Fish is Brain Food--Jazz Butcher--Scandal in Bohemia/Sex and Travel

Pat Fish aka Butch aka The Jazz Butcher is one of my old favorites. I hadn't listened to his music for a while, but put on this 2fer Cd with Sex and Travel and Scandal in Bohemia compiled on it. It was Friday and I was in a foul mood, suffering from a Work hangover. Listening to Jazz Butcher was a definite game changer, turning the frown upside down. As in the lyrics from Southern Mark Smith, you've got to find out what makes your heart sing.

Regular English speaking gentlemen?

As I mentioned in the main caption, The Jazz Butcher are the band from Oxford your parents warned you about. Pat Fish's music is clearly good for the brain, a healthy tonic to the formulaic pap foisted on an unsuspecting public. It;s a potent combination of intelligence, zaniness, musical chops, humor, darkness, social commentary and alcohol poisoning--they are one of the few conspiracies of which I am proud to be a cult member. Other cults I'm not as proud of... but we'll leave that for a future posting.



It's a shame that the 2fer Cd is hard to get, because it appears that is the only version of Sex and Travel in Cd format. Otherwise, there are a few choice songs to be had on the myriad of anthologies available.

The group represented on these discs is from the early days of Pat Fish's career and is a supergroup of sorts,
including super guitarist Max Eider and David J of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. Mr. Jones was on drums. Met David J briefly in CBGB's years ago at a Trashcan Sinatras show shortly after the release of their Cake album. It was uncomfortable as one of the guys I was at the show with was a little overzealous, and he was clearly making J nervous. I later apologized to him---I don't go up to strangers like that and I was stuck in the middle of it all and just as uncomfortable. That being said, it was a good show, at that time when the young men from Kilmarnock were the next big thing, and crowd was filled with musicians eager to check them out.

The albums are all over the place, and that's a good thing. Alcohol and birthday parties are a recurring theme in the songs. You can have a magnificent sarcastic gigantic pop song like Southern Mark Smith. The song is hilarious social commentary you can tap your feet along to. Like he states on his website, Southern Mark Smith is ridiculous because the leader of The Fall is so unabashedly Northern. Like saying Chicken Marsala but made with ground beef with special sauce on a sesame seed bun.

Thousands of people are queueing for a shuttle into space
There's a stupid mental picture of a happy nuclear family in a rocket...
Look--In California every one's got a swimming pool in their backyard...
Well, me and Max and David Jones we think you ought to get out there and stop it.

Words to live by. As is Soul Happy Hour, the finest musical tribute to alcohol you could hope for, done in a jaunty elegant fifties style. "Whiskey, Vodka, Special Brew.....". Reminds me of the old movie trailer for popcorn, except for booze. Stylistically similar is Just Like Bettie Page, where a relationship is depicted using bondage metaphors. Max Eider's guitar prowess is at the fore of this song with sinuous jazzy acoustic guitar runs. Another similarly jaunty number is What's The Matter, Boy? ("You're the man with the head of an Ass") from Sex and Travel. I wish I saw these guys live--they must have been tremendous.

Another gigantic pop tune is Girlfriend, a sensitive love song with big hooks that manages to include alcohol in the mix. Similar to Girlfriend is the beautiful pop of Big Saturday. Sex and Travel contains the lovely Red Pets---"Olga Korbut drives me mad, I'll buy some vodka for her Dad", lending some needed levity to the Cold War era. One of my favorites here is the lead song from Sex and Travel, The Human Jungle, just a really superb pop song with clever lyrics. One of Fish's finest traits is that he can elevate ordinary mundane life into something special or at least absurd. And believe me a songwriter who can be truly funny is a rare treasure--if it wasn't there would be a lot more of it out there.



Sex and Travel also contain a few other stunners, the great Holiday, which I find much superior to Madonna's song of the same title. Only A Rumour is another sensitive gem, soaked with gravitas and romance. As another famous alcoholic and songwriter Billy Joel pithily phrased it, "when you love someone, you're always insecure" and the lyrics of this tune evoke the sentiment perfectly.



But still wondering what exactly was Caroline Wheeler's Birthday Present, though I do know it had a lot to do with revenge.

So I give my highest recommendation to this album. But anything with the Fish imprimatur is a trademark of quality. Jazz Butcher releases have a lot to offer in general, so I say go out there and collect them all, trade with your friends. Fish could be a high priest for those of us who have Minds Like a Playground, or who sometime inhabit their own private Desert.