Aliens: Flight of the Moorglade

Jon Anderson: Flight of the Moorglade
[purchase]

Reading my music writing probably might give you the impression that I listen to prog rock all the time, but I don’t. More than anything, I listen to what would be classified as Americana music, but I am clearly an unrepentant lover of progressive rock. But just because I enjoy the music, that doesn’t mean that I can’t mock some of its excesses. And maybe the easiest things to make fun of about the 70s prog that I enjoy are the concept albums, with their often bizarre narratives. I mean, there are some pretty straightforward ones, like Rick Wakeman’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, essentially a dramatization of the Jules Verne novel, or Gryphon’s Red Queen to Gryphon Three, about chess (a hidden gem, by the way), or even Pink Floyd’s The Wall, basically a story about a person's difficult childhood and life.

But then there are the crazy ones, like Gong’s acid-fueled three album Radio Gnome Trilogy, or pretty much anything by Magma, or Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, which purports to be about a Puerto Rican youth living in New York City, but turns surreal (and is one of my favorite albums, anyway).

This genre of music, which is often tied up with fantasy and science fiction, is ripe for stories of aliens and interplanetary travel (although as we have seen, other genres go there, too.) And thus, we come to Jon Anderson’s Olias of Sunhillow, the Yes singer’s solo debut, released in 1976, after Yes released Relayer (an album that I have zero memory of) and before Going For The One (which I enjoyed more), during a period when the band’s members were all releasing solo albums. Wikipedia describes the album as telling:

the story of an alien race and their journey to a new world (the story printed in the LP jacket calls it "the earth", lowercase 'e') due to a volcanic catastrophe. Olias, the title character, is the chosen architect of the glider Moorglade Mover, which will be used to fly his people to their new home. Ranyart is the navigator for the glider, and Qoquaq (pronounced 'ko-quake') is the leader who unites the four tribes of Sunhillow to partake in the exodus. 

Now, let me start off by saying that I like this album, and particularly the featured track, very much. Anderson is credited with all of the voices and instruments on the album, which took two years in conception, and 8 months of work, to record. There have long been rumors that Vangelis, who had unsuccessfully auditioned for Yes at that time, and who Anderson collaborated with, played some of the parts, but both men have denied this, and unless Devin Nunes has a memo to the contrary, I see no reason to dispute that (actually, if Nunes had such a memo, it might be more likely that I’d take a contrary position, but I’m going off the rails here).

If you want a chuckle, go ahead and read the whole elaborate story, which was printed on the inner album sleeve. And because most of you won’t buy the album, here’s a link to a website devoted to Olias of Sunhillow which contains the story, and more.

Meanwhile, it appears that Anderson has been working on a sequel to Olias since 2001, to be called The Songs of Zamran: Son of Olias, and as recently as 2014, Anderson confirmed that he is still working on it. Based on his comments over the years, it will be a multi-hour work, and possibly released as an app, including visuals. Here's a preview, from 2013.  And why not, I say?

SONGS UNDER 3 MINUTES: (HEY) LITTLE GIRL

Pshaw, and to think I thought I knew everything! One of the occasional joys of this nonsense is the need to research learned tomes for the accuracy of assumptions I hold with my steely gravitas. (Wikipedia generally fits the bill for me.) My song has been a staple favourite since I bought the 45 on a record stall in Soho, London, along with other post review "not for sale" knock-offs being sold. Something about it seemed just a little more varied and energetic than the standard 2 bar chug of most other shorthairs clamouring for chart attention. That and the o so witty puntastic name of the band, the Banned, adding, or not, a taste of seedy subculture to the sufficiently young and stupid to be that impressionable. Hell, did they know their demographic! It even got into the hit parade and got them on to the telly, albeit after the "brains" of the operation had left and moved on, probably why I neither twigged nor recognised them from that Top of the Pops moment.

Dare you buy it?

For, in common with not a few others, the Banned were an undercover manoevre from the old guard to sneak some long lost cred and kudos from the changed musical world. Gryphon were about as far from punk and guitars as could ever be conceived possible, being steeped in a mediaeval prog-folk fusion; think Yes with crumhorns. They had carved, or dented slightly, a route through seriously long and lengthily serious and largely instrumental suites, often the entire side of an LP, garnering praise from serious critics, who would die of shame if ever  made to think of rock and roll. But their time had passed and I dare say bills still had to paid. So Richard Harvey, recorder player, and Jonathan Davie, bass player, teamed up with a couple of reprobates and bashed out the above. No recorders were harmed, I think it fair to say, in the making of this record..... As I said, they left before success beckoned, returning to worlds of, respectively, film soundtracks and folk music. The remainder couped a couple of new members, before fading away after the wonder of that one hit.


So what did I learn? Only that the song is not an original. Syndicate of Sound, a garage rock band from San Jose had a relatively huge hit with it, in the US, in 1966, reaching number 8 on the billboard chart. And I dare so most of you knew that, questioning my musing on my  brit has-been heroes. Here's their version. and you know what? I think it's better, certainly snottier of vocal and, hindsight or not, a whole lot less contrived. And it put paid to my earlier enhanced admiration for Dwight Yoakam, who also covered it more recently, leaving me thinking him a closet punker, before realising he was just recycling a hit from his youth. Damn and drat. Sadly not available on Youtube, but look it out, as it's a corker of  a version.

Buy the Syndicate of Sound version
Take me at my word for Dwight


Because I can, let me leave you with a taste of the contrast offered by Gryphon. (Note: it isn't under 3 minutes.)