1969 - Cellar Boy

Hear The Track Here

If you mention names like Zep, Bolan, Barrett, Bowie, Zappa and many other rock luminaries as your influences, it's a sure bet you are going to find an avid listener in this reviewer. Provided you pay those giants whose shoulders you stand on, the respect their efforts deserve. See, I'm a REAL stickler about this particular aspect of this thing we do. I lived through some of the highlights of the past 40 years and it takes a lot to really challenge the likes of the above mentioned. However, here back on Earth (OK Soundclick then...) it's a slightly more egalitarian deal and I've heard hundreds of class tracks that do pay respect to their roots but still manage to sound fresh and up to date,

Give all of the above you would probably expect 1969 to be a Western musician but think again, Bluezz Wilde (aka 1969) comes from Nanjing, China and that's about as far as you can get from the roots of rock. Planet Earths Midnight Creature Show (June 2007) showed that distance means nothing as it delivered exactly what it promised and in the process gained a highly recommended from me. Not a bad start and Cellar Boy follows the pattern set by that track. Where the notable influences in that were Bowie et al, Bolan and Barrett are the influences at play in Cellar Boy, with a dash of Beatles arrangements just in case you get bored.

As if...

As someone steeped in this particular style of music I am bound to appreciate this and the amount of work, patience and skill that went into making it. While it is obvious that 1969 knows his subject matter and how to showcase his reverence for it, there will be people who turn their nose up at this. That would be a crying shame because they would be missing an amazing experience; Cellar Boy is a track to be cherished and listened to time and time again. If you still don't understand what that whole 1960's thing was about (especially later half), then get a fresh ear on the whole affair, because this is as close as you are going to get. Lovingly reproduced in glorious stereo, backwards guitars, da works.... Beautiful. After just a couple of plays I knew that I would be scoring this pretty highly but a couple of days with it soon changed my mind and I realised I had no choice.

MUST HAVE (atmosphere, song, arrangement top class)