The Elysian Fields

Live! In the Air Age, by Be Bop Deluxe

Because my reviews more often than not tend to be reminisces about how I first was introduced to the album, band, composer, book, movie, or what have you - because you know I already like the piece, as I'm reviewing things I have picked out and purchased myself or were gifted to me - it will come as no surprise that not only is there a story involved in it, but I think everyone should go out and by a copy of this album.

Be Bop Deluxe first came to my attention through their inclusion in a collection of heavy metal cover art. Right off the bat, I will say that these guys might be just a bit more heavy metal than David Bowie and probably slightly less than Pink Floyd. On art alone, I had no idea what they were about: Axe Victim had a skeleton head guitar taking up all of the view and this album has a scene from Metropolis (Restored Authorized Edition).

And then patrixa and my brother went to NYC, and she went to a record store and proceeded to talk about guitars with the guy there, telling him to listen to Fates Warning and, maybe, whatever my band name was at that moment. He, in turn, said that as a guitarist I should listen to this, and he sold her Live! In the Air Age on vinyl.

Here's the problem, and it's all mine. I love to introduce people to new music. I do this to the point of annoyance, at least with my wife, who now refuses to listen to anything I pick out on account of it costing me money, or, in the case of a gift, including things she doesn't like (organ, choral music, female vocals, male vocals she doesn't like, and so on). I have a track record for being resistant to new things at first - refer to the earlier review of Children by The Mission, or the forthcoming one on Marty Friedman's Dragon's Kiss for examples.

So I refused to listen to the vinyl for a while, thinking they were just a hack average-to-sloppy metal band. Finally, because I didn't always get a chance to listen to vinyl anyway, I recorded the album to tape. Putting it mildly, I listened to it on tape. Many, many years later when my friend John owned a music store, I had him try to hunt it down for me on CD to no avail. A quick search rather more recently on Amazon.com turned it up as an import from Holland, so it made my wish list, and now here it is (thanks to anon!)

This is without a doubt the best live album, especially for its time (1979). The clarity of each instrument is incredible. Of course, Bill Nelson's ability to sing and play complex guitar lines at the same time (as opposed to potentially multitracked one at a time in the studio) is amazing. This really does have some of the best rock - not metal! - guitar playing on it. Very bluesy, with a lot of the late 1970's jazz fusion thing going on. There's some long extended instrumental excursions, and odd and insightful lyrics. In a few places, there are some rock rhythms which sound familiar - and some of them were even used by metal bands many years later. This, perhaps, is the connection with metal.

Well, that, and the pentagram on the cover, behind the robot's chair, as she gets up and walks towards you...