BOC: Stalk-Forest Group

[Jon Jarrett]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, gary shindler wrote:

> Hey there, I'm a newbie to the list. First saw BOC during the
> Revolution by Night tour. I just wanted to know if anyone recommends
> the Stalk-Forest Group CD that Rhino Handmade put out. I wasn't blown
> away by the extra songs on the reissue of BOC (ST) and wanted to know
> if the rest of of the CD is similar.

        I'd chime in with what everyone else has said, especially
Doug. The SFG CD is not the garage sound that those demo tracks have,
though the same agility and jumping around is present in the SFG
verss. The feel of the SFG disc is much more fluid, sunshine through trees
(this may be the artwork influencing my wording) and so on. There is some
splendid jamming, and it's weird (well, no, because who's surprised? but
impressive) how much of it is effectively a twin-lead effort between
Buck's guitar and Al's percussion. Also, Rhino Handmade have done a lovely
package and the liner notes cater for the obsessive fan very nicely. I
love `Donovan's Monkey' and I think `St Cecilia' is truly beautiful (in
either version) but I'd agree that the songs aren't instant grabbers by
and large (though the first few notes of Allen's keyboard break in
`Arthur Comics'!) but you'll find they've snuck into your head and made
their home there all the same. Well, I did anyway.

        Welcome to the list by the way! Yours,
                                                Jon

ObCD: The Bevis Frond - _New River Head_
--
                Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College, London
    jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk/ejarr01 at students.bbk.ac.uk
  "As much as the vision of the blind man improves with the rising sun,
       So too does the intelligence of the fool after good advice."
       (Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, late-eight/early-ninth century)