Monday's Long Song

Echo and The Bunnymen are touring at the moment and walked into some difficulties last week with a few hit and miss reviews and a last minute cancelled gig in Manchester. They got back underway at Bristol and seem to be back on track but all is not well if you read between the lines. I've seen them several times in the last few years and always had a good night out- those songs, Ian in good voice, Will's guitar playing- but at some gigs others have attended Ian hasn't always been at his best and this seems to have been the case last week. Hopefully, he's OK. 

In 2013 Will and original bass playing Bunnyman Les Pattinson formed a side band, Poltergeist, a trio of cosmic explorers with Will very much free to indulge his psychedelic guitar dreams. The eight instrumental songs on Your Mind Is A Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder) are all worthy of the time spent with them, Will and Les mining 70s cosmische, 60s psyche and scouse adventurism to fine effect. Over half the songs on the album stretch out over six minutes- this one, Cathedral, opens the record and gathers a head of steam, Will's guitars shimmering and careering over some lovely bass playing from Les. 

Cathedral

In the 70s, as Liverpool's punk scene spun into being Will lived on a flat with Paul Simpson (Teardrop Explodes, The Wild Swans, Care, solo, author, smart dresser) halfway between the city's pair of famous cathedrals. Leaving his front door and turning left or right would bring either the Anglican one or the Modernist Catholic one immediately into view. I've always assumed that this track is a tribute to one or the other or both. 

The Book Of Pleasures

Will Sergeant's memoir Bunnyman dropped through my letterbox yesterday, signed by the author himself and now sitting waiting for me to get stuck into, an account his childhood and formative years in Melling (a village on the outskirts of Liverpool, woolly back country for scousers) and the late 70s punk scene centred around Eric's. The book finishes just as Echo And The Bunnymen are about to break so I have a feeling there may be a second volume at some point. Once I've read it, I'll write a fuller post about it. 

In 2013 Will reunited with Bunny bassist Les Pattinson for a group called Poltergeist and armed with guitars, bass and a drummer, a four track and three decades of psychedelic exploration they set about recording an album of instrumentals. At the time Will said it was a return to his pre- punk hippy influences- Floyd, Can, Neu!- and also a reaction to the periodic frustrations of being essentially a hired hand in the band he formed. Ian McCulloch calls the shots in the reformed Bunnymen, decides what they play live and what happens in the studio- which sounds like despite the name on the sleeve most modern Echo And The Bunnymen albums are Mac solo albums and Will recreates his guitar parts on their classic songs on stage. No room to improvise or wig out. Which explains why Poltergeist sounds like it does. Will was in the same class at school as Les Pattinson and never fell out with him so it was obvious to get him in on bass for Poltergeist. This track from their album Your Mind Is A Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder) unfolds slowly with a little drama and some introspection, a slice of 21st century scouseadelia. 

The Book Of Pleasures