Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 381] Focus Beyond “Hocus Pocus”: The Albums & Songs (1969–1985) with Stephen Lambe

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[EP 381] Focus Beyond “Hocus Pocus”: The Albums & Songs (1969–1985) with Stephen Lambe · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: The thing with yodling, it's really hard to do, and
0:02
Speaker 1: it's really hard to pitch. To do it and actually
0:04
Speaker 1: get the pitch right so that it sounds right is
0:07
Speaker 1: really hard, and there's not many people can do it.
0:10
Speaker 1: And Tys just found he tried it. He'd never yodled
0:12
Speaker 1: before in his life. He tried it just just to
0:15
Speaker 1: try an idea and found he could do it and
0:16
Speaker 1: he could pitch it. And there's loads of reaction videos
0:19
Speaker 1: of people listening to hocus Pocus. Everybody goes, how is
0:22
Speaker 1: he doing that? We're totally bombed rock and roll. I mean,
0:28
Speaker 1: I'll leave you. You're reading. Little Hands says it's time
0:30
Speaker 1: to rock and roll, Rocking roll Up.
0:33
Speaker 2: I totally booked. Welcome back to Book That Rock, the
0:40
Speaker 2: podcast for those about to read and rock Emeric Sinach
0:43
Speaker 2: Before we get started. A big thanks to James Campion
0:45
Speaker 2: for having me on his three hundred Favorite Albums podcast
0:49
Speaker 2: to talk about Van Halen's nineteen eighty four album. I'm
0:52
Speaker 2: a loyal subscriber to the show. It's fantastic find out
0:55
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to podcasts, and I am also a
0:58
Speaker 2: fan of Sonic Bond Books on Track series and Today
1:01
Speaker 2: we cover another in that series. Stephen Lamb is back
1:04
Speaker 2: on the show. His latest book from the on Track
1:07
Speaker 2: series is titled Focus nineteen sixty nine and nineteen eighty five.
1:11
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Stephen.
1:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for having me, as always, Eric, great
1:15
Speaker 1: to be here.
1:16
Speaker 2: So tell us what, Julia to tell the story of Focus.
1:19
Speaker 1: As you know, I've spoken on this show about Yes
1:22
Speaker 1: before and when I was growing up in the seventies,
1:25
Speaker 1: because I'm old, my two favorite bands from that era
1:29
Speaker 1: were Yes and Focus. I couldn't really tell you why
1:34
Speaker 1: I connected with those two bands so much back in
1:36
Speaker 1: the well, I could probably guess, But so in parallel,
1:40
Speaker 1: those are the two bands I love the most, and
1:42
Speaker 1: those are the two bands that I've kind of developed
1:44
Speaker 1: most expertise about over the years. So yeah, it seemed
1:50
Speaker 1: like a no brain to do a book about them.
1:52
Speaker 1: They are very different to Yes in that I mean Yes,
1:55
Speaker 1: I'm about to drop a new album or in June,
1:59
Speaker 1: whereas Folk, because I can talk a little bit about
2:02
Speaker 1: that at some point if you want. But Focus they
2:07
Speaker 1: exist now as a band, but they haven't existed in
2:09
Speaker 1: the form that I was writing about since nineteen seventy six, really,
2:14
Speaker 1: with a few mutterings since but so there is a
2:19
Speaker 1: band called Focus that exists right now. But they are
2:23
Speaker 1: not the band that was formed by Jan Akerman and
2:26
Speaker 1: tys Family. They are Tyson Family's band essentially now.
2:30
Speaker 2: During their peak years. What made them stand out? Because
2:32
Speaker 2: it was a crowded early seventies progressive rock scene. What
2:36
Speaker 2: made them stand out in your opinion, Well.
2:38
Speaker 1: A couple of things. One is, nobody ever sounded Nobody
2:41
Speaker 1: sounded like them, since they are almost a dead end
2:44
Speaker 1: in progressive rock or in rock generally, because the combination
2:49
Speaker 1: of what they were doing from with the obviously with
2:52
Speaker 1: the rock influences, but with also the classical influence and
2:55
Speaker 1: the jazz influence. Combine those with also this big thing
3:01
Speaker 1: for improvisation, and nobody sounds like them, since I mean,
3:04
Speaker 1: some of it comes from them being Dutch, and if
3:07
Speaker 1: you listen to some of the other Dutch progressive rock bands,
3:10
Speaker 1: they are of a type, not of a type they are.
3:13
Speaker 1: They sound completely different to the whole English progressive rock
3:16
Speaker 1: movement that then led into the American progressive rock movement.
3:21
Speaker 1: But nobody sounds like Focus, and so I think. And
3:25
Speaker 1: also the well, a couple of other very specific things.
3:29
Speaker 1: They were largely instrumental but with a very strong sense
3:33
Speaker 1: of melody, and most of the other bands had a lead,
3:37
Speaker 1: proper lead singer. And then you got with Focus, you've
3:40
Speaker 1: got some gimmicks. Tys Fanley is yodeling is one particular
3:47
Speaker 1: thing which he didn't know he could do before he
3:49
Speaker 1: tried doing it. So the song that everybody knows by
3:51
Speaker 1: them is hocus Pocus. Even if you don't, even if
3:54
Speaker 1: you've never heard of Focus, and you don't know of
3:57
Speaker 1: a song called hocus Pocus, you have heard hope Pocus
4:00
Speaker 1: some way, because it's still it's ubiquitous to this day.
4:03
Speaker 1: It's used in h it's used as things like they
4:09
Speaker 1: used it during one of the Olympic Games as a theme.
4:13
Speaker 1: It's still use all over the place. So you will
4:16
Speaker 1: have heard hocus Pocus.
4:17
Speaker 2: I remember what was that. There was a guitarist who
4:19
Speaker 2: covered it. First I ever heard the song was the
4:21
Speaker 2: version by a guitarist who covered it in It was
4:24
Speaker 2: a Gary Holly. He covered it in the eighties. Oh right,
4:27
Speaker 2: did he It was? Yes, it was on FM rock
4:29
Speaker 2: radio at the time.
4:30
Speaker 1: I did not know that, but then again, it might
4:33
Speaker 1: is the American.
4:33
Speaker 2: If he was Gary Holly, let's see I believe he is.
4:37
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's from Massachusetts, Okay, Lowell, Massa Choosetts, so
4:41
Speaker 2: he's from the US.
4:43
Speaker 1: The thing that makes that song fames apart from the
4:46
Speaker 1: fact that it's kind of it's bonkers really because it's
4:49
Speaker 1: got a structure like nothing else. It's got Ty's family's yodeling.
4:53
Speaker 1: But also it's got really famous riff, really famous hard
4:56
Speaker 1: rock riffs. One of those one of those riffs the
4:58
Speaker 1: guitarists learn how to play when they start playing the guitar.
5:02
Speaker 1: That and smoke on the water, right, So that would
5:08
Speaker 1: be probably one of the reasons why it has been covered.
5:11
Speaker 1: But it's it's it stands that nothing has ever sounded
5:14
Speaker 1: like it. In fact, in the book, I break it
5:17
Speaker 1: down not from a musicologists point of view, but into
5:20
Speaker 1: this is what you're hearing now, This is what you're
5:22
Speaker 1: hearing now. So this is this is a riff, this
5:24
Speaker 1: is a drum solo, this is this is a recapitulation
5:28
Speaker 1: of the riff, this is another bit of yodling, and
5:30
Speaker 1: this is this is this is tispan here he's whistling now. Yeah.
5:34
Speaker 2: I love the breakdown. By the way, I was nineteen
5:36
Speaker 2: ninety three. Gary Howies, Oh well, yeahy three. You describe
5:42
Speaker 2: creativity and bands as coming from both harmony and conflict,
5:45
Speaker 2: So let's let's talk about that, because that dynamic really
5:49
Speaker 2: shape the sound of focus.
5:50
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, it's there's a lot of conflict in Focus.
