THE HIGHER STATE - VOLUME 27 (2016)

The Higher State return for album number five with a reshuffled line-up (most notably the departure of Mole from the drum stool) and the bit held firmly between their teeth. After the chime and jangle which characterized 2013’s The Higher State, this is a tougher, more abrasive effort and recalls the work mainman Marty Ratcliffe did back in the era of The Mystreated, particularly their Ever Questioning Why period, when Farfisa, folk, fuzz and fuckedoffness was the order of the day.

All of that is here again plus, as always, resolutely authentic garage recording techniques, equipment and (lack of) production creating a thick, claustrophobic air – far more Austin, Texas (home of their record label, the 13^th Floor Elevators and the Golden Dawn - how they must love that association) than Sandgate, Kent (where they rest their heads).

Ratcliffe is in snarling and scathing mood - always his most effective setting - taking pot shots at former relationships in ‘Long Someways To Go’ and the scornful ‘I Suppose You Like That Now?’ while artist-in-his-own-right Paul Messis pens four of the twelve tracks, including the two wildest rockers, ‘Forest Through The Trees’ and the scorching ‘Smoke and Mirrors’.

Best of all for bitterness – and no coincidence the album’s highlight - is the acoustic ‘When We Say’ which launches these lyrical rockets: “I’d rather be weak and have feelings than be just like you, strung up and cold” before concluding with “There’s no accounting for taste, but at least I have some”. Ouch.

A couple of tracks on side two don’t cut such a deep impression but overall Volume 27 is filled with spite, rage and good old garage grumpiness.

Volume 27 by The Higher State is out now on 13 O’Clock Records. Available here.

OCTOBER PLAYLIST

These babies have been getting a lot of love this month...

1.  Roy Brown – “Shake ‘Em Up Baby” (1955)

Jitterbugging and lindy hopping his way through monkeys, coconut trees, rabbits, shotguns, alley cats, hound dogs, roosters and chickens, Roy really does shake ‘em up.

2.  Sonny Rollins – “I’m An Old Cowhand” (1957)

From Way Out West, with Sonny on tenor and dressed as a cowboy, Ray Brown on bass and Shelly Manne on drums. As Rollins explains on the sleevenotes, he wanted a “loping along in the saddle feeling… I want the cat out on the range all the way”, and on this hokey old tune (see Bing Crosby’s 1936 version) he gets it and it makes me smile every time.

3.  Roosevelt Nettles – “Heartaches and Troubles” (1961)

How could a record titled “Heartaches and Troubles” by someone called Roosevelt Nettles fail? It couldn’t. A right moody atmospheric barstool bastard. 

4.  Jill Harris – “Baby, Won’t You Try Me” (1964)

I heard Nick Beckett play this on his Dr Gonzo’s Medicine Show on Fusion the other Sunday and it blew my mind. Jill Harris leads the raucous call and response with Dee Dee Warwick, Cissy Houston, and Sylvia Shemwell on backing vocals on a track which has hands clapping in the church and feet stomping on the dancefloor. 

5.  The Seeds – “You Can’t Be Trusted” (1965)

This previously unreleased take, recorded on 20 July 1965, finally sees the light of day on a new limited edition Record Collector 45 and, especially when heard in isolation, highlights how utterly unique and ground breaking Sky Saxon’s wonderfully warped version of the blues really was at the time. They’d have garage imitators by the thousands but The Seeds were originators.  

6.  Ken Boothe – “Moving Away” (1968)

Being largely ignorant to rocksteady I was only familiar with Kenny Lynch’s version but must hand it to Kenneth, this is fabulous.

7.  Roberta Flack featuring Donny Hathaway – “God Don’t Like Ugly” (1979)

This caught my ear in the pub the other night so had to investigate. I actually thought it was a later release due to the production but the vocals are great and the melody stayed in my head, even after six pints of ruby ale and a couple of Southern Comforts.  

8.  Guy Hamper Trio – “Polygraph Test” (2009)

The Guy Hamper Trio – Billy Childish, Nurse Julie, Wolf Howard – are joined by James Taylor for a rollicking slab of garage-punk-jazz, the likes of which haven’t been heard since Mr Taylor’s earliest forays with his own quartet.

9.  Bob Dylan – “The Night We Called It A Day” (2015)

Bobby was in good form at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday. A few things struck me: (a), almost everything was post 1997’s Time Out Of Mind; (b), because the set is therefore mostly what could be called “new” material (notwithstanding some is now nearly 20 years old) Bob doesn’t feel the need to wildly reinterpret them; (c), both these things are very welcome; and (d), the half dozen tracks from his recent Shadows In The Night LP – songs previously made famous by Frank Sinatra given a pedal-steel arrangement – provided many of the highlights, with the style suiting Bob who put notable effort into his singing. As I’ve said before, there’s Bob Dylan, then there’s everyone else.

