{"id":532,"date":"2012-06-06T01:43:01","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T01:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddesmith.com\/?p=532"},"modified":"2012-06-12T17:21:49","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T17:21:49","slug":"and-the-nursery-rhyme-winds-along-ian-andersons-thick-as-a-brick-2-is-one-superb-sequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/out-of-bounds\/532\/and-the-nursery-rhyme-winds-along-ian-andersons-thick-as-a-brick-2-is-one-superb-sequel","title":{"rendered":"And the Nursery Rhyme Winds Along — Ian Anderson’s “Thick as a Brick 2” Is One Superb Sequel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When folk\/prog\/rock band Jethro Tull released its \u201cThick as a Brick\u201d album in 1972, the music world wasn\u2019t quite sure what to make of it. It was long, complex, tricky to hum, and contained lyrics that were impenetrable to all but the most educated (and dedicated) listeners. Critics panned it. Casual fans scratched their heads. And while Tull devotees devoured every bar and the album sold well, it didn\u2019t get the open-armed reception that Tull frontman Ian Anderson and his band of merry Englishmen might have hoped for. I loved it \u2013 and still do. Anderson labeled the album a send-up of prog-rock, but to me it was just thoughtful and substantial and the kind of expertly executed rock music that I enjoy listening to and, at times, thinking and writing about.<\/p>\n

Forty years later, Anderson has released \u201cThick As A Brick 2 \u2013 Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock?\u201d \u2013 a sequel that like many sequels may be met with muted applause. It shouldn\u2019t be. TAAB2 is unquestionably the best collection of songs that Anderson has penned and recorded in a very long time.\u00a0 I admit, I had all but given up on Anderson, thinking that he had finally become, in his own words, too old to rock \u2018n roll.\u00a0 But I was wrong.\u00a0 My apologies, Ian.<\/p>\n

How did TAAB2 come about?\u00a0 Anderson\u2019s answer can be found on the Tull website: \u201cA few years ago, Mike Andrews and Royston Eldridge, two ex-Chrysalis Records gents pressed me to consider a follow-up to \u201cThick as a Brick.\u201d I gave it some dutiful deliberation – for a couple of minutes – and politely declined. Nice idea, nice chaps but, after reflection, no-oooooo. Then, in 2010, a re-aquaintance with seventies Prog Rock vocalist-turned-record exec Derek Shulman – yes, he of Gentle Giant fame – restarted the old refrain. Yes, but…. no, but, and finally – OK, I’ll give it some more dutiful deliberation (four and a half minutes, this time) which eventually produced, in February of 2011, the synopsis of the idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea\u201d revolves around the central figure of the original \u201cThick As A Brick,\u201d Gerald Bostock. Bostock was the fictional child poet, \u201cthe Little Milton,\u201d who purportedly wrote the lyrics to the original Brick. In the 17 songs that comprise TAAB2, Anderson contemplates what might have become of young Gerald as he aged. Would he have become a crass and evil banker? A so-called man of the cloth? A soldier or captain of industry? A homeless grifter like Anderson\u2019s seminal character, Aqualung? A boring shopkeeper with no aspirations beyond playing with his model Mallard train and stationing his belly in front of the telly each evening? Lots of possibilities to explore, both thematically and musically, in this tight album\u2019s songs, which culminate appropriately in one called \u201cWhat-Ifs, Maybes and Might-Have-Beens.\u201d They\u2019re stories of some of the possible paths that Gerald\u2019s life could\u2019ve taken, but also in a cumulative way they reflect upon the choices each of us have made along life\u2019s by-ways to become who we are.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ian Anderson (front) with from left to right guitarist Florian Opahle, drummer Scott Hammond, keyboard player John O'Hara and bassist David Goodier.<\/p><\/div>\n

The music contains obvious hints of the original, starting from the very beginning, when strains of a menacing bass, guitar and organ section from the second side of TAAB1 approach out of the mist to usher you along on this pseudo-nostalgic adventure. In several other places, such as in parts of \u201cOld School Song,\u201d musical phrases conjure the first record but don\u2019t overtly mimic it. They pay homage in a pleasantly familiar way, but do not simply regurgitate. There\u2019s a hint of a TAAB1 Hammond organ riff here, a dash of a TAAB1 rock guitar line there.\u00a0 But they\u2019re new <\/em>and they fit the new material.\u00a0 There are lyrical references to earlier Tull songs, as well, notably \u201cLocomotive Breath\u201d and \u201cA Passion Play\u201d \u2013 but interestingly, none to the original Brick as far as I could tell beyond the mention in both albums of soldiers and military duty.<\/p>\n