5:54
Speaker 1: But somehow, for well, they were together from sixty nine
5:58
Speaker 1: until the early seventy six, those two guys, so we're
6:01
Speaker 1: talking about specifically between Tys Vanlea and Jan Ackerman, so
6:07
Speaker 1: they were they somehow they managed to stay together for
6:10
Speaker 1: six seven years, and they they never really got along,
6:15
Speaker 1: I think. I think partly because Jan Ackerman was very
6:19
Speaker 1: much an improvisation absolutist, so he never played anything the same,
6:25
Speaker 1: so almost grudgingly he might play, you know, the Rift
6:28
Speaker 1: to hocus Pocus, but he wanted improvise all the time
6:33
Speaker 1: because he came from that sort of not jazz but
6:36
Speaker 1: sort of a jazz ethic if you understand what that mean.
6:41
Speaker 1: Tye was came from a much more classical background, so
6:44
Speaker 1: his main influence is buck and although he also had
6:49
Speaker 1: that jazz leaning as well, so he was fine with improvising,
6:52
Speaker 1: with improvising, but also he knew that most of your
6:56
Speaker 1: audience they want to hear the same stuff night after
6:59
Speaker 1: night with maybe a little bit of variation. So there
7:02
Speaker 1: was that conflict, There was a there was a personality conflict,
7:05
Speaker 1: and as if you see videos of focus, as we
7:10
Speaker 1: go through the early to mid seventies, you see they
7:13
Speaker 1: get further and further apart on stage. So even by
7:19
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two seventy three, they refused to be in
7:21
Speaker 1: the same room when they were recording. So there's famous
7:26
Speaker 1: Chipping Northern Sessions, which is a little town in Oxfordshire
7:31
Speaker 1: or is it in Gloucestershire, it doesn't matter. In the
7:36
Speaker 1: west of England, and they went to record at Mike
7:39
Speaker 1: Vernon's studio in Chipping Norton and basically Yanakhaman stayed in
7:45
Speaker 1: his hotel room and wouldn't wouldn't come out until nighttime
7:47
Speaker 1: when the rest of the band had left, and then
7:50
Speaker 1: he recorded his parts. Then it just it's very angsty.
7:53
Speaker 1: They never there was They didn't create an album from
7:57
Speaker 1: those sessions. They later appeared some of it later appeared
8:00
Speaker 1: other things, but nonetheless put them together and the music
8:05
Speaker 1: they actually did create almost by accidents. Sometimes is a
8:10
Speaker 1: thing of beauty and it's never and it's it's so.
8:15
Speaker 1: My theory has always been that I was asked by
8:20
Speaker 1: I did a sidetrack slightly for a second little advert.
8:24
Speaker 1: I guess. I was asked to be involved in a
8:27
Speaker 1: documentary about Focus for Dutch television, which is I well
8:30
Speaker 1: on YouTube now, and and the geisding the documentary were
8:37
Speaker 1: trying to get me to say that Tyspenlee was a genius.
8:41
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that because I think together with Jan
8:43
Speaker 1: Ackerman as a duo, they are a mute. They are
8:47
Speaker 1: a genius between them, but separately, the some of the
8:51
Speaker 1: parts isn't quite isn't quite what it should be, so
8:53
Speaker 1: that they've never repeated the quality of music separately that
8:57
Speaker 1: they did as as Focus so amazing. But I think
9:03
Speaker 1: some of the conflict between them produced that quality of music.
9:06
Speaker 1: I think that they're competing with each other a lot
9:08
Speaker 1: of the time, so and that just raises the bar
9:12
Speaker 1: slightly and just increases the quality of music that I produce.
9:16
Speaker 2: I always wondered in those circumstances, because that happens a lot.
9:19
Speaker 2: You get the two bandmates who write songs together who
9:22
Speaker 2: just can't stand each other. Do they when they have
9:26
Speaker 2: this magic happen and they have music that is so
9:30
Speaker 2: successful commercially and there's demand. Do they resent that, do
9:36
Speaker 2: they embrace that, Hey great are music's taken off? Or
9:39
Speaker 2: they're like, oh man, I got to keep working with them.
9:44
Speaker 1: A human what people are human? And I'm you know,
9:47
Speaker 1: I'm getting on in years now and I've realized that
9:50
Speaker 1: that you expect people once they get into their forties
9:53
Speaker 1: and fifties and sixties or even you know, that they
9:56
Speaker 1: will mellow, and sometimes they just don't. They carry on
9:58
Speaker 1: hating each other, right, and they carry on being children,
10:01
Speaker 1: and I think some of I think sometimes you get
10:03
Speaker 1: people who are very mature and can deal with these things,
10:06
Speaker 1: and then you get particularly you know, if you're focus
10:09
Speaker 1: and you're in like you're in your late twenties maybe
10:12
Speaker 1: mid to late twenties, you know, and you're not really
10:16
Speaker 1: used to the level of success, that can be difficult.
10:19
Speaker 1: I mean, they never took drugs, but but there was
10:24
Speaker 1: there was conflict between you know, throughout the band, and
10:27
Speaker 1: I think sometimes you just don't deal with it very well.
10:29
Speaker 1: Very occasionally you'll get someone who really level headed and
10:32
Speaker 1: can deal with it all. But I would say, you know,
10:35
Speaker 1: look at look at look at all the bands look
10:37
Speaker 1: at the Rolling Stones, look at the Beatles.
10:39
Speaker 2: I was about to say that, I just watched the
10:42
Speaker 2: video of the Stones out there getting interviewed by the
10:45
Speaker 2: AP for the new album, upcoming album, and Mick and
10:48
Speaker 2: Keith are a good example of that. They've found a
10:50
Speaker 2: way to make it work because they know, because I mean,
10:53
Speaker 2: the music is like it's it's like a it's like
10:55
Speaker 2: a divorce, but they have this beautiful child of children together.
10:59
Speaker 2: So you're for linked. You now you're going to be
11:03
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to deal with each other.
11:05
Speaker 1: You still get some situations where I'm going to try
11:08
Speaker 1: and think of an example where some of the band
11:09
Speaker 1: members are have have remained the best of friends through
11:13
Speaker 1: throughout the years, but more often it's grudging tolerance for
11:20
Speaker 1: each other rather rather than rather than, you know, mutual love.
11:25
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure an example of mutual
11:28
Speaker 1: love will will will drop into my head eventually.
11:30
Speaker 2: I think Genesis is a good example.
11:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh you see. Yeah, there's a bit
11:36
Speaker 1: like them Pink Floyd as well, because because they're they're
11:38
Speaker 1: English and they're gentlemen, so they hate they hate conflict
11:42
Speaker 1: and they hate they hate clashing with each other, So
11:47
Speaker 1: it all becomes very passive aggressive that that definitely happened
11:50
Speaker 1: in Genesis, definitely happened in Pink Floyd and now they
11:52
Speaker 1: obviously there's more there's more resentment in Pink Floyd than
11:56
Speaker 1: there was.
11:56
Speaker 2: But obviously Genesis guys, the threesome there seemed to be
12:00
Speaker 2: best friends.
12:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, it's a question of it's it's it's we
12:06
Speaker 1: are we adults about this and do we put any
12:09
Speaker 1: differences to one side and do we try and produce
12:12
Speaker 1: something that's greater than our individual people. I think Genesis
12:16
Speaker 1: managed to do that, probably as a three piece better
12:20
Speaker 1: than as a five or four piece I would I
12:24
Speaker 1: would imagine. But regardless of whether you like the music
12:27
Speaker 1: or not.
12:27
Speaker 2: Of course, let's go back to the beginning. How did
12:32
Speaker 2: they come together? What's the origin story of Focus?
