Fiendish Games

Everyone Is Everybody Else - Barclays James Harvest

In every person's record collection there must lurk albums from deeply unfashionable bands. I'd probably think twice were I at a party about confessing to owning a BJH album but here I am revealing all on my blog.

The band, once routinely dismissed as a "poor man's Moody Blues", is not exactly the sort of act I would normally take a shine to but I did not have much choice; as a heavy listener to Radio Caroline back in the seventies I was subjected to this album - Everyone is Everybody Else - about 5 times a day every day for about two years. I even ended up seeing the band live at the Kursaal in Southend at what was probably the only gig where I spent most of the evening sitting cross legged on the floor. Maaaaaaaan.

So, what was it about this album that caused it to be adopted by the "love, peace and good music" crowd on the good ship MV Mi Amigo, floating home (at the time) of Radio Caroline?

Well, it is an incredibly "white" album, big on melody, very ethereal and idealistic in a Guardian reading sort of way. I don't know about the band being Moody Blues clones, to me the closest album to this one in terms of style and content is Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Only it's better.

OK, for many, that statement may be heretical but it's my blog so I am entitled to my opinion and the simple fact is, I own this album and I don't own Dark Side, so I must rate this album higher than the Pink Floyd classic.

Talking of whom, when did the Floyd become fashionable again?

Mind you, as I was the only person on the planet who did not own the Floyd album in the seventies there was never much need for me to own it, I could hear it any time I visited a friend, often whether I wanted to or not.

Track listing
1. Child Of The Universe
2. Negative Earth
3. Paper Wings
4. The Great 1974 Mining Disaster
5. Crazy City
6. See Me See You
7. Poor Boy Blues
8. Mill Boys
9. For No One


Unless you are an old time Radio Caroline fan, it is doubtful whether any of those songs mean anything to you, but all of them are irrevocably imprinted on my brain. Despite the familiarity of the tracks it was still good to hear them again. Not "hairs standing up on the back of the neck" good, but "comfortable shoe that still looks a bit stylish" sort of good.

As mentioned previously, the band has a very ethereal sound, and like the Floyd, very clean and precise. The ethereal bit probably comes from the use of the mellotron, a keyboard instrument which, if memory serves me, used a succession of tape loops at various pitches that were operated by keys. The tape loop means that each note sustains indefinitely, giving a very "choral" effect.

The vocals are very clean with no nods whatsoever to R&B vocal stylings. Enunciation is clear because the lyrics are there to be heard. OK, they may be a bit hippie drippy but this was 1976 and punk was only just beginning to happen; the sixties hadn't really finished at this point but they were about to, with a crushing finality.

Did I mention that the band sounds incredibly white? They don't rock, they don't swing, they sort of glide. Track one, side two, Crazy City, is the closest they come to rocking, with just a suggestion of distortion on the guitar as it pounds out the riff, but you never get the impression that the band are "rocking out" - instead they sound like they are reading the music.

Nevertheless, the songs are good, the guitar playing is pretty fine and it makes a pleasant change from the sleazy guitar based pop that forms the bulk of my record collection.

Keep or dump? Oh, a definite keeper. Even if the album sounded horrible to me twenty years after buying it, I have too many good memories tied up with this album to consider dumping it, but as luck would have it, it's a strong album without a duff track on it, and a few epic classics. Recommended to Floyd fans while you young 'uns who are into Muse might find it up your slightly bombastic street. 8/10