Number of Discs: 1
Label: Esoteric
1. Sail On
2. Turn Over The Pages
3. 1112235
4. Harpo's Head
5. Horizon
6. Song
At last a CD, indeed a remastered CD*, of a neglected early 70's album.
Stud were in reality the residue of Taste after Rory Gallagher went solo. However, whilst Rory had gone to further his career in excellent Irish flavoured blues rock, these guys were musically more broad minded. There were other Irish bands in competition, the early version of Thin Lizzy and the original Skid Row, and number of these players had notched up years on the road (e.g. Irish show bands and beyond). Hence high levels of music skill and potentially a willingness to flex new muscles in musical adventure. Richard (Charlie) McCracken and John Wilson were joined by John Cregan (ex Blossom Toes) and the Stud album came after a few months.
The album kicks off with one of my favourite tunes from the period, 'Sail On', best described as a great example of Irish rock and this some time before Thin Lizzy were selling out stadia with their variant. But then there is only one other song in that style on this record. Instead most of the album is a musical exploration - which was very much in vogue in 1970 - where few rules existed whilst unusual music hybrids were being tried out, some retained and some thrown away. Indeed songs here are long so it seems permitting experiments to be worked through, e.g. deliberately having a major change in composition part way through, so ending up with a tune in 3 or more movements. You can hear Skid Row ('34 Hours') doing this, as were Patto (the eponymous and 'Hold Your Fire' albums), and it might be argued the first Faces album. But then so were a lot of bands that subsequently were to be known as mainstream progressive rockers - but with my named examples you have those that came out of the period as mainstream rock bands or as in the case of Stud, folded. So away from the shorter tunes expected to hear Stud working out their music as the tapes rolled, there's jazz, there's rock, inevitably a touch of Irish folk but also you find discord, odd time signatures and maybe a little atonalism. Not music for everybody (hence the 3 star rating) but an excellent example of the step changes that were occurring through 1970 as a number of bands were seeking out new forms of music to play.
* I have to say how frustrating it gets, having the Deram LP of Stud since 1970/1 and having to wait until 2008 for the CD issue. In fact less than 4 months ago I patiently recorded my LP, putting the output through software to remove surface noise. If I say myself, with a good quality vinyl pressing, the results have been pretty good. However, never as good as somebody starting with the master tapes and knowing more fully what they are doing in the clean-up process. More frustrating that this is the third time I've subject LPs to audio clean-up only, to discover I might have catalysed commercial CD remastered releases within a few months!
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