When friends recommended I check out Blodwyn Pig’s 1970 sophomore LP Getting to This, I was dubious. This was, after all, the band England’s New Musical Express praised for its promising blend of “Hooting grunting blues mingled with snorts of jazz.” The only adjective they omitted was squealing. Then there’s the issue of the awful band name, which only beats Pearls Before Swine by snout. You really shouldn’t name your band after livestock, unless you’re The Cows.
But now that I’ve listened to Getting to This, I can only say the above description is an understatement. Ex-Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams and gimcrack saxophonist/flautist Jack Lancaster (who’s been known to play two saxes at once just like Rahsaan Roland Kirk!) do more than hoot, grunt and snort—on Getting to This they whip up a pig’s ear stew, and toss in everything but the trotters.
The eclectic shtick doesn’t always work. Take “San Francisco Sketches.” It opens with some ocean atmospherics ala the Who’s “Sea and Sand,” then cuts to Lancaster sitting beneath a tree in Sherwood Forest playing a fey flute. Then a high school jazz band enters stage right, Abrahams plays a hot dog of a guitar solo, and a choir of heavenly voices enters stage left and pulls a Godspell on ya. Then things kick into overdrive, Abrahams’ guitar adds kraut to the dog, and Lancaster follows up with a tasty sax solo. Me, I want to take a surgical knife to the damn thing and remove the parts that irk me. I guess this is what your aficionados call progressive rock. I prefer to call it attention deficit disorder.
“Variations on Nanos” is even more out there. Lancaster opens on a freak flute note, launches into a flitting butterfly of a solo, then hands things over to Abrahams, who serves up a subdued but classy guitar solo. All’s as should be until Abrahams (who sounds a whole lot like nemesis Ian Anderson) decides to sing from the deep end of a swimming pool before climbing out, drying himself off, and launching into a dead-on impersonation of Captain Beefheart. Weird, but not as weird as “To Rass Man,” a Deutsche Schlager Oompah reggae tune designed to excite the lederhosen hacky-sack crowd.
Things settle into a semblance of normalcy from there. The hard-driving “Same Old Story” and the equally tough “Worry” prove Abrahams walked away from Jethro Tull with more than just his guitar. “Long Bomb Blues” is a Hail Mary of a seven-string guitar showcase that raises an important question–is Abrahams a Johnny Unitas fanatic or more a Joe Namath kinda guy? Abrahams also pulls out the old seven-string on the acoustic blues “Toys.” Why, you may ask, does he sound so down in the dumps? Turns out his Christmas toys refused to play with him cuz he was mean to his sisters and brother. Take heed, kiddies!
As for the anti-Vietnam war protest anthem “Send Your Sons to Die,” its big band sixties TV theme song sound is almost enough to make me pro-war. Fortunately Lancaster’s sax and Abrahams’s far-freaking out guitar solo cut through the schocky horn arrangements. Show me to the next protest march! On the beat the speed limit “Drive Me” Cream and Johnny Winter shake hands and go to a jazz concert. Which leaves us with startlingly straightforward “The Squirreling Must Go On,” an old-fashioned guitar rave-up of the sort I’d wish they’d done more often. If ya got it flaunt it is what I always say.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the super groovy album cover, which depicts the boys in the band as Archies cartoon characters surrounded by adoring elves. It’s every bit as cool as the cover of their 1969 debut Ahead Rings Out, on which a hep cartoon pig in shades and headphones enjoys a cigarette. Judge a band by its covers, and Blodwyn Pig are better than The Beatles!
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B
