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| All designs by John Hurford |
My sleevenotes for the 7" vinyl-only release on Shagrat Records.
Order from http://shagratrecords.com/shagrat_sales_orc005_horace.html
Enigmatic and ephemeral, Horace barely existed. No gigs, one recording session, but three
marvellously atmospheric pieces captured on acetate on 1st January
1971, carefully stored by bass-player Jim Mercer for over forty years and now
lovingly dusted off by Shagrat Records for your delight.
Taking their name
from the eye-catching spine of a book by the Roman poet of the same name,
Horace evolved out of the Autumn ’70 hash-jamming sessions of Ric Parnell
(drums and vocals) and Jim Mercer (guitar and bass). Ric, son of well-respected
drummer and band-leader Jack Parnell, had finished his first stint in Atomic
Rooster (the flamboyant trio led by ex-Crazy World of Arthur Brown organist
Vincent Crane), briefly replacing Carl Palmer in the summer of 1970. He had
also played, recorded with, and apparently subsequently re-joined, Horse who, led
by guitarist Rod Roach, released an album on RCA now considered a ‘prog-psych
monster’.
Through 1968 and 1969
Jim had been actively involved in the British blues scene, playing guitar on
the vibrant London club circuit (Fishmongers Arms, Cooks Ferry Inn, Klooks
Kleek, etc) with The Tenement Blues Band which evolved into Uncle Bud (both led
by one of the coolest but criminally neglected psychedelic blues guitarists on
the planet Graham Neil). Also involved were bassist Trevor Stevens from Danny
Kirwan’s pre-Fleetwood Mac band, Boilerhouse, and drummer Phil Lenoir of Black
Cat Bones and, subsequently, the magnificent but ill-fated Shagrat (with Steve
Peregrin Took and Larry Wallis) after whom this record label is named. However,
when Graham took his red Gibson 335 to join the outrageous freeform psych-blues
outfit Screw (further details of whom can be found in the sleeve-notes to their
Shagrat records 10” vinyl release) and, with the blues-boom slowly fading,
Uncle Bud passed quietly away.
Recently inspired by
the spectacular bass-playing twin catalysts of Phil Lesh and Rockette Morton,
Jim had decided to switch instruments and joined what became the last gasp of
Horse with Ric on drums. Jim and Ric
built up an immediate musical rapport and they began working out some original
material and jamming with a variety of other musicians from the South London /
Kingston / Esher area (including players from the Rare Bird / Elio-Karfeneti /
Fruit Machine axis), often turning up with their kit at local College and
University gigs (part of a circuit which regularly attracted the cream of the
‘underground’ bands) and sitting in ‘after hours’. Jim fondly recalls a jam he
and Ric had at Sussex Uni with some of Muddy Waters’ band and another at Surrey
Uni in Guildford with Vertigo artists
Gracious where the expanded line-up included two drummers and two bass-players.
Through his friend,
Andy ‘Ced’ Curtis, an engineer at Central Sound Studios in Denmark Street (also
guitarist in freak-beat band Fruit Machine who issued three excellent 45s in
1968/9), Ric managed to secure some studio time for him and Jim to record a
couple of their songs for posterity.
Andy was a couple years older than Ric but they’d previously discovered
a common interest in music while working together as porters at Bentalls
Department Store in Kingston and, with
Ric intent on becoming a pro-player, Andy introduced him to some of the best
local musicians. These included
guitarist-turned-violinist Mike Piggott, then a member of Gass (led by Bobby
Tench, they offered up a heady brew of Afro-rhythms, jazz and progressive rock.
and had just released their ‘Juju’ LP with Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac
guesting on a couple tracks).
Jim and Ric obviously
had a lot to say musically and in contrast to the intensity of the music they’d
previously been playing (guitar-dominated electric blues and hard
psych-prog-rock respectively) Horace were virtually acoustic and overall have a
mellow, bucolic yet experimental feel - imagine a mix of Traffic, Caravan and
The Grease Band, and even a hint of Uncle Frank’s seminal Hot Rats!
‘See the sun’
(written and sung by Ric) is the most atmospheric of the three tunes and opens
with Mike Piggott’s violin delicately greeting a new dawn, the sun rising as
Andy Curtis’s gorgeous circular piano riff kisses the morning dew. The song
gently unfolds with Jim’s elegant (but under-stated) bass-lines, Ric’s oh-so-tasteful
percussion and Andy’s acoustic guitar adding layers to the gentle dynamic. The rhythms subtly shuffle and change, the
huge gaps in the music creating tension and mystery as lyrically the song
appears to move from the optimism of a new day (“I can see the sun”) to an
apocalyptic conclusion (“I lift up my head, there is no sun, the world is dead.
