OFF: Outskirts of Infinity & The Bevis Frond @ The Standard, Walthamstow, 10th October 2004

[Paul Mather]

On Tue, 2004-11-16 at 10:48 -0500, Brian Halligan wrote:
> Jon Jarrett wrote re: Scorched Earth
>
> > That said, when that project was in its first offings, Nick's
> > mail-out talked about exorcising his and Paul's Monster Magnet and
> > Sabbath
> > demons. I love the result, but I can't help feeling we're still waiting
> > for an album answering that description.
>
> Oddly enough, there's a review of Hit Squad floating around from
> Aquarius Records in San Francisco that described it, at its best, as
> sounding like bad Monster Magnet and at it's worst imitating Lenny
> Kravtiz!

Do you mean _Hit Squad_ or _Fed To Your Head_?  I found a disparaging
online review of the latter that made some reference to Lenny Kravitz.
Mind you, the reviewer unfortunately did not seem to realise that the
Scorched Earth album was a spoof, the band member names were fake, etc.
Sad indeed...

BTW, here's Paul Simmons' take on the story behind the album (from
http://members.rott.chello.nl/cvanderlely/bfrond/disco/projects/projects.htm):

>>>>>
Ok, so the Scorched earth album was an idea that me and Nick came up
with after we went to the pub, had a few beers and thought it would be
good to put together a "lost" late 60's fake power trio kind of biker
band thing.

We spent the next day writing the songs together and then booked some
studio time and basically went in and recorded it live with a few
overdubs. The lineup was Nick on guitar, bass & vocals (Chuck "The
Horse" Kowalski), Joe Propatier (Jay "The Pharaoh" Curd) on drums and me
(Randy "The Snake" Kyser) on guitar, harmonica and vocals........guest
appearances also included the legendary Bob "Devilfinger" Kramer (that
feisty young guitar slinger by the name of Bari Watts) on a couple of
tracks too.....
<<<<<

Interesting!  The "basically went in and recorded it live" would imply
the bulk of the guitar work is Paul's, not Nick's.

> > Given their mutual ear for The
> > Riff, Paul and Nick could do that pretty well I think (and hell, Paul's
> > doing nothing else at the moment :-( ).
>
> I'd love to see Scorched Earth become more than a one-off band, I have
> no doubt they'd eventually reach that Magnet/Sabbath sound.
> Unfortunately, if it's only an itch to be scratched we probably won't
> see Scorched Earth 2 any time soon, if ever.

I really like the Scorched Earth album, but I'd have to say I'd be a bit
uncomfortable with Nick putting out *another* pastiche album in the same
genre.  I think once is enough.  The guy is just too talented to waste
time being so overtly derivative.  I guess I see it as "been there, done
that."

I'm a huge fan of power trios, but I think even that august format is
not the best for Nick's work.  I think his densely layered compositional
approach gains immensely from having at least an extra guitar around to
fill out the sound---the more virtuoso the better.

Cheers,

Paul.

NP: Scorched Earth, "Woman Gone Bad," _Fed To Your Head_
--
e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa