Audience

From Wikipedia:

Audience is a cult British art rock band which existed from 1969 until 1972 and then from 2004 until 2013.

The original band consisted of Howard Werth (born Howard Alexander Werth, 26 March 1947, The Mother's Hospital, Clapton, East London) on nylon-strung electric acoustic guitar and vocals; Keith Gemmell (born Keith William Gemmell, 15 February 1948, Hackney Hospital, Hackney, East London - died 24 July 2016, Beltinge, Kent) on soprano and tenor saxophone, flute and clarinet; Trevor Williams (born Trevor Leslie Williams, 19 January 1945, Hereford General Hospital, Hereford, Herefordshire) on bass guitar and vocals; and Tony Connor (born Anthony John Connor, 6 April 1947, Romford, Havering) on drums and vocals.

 

When I was in high school there were a couple of records the cool, hip kids talked about all the time,  calling then must haves for cool cachet, such as Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Aladdin Sane, any Led Zeppelin record, Pampered Menial, Bachman Turner Overdrive II and Audience’s The House on the Hill. I saw them bring the records to school, to show off and/or to share with their mates, which never included me so I never got to hear them until much later in my life, well after leaving school. Though I asked my mother to buy me Bachman Turner Overdrive as a my present for Christmas 1974, I’ve never heard Bachman Turner Overdrive II and, even worse, by the time  I could boast of owning Not Fragile, Bachman Turner Overdrive was no longer cool. During the late Seventies, when I was a student and earned enough money to afford records, I  began a project of collecting Led Zeppelin albums. In the mid-Eighties I acquired AladdinSane, Black Sabbath and Master of Reality and somewhere I had the opportunity to borrow a copy of Pampered Menialand taped it. somehow, though, The House on the Hill escaped me almost entirely (I’d heard “Jackdaw,” the opening track of the album on probably Chris Prior’s Radio 5 show and taped it)  until recently  when I had the opportunity of listening to it on Apple Music.

 

The concept of a nylon string electric acoustic guitar is quite intriguing and smacks of high prog pretensions but I imagine it could bring something different to the music, which  seemed jazz inflected and inspired due to the horns, and there were elements of folk, R & B and classical music too, with memorable, tuneful songs.

 

“Jackdaw” is my favourite, primarily because I got to know it so well, but “You’re Not Smiling” (the second track on the album), their version of “I Put a Spell on You” and the title track are very good too. I suspect one would  file Audience under Adult Oriented Rock, or perhaps 12^th form oriented rock, inasmuch as it’s clearly not pop, nor heavy or hard rock, and demonstrates a modicum of intelligence higher than the standard rock composition and lyrics. Whether it’s true prog, I wouldn’t know, because it seems less contrived and less deliberately arty or highbrow, but that could be my interpretation only. I certainly enjoy this record better than the contemporaneous oeuvre of, say, Yes and Genesis. Audience is more accessible and fun than those other bands, especially the fun part, and less pretentious.

 

I suppose my high school peer group championed Audience  because they were a cult success rather than being popular, if only on an underground level,  like, for example, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, and the young like to find bands, musicians or even artists that nobody else has heard of, or not many, adopt them and then sing their praises to all and sundry, most of whom will have no idea of what the band/artist sounds like exactly because the cult is so small.

 

Frankly, I doubt that I would’ve truly fancies Audience when I was a teenager. I didn’t particularly like Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep or Jethro Tull (and certainly not Yes or Genesis) at the time because my  inclination was towards fast, loud and simple.  Circa about 1976, and before I ever heard any of teh fledgling UK punk bands, Dr Feelgood and Cream were my two top favourite groups and if the latter was not exactly simple, they were loud. Cream was a progressive blues rock group before the terms prog rock was coined and were mostly psychedelically progressive when they weren’t a straight heavy blues band. Dr Feelgood (with Wilko Johnson) was a British R & B pub rock band with a unique sound and  probably the best contemporary R &B lyrics. Both bands were viscerally exciting to the max.  Even now, when I can appreciate the music better, Audience doesn’t exactly pack the same visceral punch and it definitely wouldn’t have done in 1976.

 

However, my appreciation for music I would’ve avoided like the plague when I was a teenager, like, for example, acoustic delta blues or the intellectual sounds of Audience, has increased over the years and I have learnt to listen to and enjoy music across the spectrum.