The complexity of the music on this album is astounding. Along with \u201cIan Anderson Touring Band\u201d members David Goodier (bass), Scott Hammond (drums), John O\u2019Hara (keyboards) and Florian Opahle (guitar), Anderson has produced an album that is meant to be listened to in its entirety. Yes, you can pull up individual songs on your iPod and snack on them, but the album progresses in much the same way as TAAB1, moving from one musical\/lyrical theme to another \u2013 and back again. Never does the music stay in one place for long, even within individual songs. A moment of flute here, a fanfare of concertina-speckled notes there, and suddenly Anderson\u2019s harshly sputtering (or majestically soaring or carefully tiptoeing) flute give way to Opahle\u2019s thundering Les Paul as it rumbles through like a freight train, upsetting the tea cups and hearkening back to the early days of Tull, when pensive orchestral sections would explode into full-frontal rock at the twirl of a flute.<\/p>\n

This is the album that Tull fans have been awaiting for a long, long time. But it\u2019s not a Tull album per se \u2013 and that should be addressed, I suppose. From almost the band\u2019s beginning, Ian Anderson WAS Jethro Tull. The number of times he\u2019s been called \u201cJethro\u201d by enraptured, if ill-informed, fans will attest to that. But even as other band members came and went, Tull guitarist Martin Barre remained a constant. Until now. This album doesn\u2019t bill itself as a Tull album, but rather as having been put out by \u201cJethro Tull\u2019s Ian Anderson.\u201d Martin Barre does not play on it, and he will not tour with Anderson when it\u2019s performed, in its entirety, along with TAAB1, which will also be performed in its entirety.\u00a0 Barre is still listed on the group\u2019s website, along with Doane Perry, as being part of the \u201cJethro Tull Band,\u201d but this Brick is not his.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Anderson then...<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

...and now.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhen I do something as Ian Anderson rather than Jethro Tull,\u201d said Anderson in an interview with Billboard<\/em>, \u201cThe riff-raff stay home and the people who come are usually supportive and more open-minded.” He went on to say that Barre and Perry “understood” his decision, and joked that “they must feel a slight bit of relief they don’t have to learn how to play a lot of difficult music and remember it all.”<\/p>\n

Tull fans should not mourn Barre\u2019s absence. Martin Barre is a very good guitarist, and no one can be blamed for harboring hope that he and Anderson will pair up again sometime. But Opahle\u2019s work on this album is both broad in scope and superb in its execution. In songs like \u201cBanker Bets, Banker Wins,\u201d \u201cSwing It Far,\u201d \u201cOld School Song,\u201d \u201cConfessional\u201d and others, Opahle channels Barre\u2019s precisely fuzzy and suitably heavy \u201cTull\u201d guitar bits very nicely. But it\u2019s clear that Opahle has his own bag of tricks, too. He varies his instrument\u2019s tone with alacrity and in sometimes surprising ways that add to the rich and multifaceted texture of these songs. Sometimes the guitar sings, sometimes it stings. On one song (like \u201cAdrift and Dumbfounded\u201d) it might provide a prodding baseline, while on another (\u201cBanker Bets, Banker Wins,\u201d for example) it soars into a slick-fingered solo featuring one impressively denoted lick after another. So while I love Martin, I\u2019m also eager to see Opahle play with Anderson when the TAAB2 tour comes to Lynn.\u00a0 Anderson has stated that he composed TAAB2 with touring in mind (trying to avoid layering flute solos over vocals passages and things of that sort), so it will be interesting to hear how true to the recording the live performance stays \u2013 and also how it strays.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The troupe\u2019s other members are equally impressive. Goodier and O\u2019Hara have traveled and recorded with Anderson before, and if you know anything about Ian Anderson, it\u2019s that he\u2019s a perfectionist. They wouldn\u2019t be on the team if they weren\u2019t very good musicians. In recording TAAB2, they had their work cut out for them, as it\u2019s one of the more ambitious rock albums either of them will likely ever be called upon to perform. O\u2019Hara chips in with the original TAAB\u2019s Hammond organ sound and adds a plethora of other keyboard and synth arrangements. Goodier\u2019s bass is probably the least \u201cvisible\u201d of the players\u2019 parts, but an album with this many time and tone changes throughout requires precision from your bass player and Goodier delivers. Equally impressive is Scott Hammond\u2019s work on drums. It\u2019s not every drummer who can shape-shift from quiet orchestral rhythms into pounding hard rock and back, with stops at a couple other stations in between, and do as good a job as this. The more you listen to this album, the more different parts of the percussive fabric underlying it you will come to appreciate.<\/p>\n