10.  The Higher State – “(Consider It) A Debt Repaid” (2015)

Folkestone’s folk-stoned garage combo in typically disaffected mood on their new two-minute 45, complete with acidic tongue, swirly organ and a jangle so sharp it’ll cut ya soon as look at ya. Released, I’m sure to their delight, on 13 O’Clock Records out of Austin, Texas.  

OCTOBER PLAYLIST

1.  Maxine Brown – “The Secret Of Livin’” (1966)

Maxine has at least three indisputable Northern Soul anthems to her name and whilst Wand 45 “The Secret Of Livin’” isn’t one of them it’s a neat overlooked pop-soul gem.

2.  The Beau Brummels – “One Too Many Mornings” (1966)

Anything the Byrds can do with a Dylan song…

3.  Dave Pike – “Blind Man Blind Man” (1966)

The Herbie Mann produced Jazz For The Jet Set for Atlantic Records features an air travelling dollybird in green go-go boots on the sleeve and marimba playing Pike in the grooves. Herbie Hancock makes his debut on organ, Clark Terry lends his trumpet, and the whole album has the air of cool sophistication. 

4.  Peter Walker – “Second Song” (1968)

When Timothy Leary invited folks back to his gaff to turn on, tune in and drop out, he’d often employ guitarist Peter Walker to provide a suitable soundtrack to accompany the evening’s main event. If Peter isn’t available for your next acid party his album Second Poem to Karmela or Gypsies Are Important is as trippy as the title suggests. 

5.  The Supremes – “I Wish I Was Your Mirror” (1970)

The first post-Diana Supremes album,New Ways But Loves Stays, has some fine camp classics on it (“Stoned Love”, “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye”); some interesting covers (“Come Together”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”); and some straight ahead smooth soul movers like this Frank Wilson tune. The Four Tops did a version too but it’s not as good as this.

6.  Syl Johnson – “Annie Got Hot Pants Power” (1971)

Syl reckoned this would’ve been a hit if it had been called simply “Hot Pants Lady” as in his opinion, “Black women are more sophisticated now. They don’t want nobody calling them Annie”. He’d later release a weaker version under that title and claims it was his song James Brown based his big “Hot Pants” hit on. There can never be enough hot pants or songs about hot pants in my book.

7.  Esther Phillips – “Sweet Touch of Love” (1972)

I always hear one of the opening lines as “Sting your furry toes”. That coupled with Ms Phillips on the back cover ofFrom A Whisper To A Scream with her housecoat undone revealing more than a lady oughta is an unsettling image.

8.  The Primitives – “Secrets” (1989)

The Primitives launched their new Spin-O-Rama LP with a great show at the Garage in Highbury last Saturday. Half new stuff like “Petals” and “Hidden In The Shadows” and half old, and one couldn’t see the join. An oldie they didn’t play was “Secrets” which, bizarrely, was the song I woke up with stuck in my head the following morning. When bands can afford to omit singles like this from their live set you know their cup overfloweth.

9.  Ride – “Twisterella” (1992)

It’s impossible to say when Britpop began but when this came out I clearly remember it marking a noticeably shift for both Ride and the mood of the time. More overtly 60s; clean, chiming Rickenbackers; vocal harmonies; underscored by a black and white video recreating The Who at the Goldhawk Road Social Club. Better than almost everything that came in its wake. 

10.  The Higher State – “Wait For My Love” (2014)

In between Easter Everywhere and Bull of the Woods, the 13^th Floor Elevators cut “Wait For My Love”, a poppier than usual track earmarked as their new single. Instead, it languished in the vaults for years. It finally makes it onto a white-vinyl 45 thanks to Elevator acolytes The Higher State’s faithful recording for the covers label Fruits De Mer. The earlier Elevators track “You Don’t Know” takes the flip.

GRAHAM DAY & THE FOREFATHERS, THE HIGHER STATE and THE AARDVARKS at the BETHNAL GREEN WORKING MEN’S CLUB

When Graham Day, Allan Crockford and Wolf Howard reunited to play as The Prime Movers at the Blues Kitchen in May – and then tore a whacking great hole through Day’s songbook – it got Day’s juices flowing after a five year absence. What started as a couple of special shows under a previous moniker has now developed into something hopefully more substantial: a new name, a fresh start but - for now at least - familiar songs from The Prisoners, The Prime Movers, The SolarFlares and The Gaolers.

First up though, taking a similarly nostalgic approach to the Forefathers, were 90s Mod scene attractions The Aardvarks. Cherry Red this year issued Sinker, Line & Hook: The Anthology 1987-1999, which by accident or design has prompted the Ealing dandies to rekindle former glories. Always taking from a slighter later sixties period than their closest rivals The Clique, The Aardvarks dusted off their old Wimple Winch, Easybeats, Fleur De Lys/Sharon Tandy and Who covers but these were overshadowed by their own material, especially “Buttermilk Boy” and the Graham Dayesque “I Threw Her A Line”.  

The band may sport a few grey hairs these days - singer Gary is now less Scott Walker and more Roy Walker (please forward all complaints/credit for that remark to Mrs Monkey, I’m in no position to comment...) – but they did enough to bring back memories of their amazing 1995 Barcelona gig which still gets talked about along the length of the Uxbridge Road. There was surprisingly no “Arthur C. Clark”, which I always think of as their signature song, but maybe next time.

