This is a key point. The neo-girl group backing vocals swathed in echo evoke the passive but oversexed splendour of the Shirelles and the Ronettes. It's as if the Eno character is nostalgic for a time he knows is (a) gone; and (b) a chimera anyway.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:02 (seventeen years ago) link
haha i had just noticed that the other day! the first stanza of that piano motif is TOTES the same as seger!
― M@tt He1geson, Rendolent Ding-Dong (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:17 (seventeen years ago) link
i totally agree with this
― SQUARECOATS (plsmith), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:19 (seventeen years ago) link
not to be a prick, but i really don't think eno was serious about ANYTHING on this album, lyrically. he even screwed up the obvious rhyme for "maracas" ("Caracas") by putting in the lame-o "tobaccos", a botch job which still angers me a lot more than any "anti-feminism" here.
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alicia Fucking Silverstone (sexyDancer), Friday, 7 July 2006 17:47 (seventeen years ago) link
And he's justifying his taunts by specifically addressing himself to the (supposedly) mushbrained suggestibility of young, upper-middle class women.
But it's way too easy to disparage difficult ideas (like feminism) by attaching them to target groups that no one will leap to defend (like overbred debutantes).
I love Eno, but this song bugs me. And the defense that he's being self-mockingly ironic in some kind of convoluted sense just doesn't wash. If anything, the "mustardy" vocals work as a snarky underbite to the song's superficial compassion more than its core message.
Eno's a guy of some accomplishment and significance in the world, and therefore his fruity (no, I don't mean gay) tut-tutting comes across as cheap and reactionary.
― fuckfuckingfuckedfucker (fuckfuckingfuckedfucker), Friday, 7 July 2006 18:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 7 July 2006 18:56 (seventeen years ago) link
Heh. Which is why I don't think much about the broader implications of "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch."
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 7 July 2006 18:57 (seventeen years ago) link
And yet on Baby's On Fire the last lyric before the multi minute Fripp ejaculation is "they said you were hot stuff, and that's what baby's been reduced to." which strikes me a particularly about SOMETHING.
― Popture, Thursday, 1 May 2008 01:38 (sixteen years ago) link
Christgau: The idea of this record--top of the pops from quasi-dadaist British synth wizard--may put you off, but the actuality is quite engaging in a vaguely Velvet Underground kind of way. Minimally differentiated variations on the same melody recur and recur, but it's a great melody, and not the only one, and chances are he meant it that way, as a statement, which I agree with. What's more, words take over when the music falters, and on "Cindy Tells Me" they combine for the best song ever written about middle-class feminism, a rock and roll subject if ever there was one. My major complaint is that at times the artist uses a filter that puts dust on my needle. Grade: A
-- Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, July 7, 2006 3:57 PM (1 year ago)
Here, for comparison (because I'm just that geeky), is the original version of that review:
ENO: Here Come the Warm Jets (Island) The idea of this record--top of the pops from quasi-dadaist British synth wizard who makes out with the Soft Machine--is a lot worse than the actuality, which engages the ear and the mind in a vaguely Velvet Underground sort of way. Minimally differentiated variations on the same melody recur and recur, but it's a nice melody, and chances are he meant it that way. Some good words, too. B PLUS
― The guy who just votes in polls, Thursday, 1 May 2008 13:53 (sixteen years ago) link
"Minimally differentiated variations on the same melody recur and recur, but it's a nice melody, and chances are he meant it that way."
Sentence kinda interesting in light of Eno's later ambient music.
― Raw Patrick, Thursday, 1 May 2008 14:32 (sixteen years ago) link
Always love this interview:
http://www.moredarkthanshark.org/eno_int_nme-feb74.html
― Raw Patrick, Thursday, 1 May 2008 17:19 (sixteen years ago) link
I don't understand, he meant it that way.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 1 May 2008 19:29 (sixteen years ago) link
From the Stylus article, and thank you all for the reference and the link:
I guess it makes sense that this same person whose solo debut cover art contains a picture of . . . a nude playing card--the eight of spades to be exact--showing a squatting woman urinating (in what looks like a junkyard) as a dapper gentlemen holds up the back of her skirt, would take a humorous anti-feminism stance on a track from his first post-Roxy Music outing, Here Come the Warm Jets.
