Kevin Ayers – Joy Of A Toy (1969)
Wine soaked and strange, the Ayers oevre is a weird mixture of the transcendentally lovely – ‘Lady Rachel’, Girl on a Swing, the psychedelically opaque ‘Song for Insane Times’, ‘Stop this Train’ and the irritatingly twee ‘Joy of a toy continued’. For the loveliness of ‘Lady Rachel’ alone, this album’s place in the litany is assured. Ayers stumbled drunkenly through the early stages of a recording contract with the legendary Harvest label which never troubled the charts, his brief moments of comparitive success as a live attraction buying him extended excursions to sunnier climes, where he would write, drink and make merry with other people’s wives. (He is reputedly the subject of John Cale’s vitriol soaked ‘Guts’). Some of his later records, he allegedly cannot remember making – whether anyone can remember listening to them remains uncertain.
November 27, 2008 at 4:54 am
Hi Chris,
I’ve tagged you in a meme that was started by Mayhem as an experiment – to find out if the blogosphere is as viral in 2008 as it used to be. To find out about, and participate in, the meme – you can go HERE.
Cheers, Skanky Jane xx
November 27, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Como siempre, simplemente estupenda tu critíca.
Pero no resisto la tentación de preguntar.La ilustración – es la tuba que tiene la rana una referencia sútil (jaja) al tener una obsesion sexual o genital?
A lo mejor Senior Ayers lamentaba su pequeño ‘instrumento’…Y con razon! No funciona para nada cuando toma tanto liquor!
: )
E