12:35
Speaker 1: Young was successful earlier than Tys so Young was in
12:40
Speaker 1: some sort of mid sixties beat bands. But then he
12:44
Speaker 1: was in a very successful Dutch bank called brain Box
12:48
Speaker 1: with Pierre van der Linden, who became the drummer in Focus,
12:52
Speaker 1: and this is in the drummer is the drummer and
12:53
Speaker 1: Focus right now as well. Tys van Leah on the
12:58
Speaker 1: other hand came into music via the classics, but then
13:03
Speaker 1: got himself in a band called with a guy called
13:06
Speaker 1: Ramsey Chaffy. We're sort of kind of a cabaret thing
13:12
Speaker 1: called Ramsey Chaffy. But they've and they kind of got
13:17
Speaker 1: together a little bit with Yann as a session musician then,
13:20
Speaker 1: but then they as a four piece. So this is
13:25
Speaker 1: the original line up of Focus, which is Kerman Tis
13:30
Speaker 1: van Leer sort of keyboards and fluteman on guitar, Hans
13:35
Speaker 1: Klouver on drums, and Martin Dresden on bass. God, I
13:40
Speaker 1: hope I got that right way around. And they become
13:45
Speaker 1: the house band for the for a for a Dutch
13:48
Speaker 1: production of Hair the musical gradually and then eventually they
13:54
Speaker 1: escape from doing this. Now they can rehearse I think
13:58
Speaker 1: hair is they have a monday off from doing hair.
14:01
Speaker 1: This is nineteen sixty nine, so they have a monday
14:04
Speaker 1: of from doing doing hair. They're able to rehearse, and
14:06
Speaker 1: then gradually they emerge as their own band, instrumental band,
14:11
Speaker 1: but playing kind of covers of classical pieces, some jazz pieces,
14:18
Speaker 1: and this gradually start developing their own music, and then
14:20
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine they're allowed to make their first album,
14:23
Speaker 1: which happens in London, which is called someone's called Focus
14:28
Speaker 1: one and something it's called Focus play Focus as something
14:31
Speaker 1: that's called in and out of Focus. It's got lots
14:33
Speaker 1: of different versions and it's a bit like the first
14:36
Speaker 1: Genesis album has been released constantly. So they make that
14:41
Speaker 1: album and it's not a great success, and then they
14:46
Speaker 1: then cut a very long story short. They record this
14:51
Speaker 1: song called not a song, an instrumental called House of
14:54
Speaker 1: the King, which is a mixture of a sort of
14:58
Speaker 1: flute theme played by Ty and sort of guitar theme
15:02
Speaker 1: played by Yan, and it's a huge hit in Holland,
15:05
Speaker 1: and it becomes it's one of those it's one of
15:07
Speaker 1: those other songs that people will have heard even if
15:09
Speaker 1: you don't notice by Focus. Maybe not so much in
15:12
Speaker 1: the USA, but it was, for instance, that they used
15:15
Speaker 1: it as a theme for kids TV programs in the
15:19
Speaker 1: in the UK, I remember in the seventies. So that
15:22
Speaker 1: then leads into however, there is a significant lineup change.
15:32
Speaker 1: Yan gets already in nineteen seventy gets fed up for
15:38
Speaker 1: playing with these musicians who he feels are don't sue me, Yan,
15:45
Speaker 1: he probably feels that are beneath him, not Tice, but
15:48
Speaker 1: the other two. So he leaves because he wants to
15:53
Speaker 1: go back and play with Pierre vander Linden, who's a
15:55
Speaker 1: very very strong musician, very very unusual style of dramma,
15:59
Speaker 1: very as orientated. So so and then there's a manage,
16:05
Speaker 1: there's management shenanigans, and they somebody says to Tice, Okay,
16:13
Speaker 1: well you can either carry on with these two guys
16:14
Speaker 1: you've got now, or you become you can stay with
16:16
Speaker 1: Yan and become a much bigger band. So that's what
16:20
Speaker 1: he does. He says, Okay, we're going to reform Focus,
16:23
Speaker 1: but without the without the rhythm section, We're going to
16:25
Speaker 1: get a new rhythm section. So that so that that
16:29
Speaker 1: then leads into the kind of well a version of
16:33
Speaker 1: the classic lineup of Focus, and then they're kind of
16:35
Speaker 1: set really so that's as so I'll take it up
16:39
Speaker 1: to there. So we're talking about nineteen seventy seventy one,
16:42
Speaker 1: Focus On now an established band, it's really a question
16:45
Speaker 1: of what they do next.
16:47
Speaker 2: Really established, Yet that debut album feels still feels like
16:51
Speaker 2: and that's from nineteen seventy still feels like a band searching.
16:54
Speaker 2: I guess anaiyus would be the track that seems to
16:56
Speaker 2: point towards their future direction.
16:58
Speaker 1: Yes, and and the Focus and Focus the instrumental track
17:01
Speaker 1: as well, although there's a there's a vocal version of
17:04
Speaker 1: that on the album as well. It's yeah, it's almost
17:08
Speaker 1: like they're being pushed into recording songs, which is not
17:10
Speaker 1: really their strong suit. They don't really have a very
17:13
Speaker 1: strong lead vocalist. And also, there is a song on
17:20
Speaker 1: that album that's about Cuba, the title which I've completely forgotten.
17:26
Speaker 1: It's about Cuba and that's left off the American version
17:30
Speaker 1: because of the American Cuba sort of tensions.
17:35
Speaker 2: Right at that time.
17:36
Speaker 1: At the time, so I so before I started researching
17:38
Speaker 1: the first version of this book, I had never heard it,
17:44
Speaker 1: because it's because I've got the American version of that
17:46
Speaker 1: album on vinyl and I'd never heard that. Also, it's
17:48
Speaker 1: not brilliantly well recorded, but there are signs of what's
17:52
Speaker 1: to come and House of the King. I think because
17:56
Speaker 1: they record that a little bit later, is they think, okay,
18:03
Speaker 1: well we do instrumental music. Clearly that's what people want,
18:07
Speaker 1: so they become an instrumental band. They hired in nineteen
18:11
Speaker 1: seventy seventy one they hired a bass player called Cyril
18:16
Speaker 1: Harman's because I think at that point they he was
18:20
Speaker 1: going to be the lead vocalist because he was a
18:22
Speaker 1: singer songwriter rather than the bass player. So let's shoehorn
18:26
Speaker 1: shoehorn him into the band, and he's the bass player
18:29
Speaker 1: on the next album, which is focused to slash moving
18:33
Speaker 1: waves depending upon the where you've bought it, which to
18:36
Speaker 1: this day I still think is their finest finest album.
18:39
Speaker 2: Sugar Island, Right, that's the song Sugar Island. That's the
18:42
Speaker 2: that's the song references Cuba.
18:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it doesn't sound like focus at all.
18:47
Speaker 1: It's like it's weird calypso thing.
18:52
Speaker 2: What do we know about? How the track House of
18:54
Speaker 2: the King was written and recorded came together quickly, right.
18:57
Speaker 1: It was recorded quickly in secret, I think because their
19:02
Speaker 1: manager kind of didn't want them to go back into
19:04
Speaker 1: the studio. I got them trying to remember exactly what
19:07
Speaker 1: the circumstances were. But it was recorded individually as a
19:10
Speaker 1: single to maybe tag onto the album. So somehow some
19:14
Speaker 1: versions of that first album have House of the King,
19:17
Speaker 1: which was recorded six months later, tagged onto it. But
19:25
Speaker 1: its main success was as a single. I think it
19:29
Speaker 1: was one of those ones where they where they wanted
19:31
Speaker 1: to go back into the studio. For some reason, the
19:33
Speaker 1: management weren't too excited about them doing that, but they
19:37
Speaker 1: did it in secret anyway, and then when they when
19:40
Speaker 1: the management heard it, they thought, oh, yeah, this is
19:42
Speaker 1: a hit. Amazing that a two minute instrumental should be
19:46
Speaker 1: peure you'd hear it and think, yeah, that's a hit.
19:48
Speaker 1: That's the seventies for you, because that wouldn't happen now,
19:53
Speaker 1: definitely not. So there was nothing terribly controversial about it. It
19:57
Speaker 1: was just just recorded as a one off. And in fact,
20:00
Speaker 1: because it didn't make some versions of that first album,
20:03
Speaker 1: some reissues of the first album have have it on it.
