He's Shedding Cool

The Blow Monkeys - Limping For A Generation

I don't read much music press these days, but I have strong memories from about 25-30 years ago. The NME in particular were notorious for building up an artist to a blaze of praise, then suddenly shooting them down as fallen stars just as they broke the mass market. Of those, Weller has righteously found his god-like status, but others like Brandon (that'll be Kirk - more from him in a future post or three) were never to recover. Robert Howard was also to suffer a similar fate, yet he and his Blow Monkeys were eventually to find fame, by which time the NME had discarded him as pop fodder for the masses.

Limping For A Generation was the debut album, built around a foundation of four very strong singles, following a one off indie 7" release. Their RCA debut single Go Public is complex, twisted and jerky, driven by a remarkable rubber band fretless bassline, but uncommercial enough to find its way into bargain bin anonymity. The follow-up The Man From Russia grabs your attention with a Dexy's-style horn section and Robert's super slick vocal cool. This superb made for radio three minutes of pop failed to chart and lord only knows why, did the tatooed torso on the sleeve give the wrong impression?.

The next single, Atomic Lullaby is pure genius. Like Weller's Long Hot Summer it drifts through a hazy summer afternoon, oozing cool sax, strumming semi-acoustics and percussion ease you comfortably into wonderful dreamy pop, but the whole thing just keeps growing and builds up to an explosive peak (hence the title) when the horns kick in, then suddenly the whole thing returns you to your lazy sun lounger and fades away in a subtle bossa nova. Still no hit. RCA must have been getting frustrated by now.

Wild Flower surely had to have been a hit - but it wasn't. Lush strings, a simple and catchy doo-do-do-do-doo chorus, a distant roaming sax and gentle acoustic melodies. There's a twist as always with early Blow Monkeys work. A psychedelic break lifts the song out of it's super sweet pop into a hazy, drugged up dimension before landing you back in dreamy pop land. Very clever, but probably a bit too clever for your average mass radio jock.

As a whole the album is a well accomplished piece of work: sweeping strings; blasting horns; poignant lyrics; dreamy melodies; and best of all -  it's occasional dive into twisted psychedelic pop-jazz to keep you on your toes and to keep it's distance from the mainstream. He's Shedding Skin takes you to the pastiche of sixties like a fine parody Pearl & Dean, Professor Super Cool leads a tribute to the sixties vocal icons of Tom Jones and his ilk, the title track Limping For A Generation is a smokey lounge bar trauma, Waiting For Mr. Moonlight is another highlight, it's smooth jazz with bite and a superb sax hook, Trashtown Incident is another sixties pastiche but this time with a sitar.

The band were to find fame and fortune with the follow-up album Animal Magic and subsequent releases but none would ever come close to Limping For A Generation and it's sheer originality. The Blow Monkeys were not trying to be pop stars when they wrote this album, and it is a pity that it was so quickly forgotten once they did find pop fame.

Ripped from a vinyl album released on RCA Records (PL 70395) in 1984 to high resolution lossless 24-bit FLAC audio.

A1. He's Shedding Skin
A2. Wild Flower
A3. Atomic Lullaby
A4. Fatcat Belusha
A5. Go Public
B1. Professor Super Cool
B2. The Man From Russia
B3. Limping For A Generation
B4. Waiting For Mr. Moonlight
B5. Trashtown Incident