BOREDOM / ARMCHAIR THEATRE

TEA AND SYMPHONY were a Birmingham-based, short-lived group playing theatrical (or "Vaudevillean"), hilarious and weird Psych/Prog Folk. This single was released the same year as the debut album An Asylum for the Musically Insane. Nevertheless, the A side song didn't appear on either of their two albums.

The small-scale but highly sympathetic PROCOL HARUM song 'Boredom' was written by Gary Brooker, Matthew Fisher and Keith Reid, and appeared on A Salty Dog (1969). Listening to the Tea And Symphony version, I can't say I fully see the point of making this cover of such a recent song. It's easy to distinguish it from the original, obviously, but the band didn't really find a fresh and personal look at it. Considering their fondness for being unpredictable and a bit loonie, this cover is surprisingly faithful to the Procol original. The biggest difference is on the vocals that are slightly grittier, especially the backing vocals on the lines "All in all / It's all the same / But call me if there's any change", where we also hear unnecessary cymbal crashes. The playing as a whole is a bit rousier and louder than on Procol Harum. But it's exactly the certain intimacy which makes the original so charming and therefor IMHO clearly better than this version.

'Armchair Theatre' is the opening song of An Asylum for the Musically Insane and a fine example of Tea And Symphony's playfulness. What I don't like are again the loud cymbal crashes here and there, but otherwise the arrangement is charmingly colourful. The song borders on the silly humour (what I tend to hate in music!) but avoids becoming irritating. And the Moody Blues reminding vocal harmonies are very nice. A pity that their take on 'Boredom' doesn't have similar virtues.