF ROCK & ROLL?" was called "A DECENT TORCH", a scathing diatribe about ROCK JOURNALISTS and a spoof on certain neo-'prog' bands that were appearing at the time, especially the one with a large piscine Scottish vocalist. SNILTWEASEL DIRECTOR did a bang-up job of approximating his declamatory delivery, but sadly the various 'movements' of the piece now exist only as second-generation cassette copies. Also sadly, several of the protagonists are no longer with us.
So I have made it a HOLIDAY PROJECT over the next few days to try and FINISH "A Decent Torch", using all the nifty little digital tools that are available to us in the 21st Century. After forty-two years, it's STILL an 'ambitious' task, but now finally "WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY..."
Incidentally, Snilt's ISOLATED VOCALS are a joy to behold and well worth preserving in their own right!
But I've no idea what I'm going to do with it when it's done! I had dreams that, one day, the whole of "THE FUTURE OF ROCK & ROLL?" could be made into a six-part radio serial (the concept FAR outgrew the cassette format of the day!), but so much of it is lost forever...
Week from Monday 15th December 2025 - A couple of days in, and "A DECENT TORCH" looks set to be my personal "GOOD VIBRATIONS"! Like Brian, I'm obsessing over the possibilities, doing multiple mixes and trying out different combinations, until I can come up with a version that could be called 'DEFINITIVE' and one which I would hope my late lamented chums would approve. But I got slightly sidetracked - When DIGITIZING another tape as a source of sampled funny voices, I found there were some further cracking tunes on it which ALSO deserve attention!
I now have FINISHED(?) mixes of the original 'movements', with which I am reasonably happy... but I'm going to construct a new, slightly more abstract 'middle bit' to link them together. That's what all the 'SAMPLED FUNNY VOICES' are for...
Anyway, if you're interested, here it is!
youtu.be/ECGS7f93IpQ?si=UhidKb5HaY2__mUM
YouTube accompanying blurb - Recorded as part of the over-ambitious and unreleased "The Future Of Rock & Roll?" album in 1984, this epic piece only survived as second-generation cassette copies, waiting for the technology to become available for me to rescue and finish it! And here we are, forty-something years later!
The song is a scathing diatribe about ROCK JOURNALISTS, particularly the sort of lazy hacks one might encounter backstage at rock festivals in the early eighties. I'm not sure now why we had it it for them at the time, but hey! nothing personal, guys! it's only satire! The lyrics were conceived during a late-night group writing session, probably fueled by Jim Beam and/or Gold Lamé's homebrew.
The extraordinary vocal performance is by SNILTWEASEL DIRECTOR, with guitar by MR RABBITHOLE SAM and keyboards by PEPPERMINT WORDSMITH. There is also an acoustic guitar segment by ROCKETTE "THE SOX THAT NEVER LARF" MORETON. The 'funny voices' section includes samples of several other members of the rocking teenage combo.
Dedicated to Shelfy, Rabbithole and Rockette, who I hope would have appreciated the effort.
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