BOXER WAS guitarist Ollie Halsall and drummer Tony Newman’s
conception. They marched into the executive lounge of Goodear, and, like
all good crusading musicians in rock fables, dragged Mike Patto away
from a deluge of paper work and told him he was going to sing again.
Patto liked the idea, picked up the phone to call Los Angeles, and
instructed bassist Keith Ellis to get his butt back to Blighty. And he
did.
Our heroes, you’ll notice, are familiar names.
Halsall was in Time Box with Patto, and both went on to form the band
with the latter’s surname. On its demise Mike eventually ended up in
Spooky Tooth, and Ollie in the second edition of Hiseman’s Tempest.
Later Halsall found himself playing with Kevin Ayers – with drummer
Tony Newman – who’d played with Beck, Sounds Incorporated and Bowie.
And Ellis, after spells in Van Der Graaf Generator and Juicy Lucy,
met Patto with Spooky.
Genuine Cruft pedigree all of them.
Such a shame their music is so awful.
There’s really no other word for it, and indeed it came pretty much
as a surprise to me.
On the first side with tracks like "All The Time In The
World" where the rawness of production is merely a distraction from
the tight arrangements, I was prepared to give them the benefit of the
doubt. They seemed to be striving for that kind of rock feel best
epitomized by Bad Company, and almost achieving it.
Ollie knows his guitar inside out, and invariably demonstrates his
talent. Newman is the kind of solid back-beat man who, in tandem with
some steady figures from Ellis, sets the right environment.
And Patto is Patto. An uninhibited extremist with enough enthusiasm
to compensate for his lack of skill and expertise.
But with apparently no collective purpose Boxer trundle along, and
seem to sound like Bad Co., Slade and even, on "More Than Meets The
Eye", a heavy Supertramp.
And side two illustrates both a lack of purpose and the obvious
inability to play as a band. Whereas some of side one’s material may
have had deceivingly precise arrangements, most numbers now are
desultory bashes, with no melodic hook and no riff.
Listen to "Loony Ali" and you’ll hear what I mean.
And by the second to last track, "Gonna Work Out Fine" I
reached the conclusion that the album had developed into what is
commonly known as a bloody din.
But the sleeve’s great. And I don’t honestly see anything wrong
with sticking a naked lady (showing. I might add, her pubes) on the
back-cover.
At least it creates interest and probably sales, which is more than
the music will do.
Tony Stewart
This issue of NME had a couple other Boxer-related bits...
From the NEWSDESK page:
TOURS ROUND-UP
BOXER have added the following gigs to their previously-reported
tour itinerary: Aberdeen Robert Gordon Institute (tomorrow,
Friday), Glasgow Strathclyde University (Saturday), Cheltenham
Town Hall (February 26), Cromer Links Pavilion (March 13), Torquay
400 Club (17), Truro Plaza (20), Stoke North Staffs
Polytechnic (23), Blackpool Olympia (26) and Retford Porterhouse
(31). Birmingham Barbarella’s is switched from March 2 to 27,
and Bromley Stockwell College from March 11 to 12.
From the TEAZERS column:
That Boxer Elpee with its fab ‘n’ racy design – seems a
lady from Bromley, Kent, called Virgin pressman (sic) Al Clark to
complain; Clark, impressed ("She was neither a feminist nor a
prude"), uneasily reports that the complaineuse has contacted both
Bromley Feds and S. Yard…
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