20:06
Speaker 1: It doesn't appear on an album in the UK until
20:09
Speaker 1: Focus three, which was released much late in nineteen seventy two,
20:15
Speaker 1: so it kind of it kind of stands alone. But
20:19
Speaker 1: that was what put them on the path of saying, Okay,
20:21
Speaker 1: we're definitely doing instrumental music. That's all we're going to
20:24
Speaker 1: do now.
20:25
Speaker 2: Moving Waves nineteen seventy one, you call that a near
20:27
Speaker 2: perfect album, and that does feature hocus focus on there.
20:30
Speaker 2: Before we ask about that specific track, what elevates that
20:33
Speaker 2: album above their other work.
20:35
Speaker 1: First of all, the material is terrific. There's only one
20:40
Speaker 1: song that stands apart, really, and that's the cycle track
20:43
Speaker 1: with Moving Waves, which was is a vocal thing which
20:47
Speaker 1: doesn't quite sound like it belongs on the album, but
20:50
Speaker 1: you know, it's two and a half minutes long. No
20:52
Speaker 1: one's going to complain about that. It's got it's got
20:56
Speaker 1: hocus pocus. It's got a couple of much much less
21:01
Speaker 1: sung instrumental pieces that are beautiful, laclouse Yard and Yannis.
21:09
Speaker 1: And also it has what I believe is Focus's finest moment,
21:12
Speaker 1: which is Focused I, which is I'm sure I say
21:16
Speaker 1: that in the Bolt, which is a sublime four and
21:18
Speaker 1: a half minutes. I think Focus realize that that's very
21:21
Speaker 1: strong as well, because they play it live to this day,
21:25
Speaker 1: and they play an immaculate version of it as well,
21:28
Speaker 1: you know, a note perfect version of of it to
21:31
Speaker 1: this day. However, side too, you've got the sidelong piece Eruption,
21:38
Speaker 1: which now Focus have done quite a few long form pieces,
21:42
Speaker 1: but Eruption works brilliantly because of Mike Vernon, the producer's work,
21:50
Speaker 1: because he edited down what they were playing into something
21:54
Speaker 1: that was really palatable as a twenty minute piece, whereas
21:58
Speaker 1: kind of left to their own devices. This happens a
22:01
Speaker 1: lot in rock. So you have you do an album
22:04
Speaker 1: that has a lot of input from the producer because
22:08
Speaker 1: he's almost teaching the band how to do stuff. And
22:11
Speaker 1: then they get over confident and they when we talk
22:13
Speaker 1: about to Focus Focus three, that's a major factor. I
22:19
Speaker 1: think they get over confident and they assert their own
22:22
Speaker 1: power and they do whatever they want with Hope. With Eruption,
22:25
Speaker 1: he kind of shoehorns some themes and some imitivization into
22:29
Speaker 1: this brilliant twenty minute piece and it works superbly well.
22:35
Speaker 1: And it's a sidelong piece. In nineteen seventy one, you know,
22:41
Speaker 1: Yes did Close to the Edge in nineteen seventy two,
22:44
Speaker 1: Genesis did Suffers ready nineteen seventy two? Was it seventy three?
22:50
Speaker 1: So they've done they're doing. They're not first band to
22:52
Speaker 1: a sidelong piece. I think Floyd had already done Echoes
22:55
Speaker 1: at that point, but you know, they're they they're doing
22:59
Speaker 1: this kind of off almost before anybody else's and Eruption
23:03
Speaker 1: is a near perfect, perfectly structured piece of music over
23:10
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. It even has a drum solo that really
23:12
Speaker 1: works as part of the whole. I'm not a big
23:15
Speaker 1: fan of drum solos on in studio albums, but here
23:19
Speaker 1: it works as an atmospheric thing. So so Eruption's perfect.
23:26
Speaker 1: But I think I think it's the strength of the
23:30
Speaker 1: material and the restraint with which they play it. I
23:34
Speaker 1: think the influence of the producer that really makes it
23:38
Speaker 1: this sort of perfect encapsulation. Encapsulation that's the right word
23:43
Speaker 1: of where they were at the time.
23:44
Speaker 2: Stephen Lamb the author of Focus in eineteen sixteen eighty five,
23:48
Speaker 2: part of the Sonic on on Track series. So let's
23:50
Speaker 2: get to hocus Pocus number twenty in the UK, number
23:53
Speaker 2: nine single in the US, and at its core built
23:57
Speaker 2: on an unforgettable riff. How did the idea evolved is
24:01
Speaker 2: something that was so wildly unconventional.
24:04
Speaker 1: Well, I think I think they're just sort of band
24:06
Speaker 1: that kind of did. They kind of did that thing
24:08
Speaker 1: in the studio. They just they just you know, the
24:11
Speaker 1: waste of the way Queen developed Behemian Rhapsody. It just layer
24:16
Speaker 1: on not layer upon layer upon layer, but it's idea
24:18
Speaker 1: upon an idea upon idea, up on idea, and they
24:21
Speaker 1: just throw it all together based around if you look
24:24
Speaker 1: at the structure of it, which I do, it's based
24:27
Speaker 1: around that that riff and some soloing, but with something
24:34
Speaker 1: else between each of the reiterations of the riff. So
24:39
Speaker 1: the interesting thing is that if you listen to the album,
24:42
Speaker 1: it's a six minute version. It was re recorded for
24:47
Speaker 1: the for to be an American single, and that's what
24:50
Speaker 1: that's the version that did so well in the USA.
24:53
Speaker 1: That version is is faster and shorter, so some of
24:56
Speaker 1: the slightly mad cap ideas that are in the in
24:58
Speaker 1: the six minute version kind of missing in the in
25:01
Speaker 1: the version that was a hit in America. But anybody
25:04
Speaker 1: can hear that that that longer version because it's on
25:08
Speaker 1: it's on moving waves, flash focused.
25:10
Speaker 2: To but the yodling remains on both.
25:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, well yeah, that's that's that's almost the
25:16
Speaker 1: hook for the hook.
25:19
Speaker 2: How did he land on that as a musical choice.
25:22
Speaker 1: He just tried it, and you realized that the thing
25:25
Speaker 1: with yodling is that it's really hard to do and
25:28
Speaker 1: it's really hard to pitch. So anybody can start or
25:32
Speaker 1: see I always tried to do it then and anybody
25:34
Speaker 1: can can can do that well, a lot of people
25:36
Speaker 1: can do that voice, but to do it and actually
25:39
Speaker 1: get the pitch right so it sounds right is really
25:43
Speaker 1: hard and there's not many people can do it. And
25:46
Speaker 1: Tys just found he tried it. He'd never yodled before
25:49
Speaker 1: in his life. He tried it just just to try
25:51
Speaker 1: an idea and found he could do it and he
25:52
Speaker 1: could pitch it. That's the thing. If you people will
25:57
Speaker 1: have seen like reaction videos on on YouTube, and there's
26:02
Speaker 1: loads of reaction videos of people of people listening to
26:04
Speaker 1: you too to hocus pocus, because everybody goes, how is
26:09
Speaker 1: he doing that? When I do the people when there's
26:13
Speaker 1: a there's a there's a guy who will be unknown
26:16
Speaker 1: in the USA, but the guy from the fifties British
26:18
Speaker 1: musician fromf Is called Frank Kierfield, and he could yodled
26:22
Speaker 1: as well. No doubt there will be many people because
26:25
Speaker 1: yodling is kind of a thing in folk music in USA.
26:28
Speaker 1: I know as well. But there's a guy so he
26:33
Speaker 1: had some hits yodling as well. But but it's to
26:37
Speaker 1: actually hold that into a piece of rock music. It's
26:40
Speaker 1: kind of weird. It's interesting. It's interesting also that he
26:44
Speaker 1: does try a bit more, he tries it. Okay, so
26:47
Speaker 1: this is our this, this is our gimmick now. So
26:50
Speaker 1: so occasionally he tries it again without the same success.
