UNDER-APPRECIATED ROCK ARTIST OF THE MONTH FOR AUGUST 2011: ANDY COLQUHOUN
It is inaccurate to call ANDY COLQUHOUN a side man as I originally did in the Facebook post; he would be better described as a collaborator with Mick Farren and is a full-fledged, latter-day bandmember (mostly on lead guitar) in Farren’s band the Deviants (originally the Social Deviants). For example, on the excellent 1996 CD Eating Jello with a Heated Fork, Andy Colquhoun cowrote 5 of the 9 songs with Mick Farren.
Long before Andy joined up, the Deviants were one of the leading “underground rock” bands; their 1967 album Ptooff! is a classic in that little known genre. The band sprang up in the British psychedelic melange that spawned Pink Floyd, Tomorrow, Hawkwind and several other like-minded bands; the epicenter for the scene was the UFO Club (pronounced “oo-foe” in an interview of Farren at the club that is on one of their CD’s). The Deviants’ music is a dense stew of proto-punk, psychedelia and blues rock, with percussion and voice loops and screaming and a host of other effects. The album cover on Ptooff! is also a treat, with a water-color science-fiction scene and a remarkable collection of quotes, including a corruption of a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that appears on the back cover: “When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake!!”
The Deviants were also strongly left-wing politically, and their songs feature unabashed screeds and sharp social commentary. Check out this candid declaration that introduced their third album, The Deviants #3: “We are the people who creep in the night / We are the people who hide from the light / We are the people who pervert your children / Lead them astray from the lessons you taught them / We are endangering civilization / We are beyond rehabilitation.”
In about 1970, Mick Farren formed the Pink Fairies with Steve Peregrine Took – formerly the other half of Tyrannosaurus Rex with Marc Bolan, who then shortened the name to T. Rex – and Twink, the drummer for a terrific R&B band in 1964-1965 called the Fairies; he was also in Tomorrow and drummed for the Pretty Things for a while. The Pink Fairies had the same great sound as the Deviants sans the politics, though Farren dropped out almost immediately and kept his earlier band alive instead.
Mick Farren is still recording albums regularly and has become a respected rock critic, journalist, and science fiction novelist. I used to read an occasional piece that he wrote for the Village Voice both before and after I lived in New York; one mused on why the English had such bad dental hygiene and featured a photo quiz asking the reader to match photos of rotten teeth with celebrities’ names (including one member of the royal family). The acclaimed retrospective of the world of Greg Shaw called Bomp! / Saving the World One Record at a Time lists him as the co-author with Suzy Shaw, Greg’s business partner and ex-wife.
Andy Colquhoun and Mick Farren first got together in 1977 when Andy asked Mick to help out with lyrics for some of the songs on the album he was making with the punk band Warsaw Pakt. Andy had previously been in an R&B band called the Rockets and started the band with two members of that band, John Manly and Jimmie Coull.
You might remember the direct-to-disc recording technique that was briefly popular among audiophiles toward the putative end of the vinyl era in the late 1970’s; the recorded music from the studio is transferred directly to a master disk without intervening taping and overdubbing and such. Warsaw Pakt has the distinction of performing on the first such transfer among rock recordings and even got an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for their trouble. Of course, this was also the standard means of recording music after Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, well into the 1950’s.
Andy returned the favor by playing bass and performing some vocals for an EP called Screwed Up that was released on Stiff Records under the name Mick Farren and the Deviants. In 1978, Andy was one of the bandmembers backing Farren on a really nice solo album with a great title, Vampires Stole My Lunch Money. Chrissie Hynde, the lead singer of Pretenders also performed on the album 18 months before their first album, Pretenders came out.
In 1987, the long-awaited reunion of the Pink Fairies materialized with Kill ’Em and Eat ’Em; Mick Farren provided only the liner notes (and likely some inspiration). Musicians on the album included Andy Colquhoun, plus original member Twink as the drummer and vocalist, Duncan (Sandy) Sanderson (bass), Russell Hunter (drums), and Larry Wallis (guitar), who joined the band for their third album, Kings of Oblivion (where the musician credits list him as playing “big guitar“). Two years later, Andy, Sandy and Russell began performing and recording as Flying Colours – essentially the Pink Fairies but without the name.
In 1996, Andy Colquhoun and Mick Farren hooked up again for a Deviants reunion album, Eating Jello with a Heated Fork (the cover photo shows a human brain next to a glowing silver fork). That was the first Deviants album I had purchased since the original three came out 25 years previously or longer – and was it a sound for sore ears! I just about played that CD to death, and I have picked up close to a dozen more albums by Mick and the guys since then, in a variety of bands and permutations.
Over a 25-year time span, as recounted on his website, www.andycolquhoun.com, Andy Colquhoun had been in numerous bands in addition to hanging out with Mick Farren and the Deviants. From this body of work, he pieced together his first solo album in 2001, Pick up the Phone, America!. The album came out on a Japanese label, Captain Trip Records – if the name sounds vaguely familiar, Captain Trips was the name of the deliberately mutated influenza virus that laid waste to the world at the beginning of the Stephen King epic novel The Stand. Between Captain Trip and the Bomp! Records label Total Energy, virtually the entire Deviants/Mick Farren catalogue is now happily back in print.
