UPDATED! Since this first posted, we’ve learned this is Brian Eno & The Winkies, from a BBC appearance. Seems this live band only supported Eno on a handful of gigs. All four songs from this session are now included for your pleasure. Thanks, BigSteve!
Somewhere on the Web, I believe on some Roxy Music site, there’s a very brief (20 seconds?) clip of Brian Eno and musicians in the studio, playing “The Paw Paw Negro Blow Torch.” I was really excited when I found this clip. I can’t find it at the moment, but supposedly it’s from a movie that was made of Eno in the studio at this time. I’ve never been able to find another frame of the movie on the Web, and it’s hard enough finding anything at all written about it. Just now I tried to find a capsule review of the film that I’ve seen before, but no dice: just a bunch of stuff regarding Eno’s work with U2 and Coldplay. Even a film and rock collector friend has had no dice finding a print of this film or more than the brief descriptions that we’ve occasionally run across. This guy’s got all kinds of obscure films in a warehouse, but he can’t get a sniff of this Eno film we so badly want to see.
Luckily I keep a bunch of stuff around, in a not so organized fashion, including CDs of mp3s I downloaded about 8 years ago on a computer that long since died. The IT guy at my old place of employment was able to extract all my precious downloaded mp3s and mpgs, including the following two: live tracks in the studio, I believe, of Eno and bandmates – possibly from this very film! I especially love the straightforward, Stonesy rhythm guitar of this version of “The Paw Paw Negro Blow Torch.” Enjoy.
Brian Eno, “The Paw Paw Negro Blow Torch (BBC)”
Brian Eno, “Baby’s On Fire (BBC)”
Mr.Moderator, I’ll think about this, being a collector/connoisseur of such rock esoterica (& those who can get a hold of it), but go back one & then two threads for some mentions of blasts from your past.
I had the first track attributed to Eno & the Winkies, so I googled that and came up with this credit from a blog called The Perfumed Garden:
“This is the one and only session Brian Eno recorded for the Peel program….and that’s it.
Brian Eno – Vocals/Synthesiser
Guy Humphreys – Guitar
Philip Rambow – Guitar
Brian Turrington – Bass
Mike Desmarais – Drums
Brian Eno & The Winkies – Peel Session 5/3/1974
1. Baby’s On Fire
2. Totalled
3. The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch
4. Fever”
I’m glad you posted this, because I never had Baby’s On Fire, only the other three. I can post (or send you to post) Totalled and Fever, if you like.
Yes, BigSteve, that rings a bell! I’d love it if you could post those other two songs. I’ve never heard them. Why don’t you do it from your account as a follow up to this post – whenever you’ve got the time. This way we can be certain that the Rock Turn-On Points will be all yours. Thanks.
Turrington, played on Taking Tiger Mountain. I wasn’t sure if the other guys had done anything else I knew. Just looked up Rambow and found this write-up of a decent 1979 single that I don’t recall for the life of me:
http://behearbenow.blogspot.com/2007/06/philip-rambow-fallen.html
Then I quickly learned that The Twinkies were a self-contained band with an album to their name:
http://www.spiltmilkrecords.com/Rambow.htm
Here’s a tiny bit more on The Twinkies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winkies
Big Steve, Damn, you’re good! Also, way more on top of things than yours truly. I genuflect to your esoteric superiority! I was gonna wait until tomorrow to dig into this!
Holy Crap Mod., You’re as on top of it as Big Steve! “The Twinkies” fer chrissakes! I bow down to both of you for having the energy to dig into this stuff at this point in the day
Next up on deck at Maison Bittman, “The Long Arm of Satan’s Fist”, by The Sultans of Hell! (I was NOT involved in this one.)
This is the advantage of having one’s entire music collection on a big external hard drive (with multiple back-ups of course) — I don’t have to go digging. I can sit here and let Itunes do the research.
Mr. Mod, the three tracks I have are uploaded to the RTH folder. I think I know how to post files in a new thread, but there doesn’t seem a way to do it in a comment, and there’s no ‘preview’ function to test it out. So please feel free to add the mp3’s as an update.
And btw drummer Michael Desmarais was later in Sean Tyla’s Tyla Gang and played on their perfect album, Yachtless, about which more later in a future installment of my pub rock series.
I wasn’t expecting “Totalled” to be a first draft of “I’ll Come Running”!
I found the Eno page with the link to a studio “Paw Paw…” Here’s what it has to say about the mysterious film:
Here’s the page: http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/videoother.html
The video clip, if it’s the one I remember, won’t play on my Mac, but I’ll check it out again when I’m on my PC.
Big Steve, Do mine eyes bewitch me with visions of the Valhallah of a “Pub Rock Series”? Oh, Great Odin, Praise BE! I love me some my Pub Rock! Seriously.
Anybody who likes pub rock is ok in my book. The first two parts are at https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/index.php/2008/12/08/jim-ford-godfather-to-pub-rock and https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/index.php/2009/01/19/pub-rock-also-rans-part-1. We knew pub rockers would go on to play in punk and new wave bands, but I didn’t know it went backwards. Eno and pub rock would not seem to go together.
The conventionality of these tracks is probably their most interesting quality. But listen to the guitar solo in Fever, and I think you can hear an early example of Eno’s ‘treatments’ on that instrument. It sounds like some kind of crude filter. And god knows what’s making that sound that competes with the guitar solos in Totalled and Paw Paw, presumably some kind of synth.
And the vocals have a real campy quality that he fortunately learned to temper a bit, but the early 70s was a weird time. The photo accompanying this thread walks a fine line between Look Crime and Look Grail.
Btw anyone loading these tracks into Itunes or another mp3 player might want to change the mp3 ID tags, since the two trac`ks first uploaded by the Mod are attibuted to Eno & Fripp as ‘Live In London 1974 + Paris 1975’ which is clearly not true. These may be Peel sessions, but they’re not live, since Eno double-tracks his vocals.
These 4 tracks were available for awhile on a release called “Dali’s Car” which also included live takes of Third Uncle and Fat Lady of Limbourg performed by Eno with 801 in 1976. (Note: Third Uncle is not the same as from 801 Live.)
Some internet downloads also include a 20 minute live Eno/Fripp performance of Evening Star-esque stuff.
I was speaking with Geo the other day and the album June 1, 1974 by Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Eno, & Nico came up. Eno’s songs on this are Driving Me Backwards and Baby’s On Fire.
I remember buying this at Korvette’s in Springfield back when it came out for about two bucks. (Hard to believe there was a time when you could buy an album like this in a department store!) I don’t know why I bought it as at the time I wasn’t really familiar with any of these artists except by name. But it was probably the most expensive album I’ve ever bought in terms of how much later spending it led to. I loved Ayers immediately and soon had his catalog, all at import prices. I also bought Cale, including VU, and Eno and even one Nico album as a result of this one disc. And Lou Reed, 801, Manzanera, and Roxy followed as well.