Star Spangled Banger [1973]

Well Rounded Formula

These singular album releases reflect both the fragility of the musical time and perhaps the fortuity of being recognised, promoted and - through public and/or label support - given time to develop and mature and create a fan base, or not. Or they were simply dreadful.

This 1973 album is a mixture of all of these, though the collapse of the Melbourne based recording company in the year of its release probably accounts for the bulk of its fate. In most other respects, this album presents the formulae of its time precisely: opening track Fear of the Night is by far its strongest, a psychedelic semi-gem released as a single, with an opening airplane stereophonically flying across the speakers before gliding into a rocky enough number with just enough fuzz [in fact quite a cool solo] to be good enough. After this it ticks the boxes: 2^nd Question of the Country has a Chapmanesque warbled vocal, and lyrics people and love, love; 3^rd Run is organ-ground garage; 4^th Fancy Underpants is as daft as it sounds, but not as satirically clever as a Bonzo Dog, and has some manic laughter; 5^th Suite 3 is pretty folk and like so many pieces of the time is a ‘suite’ or an ‘opus’ or a ‘prelude’ and so on; 6^th Protester Man begins with some studio chatter because that’s real and cool, and it does concern itself with freedom of speech and a saxophone solo; 7^th Sailing has jazz piano; 8^th Country Son has more studio chat to start and a country/folk tinge with references to children happy/dogs barking/greener hillsides/bluer skies; 9^th Pull Together begins by stealing from The Beatles, and if this all sounds negative it isn’t meant to be because it is well produced and effective enough in its understandably generic embrace, and thus the album ends on 14^th Star Spangled Banger [with an additional 15^th ‘unreleased’ version] that returns to a bit of fuzz, right-on lyrics peace my brother/goodwill to man/love thy neighbour/make love while you can and a psyche-pop tune [with more Beatles’ theft] that reminds us precisely of the bright formula and its breezy time.