SEALED UK 1974 HARVEST ORIG "AXE VICTIM" Be Bop Deluxe T REX BOWIE HARD PSYCH

$

55

                  UK - HARVEST RECORDS - SHVL 813

STILL FACTORY SEALED ...

NO WEAR to the fragile UK cover (impossible to find this black cover with no wear!)

Original 1974 BRITISH FIRST PRESS ... an underestimated LP to say the least, fans of early '70s UK hard guitar rock with flair should dig this as well as Bowie/T-Rex fans as it zooms both camps in spectacular fashion ....

Be-Bop Deluxe was flash guitarist/song writer Bill Nelson’s attempt to cloak his experimental nature with the conventions of the rock music sights & sounds of the day. This being the early ‘70s, "Axe Victim" finds Nelson and his band appropriating a heavy-power rock combination of ultra-catchy glitter in the David Bowie circa Aladdin Sane and T. Rex while sneaking in Nelson’s mindbending guitar solos into the mainstream listener’s ears. The songs on Axe Victim act as over-the-top set pieces that use big rock hooks to lure the listener into accepting Nelson’s surreal lyrics and unusual guitar playing. “Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape” is very blatant about this, starting with a nostalgic idyll a la “Penny Lane” that shifts into an epic guitar solo heavily reminiscent of those "Ziggy Stardust" songs where he would incorporate a guitar solo from one particular live performance into an entirely different song. Axe Victim,  benefitted greatly from Nelson’s virtuosity of "knife slashing down the strings" guitar flashings. Mick Ronson may be remembered (and justly) as Thee Glam Rock Guitarist, but Nelson plays with a fire and fluidity that are downright awe-inspiring, and he could throw down a solo every bit as good as the tour de force Ronson serves up on Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars’ “Moonage Daydream.” Such delightful curveballs are what make Axe Victim more than a curio; the seeds of decades of experiments are hidden inside these rather conventional glam rock songs . All said, Be Bop Deluxe put out a miraculously solid, strong 1974 debut LP. Axe Victim went largely overlooked at the time due to circumstances beyond its control. To wit, it was a hard-rocking/glam record released at around the same time as David Bowie’s final stab at glitter rock, Diamond Dogs. This shouldn’t have been a big deal; England was awash in glam bands at the time, many of them enormously successful, but none as good as Axe Victim.  No, what really did Nelson and Be Bop Deluxe in was the fact that Axe Victim bore a more than passing resemblance to the work of Mr. Bowie, Ziggy Stardust impact sound which led critics to lambast Be Bop Deluxe as merely jumping on the Bowie bandwagon. The title track "Axe Victim", is a melody that’s elegiac in feel and includes about 200 cool guitar riffs, Nelson sings, “Sad amps and smashed guitars/Played badly at The Duke/To almost no applause.” There’s a heavy and slower midsection in which Nelson calls himself “an axe victim/Hung up on these silver strings." Also great is Nelson’s solo, which goes on and on like the coins falling from a gargantuan slot machine winner. Follow-up “Love Is Swift Arrows” is a fast-paced rocker that includes a chorus that does sound Bowiesque, but Nelson’s guitar is a thing of beauty and a joy for at least a couple of minutes.  “Jet Silver and the Dolls of Venus” is the song that got Nelson in the most trouble with those critics who branded him a a Bowie follower. It boasts a cool melody and a great chorus, but unfortunately for Nelson a song about a band called Jet Silver and the Dolls of Venus is doomed to be written off as a transparent attempt to cash in on Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Lost is the fact that it’s a more than decent tune featuring lots of great vocals and lots of fine guitar, including a solo that closes the tune in an aura of zooming feedback. Oddly enough, the rip-off situation is reversed in “Third Floor Heaven,” which boasts a great intro and melody. Nelson’s vocals are on the swishy side, in keeping with the campy tenets of glitter rock. “She will break your heart,” sings Nelson, as fey as can be, and a female of the species repeats in a spoken voice, “She will break your heart.” From there on in it’s all power chords and keyboards, and a set of lyrics that are campier than the ones on Bowie’s “Queen Bitch.”

