Friday 30 March 2018

Record Collection Random Choice (RCRC) - J: John's Children - The Complete John's Children

John's Children fame and notoriety is built on 2 things:

1. They were chucked off The Who's tour of Germany for being too rowdy
John's Children bagged the support slot for The Who's 1967 German Tour.
Famed for the riotous stage shows, and the smashing of their instruments (or "Autodestructive Art" as Pete Towshend prefers to term it), John's Children took it to another level - fighting on stage, smashing anything that moved (or didn't move).  This culminated in a riot in  Düsseldorf, which was enough to earn John's Children their bus fare home.

2. Briefly featuring Marc Bolan among their ranks (albeit for only 4 months)
Marc Bolan was "placed" in the band by manager Simon Napier-Bell.  He joined in March 1967, brought an air of professionalism with him, bequeathed the band a handful of songs (including a couple he would later re-record with Tyrannosaurus Rex), and by June 1967 (following dis-agreements with Napier-Bell about production and presentation), walked away to hippy-dippy Tolkein-isms, and then became the king of Glam Rock (well, you've got to start somewhere).


The sum total of John's Children's recorded output was 6 singles (one of which was banned by the BBC ("Desdemona"), and another that never actually got released ("Midsummer Nights Scene")), and an album ('Orgasm') that was not released until 1971 (3 years after they split up) 

This collection pulls together pretty much everything available (there is other stuff out there, but I'm not wholly convinced it is "essential"), plus a couple of Andy Ellison solo ventures (backed by John's Children).
And the abiding feeling after listening to it again ... the songs, and the band themselves, aint up to much.
There are moments when they do indeed sound like prime exponents of mid-to-late 60s UK Mod-Psych (with a bit of Sou Revue chucked in for good measure), at other times they sound like they're still tuning up in their garage playing half-arsed ideas for songs.
Some songs fly by with energy, others get confused where they start to believe they might be a doo-wop band instead.  And then at the next turn, you get a sub-Small Faces, part comedy spoken track.
The real shining moments are when Bolan's voice, guitar or nascent songcraft takes over.
It's a real mixed bag - but a mixed bag/historic curio worth getting your lugholes round (if only once)

On the downside, this collection includes alternate versions, or earlier recordings, of many of the tracks that made up the 'Orgasm' album - as a result, they are shorn of the fake live audience noise (lifted from A Hard Days Night), which (I think) actually adds to the tracks and lifts them that little bit further.

This collection should perhaps have a sticker on the cover stating: Caveat Emptor
It's good, but feels "chucked together" and the sleeve notes aren't all they could be.
Given the opportunity again, I would invest in 'A Strange Affair - The Sixties Recordings', which contains much of the same material plus the 'Orgasm' album in full.

Desdemona




Just What You Want - Just What You'll Get

1 comment:

  1. Ah, the days when bands would steal live audience noise from other records. Sampling never got better than that.

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