Silverhead – Silverhead

Silverhead – Silverhead

by Jonas Lenberg in Vinyl of the week

I honestly can't remember when I bought Silverhead, but I'm fairly sure I picked it up at Satisfaction in Haga. Martin was probably behind the counter, while Claes was somewhere in the background, towel in hand, wiping the worst of the dust off one of the Arthur Lee & LOVE records. A special thought goes to Claes. He was the one who introduced me to LOVE.

"Have you heard this album? It's brilliant."

And just like that, Forever Changes changed hands. Full credit to Claes. He worked hard in the world of vinyl, surrounded by record sleeves, crates of LPs and a never-ending mountain of paperwork, until one day the air simply went out of him and his health finally gave way. Rest in peace, Claes, and thank you.

But it isn't LOVE I'm here to talk about today. It's Silverhead – Silverhead, the band's debut album, packed with swagger, catchy riffs and a hefty dose of grit. Silverhead were one of those British bands who never quite achieved the success their music deserved. Fronted by the charismatic singer and actor Michael Des Barres, the band carried a unique energy. Throughout the album you can feel Michael's intensity, much in the same way Ozzy Osbourne's personality seems to come straight through the speakers. It's more than singing – it's a performance. In my mind the whole thing unfolds on the stage of a slightly dystopian, drug-fuelled former theatre, with cobwebs hanging from the scenery and torn plush seating scattered throughout the auditorium, now taken over by an obscure underground band playing to an ecstatic and heavily intoxicated audience. Perhaps it's the spirit of 1972, combined with the fact that Michael was, after all, an actor, that creates this feeling. Plenty of attitude, glam, blues and a blend of doomed hard rock. The music shifts from being gloriously rough, almost sloppy and gloriously ragged, as if it were recorded live, before suddenly turning sentimental and surprisingly delicate, as on the penultimate track on side one, Johnny. It's genuinely moving for about 95 percent of the song, only to almost throw it all away during the last few lines with some rather silly, inexplicable babbling. Even so, I can thoroughly recommend this LP. If you happen to come across a copy, it's still remarkably affordable, largely because Silverhead seem to have slipped beneath the radar of the wider record-buying public. Perhaps that's exactly why it still feels like one of those hidden gems that's worth sharing.

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GNOD - Gnod Drop Out With White Hills II

This time I simply couldn't resist choosing an LP that holds a particularly special place in my heart – Gnod Drop Out With White Hills II by GNOD – and once again using it as the starting point for a deeply personal memory. The music itself is superb, without question, but what I really want to tell you about is what happens to me every time I take this record from the shelf, turn it over in my hands and let the music pour from the speakers. This story takes us back to 2010 and the very first Supernormal Festival at Braziers Park in Oxfordshire. Supernormal grew out of the International Artists' Workshop (IAW), an initiative founded by artists Gill Ord, Bernadette Moloney, Andy Cohen and Simon Faithfull, which was also based at Braziers Park. In its early years it was simply known as the Braziers Workshop, an event I had attended on several occasions ever since its takeoff in 1995. It is also worth mentioning that WOOD Festival, launched in 2008, emerged from exactly the same creative environment, driven by many of the very same people. I remember being genuinely excited. I'd arrived at Braziers a couple of days early to help with the final preparations before the festival opened. That meant everything from finishing the outdoor compost toilets to marking out the footpaths and boundaries across the festival site. I had noticed GNOD on the line-up but knew very little about them. People kept telling me they were excellent, and that they had released a new LP earlier that year which had been receiving glowing reviews. The evening GNOD were due to take the stage was grey and overcast, with a light drizzle hanging in the air. You know that peculiar effect when you squint towards the stage and the lights catch the rain, making every single droplet suddenly visible? Everything became slightly blurred, like looking into a world of moiré, almost as though I were peering through a camera lens filled with bokeh. Of course, there was beer and jazz in the mix as well, seductively heightening the whole sensory experience.   GNOD took to the stage ahead of Faust, Saturday's headline act, on that cool evening of 21 August 2010. Many of us were lying there in the soaking wet grass, staring up at the sky, wrapped in a warm, vibrating blanket of rhythmic sound. I learned later that one review described the performance as "brain crushingly brilliant", and to this day I can't think of a more fitting description. The festival is remarkable not only because it feels like a direct descendant of the late 1960s, but above all because everyone genuinely shares accommodation with the very artists who are performing. Everything exists within the same festival grounds. Tent is therefore the very essence of the experience – come rain or shine. 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