The Higher State also look back but not to their own past. Marty and Mole, as half of The Mystreated, played on bills with The Aardvarks at the St John’s Tavern and Boston Arms twenty years ago but now showcase tracks from their fourth album, The Higher State (matching the score of their previous combo). With chiming guitars and three-part harmonies they gained in momentum, switching between unadulterated folk-rock and intelligent garage-punk. By that I mean avoiding the usual “running round town/tryin’ put me down” garages clichés, although as Marty acknowledged when muttering an introduction to “Potentially (Everyone Is Your Enemy)” there is seldom an upbeat message. “Always so negative,” he sniggers.

Watching The Higher State finish off with a blissfully sunny sounding “Song Of The Autumn” was to be transported to Los Angeles in ’66, to the Troubadour, to the Whisky A Go Go – a far cry from a scuzzy, down-at-the-heel East End working men’s club in 2013.

I expected Graham Day & The Forefathers to romp through their collective back catalogue and that’s exactly what they did. The Prime Movers’ “Good Things”, followed by the lesser-spotted Prisoners B-side “Promised Land”.  There were Gaolers songs (“Get Off My Track”) and a handful of SolarFlares numbers (“Mary”  etc.).

The absence of an organ didn’t matter (I could still hear one in my head) as the Medway powerhouse trio drove through in typically hard hitting style. Day, crunching out his riffs, his purple shirt soaked through to the skin, gets top billing but Crockford and Howard’s contribution to that sound should never be underestimated. They crashed, banged and walloped anything and everything within striking distance. It would’ve been easier to bash a hole in a prison wall than find a weakness in these monumentally tough slabs of songs. There was no let up. A quick catch of breath and then BANG, off again.

I wasn’t taking full notes as I didn’t want the distraction but jotted down the Prisoners ones as I knew I’d forget. “Better In Black”, “Creepy Crawlies”, “Whenever I’m Gone”, “Be On Your Way”. They kept coming. “Hurricane”, “Love Me Lies”, “Coming Home”. I only had a small scrap of paper. “I Am The Fisherman”, “Reaching My Head”. Blimey. And then the finale, “Melanie”. Not only were people cheering, they were dancing. At a gig. In London. Is this allowed? Incredible scenes.

Next stop is back to the old Prisoners haunt of the 100 Club on Saturday 8^th February. It’ll be great like this was. There’s no immediate rush for new songs as there’s enough oldies to chop and change but on this form it’s a tantalising thought for the future. 

THE HIGHER STATE - THE HIGHER STATE (2013)

The world isn’t blessed with an abundance of great American 60s folk-rock albums yet, maybe improbably, The Higher State from the South-Coast of England have made one in 2013.

That might be factually debatable but aurally it’s undeniable. Not that it should cause much of a surprise as after four albums The Higher State have got this stuff down to a fine art. What is noticeable here is a slight shift of emphasis and greater focus. Their unshakeable commitment to authentic 60s recording methods is evident as always (recorded in their own 8-track analogue State Studios) but whereas previous album, the excellent Freakout At The Gallery, was more experimental and had a harder psychedelic edge, this new one is more-or-less straight folk-rock, with the stress on the rock part. There’s no wishy-washy acoustic numbers, everything is resolutely plugged in and a cynical disgruntlement bubbles beneath the surface.  

It’s a tight, economical album – it contains no flab, no wastage, nothing out of place; just neatly picked lead guitar lines running through strong chiming songs containing memorable melodies and ear-catching lyrics.

I’ve written before about "Potentially (Everyone Is Your Enemy)" and it’s the wildest track here and the best single of the year, no question. “Why Don’t You Prove It” also drives fast and angrily and "I'm Going Home Now" owes a debt to Love's "You'll I'll Be Following". Those are among the most immediate tracks (plus the harmonica led "What Is The Deal") but with the pace knocked down a notch on some others they soon shine through.

“You’ve Drifted Far” is a beautiful and gently reflective whilst “Need To Shine” is among the many more Byrdsian moments. Any band adopting anything half resembling a jangle gets a Byrds comparison even when they sound nothing like them and don’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. The Higher State capture the feel and spirit of the early Byrds (think of the Byrds 1964 Preflyte demos rather than the cleaner sound which made their name). Yet whilst Preflyte and The Higher State could’ve been made in the same studio one after each other they each retain their own identify.

Twelve songs, none touching three minutes, and the whole album over within half an hour. Their record label, 13 O’Clock Records, call The Higher State “the UK’s foremost exponents of authentic folk-rock”. Just the UK? They’re selling them short.

The Higher State by The Higher State is out on Monday 19th November. Available here.  

THE HIGHER STATE - SONG OF THE AUTUMN

This is the brilliant new single (round, black, 7 inch thing) from the Higher State. Bask in the warmth of its sun. Love the video too.


www.myspace.com/thehigherstategaragepsych