Tremulous Antenna


º  Label: Hux Records
º  Hux:   HUX028
º  ASIN: B000067CJ2

 This album was originally released as “Radioland, The BBC Concert 1 Recordings."   Hux Records recently acquired the rights to album. The audio has been cleaned up significantly compared to the original release. The track listing is the same, as is the running time. Apart from the restored sound the album also has a treat: Our illustrious webmaster, Chuck Bird, wrote the liner notes. Bill's original remarks, used a second time for this release and Chuck's comments follow. Links to purchase this record are listed in the Bill Nelson Record Store.

Tremulous Antenna

Recorded 15.01.76

  1. Life in the Air Age

  2. Sister Seagull

  3. Third Floor Heaven

  4. Blazing Apostles

Recorded 20.10.76

  1. Maid in Heaven

  2. Kiss of Light

  3. Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape

  4. Fair Exchange

  5. Ships in the Night

  6. Modern Music/Dancing in the Moonlight/
    Honeymoon on Mars/Lost in the Neon World/
    Modern Music (reprise)

Recorded 19.01.78

  1. New Precision

  2. Superenigmatix 

  3. Possesion

  4. Dangerous Stranger

  5. Island of the Dead

  6. Panic in the World

Sixteen years ago, I laid Be Bop Deluxe to rest beneath a wreath of rocketships and roses, after having made the decision to explore pastures new. Some thirty albums later, I find myself writing these words about a music that now seems to me to have been made by someone else. 

The words 'innocent' and 'naive' spring to mind... Did I really worship so feverishly at the altar of rock 'n' roll?  Are you sure that was me you saw under the blue spotlight, hot-wired to a big guitar and dreaming out loud?  OK, so I left my fingerprints all over the damn thing, so what? I was dazzled, dazed and amazed and that's the way it goes... Big noise in twangtown, a sign of the times.

And still the ghost of Be Bop Deluxe haunts me, despite the charms and crucifixes outside my imagination's door.

I had totally forgotten about these 'In Concert' recordings until now... snapshots of a band at its most vulnerable, live and naked and unadorned by the glittering technology of today... a steam radio sound, though dry as parchment for all that. This is the noise boys make when they reach for tomorrow. Oh, how hard we tried...

Bill Nelson, July 1994

 

Nearly twenty-five years after the band broke up, it seems odd now to be talking about the phenomenon that was Be Bop Deluxe live. But this compilation CD has sparked some fantastic memories. 

Be Bop Deluxe has had a major influence in my life, since i first heard of them: It was the Spring of 1975 and i was a senior in high school in Los Angeles, CA. The local FM radio station dedicated two hours every Wednesday to an imports program, where we Americans had the rare opportunity of exposure to music not available for sale in the States. (Remember, this was in the ancient world before the Internet.) On that sunny Spring day i sat there in my battered old VW Beetle as the DJ played the entire second side of a record he called “the greatest album I've ever heard.” The album which so captured my attention? Be Bop Deluxe's “Futurama.” My car didn't even have a stereo, just a mono radio with a cheap speaker behind the grille. But i sat there, transfixed, by some of the best music i'd ever heard. It reached through the metal grille and into my soul, and never released me.

Now, more than a quarter of a century later, Be Bop Deluxe still has the same kind of hold over me. Am i alone in having these feelings? Not by any measure. Be Bop Deluxe touched many lives during its short time as a band.  In five years they released five studio albums and one live album. (“The Best of and the Rest of” came after the breakup.) Each album is a work of art and each one has a style marking it as different from the others. I love each of the six albums, and have played them to death on my turntable. But one glorious evening in 1976 i was fortunate enough to experience the joy of seeing Be Bop Deluxe live. Of those who count themselves as being fans in the present time, surprisingly few had the opportunity to catch them live. Those who were lucky enough to do so rank those concerts as being amongst the best live shows they've ever seen.

As you can hear on this CD, Be Bop Deluxe live captured their astonishing presence. Using the full range of lights, back projection, and special effects with uniquely articulate songs, they succeeded in creating audio landscapes from Bill Nelson's surreal science fiction vision that still inspires more than two decades after their last concert.. Unlike many bands from the 'arena rock' era, Be Bop Deluxe didn't believe that playing a song louder made it any better.  

The members of the longest incarnation of the band: Bill Nelson on guitars and vocals, Charlie Tumahai on bass, Simon Fox on drums, and Andy Clark on keyboards worked as a tight four-man band composed of competent individualists. Each of the band's members had the ability to drive the band when the circumstance needed, and they all shared the confidence to trust the other members when their time came. This allowed them to take 'quiet' songs and turn them into audio masterpieces. The shining example of “Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape” proved that Be Bop Deluxe was composed of consummate musicians that really understood that the music could truly be made magic.

What is so special about live appearances? Perhaps its because the truest test of a rock band is its stage performance.  Unlike so many of its contemporaries Be Bop Deluxe did not subscribe to the “louder is better” mantra as was common to the era. In the mid to late '70's rock was under assault from the disco and punk movements. To prove their primacy the bands of the day moved into larger and larger venues. As these locales were so large and cavernous the music got louder and louder to fill the space. Soon bands were known by how loud they were, and the talk amongst fans the day after a concert was not how good the music was, rather how loud it had been and how much pain it caused the ears.

Be Bop Deluxe had proven themselves as talented studio musicians. But could they keep up the quality live? So many bands were superb in the studio, where it is possible to control each every note, and the re-takes are unlimited, but seemed hopelessly out of their element on stage in front of the adoring, screaming fans. Such a fate was not to be for Be Bop Deluxe. They had a stage presence second to none. They were four talented musicians who were professionals of their craft and they functioned as closely together as any others. That professionalism is what makes their music as vital today as it was over twenty years ago.

The shining light of Be Bop Deluxe's live shows invariably shone through on their studio work as well. For this, at least, we can all be grateful. Even today in the 21st Century, Be Bop Deluxe's music is still relevant. They transcended the boundaries of time and music, giving us songs and passion which inspire now as they did back then. 

Such inspiration is not easy to find, not in the air age, not in any age. 

Chuck Bird
01 Feb 02

 

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