STEVE PEREGRIN TOOK - NEW CD
FEE OF TAG IS VERY PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE RELEASE OF A NEW STEVE TOOK CD
OUT ON CHERRY RED RECORDS!
OUT ON CHERRY RED RECORDS!
Right: CD Booklet designed by Fee Warner for Mercury Moon.
Steve Took's solo career and musical ventures with HAWKWIND musicians has been overlooked in musical history. Took remains best known as MARC BOLAN's original partner in TYRANNOSAURUS REX (T.REX).
1977 saw the death of Marc Bolan but the formation of a new band for Steve Took. The Horns, included former STEVE GIBBONS BAND guitar virtuoso JUDGE TREV and DINO FERARI, both of whom would go on to a solid following with HAWKWIND founder NIK TURNER as INNER CITY UNIT (ICU). The Horns recorded a session at the now legendary Pathway Studios. This multi-track master tape has never been released or Bootlegged in any format!
As well as the original versions, this CD also includes remixes where Judge Trev added AMAZING guitar overlays and ICU/NIK TURNER'S ALLSTARS member RICK WELSH put the horns into The Horns. Also two Horns set list Took-penned songs have been recorded with original members JUDGE TREV & DINO FERARI and continuing Steve Took's association with HAWKWIND musicians RON TREE, Hawkwind's bass player/frontman from 1995-2002, recorded bass & vocals for these two new songs.
"THE ALL NEW ADVENTURES OF STEVE TOOK'S HORNS" truly shows the potential of this band of exception musicians - the Electric Steve Took, motivated & in Full Flow!
This release comes with a sixteen-page full colour booklet!
Features the first work by RON TREE since leaving HAWKWIND!
Total length of this album is over 46 minutes.
Contains original 1977 mixes plus remixes & new material.
Cartoons by Andy H who has worked for Twink, Nik Turner and other Took-related artists.
Producers Judge Trev and Fee Warner
THE HORNS - PAUL COX REVIEW
Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolan: what does their music have in common? They've all had their recordings overdubbed posthumously, with varying degrees of success and sensitivity.
And now it's the turn of Steve Peregrin Took although not, of course, for the first time.
The basis of this collection is a trio of tracks cut in 1977 by the five-piece Horns at Pathway in London.
Whilst cassettes of this material have circulated amongst a small circle of devotees for many years, thankfully copies evaded the grasp of unscrupulous parties. But what is it that sets this project apart from the despicable "Pink Jackets Required" (don't touch it with a bargepole, folks, stick with "Lone Star" and the truth!) ?
Well, honesty and integrity for a start. The sources, personnel involved and additional overdubs & reworkings are fully & accurately disclosed in the accompanying 16 page (count 'em!) booklet. Furthermore, this is not an exercise in making a fast buck, it has been carried out with respect for the music & its creator(s) and with two members of the original band fully involved. On top of which, those of us who have been lucky enough to have enjoyed these tracks previously are of the unanimous opinion that they are the best recordings Steve ever made and should, as opined in the sleevenotes, finally refute the notion that, after Tyrannosaurus Rex, Steve simply became some drugged-up loser.
But how does a three-song tape become a full album's worth of material? References to sampled vocals and remixes initially sent a shiver down my spine – any trace of bangin' hardhouse or rapping and this disc's heading for the landfill site, I decided! Fortunately that trip will not be necessary – no way!
The 1977 tracks have been subjected to a sonic spruce-up, improving the clarity but remaining greasy as hell.
"It's Over" comes on like UK Stooges, "Average Man" sounds like Larry Wallis demoing a song for Dr Feelgood and "Woman I Need" is as tender as you're gonna get… or is it? (More on that later!).
An earlier version of "Average Man" from the same session, botched when Took forgot the lyrics, was only recently discovered, during work on the tapes. Steve gainly improvises through to the end, producing a sound reminiscent of a Pretty Things mid-60's Fontana single flipside (that, incidentally, is high compliment!).
