Vinyl Word: Frampton Comes Alive!
Well, I must say for those of us with functioning turntables, the £1 sale bins of old vinyl in most record shops can be quite an adventure. For me it has been the opportunity to catch up on the ‘classic’ albums I missed, either because I was interested in something else at the time or it really wasn’t, I thought, to my taste. When I was younger my budget was much smaller too, so I really could only afford to buy the music I really wanted. As a teenager, opportunities for experimentation outside my alt-rock comfort zone where usually limited to taping stuff from my uncle’s vast collection of prog, avantgarde jazz and fusion, or from a late-night DJ called Chris Prior.
Despite knowing about Peter Framton by his reputation as the exponent of the talk box effect(I have one made by Danelectro which I was mildly amused with for about 45 minutes) and the ubiquity of “Show me the way”, I’d never listened to Frampton Comes Alive even though he was quite charming as a Simpson’s character.
So I was glad when I found the double-LP on Saturday in a sale bin – in almost perfect condition. As I said, its the sort of thing I’d pay a quid for, but not a fiver for the CD at Fopp.
Well, an hour in – by this stage half way through side three – and even with the aid of a second glass of Johnny Walker, I could not work out what was causing the ecstatic responses from the crowd. Maybe he’d lost his trousers, because surely… surely(!)… it couldn’t have been the music.
Frampton Comes Alive is one of the most dreary albums I’ve listened to. There is nothing memorable about it. If you offered me money, today I couldn’t hum a single bar of any song or quote a line of lyric. Except, Show Me The Way, which everyone’s heard a zillion times, and “Baby I Love Your Way” which I know through the vastly superior cover by Big Mountain. And of course the song that isn’t his.
When the Rolling Stones launch into Jumping Jack Flash, honestly I get so excited I don’t know whether I’m about to cum or cry. Any half-decent cover is exciting: it has a riff that is almost impossible to kill. Johnny Winter’s version is my favourite cover, but even David Holmes’s bizarre ambient hippity-hoppity version grooves along. But Frampton’s version is an affront to all that is sacred. Anodyne and antiseptic. It’s antipasto when you were promised something to get your teeth into. An oy vey without the gevalt.
So what was all the fuss about? This album was the best-selling ‘live’ album of all time (until overtaken recently by um, Garth Brooks) and has shifted over 6 million copies. All those people can’t be wrong, surely? What am I missing? If someone would like to point it out to me, I’ll be pleased to give all four sides a fresh spin with new ears.
Comments
| 11 May, 2009, 2:33 pm |
Ain’t heard the album in question but I generally suspect drugs and a form of mass hysteria when bland music appears to generate ecstatic audience overreaction.
Maybe there’s something subliminal in there that you need to be on the same drugs as the songwriter to appreciate.
| 11 May, 2009, 11:04 pm |
I have not listened to it since 1976 which was of course also the year when punk broke.
I wonder if the two things are connected?
I certainly remember the “talk box” being the big selling point when it came out. The wonders of guitar effects in the modern age! I bet that five and a half million copies were bought by US radio DJ’s…
| 12 May, 2009, 1:53 am |
Yeah, never got it myself. Utterly bland album. Drugs can’t redeem it. “Show me the Way” is a stone cold classic but the rest….urgh.
Frampton is still a legend in the US because of this album.
| 12 May, 2009, 3:41 pm |
Last winter I borrowed from the library in the extended CD version.
I aggree in comparison with a lot of other live work from this period
(wolfangs vault is The Source) it isn’t much. But you have to remember that Frampton (alone) and as a partner with Marriott in Humble Pie was all over USA those years. At least Humble Pie isn’t that bad on live recordings.
| 12 May, 2009, 4:19 pm |
In general I have always liked Steve Marriott. But I have never been able to access Humble Pie like I have the small faces or even his later “packet of three”.
| 12 May, 2009, 5:27 pm |
How much of the record has the voicebox effect on it? Off the top of my head it cropped up on a lot of artists records of the time but everyone else recognised it as a gimmick, something to be used sparingly, bit like e-bows and a lot of stuff. Funny how long it takes people to get bored of some gimmick sounds though… Think of all that (now very dated) sounding ultra noisegated echoey drum from the 80s that was almost on everything.
| 12 May, 2009, 5:35 pm |
“How much of the record has the voicebox effect on it? Off the top of my head it cropped up on a lot of artists records of the time but everyone else recognised it as a gimmick…”
Actually it is very sparingly used on only a few songs. Apparently Frampton was never comfortable with being associated with the effect, but I guess lately must have decided that it is better being remembered fondly for something you didn’t do all that much than for nothing at all.
As for FCA, I think the problem isn’t the gimicky effect (it’s rather well done, actually) but the relative blandness of the other songs… particularly over four bloody sides.
Iron Butterflies “In a gada da vida” album suffers a similar fate. It’s “gimmick” is the main riff, which is exellent as far as riffs go, but wears out it’s welcome 3 minutes into Side A (and the song takes the whole side). I’d wager few could name – or even hum – a song off Side B – even if they’d turned the record over more than once. I know I never have.
| 12 May, 2009, 8:10 pm |
Iron Butterflies “In a gada da vida” album suffers a similar fate. It’s “gimmick” is the main riff, which is exellent as far as riffs go, but wears out it’s welcome 3 minutes into Side A (and the song takes the whole side). I’d wager few could name – or even hum – a song off Side B – even if they’d turned the record over more than once. I know I never have.
The Simpsons did that one too.
| 12 May, 2009, 10:11 pm |
I was just humming the iron butterfly riff today… I might have been thinking about the soundtrack to the movie ‘manhunter’ which was on the telly again a month or so back but once you’ve got it stuck in your brain it’s hard to shift it.
| 13 May, 2009, 7:36 pm |
“I could not work out what was causing the ecstatic responses from the crowd.”
Overdubbing from studio engineers I venture. In a previous life I had to help mix a live album of a big Moscow charity gig. The crowd sound was pathetic, so we augmented it with a judicious blend of hollers, whooping and yeas from Woodstock and Under a Blood Red Sky.
This was the post-Soviet era before you ask.
| 16 May, 2009, 8:20 am |
“Iron Butterflies “In a gada da vida” album suffers a similar fate. It’s “gimmick” is the main riff, which is exellent as far as riffs go”
It’s just Sunshine Of Your Love though isn’t it?
| 18 May, 2009, 6:12 pm |
Having some of the classic album in a turntable was such a treasure nowadays. Its not easy to buy of these because their only few people who can only maintain perhaps can use it correctly. As the technology change sometimes people forget about what was before.
| 19 May, 2009, 10:13 am |
Frampton was at his best with Humble Pie. Just listen to his guitar playing on the “Rockin’ The Fillmore” live album.
Excellent expample of how to use a Gibson Les Paul with no effects or distortion.
| 29 May, 2009, 10:58 am |
I think you’ll find that Frampton was actually at his best with “From the Underworld” when he was in The Herd….. plainly a superior piece of…er….baroque lyte Pscyh pop…..
| 15 June, 2009, 4:09 am |
Seconded. Dumb lyrics. Mediocre melodies. Bland arrangements. Crappy, strained vocals. But I guess it’s still a cut above… above… Um, I’ll get back to you on that.
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