I know there’s nowhere to go, so I wait for the snow”). Especially effective is
the closing Crosby-like scat vocals (A
Tree with no leaves?) and Mike’s violin, eerily reminiscent of John Cipolina’s trademark
growling guitar vibrato.
‘Waiting for the
Moon’ (a ‘joint’ Ric/Jim collaboration) is a stoned romp, built around Jim’s funky
looping bass riff and Mike’s violin fills. It’s still full of tempo changes and
intricate instrumental passages (particularly Andy’s zigzag acoustic runs and
Ric’s hand-drums) ending with a flourish of fabulous Lesh-style bass-lines by
Jim. The lyrics sum up the prevailing
mood of the times, the quest for enlightenment which invariably begins with a
roll of the sacramental spliff easing open the doors of perception and seeing
what materialises: “I got nothing to do except sit here, waiting for the moon
to appear. Miles away I think I can hear a wolfbane chasing a great white
running deer…. So I just sit and wait
here, smoking my cigarette, boy it gets me high! All my life I’m looking for sky, all my life
I’m wondering why. Everyone spits on a man who sits, and just waits for the
moon”.
After successfully
laying down the two songs they’d intended, there was surplus studio time for a
blast of uriosa felicitas. Starting out with a couple of riffs Mike already
had, the bizarrely-named instrumental ‘Mongrel Polyop’ evolved organically, and
what a treat it is. Led by Mike’s double-tracked
violin (sounding uncannily like Spencer Perskin of Texas psychedelic legends
Shiva’s Headband), and underpinned by Jim’s bubbling bass patterns, Horace whip
up a majestic shuffle reminiscent of Traffic’s ‘You can all join in’ with
swaggering percussion from Ric and delightful cascading Nicky Hopkins-style
piano fills by Andy. No rehearsals, no
safety net, the moon in its orbit, the stars aligned and a touch of alchemy
never to be repeated.
Although Jim and Ric
eventually obtained a publishing deal with Toby Music in January 1971 nothing
materialised. There is, however, an
interesting, albeit frustrating, Horace footnote. Andy and Ric wrote a tune around
this time they showed to Vincent Crane of Atomic Rooster. A few months later
Ric recognised the same riff blasting out of a record-store sound-system and
was horrified to learn that Crane had appropriated it for Rooster’s ‘Tomorrow Night’
single (which reached #11 in the UK chart).
The record bore the sole writing credit of ‘Crane’.
In the Spring of 1971
Ric, Jim and a young guitarist from Kingston named
John Goodsall (who had been in Babylon with
singer Carol Grimes) formed an ambitious acid-drenced power trio named
Sandoz. Although Ric’s involvement was
short-lived (bearing no grudges he agreed to re-join Atomic Rooster when asked)
Sandoz found a replacement and later cut an astonishing three-song acetate
which Shagrat released on vinyl in a limited edition of 350 in 1996.
Andy Curtis later
joined his former Fruit Machine colleague Steve Gould in Rare Bird and
subsequently played with various ex-Van der Graaf Generators in The Long Hello,
his current activities are unknown.
After Gass split Mike Piggott joined Paul Brett Sage and later played
with Bert Jansch. He is now a highly-respected jazz violinist. Jim Mercer auditioned for May Blitz in the
summer of 1971 but returned to his blues roots and has subsequently played
string-bass with most of the UK’s leading exponents of the genre including a
long spells with Gordon Smith and Paul Lamb & The Kingsnakes and, most
recent to this writing, ex-Yardbird Top Topham. A Pete Frame style family tree
is required to do justice to Ric Parnell’s post-Horace and Atomic Rooster
activities including two albums with Italian prog-jazz-fusion band Nova, his
most high-profile role being in the Spinal Tap mockumentary as Mick Shrimpton
where he ‘spontaneously combusted’. He currently lives in Montana and is a member of
the psychedelic collective ‘Donovan’s Brain’.
The Odes of Horace
may have lain un-appreciated and un-read for centuries so the forty years it’s
taken for these recordings to see the light of day is but a minor re-scheduling.
Although Horace’s famous quote ‘Carpe diem’ is normally translated as ‘seize
the day’, Latin scholars will point out that 'Carpe' translates
literally as 'pluck', with particular reference to the picking of fruit. The wonderful Radio Geronimo used to say ‘Everything
ripens in its time and becomes fruit at its hour’ so come with us, step through
the portals of antiquity…. Smell the freshness, feel the lushness, reap the
harvest - carpe diem, baby, carpe diem!
Horatius mortuus est,
vivat Horatius