26:53
Speaker 1: There's a track on Hamburg Cancertto called Harum Scarem, and
26:59
Speaker 1: he does a little bit of a little bit in
27:01
Speaker 1: that as well. It doesn't work so well. It was
27:04
Speaker 1: a hit, Okay, it wasn't.
27:05
Speaker 2: It's like hocus Pocus the sequel.
27:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of you can see what they're reaching for.
27:10
Speaker 1: But you know, the hocus focus is so wild and
27:13
Speaker 1: so done on almost it feels like it's done on
27:16
Speaker 1: the spur of the moment that it would be very
27:18
Speaker 1: hard to reproduce. But it's not just about focus. The
27:21
Speaker 1: important thing with that album is that the other instrumental
27:23
Speaker 1: tracks focus too, particularly, but also the other ones are
27:27
Speaker 1: so strong, and Eruption is such an amazing piece of
27:30
Speaker 1: music in itself as well, thanks as much as anything
27:33
Speaker 1: to Mike Vernon and the producer that that's it's nearly perfect,
27:38
Speaker 1: nearly perfect, and also the title track is perfectly listenable.
27:42
Speaker 1: It just doesn't feel like it belongs on the album.
27:46
Speaker 2: Find the bookdown Rock website a bookdown rock dot com.
27:50
Speaker 2: There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
27:53
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28:06
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28:09
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28:14
Speaker 2: down Rock merch. It's all at booked on rock dot com.
28:19
Speaker 2: Was Focused three from seventy two. Was that the last
28:23
Speaker 2: album where the band's truly functioning as a cohesive unit?
28:26
Speaker 1: Probably yes, it's It's it's the last album where the
28:30
Speaker 1: bands are very happy to go into a studio and
28:32
Speaker 1: jam as a four piece. It there had been so
28:38
Speaker 1: on Moving Waves. There's a lot of discussion as to
28:41
Speaker 1: who played the bass on that, whether it's several Cyril
28:44
Speaker 1: Happermans or whether it's Jan Ackman or a bit of both,
28:48
Speaker 1: and I think Jan lays claim to playing a lot
28:50
Speaker 1: of the bass on that. It's very good the bass play.
28:54
Speaker 1: By the time we get to Focus too, they've replaced
28:56
Speaker 1: Cyril with Bert Reuter, who is a really strong musician,
29:01
Speaker 1: there's a virtuoso on his own in his own right,
29:05
Speaker 1: and we'll hopefully talk about the fact how he saved
29:08
Speaker 1: Focus a few years later. So you've now got this
29:11
Speaker 1: cohesive four piece with Pierre Vandalinda on drums, who is
29:15
Speaker 1: again again amazing, still amazing now and so you've got
29:21
Speaker 1: this really really cooking sort of improvisational band who can
29:27
Speaker 1: kind of play anything really and you've got Ties playing
29:30
Speaker 1: keyboards and flute. But so they are properly cooking. They
29:37
Speaker 1: can go into into a studio and they can jam,
29:40
Speaker 1: and unfortunately that's what they do. So Focus too has
29:45
Speaker 1: some brilliant stuff, absolutely brilliant. Elzabeth of Nottingham is a
29:50
Speaker 1: lovely piece. Roan Goes the Gossip is kind of kind
29:55
Speaker 1: of classic Focus, and there's there's loads of really good
29:58
Speaker 1: pits of Focus on it. There's a Focus three is
30:04
Speaker 1: a beautiful piece of music. And then they go into
30:07
Speaker 1: a sort of ten minute improvisation called Answers Questions, Questions Answered,
30:12
Speaker 1: which is also good because it's relatively concise. However, they
30:17
Speaker 1: decided to make the album a double and a lot
30:20
Speaker 1: of one side and about I can't remember six or
30:24
Speaker 1: seven minutes. So the next side is made up of
30:26
Speaker 1: this of Anonymous two. So not only so, not only
30:30
Speaker 1: are they revisiting a song that they've already recorded on
30:34
Speaker 1: the first album, but they're throwing in loads of solos.
30:38
Speaker 1: There's a drum solos, a bass solo, and there's some
30:42
Speaker 1: really good playing on it. But it's just a little
30:44
Speaker 1: bit overblown. It doesn't it's the sort of thing you
30:46
Speaker 1: would you might want to hear live. I'm not sure
30:52
Speaker 1: by the way, people will disagree with me. People say
30:55
Speaker 1: Anonymous two is one of the greatest species of rock
30:58
Speaker 1: music ever, but my opinion is overblown. Basically, so it's
31:04
Speaker 1: so I think it would have been a fantastic single album,
31:08
Speaker 1: but they just get a little bit of head ahead
31:10
Speaker 1: of themselves and they make it a double.
31:12
Speaker 2: The song Sylvia is from that album, along with the
31:17
Speaker 2: House of King, A House of the King and hocus Pocus.
31:21
Speaker 2: It's one of the most popular songs, but it's a
31:23
Speaker 2: polar opposite of hocus Pocus. It's it's melodic. I mean,
31:26
Speaker 2: if somebody only knew hocus Pocus, would Sylvia completely change
31:29
Speaker 2: the perception of the band?
31:31
Speaker 1: It would do? I think I think Sylvie is a
31:33
Speaker 1: lot more representative of what Focus really is. I mean,
31:35
Speaker 1: hocus Pocus is amazing, but it's not. You know, you
31:38
Speaker 1: could if you were. You're expecting Focus to sound like
31:42
Speaker 1: that all the time. They don't, particularly as they're not
31:46
Speaker 1: really a hard rock band, and hocus Pocus has got
31:50
Speaker 1: hard rock riffing. It's not metal, but it's kind of
31:52
Speaker 1: hard rock rock riffing, and it's that they they're a
31:56
Speaker 1: much more melodic band than that. So Sylvia is paced
31:59
Speaker 1: around and a lead guitar line, a melodic lead guitar
32:06
Speaker 1: line basically repeated with a little coda, and structurally it's
32:11
Speaker 1: lovely and it's a beautiful tune. And it got the
32:13
Speaker 1: number four I think in the UK.
32:16
Speaker 2: I'm looking at it here if I'm wrong, in the Netherlands.
32:19
Speaker 2: Four in the UK respectable eighty nine in the US.
32:23
Speaker 1: It wasn't a big hit in the USA.
32:25
Speaker 3: Was it still made the heart one hundred and when
32:29
Speaker 3: the bank interestingly, it was so Moving Waves was released
32:34
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy one, had a brief chart placing in
32:39
Speaker 3: the USA, and then sorry in the UK.
32:41
Speaker 1: And then fell away again. When Sylvia is a hit,
32:46
Speaker 1: you then have a situation where Sylvia is in the
32:48
Speaker 1: charts hocus Pocuses in the UK charts. This is at
32:52
Speaker 1: the same time. Pretty much Moving Waves and Focus three
32:56
Speaker 1: are all in the charts at the same time, so
32:57
Speaker 1: they kind of built so moving so they all people
33:02
Speaker 1: latch onto this Focus phenomenon and then they start buying everything,
33:08
Speaker 1: and it means in fact, Moving Waves does a little
33:12
Speaker 1: bit better in the UK charts than Focus three I
33:16
Speaker 1: think probably because if you've got to buy one or
33:19
Speaker 1: the other. You're in a record store in nineteen seventy
33:22
Speaker 1: two and you've got to buy one another, which one
33:24
Speaker 1: do you buy? Oh, I'll buy the one that's a
33:26
Speaker 1: bit cheaper because it's a single album. I think it
33:29
Speaker 1: may just be that son. Then all of a sudden
33:34
Speaker 1: you've got, for a little while you've almost got Focus mania,
33:39
Speaker 1: particularly in the UK and to a certain extent in
33:41
Speaker 1: the USA. Is well, it happened a little bit later
33:42
Speaker 1: in the USA, I think, but they're on Midnight Special
33:46
Speaker 1: in the USA, which has a massive audience at that
33:50
Speaker 1: at that time, they're on the old Gray Whistle Test
33:53
Speaker 1: in the UK a couple of times, which also gives
33:56
Speaker 1: them access to a quite a much bigger audience in
33:59
Speaker 1: the in the UK as well. From that point onwards.
