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1 June 1974
June night! In that inverted sky you could touch the tip of the stars
The sap was champagne sparkling in the soul
We had talked all night and then... a kiss on our lips
Trembling there like a small insect.
Island Records 1974
In the upper floors of the Islands Studios, in the magical headquarters of Notting Hill, Richard Williams, General Manager of the record company, was gloomier than usual. The long wave of reggae was petering out, and it was not at all easy to export reggae to Albion in the 70s.
Especially with all those night sparks of Alt Rock joyfully immersed in that incomprehensible musical idiom.
Then all those experimental albums produced, wonderful gems yes but unknown and that especially did not attract those masses coveted by the Boss.
Then suddenly, when you least expect it, that day comes that enlightenment and that offer of grapefruits at the Fine Fare warehouses in Brighton, 4 fruits for the price of 3 and that unhealthy idea, why not promote Kevin Ayers' new tour not solo but together with three other decaying Island Records signatories, for a future heralded sold-out at the legendary Rainbow Theatre in London.
In that picky and prog community the quartet was known, appreciated but not idolized, they were 4 stray cats, with a very personal and absolutely not conformable style, it was not about proposing alchemic prog virtuosity or flaming jams or long suites, it was just about flashing songs under the stars with an extra touch, definitely not mainstream rock, tracks where the complex, unique, and authentic personalities of their authors were reflected, eccentric souls with an alien profile, simply tormented or simply radiant as Kevin Ayers.
John Cale himself candidly stated in an interview;
“There were all these cult people on the label. The idea was that if you put them all together you might sell enough to justify their presence”.
It was perhaps time to sell (also) some records, not so much to see new bands sprout like mushrooms after listening to “The Velvet Underground & Nico.”
Oh Yes I Do.
But the pursuit of profit cannot venture on the dangerous path of Madness
You can't do the math without that staggering innkeeper,
who dances barefoot in the night under that stage, with all those bodies writhing
awaiting the divine solstice and its fatal unconsciousness.
"I went into this bar
but the bartender said to me
"We don't serve strangers
In blue suede shoes;
We don't give credit, and
We don't make a way
We must think about what people might say..
"Uh, you know what I mean
I said: "Sure, man!!"
In fact, for Ayers, it was time to promote on the road the album “Confession Of Dr Dream,” but also Eno, who was still feathered with all those sequins and had just recently released that amazing record “Here Come the Warm Jets,” then Cale had just released that strange object of desire “Fear,” and Nico, well Nico had just recently released her “The End,” what a great opportunity it was to try to cage that ancestral madness under the lights of that stage and the Apollonian smells of all those London groupies, who hovered around that poisonous honey of Kevin…
But the plans, the business plans, those long and composed meetings and communions of intent on the upper floors of the Island Records faded and dissolved when the silent night laid its golden claws on that stage when the sighs of those present suddenly halted at the appearance of Eno and the first, discordant notes of “Driving Me Backwards;” that slight shadow and that granular dust settling on Big Ben, that triumphant silence whispering the artistic awakening of genius and that escape from the glam aesthetic in the delicious search for absolute universal complexity.
And that chanteur de charme of Roxy memory was now strangled by a desperate and discordant, hyper-realistic, and naturalistic song, released in that backward guide, post remake/re-makings, raving that enterprise, of hoisting that bright and mystical flag in that ice cap…
And what to say about John Cale, of that asexual version of "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley, among those moans of the backup singers layered by Eno's sick synthesizer, in that evocation of ghosts and hammering drums, that existential rage, do we really want to believe that Cale was truly in love with Miss Cynderella, his ex-groupie wife found the night before the concert in bed in the arms of Ayers, then bringing the wife on tour with Ayers, what a bad initiative, but we want to believe…
But there's a moment in the concert, which only lasts 9 minutes, where all the lights go out, and you are left in the dark with your soul.
There's a moment in the concert when Eno's synthesizer rips through time and Nico's harrowing voice, accompanied only by a harmonium, creeps like an ever deeper wound, in that eternal and lacerating Doors cover, in which that German model with a spectral face and slender body, with her great soul translates onto other, distant, and infinite coordinates.
That relationship with Morrison, that brief but fatally intense moment in '67, then in July 1971, Nico made a phone call to Morrison's Paris residence, even though he didn't answer; when later she found out that the reason was, perhaps the cause of his death, the devastation.
Do we want to believe those 9 minutes of boundless sadness, terrifying emotion, perhaps do not conceal an infinite love...
The B-side of the album opens with Kevin Ayers' warm baritone voice “I sing for those who feel there is no way out but maybe if you all scream, someone will hear you."
Masterful guitar work by Oldfield and particularly, by Ollie Halsall.
The atmosphere with Ayers inevitably becomes more sunny and even if I don't like sunny people, what can I say, I adore Kevin. I adore that Mediterranean lightness he evokes, that experimental romanticism, that brilliant and gentle talent of finding himself among the women and the revolutions that counted, from the Wilde Flowers to the avant-garde of the Soft Machine and that golden exile in Ibiza with David Allen.
June night! In that inverted sky you could touch the tip of the stars
The sap was champagne sparkling in the soul
We had talked all night and then... a kiss on our lips
Trembling there like a small insect.
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