In the end, though, the credit goes to Anderson, who has seemingly come out of retirement to create what in a better (read: more patient and musically sophisticated) world would be a drop-dead chart-topper. Song by song, brick by brick, the album tells a story in both words and sounds. There are multiple, very memorable melodies here \u2013 something we haven\u2019t really received from Anderson since \u201cRoots to Branches\u201d and \u201cThe Secret Language of Birds\u201d came out in 1995 and 2000 respectively. His flute playing, whether on one leg or two, remains sharp and expressive \u2013 but not excessive.\u00a0 There is no gratuitous flauting on TAAB2.\u00a0\u00a0 Even Anderson\u2019s voice, which Tull enthusiasts could barely stand to listen to during past live shows, seems to have improved to the point where some of the range and intonation Ian used to be able to conjure up with ease can put in a reappearance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Anderson's talent -- and intellect -- is in full bloom on TAAB2.<\/p><\/div>\n

Whatever the condition of Anderson\u2019s singing voice, it\u2019s clear that his poetic voice has lost none of its satiric power.\u00a0 While TAAB2 may be a sequel, it is by no means a nostalgic look back at the world of 1972.\u00a0 Anderson addresses very modern issues in his lyrics here, which are well worth listening to and examining over and over again, ideally with a search engine of some kind close at hand.\u00a0 The five possible life stories Anderson hypothesizes for young Gerald in TAAB2 are at the same time vehicles for Anderson\u2019s scrutiny of the screwed-up world we inhabit today.\u00a0 He \u201cbears down hard\u201d on homophobia, Starbucks, \u201cGive \u2018til it hurts\u201d televangelists, pederasty, \u201cbroken societies, selfish, uncaring, addled brains clutching at chemicals soothing,\u201d the living death of suburbia (where \u201cI lay me down to live\u201d and \u201call the time life slips away\u201d) \u2013 and even eBay.\u00a0\u00a0 I can\u2019t think of many songwriters who would have had the nerve (or the intelligence) to so adroitly and artistically tackle topics like these, particularly while at the same time trying to create listenable music.<\/p>\n

\u201cBanker Bets, Banker Wins,\u201d in addition to being the best rock song Anderson has written in almost 20 years, is perhaps the most scathing take on the recent banking and mortgage crisis any artist has produced to date.\u00a0 Its protagonist, a greedy \u201cpig-a-troughing,\u201d a Canary Wharf gambling-man investment banker who has \u201cnever missed yet, for all his sins,\u201d is perfectly content to \u201ctest a Porsche, snort a line, eat Hermione for lunch,\u201d but when the mortgage meltdown hits, it\u2019s certainly not his fault \u2013 \u201cnon est mea culpa\u201d in the words of the bard.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Anderson takes on warmongering in TAAB2, as well \u2013 and it\u2019s not the Vietnam conflict he\u2019s talking about.\u00a0 In \u201cWootton Bassett Town,\u201d a first-person lyric from the point of view of a combatant in Iraq or Afghanistan (it doesn\u2019t really matter which), Anderson painfully expresses the hopelessness of the soldier, who lies in sweat and writes \u201ca letter to my mum, my wife, my God unseen, Who never thinks to intervene.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 There\u2019s no escape from the terror of the world Anderson describes here, where \u201cIED\u2019s lie patient, sleeping, wake when soldier boots come creeping.\u201d\u00a0 No escape that is, bar one: a perfunctory funeral back home, where \u201cblack hearses crawl and church bells sound\u201d and everyone from bikers and burghers to shoppers and tradesmen \u201cStiffly stand and shed a tear for the military man.\u201d<\/p>\n