34:02
Speaker 1: Really they're a big band. They're in, they're at they
34:07
Speaker 1: they're in the sort of you know, they're a proper
34:11
Speaker 1: kind of famous rock band along in the same strata
34:16
Speaker 1: as the other progressions, the Yes's and Genesis that that
34:21
Speaker 1: sort of In fact, they were bigger than Genesis were
34:23
Speaker 1: at that time, so but not so in they're in
34:26
Speaker 1: that higher echelon of bands. So it's question of what
34:31
Speaker 1: they do next.
34:32
Speaker 2: Really focus of the Rainbow. That's the next thing, right
34:35
Speaker 2: from seventy three, But that was.
34:37
Speaker 1: A stop gap because they failed to because because at
34:40
Speaker 1: that point also they are exhorted. So I think they
34:44
Speaker 1: make a mistake in that they do go through this
34:46
Speaker 1: period of intense touring and rather than go home to
34:50
Speaker 1: the Netherlands to recuperate for a few weeks, they go
34:52
Speaker 1: straight into the studio. This is the Chipping Norton thing
34:56
Speaker 1: I was referring to earlier, and they they by this
34:59
Speaker 1: time they're not really good living along, they've failed to
35:01
Speaker 1: record the album, and the whole process leads to well,
35:10
Speaker 1: they're still in the same band together, but yeah, Akaman,
35:13
Speaker 1: it's never the same between the two of them. Pierre
35:16
Speaker 1: Vandalind and the drummer leaves immediately after fact, he left
35:19
Speaker 1: almost like a few days after they did they did
35:22
Speaker 1: the Midnight special performance in the USA. So he leaves,
35:28
Speaker 1: and then what do you do? You've got this amazing drummer.
35:33
Speaker 1: They just found another drummer essentially, and then the story
35:37
Speaker 1: continues for a for a while.
35:40
Speaker 2: Were their live performances tighter or more unpredictable compared to
35:45
Speaker 2: studio albums?
35:46
Speaker 1: I think at this point their live performances contained plenty
35:50
Speaker 1: of improv improvisation, but were relatively predictable when we get
35:54
Speaker 1: onto talking about the end. There are some live there
36:00
Speaker 1: are some tapes, some live shows which are available. They're
36:04
Speaker 1: not like collectors things you can you can you can
36:08
Speaker 1: people can buy them. That show a band, a really
36:14
Speaker 1: strange band that's just kind of playing the hits in
36:19
Speaker 1: a cursory way and also basically playing it, playing playing
36:23
Speaker 1: sets of improvisation really so where the band can't really
36:29
Speaker 1: agree on a set and so they just play, I
36:32
Speaker 1: just improvise. Sorry this is leaping forward. But they do
36:34
Speaker 1: a tour of Japan in nineteen seventy five with Pierre
36:39
Speaker 1: van London back in the band. So it's that lineup
36:42
Speaker 1: that recorded Focus three, and what what I've heard of
36:48
Speaker 1: it is it's not an easy listen. You know, there's
36:52
Speaker 1: an attempt at playing hocus Pocus, but it's two minutes long,
36:55
Speaker 1: and then there's just some improvisations that don't kind of gel. Really,
37:00
Speaker 1: it's it must have been a strange experience going to
37:03
Speaker 1: see them. But at this point in nineteen seventy two,
37:06
Speaker 1: they are still cooking. There's Focus at the Rainbow was
37:11
Speaker 1: recorded I think in May nineteen seventy two, and there's
37:16
Speaker 1: on the Focus fifty box set. There is a performance
37:20
Speaker 1: also in the UK from about a few months earlier. It's
37:24
Speaker 1: broad in the same set, but they are on fire
37:27
Speaker 1: in that set. Yes there's improvisation, but they're playing Focuses set,
37:33
Speaker 1: so it's very much it's it's the improvisation is quite
37:37
Speaker 1: well structured.
37:38
Speaker 2: Let's just say, well, you answered my question because I
37:41
Speaker 2: was asked. I was going to ask by seventy three,
37:44
Speaker 2: how is the band functioning creatively under those conditions? But
37:47
Speaker 2: I think you answered it. It's hit or miss.
37:50
Speaker 1: So they have a go at recording this album in
37:52
Speaker 1: seventy three, and then they Pierre Vangelind and leaves. They
37:57
Speaker 1: recruit a British drummer who'd been in a Bangled Stone
38:00
Speaker 1: the Crows called Colin Allen, and he's a much more
38:03
Speaker 1: conventional drummer. He doesn't quite suit he never really suits
38:07
Speaker 1: Jan Ackerman. He's whereas Pierre has this kind of very
38:12
Speaker 1: jazzy style virtuos attract that Colin is a much more
38:16
Speaker 1: conventional He's a fine drummer, but he's a much more
38:18
Speaker 1: conventional rock drummer, which means that when you then listen
38:24
Speaker 1: to Hamburger Concerto, so they do. They do this album,
38:27
Speaker 1: which it's an interesting album in many ways because it
38:33
Speaker 1: is their most symphonic. So this is where they're tapping
38:36
Speaker 1: into the progressive rock world. The influences are starting to
38:41
Speaker 1: feedback into focus again. So it's the album that sounds
38:44
Speaker 1: most like The Yes Is and The Genesis Ties. He's
38:48
Speaker 1: using a much greater palette of keyboard instruments, and it
38:53
Speaker 1: has some really some really really really great moments. Haros
38:56
Speaker 1: s gerrem though it's trying to recapture pocus Pocus, still
39:00
Speaker 1: a fine song. And then there's a beautiful track called
39:03
Speaker 1: the Cathedral to Strasbourg, which is probably one of the
39:07
Speaker 1: finest things that Tys has ever composed, including a bark
39:12
Speaker 1: theme in it. And but they also do this another
39:17
Speaker 1: sidelong piece which is called hamburg Conciotto, which refers back
39:20
Speaker 1: to eating hamburgers a lot I think in Whent touring
39:23
Speaker 1: in the USA.
39:24
Speaker 2: That's some seventy four.
39:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's that's the album that they then do
39:29
Speaker 1: and to me again, to a lot of focus fans,
39:32
Speaker 1: that's their finest moment. I think they're tapping into the
39:34
Speaker 1: symphonic nature of it right.
39:36
Speaker 2: Right, the classical influences there.
39:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's loads of there's there's a lot of that,
39:41
Speaker 1: and they get through the recording of the album, although
39:44
Speaker 1: they again Tyson Yan are never in the same place
39:46
Speaker 1: at the same time. Yan does contribute material to it,
39:50
Speaker 1: but they're never in but they're never actually in the
39:53
Speaker 1: studio at the same time. And I think the title
39:57
Speaker 1: track it plods a little bit, got some really really
40:01
Speaker 1: good themes and it's there's a lot of people that
40:03
Speaker 1: love that album more than I do. I think side one,
40:07
Speaker 1: the shorter songs, is good focus because of their focused
40:14
Speaker 1: to side two, it's just a bit. It's just a bit.
40:17
Speaker 1: I think if if Pierre had been playing on it,
40:20
Speaker 1: it might have been a little bit more very lively
40:23
Speaker 1: as it is. It just kind of it's It's got
40:25
Speaker 1: some really good themes, but I think it takes its time.
