What a brilliant band they were. The only mistake was the short existence) Only two releases. Beefheart's band people with Fred Frith and Richard Thompson!
What a brilliant band they were. The only mistake was the short existence) Only two releases. Beefheart's band people with Fred Frith and Richard Thompson!
GOOD ALBUMS!
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
I love them both. These albums were my way in to Richard Thompson and Henry Kaiser's own work.
Love both of these albums! I was fortunate enough to see the quartet at one of their rare live appearances and they were amazing. Henry Kaiser wasn't from Beefheart's band, though he is a major Beefheart scholar and has covered a lot of the Captain's material.Originally Posted by grego
I believe Kaiser has said that it was seeing Beefheart in concert that inspired him to become a guitarist. I've got a lot of his other records, but I've somehow never gotten around to getting the FFKT records.
How would you rate them next to Crazy Backwards Alphabet? Also, were these available on vinyl when first released or was this in the era of CD's?
The first was on LP, with two fewer tracks.
I've owned both albums for 20 + years. If you put a gun to my head, I'd go with the first record. It features some outstanding Richard Thompson songs, offbeat humor, and a couple of instrumentals. Lots of good stuff on Invisible Means as well, but I'm not crazy about French's vocals.
Fans of these albums might also dig the Mike Keneally/Henry Kaiser album, The Mistakes. If I remember correctly, they perform a tune from the Crazy Backwards Alphabet album, plus a lot of other twisted, offbeat original material. And Andy West plays bass on the album.
Great stuff. Everything RT touches turns to gold. "Bird in God's Garden"..."Killerman's Gold Posse"...awesome tunes.
Firth of Frith
I have "live love larf and loaf" and what a fun album that is! Gotta love "Where's the Money" too
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Love, love, love these albums. I'm a massive fan of all four of them individually as well. A fella can go broke trying to buy all the Frith and Kaiser recordings.
Time to revive this thread. I recently scored both albums and concur they're interesting material. If ever a "band" avoided developing a "band sound" then FFKT is certainly that band. What a wide world they circumscribe.
Yes, but then again of course they all DID share a basic interest in "roots" music of different kinds. I think it was Frith who once said that this project was never intended to be more than what essentially came out of it. Original takes on the guitar-oriented "song-form". There's some truly great playing on here, obviously.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Two records from a group that seemed, on paper, doomed to fail and yet, in reality, turned out to be kick-ass.
Being a little facetious.....it's just that Richard Thompson and Fred Frith might seem, on the surface, to share less than they differ, and ditto Kaiser. But the truth is every one of these folks, irrespective of where their individual career paths have taken them, are music lovers in the broadest sense possible, and so coming together wasn't just a great idea....it was an inspired one.
I tend to like the first album a little more, but that's only a marginal thing. They're both wonderful, featuring some of my favorite six-stringers (in particular RT & FF) in the world.
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