If there ever was an underground Britsike supergroup, Jawbone surely qualifies as a genuine example, in spite of them not really equaling the quality of output of its basic ingredients, The Mirage and Turquoise. With drummer and unofficial band leader Dave Hynes’ obsession with The Band occasionally being quite audible, the album is kind of divisible onto its Americana and homegrown spots.
Of the former, Homestead, Way, Way Down (post album single b-side included as a bonus) and especially Mister Custer, carry “the weight” of The Band, Million Times Before beefs up The Byrds’ pioneering folk-rocking efforts, almost sounding like an imaginary Dylan cover, and while we’re at it, in spite of Song For Sunny being described as “yearning Dylanesque”, to these ears it sounds much more like Neil Young, though just as yearning.
Of the more natural, British side of things, the best ones happen to be the re-recordings of some older Mirage tunes, with the Kinky vaudeville of How’s Ya Pa? and Chicago Cottage (which sounds as if the “village green” might’ve seemed as a much more appropriate place for it) both being pretty close to their original arrangements, while the spotlight goes to the re-working of Ebaneezer Beaver, retitled as Jeremiah Dreams, sticking to the song’s initial lysergic concept, in a kind of a heavier, almost prog-ish way, pretty much doubling it’s length.
Of the remainder, Money Is is another Kinksploatation of the above mentioned vaudevillian approach, and rightfully so, Brave White Knight is described in the liners as being baroque-folk, which is exactly where the cover of Across The Universe falls as well.
As a special bonus, also included are both sides of the Mirage/Jawbone in-between project The Portebello Explosion single, featuring the psychedelicate latter daze Beatlism We Can Fly, backed by the contrasting heavy punch of the cover of Bubble Puppy’s Hot Smoke And Sassafras.
More Rev-Ola-tionary than revolutionary, but an obligatory item for any decent late’60s Britsike fan.
[Released by Rev-Ola 2007]
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