33 rebellions per minute
"It's a crazy business"
1997
Lazer Boy, FORGET NOTHING
If Syd Barrett, of early Pink Floyd and brief drug-addled solo fame, had
kept sober, worked hard on developing his obvious (though nascent)
songwriting skills, and kept up with the latest in music technology, I
suspect he could have made FORGET NOTHING by around, I dunno, 1979. But
he vanished into himself, so the music world had to wait for a Welshman
named David Lazenby to get born, grow up, and form a band. In the
meantime the music world sort of forgot it was waiting. The album is,
nonetheless, splendid. "Forget Nothing", in 6 and a half exceptional
minutes, summarizes the case for the album as a whole, from a quick
sampled-distorted-speech opening and Lazenby's charmingly accented voice
faux-announcing "My love is like a rainbow, baby" to the organ line, the
nicely but plaintively sung verses, the slow dramatic sweep of the
chorus ("And the crying of someone out there is such a turn-on from your
armchair. Every hour you get more damaged. Don't come back here"), the
most brilliantly musical noise-guitar squalling I've ever heard, and the
way the line "a cloaking device" (emotional, not SF) is repeated, at
first a capella, until it becomes pure sound ("ah-Ko-Kay-Dee-Fice!!")
while a radio countdown (SF, and emotional) blares and the guitars build
and build. It's not that the whole album uses only these elements. What
every other song does, from the cute staccato simplicity of "Matilde
Marlene" to the modern alterna-pop (and Star Trek title for love-based
song) of "Aye-Aye Captain", from the pop-via-evolving-repetition of
"Crazy Business" to the abstract galactic Hawkwind chant "Shortwave But
Why", is to pick a couple of these elements and develop them into full
songs that, if never quite challenging the centerpiece, are consistently
fascinating and usually hummable. Just like Syd, if only.
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