Showing posts with label The Pretenders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Pretenders. Show all posts

Friday 9 February 2018

Are You Experienced?


This is the post I was going to write on Wednesday night. A week or so ago, for the first time I listened to "Electric Ladyland" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience for the first time as rambled on here.

Axis
On Monday afternoon I was in the tyeside Bar and Cafe and notice a young student guy (rough estimat 14-17) , with vinyl from HMV.  I wondered what it was fearing it my be the new Ed Sheeran or Sam Smith, but when he pulled it out it was "Axis:Bold As Love" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. I wanted to congratulate him on his choice of music but thought better of it as it might be for an elderly relative and he might have been an Ed Sheeran or X-Factor fan. The cover of Axis is so striking with it's band as part of an Asian God image.




This then prompted me to revisit "Are You Experienced" and "Axis: Bold As Love" to listen to on my walks. The first album is better but my copy is augmented with singles and "B" sides but I just regard that as desserts after the banquet, as it contains a lot of classics. My friend Harry Clark reckoned that "Third Stone From The Sun" ripped off the "Coronation Street" theme, though Cozy Powell ripped off the Hendrix riff for his hit single "Dance With The Devil". "May This Be Love" is a total beauty with some brilliant speaker panning by the guitar and drums, and the album opens with "Foxy Lady". "Red House" is great blues and is sort of echoed by "House Burning Down" from "Electric Ladyland"

"Axis:Bold As Love" is not as good but still a wonderful album with the amazing anti-establishment anthem "If 6 Was 9" which was used in the film "Easy Rider", "Castles Made Of Sand" and "Little Wing" are two more nailed on classics, and basically if you don't have all the albums I've mentioned in your collection in one form or another , you need to rectify this immediately.

Hendrix studio recordings aren't readily available on Youtube but there are many covers so I've chosen The Pretenders take on "May This Be Love" from their 1990 album "Packed". It's Friday, it's raining , have a great day.