STRING DRIVEN THING

Boy, does this album take me back. It is not so much about the music for me, as the memories it recalls. It is about sitting with friends listening to new and exciting albums by bands we had never heard of. The strange and original names of those bands only served to enhance the mystique which surrounded them. We are talking decades before the internet here, when finding out any information about a band was all but impossible, until they were featured in one of the weekly music publications.

String Driven Thing originated in my home town of Glasgow in Scotland, but I'm proud to say I discovered their music before I discovered their origins. Their history is chequered, and although they achieved a certain level of success, including touring as more or less equals with Genesis, they never truly gained the recognition they deserved.

The parallels with Genesis continue with this album, in that while it is generally regarded as their first, there was in fact a previous releases for another record label which failed to secure any recognition whatsoever. Recording was completed in just two weeks, the stylish sleeve illustration reportedly costing more than the making of the album.

The dominant features of the band are male and female lead vocalists plus frequent violin passages. When the male and female vocals sing in harmony the effect is very like that which Fleetwood Mac went on to perfect.

The album opens with a magnificent slice of loud rock. "Circus" has soaring violin, incisive lead vocals, and great harmonics. "Take me to the circus? I want to see the chimpanzee? the chimpanzee wants to see me", you really had to be there. They even have the audacity to sing "I'm going home to my mama, to listen to some String Driven Thing" (perhaps though without the capital letters!).

It is though the sheer diversity of the tracks on the album, if not within the tracks, which makes the album so irresistible. Right after "Circus", we are thrown into a Sandy Denny like lilting vocal performance by Pauline Adams on "Fairground" (also referred to as "Fairground at night"). Grahame Smith's violin work here is simply sensational, never dominating Adams vocal, but offering the perfect counterpoint.

The rock orientated songs and the softer ballad orientated numbers tend to more or less alternate. Tracks such as "Hooked on the road" (with wah wah violin!) and the magnificent "Jack Diamond" (the most progressive track on the album) are invigorating, they are exciting, damn it why did this band not conquer the world?

"Easy to be free" and "Very last blue yodell (sic)" may initially seem lightweight, even whimsical, but listen awhile and you discover perfectly written folk songs with eloquent lyrics and melodies which will intertwine themselves in your memory till they are totally embedded. Only midway through side two do things dip slightly, with a ubiquitous pop rock song ("My real hero"), and a late night drunken smoothy ("Regent Street incident").

After this album, SDT went on to record their finest album. Do not however allow that to overshadow this magnificent offering. This is a superb work.

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