Sunday, December 27, 2020

hogsadelica




from the same album as this -




which is my favorite Groundhogs tune

on "You Had a Lesson" there's an angularity that from the very first time I heard it seemed like a bizarre advance whiff of Wire-iness

(then i discovered years later that Groundhogs were one of the few bands pre-punk that the members of Wire all liked)

thinking about it, I might rate Hogwash higher than the preceding better known and better celebrated albums, great as they are

the blues riffage is starker and progger than ever, and there's little moments of electronics and Mellotronics, no doubt a sideways seepage from this Tony McPhee side project






in terms of the earlier commonly-regarded-as peak Groundhogs albums (Bomb / Split / World) - this is one of the most exciting rock songs of the '70s




they must have smoked a few stages in their time

hadn't realised they were quite a commercially successful band, with those three commonly-regarded-peak albums cracking the Top 10

then Hogwash is a bust, doesn't chart at all

and they lick their wounds and come back with Solid, a slight return to commercial form

I've not listened - the title doesn't sound very promising

suggests they scale back their progward tendencies, chastened by Hogwash



2 comments:

Ed said...

Had never thought about the Wire parallel, but it's really clear now you've pointed it out. I was sure there is a section on Chairs Missing that sounds exactly like the intro to You Had A Lesson, although I can't find it now. Maybe it is just the general vibe of Chairs Missing-ness.
There is a more generally punkoid feel about the album, in fact. I Love Miss Ogyny is - I think - one of the few contemporary critiques of the rock era's "evil woman" cliches, a quasi-feminist statement to rank alongside Black Sabbath's NIB. From the clumsy title onwards, it could have come from the same school of earnest post-punk as the Au Pairs or the Delta 5. And McPhee's commitment to animal rights anticipates Morrissey by a decade.
Also on the sonic side, am I wrong to hear Lydon in S'one Song? His love of Hawkwind is well known. I wonder if he had a soft spot for the 'Hogs, too.

Ed said...

Also: Thank Christ For The Bomb. What a fantastic punk album title. Crass must have kicked themselves...