LAUGHING CLOWNS LIVE - Laughing Clowns (Prince Melon)
To think this band would be around in the late '00s would have been laughable in their '80s heyday, such was their reputation for combustion and quick-change line-up shifts. Of course time heals many, if not, all wounds and here the Laughing Clowns are in 2009, larger than life and not showing any visible scar tissue.
The band only re-convened in January '09 after Jeffrey nagged Ed for years and a catalyst fell out of the sky, in the form of an offer to play the Australian version of All Tomorrows Parties. You can throw in years of shows as the Ed and Jeffrey duo, and a one-off gig with saxophonist Louise Elliott as their guest in London on a UK ATP bill, as contributing factors.
Recorded at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane in January, "Laughing Clowns Live" reveals the Clowns to be as expressive and dynamic as at any stage of their first life. Hell, maybe even more so. "Everything That Flies" is convincing evidence of that, and gets along with a sharp intensity that'll send a chill down most spines.
Where keyboardist Alister Spence seemed MIA in some of the arrangements when I saw the Clowns at the second Sydney ATP shebang, his parts make perfect sense here, not only on the aforementioned "Flies" but especially on his chording in "Bully In The Town" and in the wash underneath "Theme From 'Mad Flies, Mad Flies'." It's probably to do with the clarity of the mix.
I was re-reading Clinton Walker's "Stranded" the other day where he mentioned that people used to go to Clowns gigs not just to listen to the band but to watch Jeffrey Wegener's drumming. There's no bonus videos but you can be just as appreciative listening to his skittish feels and his working over of every square centimetre of his traps.
The black "Collapse Board" is wrung out to 14min28sec, rimshots and all, and waiting to dangle from a rope never sounded so good. "Eternally Yours" gets a makeover, with a re-arrnaged intro and a faster tempo. Some folks will object to a classic being tampered with. They can always go back and listen to the original. This version really lets Louise Elliott put it all out there.
Clocking in at a tad under an hour, it's not the whole gig (a few songs have been judiciously edited out for reasons not clear after hearing an audience tape) but the sound is immaculately balanced and powerful.
An appended "Bully In The Town" that belonged in the middle of the set curiously ends up closing the CD with an introduction of a song we never hear, but that glitch is a small price to pay. Ed's patter is riotous and, at one point, deeply ironic.
Score a copy here for about the same price as a couple of beers. – The
Barman
2/3
CRUEL
BUT FAIR – The Laughing Clowns (Hot
Records)
Stepping
into the confessional, I can’t pretend to have been a booster of the
Clowns back in the day. “Holy Joe” was the first thing I heard
and it was so far removed from the expected (and from what I was listening
to) that I probably would have been part of the crowd stampede towards
the exit at Sydney’s Stagedoor Tavern, had I stumped up when the band
made its local debut back in 1979. The material that came later seemed more
accessible - and almost mainstream by the time Ed Kuepper covered four Clowns
tunes on the “Happy as Hell” EP - but if I didn’t “get
it” back then, solace can be taken in the fact that not many people
did.
Sometimes time softens or changes perceptions and you open up to new things.
Even being partly familiar with the contents, there’s an enormous amount
to absorb on this three-disc set, which captures the entire recorded vinyl
output of the Laughing Clowns and all re-mastered to good effect. (The “vinyl”
qualifier is there because the odd track escaped into the light on an officially-sanctioned
tape or two; the “Fast Forward” audio magazine springs to mind).
The set isn’t in chronological order but has been re-tracked by Ed himself
- probably not a detractor for diehards whose collection of Clowns black platters
is undoubtedly larger than even the quantity of unsold Shannon Noll albums
at JB Hi-Fi.
"Jazz punk" is what they used to label the Clowns and that’s
probably a term of critical convenience more than anything. Yes, they had
horns and non-rock time signatures - plus a killer drummer in Jeffrey Weggener
who’d absorbed plenty of Elvin Jones and plays around the kit in similar
fashion - but as the incisive liner notes outline, it’s not a tag with
which the band was comfortable.
So what is it? The song structures defy easy categorisation because they were
outside what was the accepted norm. Ed’s vocal is at times so deadpan
as to make early period Damien Lovelock sound expressive, and his guitar work
is occasionally very sharp and angular but just as often plays second fiddle
to the driving one or two-piece horns section. There’s an underlying
rock sensibility to many songs but just as many work on another level. Weggener’s
drumming dynamism is arguably the single most vital element in setting this
apart from almost anything else.
The startling thing is the way that so much of this material is a natural
progression from the Saints songs on “Prehistoric Sounds”. I know
that’s been said before but it doesn’t ring true until you hear
the songs arranged, in this case, to complement each other. A goodly number
were actually written by Kuepper when the Saints were a London-based going
concern and it’s easy to see why they wouldn’t have fitted into
that band’s oeuvre in 1978, as fast-evolving and adventurous as it was.
Another surprise is the revelation (in the notes) that live versions of these
songs rarely varied form their recorded cousins. For a band whose legend was
partly based on claims of free-jazz experimentation, that's another in the
eye for the critics who, in the main, struggled to keep up with what was going
on.
Much of the band's
output comes across as seirous stuff but that's partly a reflection of the
intensity of playing and partly down to Ed's sometimes mournful vocals. That
might be a barrier to entry for some but not so much for yours truly these
days, with a shelf groaning with solo Ed albums. There are wry touches of
humour - often self-penned and at the band leader's own expense - if you dig
deep enough ("Mr Ridiculous").
No use recounting each and every song. Mr Kuepper does that well enough in
the liners and track-by-track. Suffice to say that you'd buy an argument in
most enlightened places if you didn't consider "Eternally Yours"
a stone classic from the era (even among non-Clowns fans), but try "Collapse
Board" or "Mr Uddich Smuddich Goes To Town" for exercises in
slow burn and stunning dynamics respectively if you need to grasp more of
the picture of what this band was about. Your results may vary over the 47
tracks. It's demanding, and some of it leaves me confounded in the same way
as the less accessible Captain Beefheart material, but that's part of the
fascination in re-visiting it when the mood is right.
Jeffrey Weggener’s contribution to the liners bemoans the lack of credit
given to the Laughing Clowns by authors writing the history of Australian
music. That’s certainly true of the more middle-of-the-road tomes (Clinton
Walker’s "Stranded" book gave plenty of props to them but was
written from a personal perspective). The question is: Did the band influence
many others? For a minute, I was going to say 'probably not' until I remembered
how many '80s bands incorporated brass. But that's a blatant over-simplification.
Bottom line is that most Austrtalian bands of the time would have been afraid
to overtly go to some of the musical places that the Laughing Clowns went.
This was an innovative band whose influence manifested itself in inspiring
others to push their own envelopes rather than be carbon copies.
Of course it all ended in acrimony with personal personal demons pursuing
one or more of the sidemen. Thankfully, most emerged intact. Ed, of course,
has carved out a long and virtuous career, rich with innovation and re-inventation,
and these days plays shows as a duo with Jeffrey Wegener.It's funny the way
things come around in time. Lend an ear if you're adventurous and you might
surprise yourself. – The
Barman