Actually, it does not make sense. Fetishism--even when it is as well known as Eno's--does not automatically equate to mysogyny or even "anti-feminism."
Although now that I think on it, maybe he did mean the lyrics more or less as explicated here: Eno's fascination with smoothly functioning (or smoothly dysfunctional) systems is no secret. If you consider then that each part must have a role within an operational system, it may not be such a stretch to go from there to "a woman's place is in the home."
This is why he could say something like "cities are places built for women," backing it up with something like, "In cities, you have the opportunity to do all the things that women are really specialized at: intense social relationships and interactions, attention to lots of simultaneous details"
http://www.indexmagazine.com/interviews/brian_eno.shtml
Still, given Eno's oft-stated preference for meaning expressed through sound over that transmitted through words, it may be dangerous to consider the lyrics to "CTM" as anything more than merely an exercise in sibilant phonoaesthetics
― SecondBassman, Thursday, 1 May 2008 21:20 (sixteen years ago) link
were there any bootlegs of that one and only eno solo tour, the one that got cut short after his collapsed lung from too much groupie-rooting? curious as to how these songs were rendered live - a 'studio as instrument' record like this can't have been expecially easy to do back then, never mind that the effect is pretty mild in context of his later work.
― tea wrecks electric warrior (haitch), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 07:42 (thirteen years ago) link
intrigued by posited medical connections between groupie-rooting & collapsed lungs
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:02 (thirteen years ago) link
Was the tour with the Winkies as backing band? Or was that later? There is a Peel Session available with Eno & the Winkies, that might give some idea of what the live band sounded like.
― tom d: he did what he had to do now he is dead (Tom D.), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:05 (thirteen years ago) link
tom i think you might be on the right track. i didn't know there was a peel session! there'll be a link around somewhere, doubtless.
jd, swear i'm not inventin' this one
Eno's brief career as a solo star started with Here Come the Warm Jets. Its startling variety, punk-prefiguring abrasions, and country melodies became his only solo Top 30 hit in 1974. But a brief period touring it graphically demonstrated his limits as a rock star. "Scuzzy," he'd call it later.
"I enjoyed screwing the girls for a while, but then that wore off as well." The collapsed lung which finished him was, Chic magazine claimed, the result of six such couplings in a night. Studio collaboration would give Eno safer, quieter avenues.
― tea wrecks electric warrior (haitch), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:32 (thirteen years ago) link
winkies peel session is pretty awesome. there is at least one other recording of a winkies live show I've got lying around somewhere.
― (e_3) (Edward III), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:36 (thirteen years ago) link
peel session
http://punknotprofit.blogspot.com/2009/04/eno-winkies-peel-sessions.html
― (e_3) (Edward III), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Got that on tape somewhere, so that link is useful!
― tom d: he did what he had to do now he is dead (Tom D.), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:39 (thirteen years ago) link
this is the other recorded show, can be found in the usual places, terrible sound quality on it tho
Kings HallDerby, England, UKFebruary 13, 1974
― (e_3) (Edward III), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:41 (thirteen years ago) link
The collapsed lung which finished him was, Chic magazine claimed, the result of six such couplings in a night.