Two old Horns numbers, "Ooh My Heart" & "Too Bad", were recorded for this set by original members Judge Trev Thoms & Ermanno Ghisio-Erba (alias Dino Ferrari) with the assistance of ex-Hawkwind member Ron Tree, whilst "Mountain Range", written about Took by Trev during his time with Nik Turner's Inner City Unit, has been borrowed from that outfit's "Now You Know The Score" album as a valid inclusion here.
Now we come to the trickery part. Another ex-ICU musician, Rick Welsh, adds trumpet & bugle (horns – geddit?) to the three songs. "Woman I Need" also includes the single thing on this album which pays most tribute to Took's past, when the sound of a pixiephone drifts in (for the benefit of the as yet uninitiated, I should explain that said instrument is a child's xylophone, played by Steve amongst many other percussion implements in his imaginative & unique embellishments to the sound of the original Tyrannosaurus Rex duo). *
Further manipulation of sections from "It's Over" & "Average Man" result in the thrash-a-long "Wall Of Sound" & "Yeeooww" (think Blur's "Song 2" with sleaze), before "Woman I Need" reappears again in virtual trip-hop mode as Jon Turner, who performs all the mixing work throughout (apart from the three original recordings), remixes the song into a gentle setting befitting its aforementioned quasi-tenderness.
Finally "It's Over" becomes a backing track for a Big Guitar instrumental entitled "CIA" – just think, the Waterboys could have sounded like this if they hadn't folked up!
And that's how three old recordings are transformed into a full album, demonstrating the strength of the tracks by the way they can be successfully transposed into different settings, sounding neither repetitive nor contrived.
Whilst unlikely ever to attain the status of, say, Gram Parsons or Nick Drake, the cult of Steve Took at last has a collection which it can proudly hold aloft and thrust into the faces of non-believers & the unconverted.
PAUL COX
MUZE
* In light of this it seemed appropriate to include information on exactly what we found on the master tape and how Tookie worked in Pathways studios when recording 'The Horns' session. When Steve Took's Horns recorded the master tape in Pathways studios they worked with an eight track machine in THREE Phases.
PHASE ONE
The drums were recorded using five of these eight tracks, Track 3 plus tracks 5 to 8. The remaining three tracks were used as follows:-
| IT'S OVER |
|
| AVERAGE MAN |
|
| WOMAN I NEED |
|
PHASE TWO
These eight tracks were then mixed down in Pathway Studios the same day, to produce stereo backing tracks (which appear as 'B/TR R' and 'B/TR L') which were re-recorded further along the master tape as tracks 3 and 6.
PHASE THREE
Once the original eight tracks had been mixed down to Tookie's satisfaction, they freed up six tracks on the eight track machine. For the way these were used please refer to the scan of the master tape box below.
USING THE MASTER TAPE
We were delighted to discover an alternative version of "Average Man" which had been recorded 'live' spanning just eight tracks. This we included on the album with no alteration other than general sound clarity improvements.
For the three original mixes it seemed wholey appropriate and the only ethical course of action to use the stereo mix-downs Took himself had produced in 1977. Therefore we used the second section of the tape (recorded in Phase Three) to ensure that the original authenticity and credibility of the songs was retained.
For the re-mixes we went back to the original Phase One tracks which were used in addition to the six Phase Three tracks to produce new versions of the songs. We then had fourteen tracks from which to work. For "Woman I Need" we were surprised and delighted to discover that the Organ listed for Track 2 had been set up to sound like a pixiephone! One of Tookie's jokes no doubt! Although mixed down in Took's original 1977 mix we brought it forward in the re-mix because it was too delightful not to!
THE CD IS AVAILABLE FROM ALL GOOD RECORD SHOPS, AND ONLINE FROM AMAZON ETC
Go Back to the Main Fee's Bolanic History Page
Go Back to the Main History of Marc Bolan's Rock Shrine