w.atching the w.orld unw.ind

Being Part (oh gawd, you must have worked it out by now)

Rick Wakeman
“The Six Wives of Henry VIII”

Tonto’s Expanding Head Band
“Zero Time”

The first of my two Moog synthesiser-based ouevres was, right from the start, laughed out of court for its pretentiousness, but what the hell, I still love it. Including the wow and flutter from the original master tape, which I have to believe was deliberate, Mr Wakeman?

The tracks of Six Wives aren’t sequenced in order of (dis)appearance but meander through the mnemonic of “divorced, beheaded, died" etc. Easier to just remember that they all died eventually anyway, imho?

My favourite story about the artist was one told by himself. After a particularly virulent curry the previous night, he heard a call of nature of deafening resonance and had to visit a private house to ‘use the facilities’.

With the bottom falling out of his world (or whatever), the bathroom door was opened slightly and a copy of “The Journey to the Centre of the Earth” was handed through (I was going to say ‘passed’ but thought better of it) with a request for an autograph!

Zero Time is an almost totally instrumental work, the only vocal being a strangulated voice being rendered (sic) by the synth. The album cover (if I can ever get pictures posted, you’d see what I mean - the web-site's pic is too small), has the two keyboard players fronting a monolithic piece of electronics which meant they would never tour, because the pantechnicon required to lug it around has never, even to this day, been built. The Apollo craft were shuttled out to their launch-pads on lesser transport.

The album’s follow-up’s title suggested an impatience on the record company’s part for more of the same, but “It’s about time” was never as successful as its older sibling (and I mean nothing insulting there, Bruv).

But, hey, I could be sitting on £30 worth of vinyl.