[…continued from last post]

For his next trick, Hunter reached back into his bag of tricks, but shook up the paradigm at the same time. I always thought that the whole idea the Guy Stevens had for Mott The Hoople was to wed Dylan’s lyricism with the Rock punch of The Rolling Stones; the two biggest musical forces in the sixties apart from…you know. I thought that Ian Hunter had the talent to span that range; investing cheap thrills with something deeper once you looked past the obvious. And vice versa. Plus, as a Late Blooming Rocker® [see also: Messrs. Ferry, Foxx] he brought a more seasoned and mature point of view to the lyrics beyond the scope of typical greenhorn youth. With “Rain” he seemed to be juxtaposing richly developed characters into a shimmering soul music milieu; delivered with his best arid, Dylanesque, sprechgesang vocal.

The heartbreaking portraits of losers, the narrator included, were anointed with delicate glissandos drifting down as the rondo of the song was touched by heavenly backing vocals. The balm of the music bestowing grace upon the broken subjects of the lyric. Hunter sagely played against the meter of the song with his delivery. Imbuing the delivery of “I went to London once…came back…” with every ounce of empathy and pathos that he could muster. It’s an emotional gut punch every time I hear it. With the benediction of Ronson’s gently picked guitar entering the song’s coda to create the final healing raindrops. Mixmaster David Tickle’s sensitive work here [elsewhere he was one of the album’s engineers] came as no surprise to those who had been following his career for the last two years.

Then the album served up another volte face with the down + dirty rocker “Gun Control;” perhaps the second track here that can be attributed to John Lennon’s murder, though Hunter aimed the sharp lyrics at the incipient “2nd Amendment” commandos spilling out of America’s hinterlands. The backing band here was a castabout power trio of players [Mick Barakan, John Holbrook, Wells Kelly] with no clearcut ties to Hunter but even so, they managed to switch the vibe from straightforward Rock on the powerful chorus to Rocksteady on the alternating verses, to give a leftfield slant to the most [potentially] conservative track vibe on what was an eclectic album. Admirable, and even without Mick Jones directly involved with the track his presence was felt here.

Jones’ influence returned with a vengeance on the next track. “Theatre Of The Absurd” was a Dub infused Reggae track that could have been on side 5 of “Sandininsta!” It sure seemed to be inspired by the Brixton riots that happened five months before the release of the album in August. With the track giving the album a bit of “ripped from the headlines” quality. The heavy percussion from Topper Headon and the dubbed out synth injections swooping into the song gave it an eerie alien vibe for this album. I love how the backing track dropped out in the extended coda with the vocals taking it home.

Next, an old dog learned new tricks on “Leave Me Alone.” It’s worth remembering that on his last album, 1980’s “Welcome To The Club,” he included a new song, “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place.” Which was a cut with a distinct anti-Disco sentiment. Here he was joining the dancefloor commandos with this slight, if unique song in the Hunter canon. With a cheerful dancefloor vibe, rife with smooth as silk glissandos as Hunter trotted out his heretofore unheard baritone crooning [watch out, Iggy!] before returning to his natural register for the chorus. The lyrical intent of the track was hardly typical song fodder as Hunter admonished a woman to stop trying to flirt with him in the club. Knowing that the woman in question was unserious about anything.

Then the album proper ended with yet another stylistic side track as “Keep On Burning” gave us slow tempos and burning Hammond organ riffs lending this one a Gospel air as Hunter and the backing vocalists played their part in fanning the flames of that vibe for nearly four minutes before ticking over into furious gospel triple time as the song’s coda let the album go out with a bang.

LONG ODDS N’OUTTAKES

Disc two offered an equal mixture of alternate takes and mixes with material that didn’t make the cut on the 1981 album. They reveal that we didn’t know the half of how eclectic this album could have been! The potential could have easily left even the most outré peripheries of “Short Back n’Sides” very much int he shade. As we learned immediately with the chaotic proto-Industrial noise “Detroit [Rough Mix – instrumental]. It opened with nearly 45 seconds of clattering sheet metal noise and sirens ramping up the level of anxiety in the atonal intro before the tone shifted dramatically away from early Die Krupps [who had just emerged from Düsseldorf the previous year] to a more straightforward, even bouncy pop/Rock tune what still managed to re-incorporate noise effects in its still mechanical rhythm section. Though the middle eight was elegant 60s Baroque Pop injected into what was a raging hybrid of a song that surely would have strained the credulity of Ian’s fanbase back then.

Next: …Retro Rock Throwbacks And More