well I'll be damned
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:42 (thirteen years ago) link
fact checkers at chic magazine worked overtime on that one I bet
― (e_3) (Edward III), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:43 (thirteen years ago) link
may we all suffer from similar injuries in the future, i say
― tea wrecks electric warrior (haitch), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:48 (thirteen years ago) link
you know what they say - loose women, impending breathing difficulties
how can a man with the maturity to write 'driving me backwards' have the gall to bonk six girls in one sitting
― let it sb (acoleuthic), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:49 (thirteen years ago) link
I would like to be able to claim that's how I got my collapsed lung, back in the day, but I can't
― tom d: he did what he had to do now he is dead (Tom D.), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:49 (thirteen years ago) link
eno, j'accuse
golden showers of praise.― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, June 5, 2005 7:18 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark
genius
― fur q (r1o natsume), Wednesday, 4 August 2010 03:38 (thirteen years ago) link
Going by that recent bio and past interviews, Eno plays it very coy when it comes to his alleged sexcapades. On occasion he's claimed to have acted in porn and basically lived with sex slaves, but at the same time he was a Catholic-raised father rooted in monogamy. This is the same dude who may or may not have drunk his own urine, peed on Duchamp's urinal and fostered a fetish for bottoms, S&M, perfume and statuesque African women. Only Eno knows the truth, but I think he likes being perceived as the winking virgin/whore.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 4 August 2010 16:35 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, i think a lot of that was probably BS on Eno's part. maybe not *entirely* BS, but maybe 50/50. anyhoo, those BBC sessions are essnetial! I might even prefer some of those versions to the Warm Jets versions, heresy though it may be.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 4 August 2010 16:38 (thirteen years ago) link
wow thx for the link, didn't even know those existed
― better check that sausage before you put it in the waffle (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 4 August 2010 17:49 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah the BBC sessions are easy to find and totally essential, also there are some good tracks from 1976 live shows that get tacked on to boots of the Peel sessions (e.g. Music For Fans). The one Winkies show that has surfaced is, as EIII notes above, almost impossible to listen to due to bad sound.
― bug holocaust (sleeve), Wednesday, 4 August 2010 20:46 (thirteen years ago) link
So what's notable about this record exactly? It sounds like John Cale jamming with some muppets. It's also unswinging as fuck.
― Doritos Loco Parentis (Hurting 2), Thursday, 24 April 2014 19:40 (ten years ago) link
john cale jamming with some muppets! i like that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-SG0g7T69c&feature=youtu.be
― tylerw, Thursday, 24 April 2014 19:44 (ten years ago) link
So what's notable about this record exactly?
just from memory:
guitar sound in Needlesdrum sound in Needlesthe way the solo comes in on Needles, mixed up loudervocal delivery on Paw Pawguitar solo in Paw Paw, freaky electro splatterthe cool little scrapy echoey guitar bit in the outro of Paw Paweverything about Baby's On Fire
etc...
imo the genius of this record is in the sound of mix, the way the guest musicians are deployed/treated, and the melodic sense which is subtle and addictive.
― RSD-rolled (sleeve), Friday, 25 April 2014 01:13 (ten years ago) link
argh sound of "the" mix, lost connection
― RSD-rolled (sleeve), Friday, 25 April 2014 01:14 (ten years ago) link
i'm not a huge eno fan, but really 'unswinging' -- is that really what you were expecting from an early seventies art rock album? and a british one at that? swing?
― ian, Friday, 25 April 2014 02:02 (ten years ago) link
Think he means "swing" in the xhuxk sense.
― Kilgore Haggard Replica (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 25 April 2014 02:08 (ten years ago) link
what sense is that? i'm not actually familiar!
― ian, Friday, 25 April 2014 02:12 (ten years ago) link
vague and ad hoc
― j., Friday, 25 April 2014 02:15 (ten years ago) link
"Swing" for me is an "I know it when I hear it" quality, rather than a narrowly (or not so narrowly) defined characteristic.
And Warm Jets swings.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 25 April 2014 02:18 (ten years ago) link
love this record. "graham greene" on paris 1919 does sound like a template for it. no idea what the special xhuxk meaning of "swing" is but i suspect it isn't fair to apply it to any eno record, it's not like he's the groundhogs.
xp motorik is the rhythmic groove or pocket that eno is in to my ears.. when i think of swing i think of, like, grand funk railroad, but to each their own impossible distinctions.
― mattresslessness, Friday, 25 April 2014 02:27 (ten years ago) link
Not swinging with a vengeance: Robert Christgau on new wave disco and hard bop, 1978
― Kilgore Haggard Replica (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 25 April 2014 02:49 (ten years ago) link
I would like the title track played as I am cremated.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, 25 April 2014 02:53 (ten years ago) link
do you like bardo pond, morbz? they put out a cover of it for record store day
https://soundcloud.com/firerecords/bardo-pond-here-come-the-warm
― j., Friday, 25 April 2014 02:58 (ten years ago) link
Warning: put on your 2005 glasses as you step through the heat shimmer to read the thread I linked.