As Andy Colquhoun said in the original promotional material for the CD, “I’ve put as much guitar on it as possible” – and did he ever. The title song, “Pick up the Phone, America” opens the album and features Andy – in the guise of a “scumbag telemarketer”, as the opening lyrics on the album put it – sparring with a young lady that he is trying to interest in his spiel. Another light-hearted track called “Creepy Beach” closes the CD, done in a surf-rock style. I found out later that this is part of a whole series of “creepy” songs that culminated in “Creepy Christmas”.
Over the years, the Pink Fairies had put most of their great early tracks on vinyl, but several rockcrits noticed one that had not yet made it: “Runnin’ Outta Road”. Andy Colquhoun includes the Flying Colours recording of this song on his solo CD – as noted, Andy is joined on the track by Pink Fairies core members Duncan Sanderson and Russell Hunter – and it is as raw and rowdy as any rock song you will ever hear.
Andy Colquhoun had also contributed a song – appropriately called “Lennon Song” – for a John Lennon tribute album several years earlier, and this song is also included. Many critics consider it the best song on the album, but it has a lot of company.
Mick Farren contributed voice-over vocals on one track, “Alienza”; and as Andy put it, all of the real drumming (except for “Runnin’ Outta Road”) was handled by Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor, the long-time drummer for the hard rock band Motörhead. There are also some fine instrumental tracks, the Doors’ last hit song “Riders on the Storm” and the jazz standard “Harlem Nocturne” among them.
In fact, Andy Colquhoun’s second solo album, String Theory, consists entirely of instrumental tracks that Andy wrote; it came out last year, but I haven’t gotten it yet. Andy notes that at the same time, he also recorded “blistering versions of ‘River Deep, Mountain High’, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, ‘Tin Soldier’ and ‘Black Hole Sun’”; and I am salivating at the thought of being able to one day hear Andy’s versions of those wonderful songs.
Andy Colquhoun’s surname has among the most unusual spellings that I have ever seen; actually though, “Colquhoun” is simply an alternate spelling of “Calhoun”. When Mick Farren introduced him once at a live concert, he pronounced the name “Ca-hoon”.
There have been so many great guitarists that I have enjoyed hearing over the years, for many different reasons: The old-fashioned blasts of Chuck Berry and Keith Richards, the unexpected dexterity and ear of Bob Dylan and Glen Campbell, the pounding virtuosity of Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman, the nearly unsung anonymity of Tommy Tedesco and Jerry Cole, the steady precision of George Harrison and Tom Petty, the sheer power of Jimmy Page and Tony Iommi, the blues-based thunder of Jack White and Eddie Van Halen, lesser known greats like Nikki Sudden and Chris Spedding (of the latter, Pete Townshend – no slouch himself – is quoted as saying, “I wish I could write songs the way Chris Spedding plays guitar”), and so many more.
To my mind though, Andy Colquhoun is in a class apart; his guitar work, particularly on Pick up the Phone, America!, is absolutely thrilling to me. The only guitarist I can think of who comes close to embodying the joy and exuberance that Andy exudes throughout this album is Ted Nugent, back in his early days with Amboy Dukes.
I am not the only one who feels this way either; as Ken Shimamoto expressed in an online review of the CD (I sure wish I knew enough about music to write like this): “Nobody on Earth plays guitar like Andy Colquhoun. Well, maybe Wayne Kramer [of Detroit’s MC5 and another running mate of Mick Farren’s for several decades now] and Tony Fate (ex-Bellrays, current Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs) are in the same league, but Andy’s brand of over-the-top rock skronk and acid-blues is totally unique. As guitarists go, he’s got a deep trick bag: a huge sound, saturated with fuzz and Echoplex; a monstrous whammy bar attack that skews his snaky, vibrato-laden blues lines and monolithic octaves; ringing harmonics; a deft touch accompanied by a fine melodic sensibility . . . almost a bent-head Jeff Beck (always a name to conjure with in the gtr circles I run in).”
What more can I say? Dig up some of these luscious tracks and enjoy!
* * *
Items: Andy Colquhoun
* * *
Flashback: The Under Appreciated Rock Band of the Month for August 2011 – ANDY COLQUHOUN
I have already noted my sorrow about the recent passing of Andy Colquhoun’s bandmate in the Deviants, Mick Farren. I couldn’t find anything in YouTube that is taken from Andy’s solo CD’s, so here are some killer Deviants cuts for you: “Lost Johnny”, audio only (from the gloriously good 1996 album Fragments of Broken Probes) – www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpDOvLk7dtc ; “Police Car”, from a live 1984 performance, though it is still audio only –www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWqt9boKKVo ; and a live track, “The Fury of the Mob” from a 2013 concert on the summer solstice (that’s Andy Colquhoun on the right) – www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kW2Q-4ymcc . There are plenty of live Deviants songs on YouTube, but they are typically amateur videos having questionable sound quality.
(August 2013)
* * *
PICTURE GALLERY: The Under-Appreciated Rock Artist of the Month for August 2011 – ANDY COLQUHOUN
Actually I recently loaded up this UARA, Andy Colquhoun on my website, , so I have plenty of photos. Here is the album that I have, Pick up the Phone, America!:
Here is his second album, String Theory that I do not yet own:
This is a photo from the inside sleeve of my CD, showing Andy:
This is the Deviants reunion CD, Eating Jello with a Heated Fork, where Andy collaborated with the late, great Mick Farren:
(August 2014)
* * *
Here is a rundown of the 2010-2011 Under-Appreciated Rock Bands/Artists of the Month for the past year:
August 2011 – ANDY COLQUHOUN, active 1980’s-2010’s psychedelic rock guitarist (two albums)
(Year 2 Review)