The song that may be the album\u2019s best, \u201cA Change of Horses,\u201d seems to me to have a more autobiographical bent to it than the others on this concept album redux.\u00a0 Amidst its dizzying flute passages and adroit percussive refrains, the sense of the song here is about the passage of time \u2013 the central theme of TAAB2, but also one that almost certainly had Anderson himself doing some soul-searching during the creation of this album.\u00a0 \u201dFour hundred thousand hours have come and gone;\u201d the \u201clateness of the hour\u201d has given way to \u201ca new dawn,\u201d a new meadow morning\u201d brings \u201clight airs to call\u201d and \u201cresolute, the optimist, I ride a fresh horse and spur it on.\u201d\u00a0 Anderson has certainly mounted a new steed with TAAB2, and one can only hope it carries him on to explore other horizons that are equally fruitful in the future.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019d be remiss if I didn\u2019t give a nod to mixing engineer Steven Wilson, who certainly rose to the occasion on this assignment.\u00a0 Wilson, who was the founder and lead guitarist\/singer\/songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, had originally been called on to do a new surround mix for TAAB1 (after also re-mixing the Aqualung Special Edition album released in 2011).\u00a0 When Anderson revealed that he had TAAB2 up his sleeve, Wilson wasn\u2019t sure at first that he wanted to be involved.\u00a0 But in talking with Anderson about the concept and the musical direction the new album would take, Wilson became as excited about it as Anderson clearly was.\u00a0 His work here is stellar \u2013 the Special Edition includes both a 5.1 mix and a 24-bit LCPM stereo mix.\u00a0 (A vinyl release is also on the way \u2013 one whose excellent fidelity Anderson has gushed about in online interviews.)\u00a0 Said Anderson about Wilson\u2019s TAAB2 mixing work: \u201cHe has great regard for the original so he can bring about something with a lot more sonic clarity and authority without making it sound too unfamiliar.\u201d\u00a0 Wilson clearly understood the way Anderson wanted this album to echo TAAB1 at times, and at other times to be able to shift from its quieter pastoral moments, with their delicate acoustic sections, into drown-the-dog rock assaults.\u00a0 He handles these shifts brilliantly and seems to choose the right tonalities and settings intuitively.\u00a0 The presentation of this music is nothing less than masterful.<\/p>\n

My only criticism of TAAB2 is a minor one \u2013 but it\u2019s a disappointment that could have (nay, probably should<\/em> have) been avoided.\u00a0 At the end of the album\u2019s last song, the melody morphs into the final few measures of the original TAAB, and Anderson sings, as he has famously done so many times, that \u201cyour wise men don\u2019t know how it feels\u2026 to be thick\u2026 as a brick.\u201d Unable to help himself at that point, he then adds the final word \u201ctwo\u201d \u2013 and thusly links (or maybe smashes is a better word) the two Bricks together. To me, this \u201cflashback\u201d ending seems both ham-handed, particularly for Ian Anderson, and also unnecessary. Not to mention that the transition back to Brick I from a musical standpoint is a somewhat jarring conclusion that robs this new work of the great finale it rightfully deserves.\u00a0 Perhaps Anderson will handle it differently in live performances. I hope so.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Anderson & Co. will be playing both TAAB1 and TAAB2 during their 2012 tour.<\/p><\/div>\n

I think you will enjoy this album if you give it time to present its charms properly. There\u2019s certainly a lot to like on it. And since we\u2019re in the digital age now, you can experience the phenomenon of TAAB2 in ways other than aural, too. Anderson has created StCleve.com as a descendant of the St. Cleve Chronicle<\/em> newspaper that accompanied TAAB1 in its old-media, 1972 vinyl-release form. The pseudo news site is full of occasionally interesting bits, including a mention of one Ian Anderson\u2019s performance in a hot-chile-eating contest, which can be found on the site\u2019s sports page. You can also follow the ongoing exploits of Gerald Bostock on both Facebook and Twitter if you feel like diving in that deep. It\u2019s all in good fun, and like the album, a good deal headier than what you\u2019ll find other bands putting out these days under the guise of social media.<\/p>\n

Ian Anderson may be in his mid-sixties now, but there are moments in this new album when you can almost picture him as the crazed, mad-dog minstrel he used to be. It\u2019s an Anderson I never thought I\u2019d meet again \u2013 and there may be more of that particular Ian coming. In recent interviews, Anderson has said that he\u2019s working on a few other things of note. There\u2019s an orchestral Tull music project he\u2019s in the midst of now (could be a snoozer, we\u2019ll see), some stripped-down singer-songwriter stuff (with the right melodies, could be worth a listen), and also what he calls a \u201creal rock\u201d album that he may or may not complete and produce in 2013. That album, if it comes to pass, may not earn him another Heavy Metal Grammy, but if it\u2019s anywhere near as nuanced and powerful as \u201cThick As A Brick 2,\u201d it should sell a lot of copies. And from there, who knows.\u00a0 Another concept album perhaps? A rock opera? A Tull release that features Martin Barre on guitar again? One can only hope for all of the above. It\u2019s all but certain, though, that there aren\u2019t any other sequels in Anderson\u2019s future. As Anderson has stated in interviews since TAAB2 came out, even the best nursery rhyme should only go around twice once.<\/p>\n

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