― Kilgore Haggard Replica (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 25 April 2014 03:01 (ten years ago) link
it's been so long since they bored me live, but no, i was just reminded I do not like BP.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, 25 April 2014 03:15 (ten years ago) link
Ha, I never knew that was Fripp on "Lighthouse Keepers"!
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Monday, 28 April 2014 15:42 (ten years ago) link
Tbh I wouldn't put it past Banton to extract that fearsome solo from one of his organs, but yeah, Fripp.
― imago, Monday, 28 April 2014 15:44 (ten years ago) link
here come the warm jets is basically my dream of a ziggy stardust album - an alien using all of pop/rock's little musical and recording tricks and hooks to try and seduce listeners but from a slightly askew perspective. by comparison same-era bowie feels earthbound and stagebound, decent but more pretentious than actually surreal.
this is really otm - I like Ziggy a lot but it only felt like 10% as "out there" as advertised. Warm Jets does a lot of really crazy things in some fairly normal contexts which IMO is what makes it so fascinating. It's not easy to do that!
― frogbs, Monday, 28 April 2014 15:47 (ten years ago) link
True wheel could be longer, agree re mother whale eyeless tho. Latter has some of my fave lyrics ever
This is for the fingers This is for the nails Hidden in the kitchen Right behind the scales
^if Scott walker sang this it would be horrifying and obviously about torture; when eno sings it it's not obviously not about torture, and unnerving.
Then there's the "in my town" sequence which is just funny.
― paolo amusing eclectic revivals (wins), Monday, 28 April 2014 15:50 (ten years ago) link
Slightly off-topic, but the new one, with Karl Hyde, "Someday World" is streaming here:http://www.npr.org/2014/04/27/306161810/first-listen-brian-eno-karl-hyde-someday-world
― back-up duck (doo dah), Monday, 28 April 2014 15:58 (ten years ago) link
I didn't really OTM him because he'd been OTMed a lot but yeah, croup hitting it out of the park on this one.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Monday, 28 April 2014 16:03 (ten years ago) link
Um, the internet thinks it might have been Banton after all xps
― imago, Monday, 28 April 2014 16:18 (ten years ago) link
there's probably already been a fripp guest spot poll?
― tylerw, Monday, April 28, 2014 11:41 AM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Even if we did a poll already, would make a sweet Spotify playlist especially since there's 0 crim on there.
― Khamma chameleon (Jon Lewis), Monday, 28 April 2014 16:23 (ten years ago) link
and if we ain't polled it we should
This thread deserves to have ITS title fixed.
― nerve_pylon, Monday, 28 April 2014 16:56 (ten years ago) link
so who/what is 'Sweetfeed'—backing vocals:http://www.discogs.com/artist/288423-Sweetfeed ?
― nerve_pylon, Saturday, April 26, 2014 6:33 PM (2 days ago)
http://www.spectropop.com/FrontPorch/
I was the only one to continue with music. I moved to London in 1971 and stayed for ten years. I had some success as a guitarist-singer-songwriter. I had a group that went by the name of Sweetfeed and also Roberts, Rice, Bandell and Scott. We recorded with Roger Daltrey on his solo album "Ride A Rock Horse", and also with Brian Eno on his album "Here Come The Warm Jets". We never had any of our own recordings released or achieved commercial success, but our fans included David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Gary Glitter, Bryan Ferry, the Supremes and all of London high society, including members of the royal family.
― Number None, Monday, 28 April 2014 17:19 (ten years ago) link
but no actual punters.
(soz)
― Mark G, Monday, 28 April 2014 17:26 (ten years ago) link
xpost Pretty sure that is Fripp on the VdG album. I know he pops up a couple of places on "Pawn Hearts."
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 28 April 2014 18:48 (ten years ago) link