40:29
Speaker 1: It could really have been ten minutes shorter. But that's
40:34
Speaker 1: just me. That's just me. For a lot of rock fansy,
40:37
Speaker 1: that's they like that period, and then the golf and
40:40
Speaker 1: tour touring that which is fine. Tyson, Yeah, are different
40:46
Speaker 1: areas of the stage, but you know, and Tyers is
40:48
Speaker 1: playing with a lot with a much greater palette of
40:51
Speaker 1: keyboards rather than you know, he's pretty pretty much an
40:54
Speaker 1: organist up to this point, but he's playing with you know,
40:58
Speaker 1: synthesizers and and a melotron and and things like that,
41:02
Speaker 1: like you know, the Rick Weightmans and Tony Banks's this
41:05
Speaker 1: this will. So they took Hamburg coggetto and then that's
41:09
Speaker 1: which is kind of okay, But then Yan doesn't want
41:13
Speaker 1: to play with Colin Allen anymore. They get another so
41:16
Speaker 1: that they bring in a So we then go to
41:20
Speaker 1: the situation where they have we have three drummers in
41:22
Speaker 1: the same year. I think that would be nineteen seventy five.
41:27
Speaker 1: I think Pierre returns a little bit. They record a
41:30
Speaker 1: little bit more. They want Pierre once once the other
41:33
Speaker 1: drummer taken off the things he's recording, but they won't
41:36
Speaker 1: do that. Pierre leaves again. They're getting They fire Colin An,
41:40
Speaker 1: bringing bringing an American drummer called David Kemper, who's really good,
41:44
Speaker 1: really good, but you know he's kind of there is
41:48
Speaker 1: more of a session guy, really, And then they record
41:52
Speaker 1: the final album with what you might consider to be
41:57
Speaker 1: the classic Focus lineup, which is his Mother Focus, which
42:01
Speaker 1: is recorded. You say that very fast, and you understand
42:04
Speaker 1: why they called it that. Yeah, they record this album
42:08
Speaker 1: called Mother Focus in the USA, and bizarrely, I really
42:13
Speaker 1: like it, but I think I'm the only one.
42:18
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, it's it's not doesn't really It's got some
42:23
Speaker 4: focusy bits, but it's got this kind of American kind
42:26
Speaker 4: of almost easy listening.
42:28
Speaker 1: Sheene on it that that kind of kind of works.
42:32
Speaker 1: It kind of taps into a different part of my brain,
42:35
Speaker 1: I think than than the than the classic Focus that
42:38
Speaker 1: focused up. But I actually really like it. It's just
42:41
Speaker 1: it's just you can hear that Yan's not really committed
42:44
Speaker 1: to it, and his guitar is very it's quite low
42:49
Speaker 1: in the mix, and he's using talk box, you know,
42:51
Speaker 1: like Peter Frampton, he's in the talk box thing a lot.
42:54
Speaker 1: He comes comes obsessed with it with the talk box
42:57
Speaker 1: as well. And for traditional Focus fans, it doesn't work.
43:02
Speaker 2: M that was seventy five.
43:04
Speaker 1: But I like it. I think it's a good album,
43:06
Speaker 1: but it's not a great Focus album, if that makes sense.
43:10
Speaker 1: Some people say, well, what will happen if it was remixed?
43:12
Speaker 1: There are some early mixes available again on the Focus
43:14
Speaker 1: fifty box set, and they don't really add anything. I think,
43:17
Speaker 1: you know, you could, you could really have a remixing
43:20
Speaker 1: it and produce something that's a bit more like classic
43:24
Speaker 1: Focus sound, but no one will ever do that. I'm
43:27
Speaker 1: sure it's I don't think it it made enough of
43:30
Speaker 1: a dent in people's hearts to really for it. Can
43:34
Speaker 1: you make a dentist someone's hearts anyway? Doesn't it? It doesn't.
43:39
Speaker 2: It doesn't it bigger enough?
43:41
Speaker 1: Really, you know, it does okay in Holland, but it's
43:43
Speaker 1: a bit of the whole thing's a bit of a
43:45
Speaker 1: damp squib. Really. I say, I really like it, and
43:48
Speaker 1: it's still out there. You can still buy it still,
43:51
Speaker 1: it's still if you do it if by a Focus
43:53
Speaker 1: Box Set. It'll be as part part of the Focus Box.
43:55
Speaker 2: Set, so one of their fifty years anthology set.
43:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, and you by individual as well if you
44:01
Speaker 1: want to. But so, yeah, it's I like it, but
44:10
Speaker 1: most people think it's not really focus.
44:15
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
44:18
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44:21
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44:23
Speaker 2: you tell a friend, a family member, share on social
44:26
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44:30
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44:32
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44:35
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44:42
Speaker 2: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
44:45
Speaker 2: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
44:48
Speaker 2: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
44:51
Speaker 2: to the show. By seventy nine, they dissolved right that
44:56
Speaker 2: to decline more about musical differences, personality clashes, or maybe
45:00
Speaker 2: a mix of both.
45:02
Speaker 1: There is a little bit of a story there. Mother
45:04
Speaker 1: Focus exists because Bert Reuter, who I was going to
45:08
Speaker 1: come and talk about the bass player. He saves them
45:10
Speaker 1: because what happens is by that time Yan and Tys
45:14
Speaker 1: are starting to develop solo careers. Tys has already had
45:18
Speaker 1: loads of success without a series of albums called Introspection,
45:22
Speaker 1: which were basically classical albums with his flute playing. Yan
45:28
Speaker 1: is looking to develop a solo career as well. They
45:30
Speaker 1: both save all the most of their material for the
45:33
Speaker 1: solo careers, which means someone's has to step in and
45:35
Speaker 1: write some stuff, and that's Burt. So Burt comes in
45:38
Speaker 1: and writes the most of the material. But after that,
45:42
Speaker 1: you know, they don't. There is some touring in seventy five,
45:45
Speaker 1: but they don't play anything from Mother Focus, or very
45:48
Speaker 1: little from from Mother Focus. And then in nineteen there
45:55
Speaker 1: is a further twist the tail because in early seventy
45:59
Speaker 1: six they're meant to go back into rehearsal. There is
46:03
Speaker 1: some material, but there's there is a final major argument
46:10
Speaker 1: between Yan and Tyson. Yan leaves this is early something amazing.
46:15
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It lasted as long as that.
46:17
Speaker 2: I was going to say, yeah, they really they they
46:21
Speaker 2: made that last as long as I think anybody could
46:24
Speaker 2: possibly do under those conditions.
46:26
Speaker 1: It's amazing that that they lasted that long, but pretty
46:30
Speaker 1: considering things hadn't been that great since seventy two really,
46:35
Speaker 1: so so Yan leaves. They but they've got they've got
46:38
Speaker 1: a UK tour booked, so they, which no one wants
46:42
Speaker 1: to cancel, said to find a guitarist really quickly. So
46:45
Speaker 1: they bring this guy called Philip Catherine, his Belgian and
46:48
Speaker 1: he's jazz guitarist, and they cobble together a sit of
46:52
Speaker 1: a set of the hits and some new material. But
46:57
Speaker 1: but Philip Catherine is he's a really good and again
46:59
Speaker 1: he's a maa and he could contribute to one really
47:02
Speaker 1: good tracked. Focus was called Sneezing Bull. But he's not
47:09
Speaker 1: Jan Akerman. He doesn't have the attack of Jan Ackerman.
47:11
Speaker 1: He's very much a sort of a jazz player. So
47:13
Speaker 1: the tour is goes okay. There is a live record
47:16
Speaker 1: of it, which again is a is available and it's okay,
47:20
Speaker 1: but again it's not Focus. And then after that Focus
47:26
Speaker 1: go into a bit of a holding pattern of the
47:29
Speaker 1: gigs get fewer and fewer. They play some festivals, they
47:33
Speaker 1: have some musicians on rotation. They have a drummer who
47:36
Speaker 1: comes in and plays occasionally when they when they need him,
47:40
Speaker 1: so they they bring in another guitarist called if Albers
47:45
Speaker 1: who's Dutch, and he becomes part of the band and
47:49
Speaker 1: eventually they do one final album. This is in nineteen
47:52
Speaker 1: seventy eight, and this is the notorist Focus Comproby. So
47:57
Speaker 1: they who's who I did? Who's idea this was? I
48:01
Speaker 1: do not know? And what they were thinking nobody can
48:05
Speaker 1: quite understand. They decided to bring in a lead singer
48:08
Speaker 1: who is PJ. Proby, who is an American, Well someone
48:14
Speaker 1: say Elvis impersonator, very strong, he's so he comes in
48:20
Speaker 1: and does his best with some songs that don't really
48:23
Speaker 1: suit him. Couple of them are okay. So this becomes
48:28
Speaker 1: Focused com Proby, which is a really strange album. It's
48:31
Speaker 1: got some quite hardcore sort of jazz fusion tracks, some
48:35
Speaker 1: instrumental tracks which are pretty good, and the PJ. Proby
48:38
Speaker 1: tracks are just almost unlistenable. Really through no fault of Probery's.
