Wishbone Ash - There's the Rub

Well, for a dollar I'm not going to get too bent out of shape over some idiot with the initials "BB" who thought adorning the album with their initials was a good idea. I thought since I'd managed to get an entire name printed in block letters off a Nick Lowe record, I'd have no problem with two little initials.

There's the rub ... as you can see I managed to fade it a little, but I quickly realized I was also rubbing off the album art too. So I stopped rubbing before I wouldn't be able to see.

Enough of that, as much fun as it is to write out thinly veiled juvenile masturbation jokes I think I'm edging close to losing it, so I'll stop.

Okay, now I'll stop.

Sorry. But they started it.

Do they have mulligan's in blogwriting? Or am I supposed to do the honourable thing and delete stuff?

Let's just start again, but as a compromise I'm leaving the other stuff as a reminder to myself to show what happens when I write without really thinking.

Wishbone Ash, what a great name. A number of years ago I worked with a guy from England who absolutely loved them. I hadn't really heard much, but I did look up "The King Will Come" and that was a really cool song and I always sort of kept an eye out for their stuff.

So low and behold, I found There's the Rub in the dollar bin thanks to "BB" and their permanent marker. The record itself was in fantastic shape and the record was still inside the original MCA liner. Considering I really had no expectations I was blown away. This doesn't sound thin and anemic, producer Bill Szymczk did a masterful job and this sounds awesome and does not sound like it was recorded in 1974.

The four piece was comprised of guitarists Andy Powell and Laurie Wisefield, drummer Steve Upton, and Martin Turner on bass and lead vocals. The guys wrote long, but not overly long songs and on this album the closest they got to something like "The King Will Come" was "Lady Jay" that was based on a Dartmoor folk legend, but that doesn't mean the band didn't take the time to stretch out when they felt like it.

With only six songs the album feels short mainly because I wanted more, but it's running close to the standard forty minutes, and they really couldn't have fit much more on the album. The first side is solid, and I went and played it again before turning it over. "Don't Come Home" is especially good, with the guitar interplay. It actually reminded me a little of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Saturday Night Special" but it was more a feel and groove than anything. The first side closes out with the opus "Persephone" a mid tempo lament I really liked that kept building until they faded it out instead of going for the big ending - if there was a scourge in '70s music it was the fade out.

The second side presents the other three songs on the album. "Lady Jay" being the most dated of the songs here, but was probably what their fans were hoping to hear. Whereas for me I like the more straight ahead rock elements that took up the first side. The album closes out with "F.U.B.B." over nine minutes of sonic mayhem. I'm guessing they were wanting to live up to the song's title. I know I said "Lady "Jay" was dated, and it was, but "F.U.B.B." is something else. In a good way, it was 1974 after all and if you were a rock band worth anything you were expected to show off once in a while. 

I'd mentioned Skynyrd earlier, and I wonder if the guys in Wishbone Ash heard "Freebird" and asked themselves, "Hey what if we just cut out the singing and just got right to the fun parts with lots of guitars and stuff?" Maybe it was Bill Szymcyk who replied, "That would be F'd up beyond belief." ... and so it was, and the results weren't, although I'm not sure it's a lion growling, or a fart at the end of the song. 

I'm not sure it matters.

There's the rub, and I think I just finished.

I'll see myself out.