Phil Odgers – Ghosts of Rock n Roll
Vinyl Star – 27 August 2021
There is little that can top good songs, well played and well sung, chockful of melodic hooks and inventive tweaks on the well-established model of the best of roots influences filtered through a 60s rock and roll prism. There may be few of that ilk this year that can top this. Phil Odgers, of course, has form, as one of the frontmen giving indestructible joy to The Men They Couldn’t Hang, as one of their two lead singers, as one of their three main songwriters, as well as having a healthy back catalogue of his own output.
This is his fifth solo effort. Indestructible joy, I say? Well, that took a massive hit earlier this year, with the shocking death of Stefan Cush, his fellow force at the front of the TMTCH stage.
If that blow hadn’t been enough, what with lockdown having effectively downed tools for the whole of the music industry in the year before, this particular recording has had a longer still unhappy genesis. The album was originally fan-funded via Pledgemusic, ahead of Pledgemusic going bust and taking much of the funding south with them. So, this must be a maudlin old listen, right? Nope, not a bit of it, with Odgers picking up the pieces and the ukulele demos and starting all over. (Completists may note that the ukulele demos are themselves available via Bandcamp).
Album opener ‘The Serpent, the Maiden and the Bear’ is as jaunty a start as you could wish for, a banjo-picking a casual swagger through strummed acoustic guitar. Rather than the murder ballad you might expect from a title like that, it is a hymn to the night sky and finding your way home by the stars. An uplifting and sobering song, it is a reminder of how tiny our footprint is. Odgers’ glorious warm vocals act both as balm and cocoon, with some similarly soothing violin play, from long time cohort and occasional TMTCH member Bobby Valentino to round it out. One song in, and you know it’s all going to be OK.
‘Flower Lady’ is a Phil Ochs song, with jangly guitars, roustabout drums, swirling organ and Sid Griffin’s backing vocals; the harmonies are deliciously woven together. Much mellower is the poignant ballad, ‘Brooklyn Bridge’, a musical arrangement of part of a poem by Joe Solo, a delicate and affectionate tale of fading cognition. Dementia may seem an odd subject to approach in popular song, but if it can’t find something in your eye, you have no discernible soul.
Any song that references the Coming to Get You, Barbara line from Night of the Living Dead can do no bad in my book. Sticking to real life, ‘The Last Thing On My Mind (Is Regret)’ portrays the hard work involved in writing songs and has a delightfully 1960’s shimmer, from the oohs in the backing vocals to the nevermore Searchers 12 string twangy guitar solo. This retro ambience positively bleeds into the next song, the title song, a rollicking paean to old horror movies, defiantly in black and white. Another pizzicato guitar solo, fresh from the 1960s, and some barrelhouse piano flesh it all out, and, before you know it, you can’t shift the damn chorus out of your head.
Another cover, this time from Gordon Lightfoot, ‘Early Morning Rain’, is every bit as apt to 2021 as it was when first written, as strong an ode to the life of a touring musician as any. More beautiful fiddle from Valentino is making this a contender for my record of the year. A prolonged guitar solo, I’m guessing from Odgers, brings it to a more than satisfactory fruition. ‘The Desert Has a 1000 Eyes’, the title a possible harking back to Bobby Vee’s Night of a similar ocular prowess, which despite being derived from the experiences of TMTCH on tour in Egypt, is another gentle ballad, with some plaintive mouth harp blowing in the background.
‘Empty Streets and Lovers in the Rain’ is a Robb Johnson lyric, Odgers providing the tune, as it shifts up through the gears into a lively pub rock canter, with electric piano rippling throughout. Did someone say pub rock? That being again, the ambience of ‘Uke Town’ and offers reminders of how the Rumour Brass could be called upon to add sympathetic substance back in that day. With a slightly skanky ukulele rhythm, this song spells out Odgers’ whole disappointing PledgeMusic experience and is yet another infectious earworm, the Bob Andrews-esque cascading organ a special treat.
All too swiftly, we hit the last track, ‘Rage Against the Machine’, which betrays again the love for cult movies that seeps through this disc, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is a case in point here. In the style of a country blues, it could, Odgers’ voice apart, be a Johnny Cash song. Which isn’t ever going to be a bad place to be, rockabilly guitars, barroom piano and the return of Mr Valentino sawing away energetically. And don’t miss the fragment of solo piano, which acts as a final coda.
For all the blood, sweat and tears that went into this album, the difficulties before, during and after, despite all that, it holds together wonderfully as a fully coherent whole. Given it was the Stiff records model of recording that was sought – as live as can be in one take, overdubs to the minimum – to manage all of that feel in a time of two lockdowns has been no small feat—a wonderful record of folky pop and melancholic twang that demands your ears.
Ghosts of Rock n Roll is out now.
Order via: Picadilly Records | Amazon
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