The Final Chapter…?  Esoteric conclude their retelling of The Stackridge Story with another boxset, this time compiling the years of the re-formed, reinvigorated Stackridge – a genuine celebration of the career of a great band.

Release Date:  27^th September 2024

Label: Esoteric Recordings

Formats: 4 x CD boxset

are you sitting comfortably?

In our previous installment of The Stackridge Story, we recalled how this most singularly eclectic and eccentric of English bands were reformed, resurrected and reinvigourated in 1999 after spending the previous 23 years out of circulation.  We described how founder members, James Warren, Jin “Crun” Walter and Mike Evans enlisted the services of Richard Stubbings, John Miller and Tim Robinson and took the revived Stackridge out on the road and into the studio.  We also explained that the inimitable Mutter Slater was persuaded to rejoin the band and how, with supplementary assistance from Glenn Tomney (keyboards and trombone), Nigel Newton (lead guitar), Rachel Hall (violin) and Sarah Mitchell (violin and vocals), the band embarked on a spring 2007 tour, heralded by a performance at The Rodo Theatre, Bath – a concert that was commemorated by 2CD plus DVD package, issued as The Forbidden City.

another chapter…

And that’s where we left it – but we all knew that there was another chapter to The Stackridge Story and now, thanks to our friends at Esoteric Recordings, here it is.  I won’t say for certain that this is the final chapter of the story – strange things have been known to happen in Stackridge-land and I’d never rule out another bout of twitches and kicks from the still-warm Stackridge cadaver, but this latest package – a 4CD collection of all the remaining recordings made by the band between their 1999 reunification and their “final” (so far…) dissolution in autumn 2015 – brings the story up to date.

It’s the usual high-quality offering from Esoteric and gathers together the reunion albums Something for the Weekend (1999) and A Victory For Common Sense (2008) with the songs from the 2003 fans-only EP, Lemon and the band’s live swansong, The Final Bow, recorded at Stackridge’s farewell show at Bristol’s Fiddler’s Club on 19^th December 2015.  To top off the package, there’s a clutch of bonus rarities, including a 2006 re-recording of the epic Purple Spaceships Over Yatton and the version of Seek And You Will Find that previously featured on the super-rare Dummies CD single.  As usual, the collection is housed in a clamshell box and is accompanied by a fully-illustrated brochure that includes contemporaneous photos of the band and their musical helpers and an informative essay by Esoteric’s head honcho, Mark Powell.

a fusion of influnces…

In his essay, Powell describes the music of Stackridge as “… a fusion of influences as diverse as Frank Zappa, The Beatles and the humourous song writing duo of Flanders and Swann into their own glorious style,” and I suppose that those are words that go part-way to capturing the essence of this most unique of bands.  The only other band that ever came close to creating that special English amalgam of charm, musicality and humour was probably The Bonzos and the parallels between Stackridge and The Bonzos were, perhaps, never as clearly evident as they are on the songs that constitute Something For The Weekend, particularly on songs like the hilarious The Vegan’s Hatred of Fish  and the masterly fusions of pastoral 30s jazz with prog rock such as Wildebeeste, Sliding Down The Razor Blade Of Love and Someday They’ll Find Out.

beatles pastiche

The Beatles’ pastiches that were such a feature of the Stackridge sound, throughout the band’s career, are present and correct, too, in songs like It’s a Fascinating World and the quirky The Youth of Today, and Mike Evans’s bluegrass leanings are well catered-for in the delightful Ruth, Did You Read My Mind and in the glorious Five Poster Bedlam, a set of tunes that take in not only bluegrass, but hornpipes and ragtime too.  But it’s perhaps on the songs in which Stackridge concentrate upon being themselves that Something For the Weekend really comes into its own, especially so on the widescreen Something About the Beatles, a song that has all the classic Stackridge hallmarks, including a dreamy singalong chorus, a soaring, guitar-led coda and a long, slow fadeout.

Remember, they’d been away for 23 years and it was soooo good to have them back again.

the return of mutter sltter

During the years between 1999 and 2002, Mutter Slater had been turning up sporadically to Stackridge gigs and, inevitably, those appearances led to his full-time return to the ranks and, in 2003, the core Stackridge quartet of James Warren, Andy Davis, Crun Walter and Mutter Slater assembled together in the studio – the first time that they’d done so in 30 years – to record half a dozen tracks that were initially released via the band’s website as a 6-track mini album, Lemon.

