JACK LANCASTER
Jack Lancaster is a British composer, record producer and musician. In the late 1960s, Lancaster co-founded the British rock group Blodwyn Pig with Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams, and in the late 1970s he was a member of the British progressive rock group Aviator with former Jethro Tull drummer Clive Bunker, former Manfred Mann’s Earth Band guitarist Mick Rogers, and former Caravan and Quantum Jump bassist John G. Perry that released two albums on the EMI America Records label (Lancaster appeared only on the band’s debut). (More from Wikipedia)
Under the artist name Mick Farren and Jack Lancaster, 1995 brought yet another side of Mick with The Deathray Tapes, a live performance consisting mostly of spoken-word material – but this is no 1960’s flower-child poetry reading. Lancaster had co-founded Blodwyn Pig with ex-Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams in 1968; the eclectic band here includes Wayne Kramer and Andy Colquhoun, and actor Brad Dourif plays didgeridoo (!) on one song. “Disgruntled Employee” imagines what might drive someone to shoot up their workplace, with the final straw being an unsuccessful date with a co-worker and then seeing her the next morning laughing with her girlfriends: “And I knew . . . that they were talking . . . about me!!!” Most of the performances go on for 6 or 8 minutes, while “Envy” is just a short verse:
I used to envy Elvis, but then he got fat and died.
I used to envy Marlon Brando, but then he got fat and his kid died.
I used to envy Jim Morrison, but then I got out of the tub.
Now I don’t envy anyone, because it causes bloating, and far too many funerals.
(March 2014/1)
