Howard Eynon is a curious figure who sauntered off the Tasmanian farm and into a variety of artistic endeavors before exiting public view in the early-‘80s. In ’74 he cut his sole LP; 40 years later the insanely scarce So What If Im Standing in Apricot Jam has been given a deserving reissue by Earth Recordings. Eynon won’t win awards for originality, but his dozen songs will be of likely interest to fans of Syd Barrett and Neil Innes, a combination one doesn’t read about every day.
So What If Im Standing in Apricot Jam is frequently pegged as a private press, which is unsurprising since it sports a way-out title missing an apostrophe and has a pair of floppy leather boots on the cover. Indeed, in quantitative terms this welcome retrieval’s original appearance was surely congruent to a private issue, though it initially came out via a small label named Basket/Candle, with Eynon’s invitation to record by engineer Nick Armstrong spring-boarding from a fledgling acting/musical career.
In 1971 he’d won the Grand Final of Australian New Faces, an award that encouraged popularity in his Tasmanian home (in fact he was born in St Ives, Cambridgeshire England and moved Down Under at age 11); a byproduct was Eynon opening for one Hunter S. Thompson on what this writer assumes was a reading tour, though maybe the headliner just got drunk and shot guns.
At age 17 Eynon bailed on the family’s rural dairy farm, hopping atop a motorcycle and speeding away in pursuit of work on stage and screen. And he found success, landing roles and joining numerous repertory groups; while part of the Tasmania Theatre Company he was asked to record a song for a play, the request taking him to Spectangle Productions in North Hobart. There, he was introduced to Armstrong.
Vividly produced with scads of solid, intermittently quite limber backing, So What If Im Standing in Apricot Jam’s appeal to deep-pocketed collectors was largely as a rarity spinning around the orb of acid-folk. And that’s definitely an appropriate description of its charms, but upon first listen these ears were immediately struck by Eynon’s way with humor.
“Lost” records have on occasion cultivated varying amounts of mirth, though it’s necessary to add the amusement is mostly unintentional, mainly because the filter of professionalism is absent, allowing for certain traits and gestures to flower unchecked. The response of some is to mock these efforts, but when hopefully blended with an ample degree of sonic worth, the snapshot of truth can be significant and pleasurable.
However, in the case of Howard Eynon the funny stuff is clearly by design and furthermore accompanied by self-awareness, a quality most perceptible in a line from second track “Hot B.J.”: “if you want to be critical and say this sounds a bit like Donovan, I won’t change it.” Eynon’s comedic skills are quickly established in opener “Wicked Wetdrop, Quonge and Me,” the singer theatrically incarnating various characters with distinct voices, the result reinforcing the Firesign Theater having travelled through customs and onto Tasmanian turntables by 1974.
This is but a fleeting similarity, as a particularly swell couplet from “Wicked Wetdrop, Quonge and Me” emphasizes a deeper likeness to the great English musical wit Neil Innes (he of Bonzo Dog Band, Monty Python, and The Rutles fame): “Rootle-toot and flootle-floot and twittle-twittle-twee/the distant sound of blackbirds pedaling slowly out to sea.”
The main difference is that from an arsenal of smartly absorbed if easily observable reference points Eynon employs humor more sporadically, though the jaunty acoustics of “Hot B.J.,” its words alternating between the banal and the oddball (beyond the crafty double entendre; the title stands for black current juice), establish a talent for stylistic lampoonery (jump back two paragraphs for specifics), especially during the rousing vocal climax.
The slower tempo and longer duration of “Village Hill” reigns the jesting in and provides a highlight, one that’s pretty yet not overly gentle with fine guitar playing by Eynon as he nudges into a Brit-folk zone. It’s a sweet place to be, and the latter portion is composed of increasingly tough violin bowing. This atmosphere extends into the Kevin Ayers-like “Commitment to the Band,” its lyrics presenting Eynon as being idiosyncratically bohemian (the opening slot for Thompson makes sense) rather than merely another straight-up late-period hippy unearthed for contempo consideration.
Wittiness does return in the sturdy construction of “Good Time Songs.” It starts out as half-soused barroom sing-along melodramatics flirting with a nasally-goofy Dylan approximation only to momentarily redirect into some truly weird imagery on the subject of incarceration, a theme to reemerge later. And behind the outlandishness of the words in “Boots & Jam & Head & Things” (which roughly serves as the title/cover track) can be found an approachable pop-folkish sensibility not far from John Phillips, John Sebastian, and yes Donovan.
“Happy Song” is precisely what it says, Eynon’s attractively nasal singing mixing with lilting flute; exactly how much he’s actually poking fun at lingering ‘60s optimism is nicely ambiguous. Following is “Now’s the Time,” its soaring Mellotron resonations underlining musicality as a big factor in the album’s overall success.
As its title flaunts, “Roast Pork” is an anti-cop number, the narrative jabs at authority getting lightened by faux-coffeehouse folky-bluesy swagger before the tale segues into group-sung shenanigans topped-off with swine-noise sound effects borrowed from The Beatles. And due to the preponderance of drums, “French Army” comes closest to a merger of folk, psych, and even a little rocking, a temporary climate as the sing-along nature of “Gone to the Pine Tree” is a total ringer for any upcoming Brit-styled hootenannies one might’ve penciled onto the calendar.
Interestingly, “Shadows & Riff” saves the strongest, at-times near flashy instrumentation for the record’s finale. There’s also breadth, as flute and tones of early synth combine with an overt lyrical steal from the Fab Four and a slyly abrupt ending. It’s a superb finish to an unusual yet fully accomplished LP, one that does feel a tad like a lark (this is not a bad thing).
Eynon went on to a small role in Mad Max, the ’79 post-apocalyptic classic directed by George Miller; please don’t confuse him with fellow Aussie George T. Miller, the director of the ’82 western The Man from Snowy River, a film in which the artist responsible for this disc also appeared. Eynon rode off the radar shortly thereafter, though he’s been recently interviewed in relation to Earth Recordings’ reissue, the label’s second release (the first was the self-titled ’65 album from folkie Jackson C. Frank).
Not at the level of the best work from Eynon’s influences, as a few of the shorter selections register more as ideas than full-fledged songs, So What If Im Standing in Apricot Jam is still a worthwhile offering from an intriguing personality. It coalesces into a fairly individual experience.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