Those six tracks all have that special Stackridge character.  The Final Bow and First Name of Love are both pastoral ballads – a Stackridge specialty – and Charles Louis Dance is a slow-building chamber piece, whilst, with lines like: “Cruising down the B-roads at 45 miles an hour,” Stackridge bring a quintessentially English flavour to the road song genre.  Close your eyes and you could be persuaded that Big Baby was really The Beatles – or, at least, The Rutles and Beating a Path to Your Door is stereotypical Stackridge.  The boys were back and Lemon was an appetizing taster of what else they would soon have up their collective sleeve.

a victory for common sense

Forming the bulk of Disc 2 to this collection, the 2009 Stackridge album, A Victory For Common Sense is a true high-water mark, considered by many Stackridge devotees to be up there alongside albums like Friendliness and The Man in the Bowler Hat.  English whimsy is here by the shed-load; indeed, at the time of its release, A Victory for Common Sense drew comparisons with The Kinks’ seminal The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.  Certainly, there’s evidence to suggest that both albums were grown from the same cutting.

stackridge polish

There’s a polish to Stackridge on A Victory for Common Sense that, I’d venture to suggest, isn’t evident on any other of their works – but it’s still recognizably Stackridge.  The sound is full and, as the album progresses, the familiar poppy whimsy is gradually replaced by deeper and deeper probes into the world of prog. 

Boots and Shoes is a tight, punchy rework of a familiar Korgis number, band composition the Old Country is formed from the same mould as The Volunteer (from Extravaganza) and the impassioned (Waiting for You and) England to Return blossoms from a quiet, contemplative folk song into something very grand and special.  The sentiments of No-one’s More Important Than the Earthworm are given another airing on the wonderful Red Squirrel – a lament to the demise of a much-loved creature in the face of competition from “The grey machine,” and Stackridge show off their versatility with North St. Grande, a slow-building, slushy waltz.

Then the prog rush starts…

Long Dark River is a simmering rocker that nods in the direction of The Beatles’ Rain and concludes in an exhilarating coda has its humble beginnings in a Crun bass solo; Lost and Found is proggy and riffy – Stackridge at their best – and Cheese and Ham, a song in which to get cosyly involved, takes a page from the book of (early) Genesis.  But maybe it’s the original album’s closing track, The Day the World Stopped Turning that really elevates A Victory for Common Sense into the very top echelon of the Stackridge catalogue. 

It’s a slow-burner that attracted criticism for indulgence from some quarters at the time of the album’s release, but I suggest that those who did voice such negativity were missing the point.  The song is epic, in the same way that Stackridge classics like …Earthworm, Coniston Water, God Speed the Plough and Purple Spaceships… were epics and, I reckon it’s the perfect way for Stackridge to sign-off their studio career.  It’s Zappa’s Watermelon in Easter Hay, reimagined for the English West Country.

live!

But, of course, Stackridge were never just a bunch of studio noodlers.  Live, they were stunning, and it’s absolutely appropriate that this boxset – and the band’s career (so far…) should be concluded with a marathon live show.  Released originally as the double CD set, The Final Bow and now included as Disc 3 & 4 to this compilation, the band’s appearance at The Fiddler’s Club in Bristol in December 2015 was the last time we saw them.  Mutter was back for the evening (he’d left the band in 2010, citing outside pressures) and the setlist for the show was inspired, encompassing every part of the band’s career. 

All the favourites are here: The Road to Venezuela, Syracuse The Elephant, Purple Spaceships…, Fish In A Glass, …Earthworm, Lummy Days, Slark, Dora and Do The Stanley.  The newer stuff isn’t neglected, either, with a healthy serving of the best moments from those two final studio albums – Long Dark River, Something About The Beatles, Lost and Found et al all getting an airing. 

gone but not forgotten

Stackridge may be gone, but they’re definitely not forgotten.  And I have a persistently nagging suspicion that, one day, that tight core of founder members might just decide that it’s worth getting together for one further last hoorah.  We’ll see…

To round off Esoteric’s Stackridge reissue programme and to conclude our re-telling of the Stackridge story, watch Stackridge perform Do The Stanley – their biggest crowd-pleaser – live at The Rodo Theatre, Bath, in 2007:

Stackridge online: Website / Facebook (fan forum)

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