"The Complete NationalHealth"

Well... where to begin? This compilation ofthe entire properly recorded output of one of the finest progressivebands ever assembled anywhere (No lie, Mordechai, read on!) is, Iregret to say, not complete. The blame can be left at no doorstepother than that of the idiots who were running the U.S. and U.K.'srecord companies in the 1970s as the progressive groundswell began towane (listen to some of the releases of 1974 or '75 from PremiataForneria Marconi, Henry Cow or Magma and you will note the envelopewas about to break!) and the punkeroos were about to emerge. Yes, Iknow, we cover quite a bit of grungeola here (as a friend of ourslikes to put it, "there's a lot of it about!" - exactly what ProcolHarum once said in a ditty off GrandHotel about syphilis!), and thedifferences between the two are minimal, but we've never done so atthe expense of something else. Music to you is what makes you whistlein the shower. It separates you from the beasts (and the ChristianCoalition, for a' that); and NationalHealth (which at one time or anothercontained Steve Hillage, Bill Bruford, Phil Miller, Pip Pyle, JohnGreaves, and well nigh half of the aforementioned Cow) not only blewaway every competitor I could name in complexity and the pure intensejoy of music, they were a positive force that could put a silly grinon your face while they slyly perforated your horizons. The wildoptimism, the flights of lunatic fancy, all strongly based in theprogressive English idiom we've known for decades, should have becomemore than the dead end industry indifference made it. And there areany number of people who would give their left nut to hear the tuneslisted below, so it's criminal that these wonderful bits are nowconsigned to the hell where all sheet music goes:

All right, what's all this then, amen?National Health was the brainchild of Dave Stewart and Alan Gowen,alumni of Hatfield and the North and Gilgamesh respectively; an ideafor a sort of electronic chamber ensemble came up when said bandswere foundering in 1975. These groups had done double quartet gigsoccasionally, and no doubt Stewart and Gowen were inspired to makethe arrangement permanent. NationalHealth (named after Dave's spectacles)commenced in 1976, and pretty much all the details you could ask forare to be found in Stewart's very heady essay in the booklet thataccompanies this double CD set. The tale is an unfortunate andaltogether saddening one, especially when you've had a chance tolisten to the 135 minutes of music here and thus must wonder at thestellar quality of the now unhearable tunes listed above: they wouldhave neatly filled a third CD. So you can't altogether blame Stewartfor being a bit of a mind to tell the truth in its entirety and shamethe devil.

This band never made a living for itsmembers, never played to the amount of people it deserved to, in factonce when they approached Virgin Records (who were far too busytrying to sign the Sex Pistols to provide an A&R man with earsinstead of cauliflowers), they were told the demos that they'dsubmitted were not original enough. No doubt the codswallop-brainedorang-outang with whom Stewart had a screaming fight thought the twoHatfield albums were by two different bands! And us Americans can'tcongratulate ourselves neither: had National Health been anAmerican band, they would have got a reception no better than theMuffins did. Never heard of the Muffins, have you? I rest mycase.

I admit the above situation smells a wholelot worse than the dead Bishop on the landing, Vicar Sergeant, butthe music does remain, and now you can have all this marvelous stuffin one package. What does it sound like? Think of Frank Zappa aroundthe time of Hot Rats but in a really good mood. Not a care in the world.A sort of cheery psychosis. Hooks you can whistle in the shower.Which is what music is. I said that before. Try it. Most of themusicians here still outrage listeners in one way or another invarious configurations, considering the blood they sweated to getthis CD set's contents out, we should count ourselvesfortunate.

© 1995 ToneClusters