The ballad “Night Creatures” opens on a quiet note, and describes a collection of glam creatures and their various idiosyncrasies. With their “white faces” and “painted eyes” and “heels so high” they haunt the night, Johnny the Actor and Angel “the dancer with the mean guitar.” The melody is lovely, albeit once again a bit beholden to Bowie. A chord change, some vocal phrasing—they’re little things, but they bear Bowie’s stamp, which is one reason why I love the rave-up “Rocket Cathedrals.” Its theme of space travel is reminiscent of “Space Oddity,” true, but the song’s manic tempo and old school rock’n’roll riffs bear no resemblance to anything ever put out by the Thin White Duke. This could have something to do with the fact that bassist Bryan handles lead vocals; but then again, it’s not as if his vocals are camp-free either. “Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape” is a low-key tune, not so different from what you might hear on Hunky Dory; it features lots of “aaaaahs,” which are followed by a little muscle and a guitar solo that almost reaffirms my faith in my fellow man. It’s fluid, otherworldly, and the sound I hope to hear as I depart this mortal coil and ascend to that great Mott the Hoople concert in the sky.

Speaking of lovely, “Jets at Dawn” opens with bird song and Nelson announcing that the war is over, and boasts a chorus guaranteed to make you glad. Oddly, Nelson sounds like Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull on the choruses, which comes as quite the mindfuck if you’re not expecting it. It’s a song of solemn celebration, with the soldiers coming home and Nelson singing “Jets at Dawn/Writing in the sky/Silver planes/Drawing Coca-Cola signs.” The song also seems to be a hymn to the all the pretty young things of glam, with Nelson singing, “Said goodbye to the others/The old musicians of the past/Said hello to the young things/Oh, your songs are here to sing at last.” But just as memorable as the melody and the lyrics is Nelson’s guitar playing; this is Be Bop Deluxe’s longest song ever, and much of it consists of Nelson torturing his guitar lines into twisted and unique ways to welcome in the “New Age” he has seen risen.

Meanwhile, “No Trains to Heaven” is a funky rock’n’roller with subtle prog tendencies—it’s like math rock, man. Nelson follows each of his vocal lines with some tasty guitar before he launches into a magnificent solo, which is followed by some call and response between Nelson and the band. Then the band falls into a slightly jazzier groove, with Nelson once again setting his fret board on fire just for the flaming thrills of it. And he proceeds to go on in this manner until the song takes its good old time petering out at six-and-a-half minutes. As for LP closer “Darkness (L’Immoraliste)” it’s a moving and synthesized tune that is as lovely and dark as a poem by Baudelaire. Nelson gets all dramatic on the vocals, emoting, “You’re with me/Most every night/You’re with me/Most every night” and “Darkness, you are my true love/Darkness, you are my pride.” It’s over the top, this one, vocal histrionics heaped atop strings and even more vocal histrionics, and it’s the better and lovelier song for it.

The tragedy of Axe Victim is this; so put off was Nelson by the accusations of aping Bowie that he literally fired the band and founded a Be Bop Deluxe II that centered on straight laced British rock, shaking off all the things that made the band fantastic to listen to on "Axe Victim."

As a result, Axe Victim has never gotten its fair due as a great hardrock/glitter album, on a par with Brian Eno’s “Here Come The warm Jets" albums, Mott the Hoople’s " All the Young Dudes", or the four albums attributed to Ziggy Stardust and the other personae Bowie adopted during the Glitter-Glam Age, when it seemed every wild young thing in England was sashaying about in sparkler-encrusted platform boots and home-made space suits that screamed, “Look at me! I’m from Venus!”

- William Nelson / vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, piano
- Robert Bryan / vocals, bass guitar
- Ian Parkin / guitar, acoustic guitar, organ
- Nicholas Chatterton-Drew / drums, percussion
 
                                 Axe Victim (5:14)
                         Love Is Swift Arrows (4:12)
                    Jet Silver And The Dolls Of Venus (4:10)
                               Third Floor Heaven (2:27)
                               Night Creatures (3:34)
                               Rocket Cathedrals (3:00)
                    Adventures In A Yorkshire Landscape (3:23)
                              Jets At Dawn (7:19)
                         No Trains To Heaven (6:39)
                       Darkness (L'Immoraliste) (3:22)

CONDITION:  rated: 1974 UK product FACTORY SEALED for the USA import market;  strikingly clean (no wear!!!) first print - impossible to find this black cover 40+ years out with no wear! Still has a fresh appearance -- there are no delete marks, no split seams, no bends, and no writing  ... VERY collection worthy  ... NEVER OPENED - NEVER PLAYED

      A cool addition to anyone's music library!

SEE: SELLERS OTher items for similar cool sounds for "head" people...

EFFICIENT/CAREFUL GRADING

All imperfections are noted both cover & record