48:43
Speaker 1: He just does his thing. Apparently he was quite he
48:47
Speaker 1: was drinking a lot of the time, so he had
48:49
Speaker 1: to be had to be watered in the studio. Show say,
48:55
Speaker 1: but it's a very very odd album and I don't
48:57
Speaker 1: know and whoever's idea it was, I can understand that
49:01
Speaker 1: they let's try something different, but it doesn't really work.
49:05
Speaker 1: So they have the American. They have the American drummer
49:07
Speaker 1: Steve Smith playing on it as well. Who was in
49:09
Speaker 1: the journey.
49:10
Speaker 2: I think, oh yeah, Steve Smith, Oh wow, Okay.
49:14
Speaker 1: But he's really he's amazing on its proper proper fusion drumming. Yeah.
49:20
Speaker 1: But and Phinnick Catherine plays on the track, a couple
49:22
Speaker 1: of tracks if albums plays on a few Ties is
49:26
Speaker 1: on it as well. Obviously Burt is on is On
49:28
Speaker 1: plays on it. But it's just doesn't really just doesn't
49:32
Speaker 1: really doesn't really work. And yes, and something like two
49:36
Speaker 1: or three of the PGA proby songs that wow.
49:39
Speaker 2: Here it is, Yes, Steve Smith drums. How I didn't
49:41
Speaker 2: even catch that, Yeah, didn't even chart.
49:45
Speaker 1: I bought it on vinyl at the time because I
49:47
Speaker 1: was still a Focus fan, so I bought Mother Focus
49:52
Speaker 1: and which I liked, and then I bought Focus. So
49:55
Speaker 1: I must have had reasonable distribution, because I must have
49:57
Speaker 1: gone into a record store and bought it, because that's
49:59
Speaker 1: the any way you could buy stuff in nineteen seventy eight.
50:02
Speaker 1: So I must have bought it, and I remember thinking,
50:05
Speaker 1: what is this?
50:08
Speaker 2: Is this before or after Steve smith was in Journey?
50:11
Speaker 1: When was Steve smithing before? It must have been was
50:14
Speaker 1: it before, because it's seventy eight it was released. He
50:18
Speaker 1: was He declined to be it become a He did
50:21
Speaker 1: the album, but he declined to be become a member
50:22
Speaker 1: of the band for completely understandable reasons. They would want
50:26
Speaker 1: who would want to be really because the focus weren't
50:29
Speaker 1: gigging very much anyway, so Pja Proby didn't do any performances,
50:33
Speaker 1: so they were just playing instrumental sets.
50:37
Speaker 2: I'm curious now just to listen to it, to hear
50:39
Speaker 2: him on drums, and just from what you're telling me,
50:42
Speaker 2: you got my curiosity.
50:44
Speaker 1: It's his drumming. If you listen to his drumming, particularly
50:46
Speaker 1: on instrumental pieces. This is a track called Maximum. I
50:50
Speaker 1: forget that he named some of the other instrumental pieces.
50:52
Speaker 1: But he's really good. He's really good. And if he'd
50:55
Speaker 1: have stayed it might they would have been a different
50:57
Speaker 1: They would have been been a different band, I'm sure.
51:00
Speaker 1: And that's kind of it.
51:01
Speaker 2: That's it. But until eighty five self titled on paper
51:05
Speaker 2: Reunion sounds exciting for fans, but it didn't stick for
51:08
Speaker 2: Ackerman and Van Leear. And you write, the album marks
51:10
Speaker 2: the end of any sort of creative collaboration between our
51:13
Speaker 2: two heroes, save for a few live performances of the hits.
51:17
Speaker 2: What went wrong, same problems as before.
51:21
Speaker 1: It was a bad idea. It was one of those things.
51:22
Speaker 1: It was a management thing, some somebody's management. I forget
51:25
Speaker 1: who said should we get these two guys together, because
51:28
Speaker 1: you know, so they've both been doing their own thing
51:31
Speaker 1: in the in the early eighties obviously, you know, the
51:33
Speaker 1: early ages was not a good time for prog musicians
51:36
Speaker 1: generally speaking, So they had both Tye has been in
51:40
Speaker 1: a had formed a different band. Yean was doing solo
51:43
Speaker 1: stuff very successfully towards the end of the seventies, but
51:48
Speaker 1: less successfully in the early eighties. So someone said West
51:52
Speaker 1: bringing back together again, let's recreate the old Focus sound.
51:55
Speaker 1: But it just didn't. I mean, the album was not great.
51:58
Speaker 1: It's there's good uf on there, but it's kind of
52:02
Speaker 1: buried in some very eighties stylizations, a lot of Linn drums,
52:08
Speaker 1: and some of the playing is very good, but again
52:10
Speaker 1: it's very much of its time, and you have to
52:16
Speaker 1: fight through a lot of quite dull music to get
52:19
Speaker 1: to the really good bits. And it took a long
52:21
Speaker 1: time to pull together as well. It really did take
52:23
Speaker 1: a long time.
52:24
Speaker 2: To go for the same reasons as before, right, they just.
52:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, well again, they were never in the same studio together.
52:30
Speaker 1: They were just you know, they I don't think anyway.
52:34
Speaker 1: They're just recording their parts separately. And I say some
52:37
Speaker 1: of it works and most of it doesn't. Really, Again,
52:42
Speaker 1: it must have had reasonal dispution because I went out
52:44
Speaker 1: and bought it when it came out in the UK
52:48
Speaker 1: mad fool than I am, and I've got it on
52:50
Speaker 1: CD since as well, so I say it has some
52:53
Speaker 1: it there's very little that makes you think, oh this
52:57
Speaker 1: is as good as Focused too, oh this is as
53:00
Speaker 1: good as Sylvia. It's just a little lacklustered, lackluster. So
53:05
Speaker 1: the only thing they do together after that, really is
53:09
Speaker 1: there's a few in the early nineties they're invited to
53:14
Speaker 1: do a couple of, you know, festival appearances where they
53:16
Speaker 1: just do twenty minutes of Sylvia and hocus Pocus and stuff,
53:20
Speaker 1: and that's fine, but that's it. Really, They've not I
53:26
Speaker 1: read an interview with Yan where he sort of said.
53:29
Speaker 1: People always ask them, what do you ever get back
53:31
Speaker 1: together again? And Yan always says no, no, don't mention
53:35
Speaker 1: the war. He says, ha ha ha ha ha. There's
53:39
Speaker 1: too much bad blood, too much water under the bridge now. Really,
53:42
Speaker 1: so it's it's they'll never play together. Meanwhile, tys, I
53:46
Speaker 1: mean they're all they're both in their late seventies. Tye
53:51
Speaker 1: still tours with Focus, his version of Focus, which has
53:56
Speaker 1: Pierre playing drums. Pierre is a monster. He's eighty years old,
54:01
Speaker 1: seventy nine or eighty, and he he can still play
54:07
Speaker 1: like an absolute deemon. It's amazing to see. Actually is
54:11
Speaker 1: a little bit unsteady on his feet now. But again,
54:14
Speaker 1: the musicianship hasn't has never waned. He said, they told,
54:18
Speaker 1: you know, they toll the UK. They tell the UK
54:20
Speaker 1: and Europe that. I don't think. They haven't played in
54:23
Speaker 1: the USA very much, the odd festival appearance, I think,
54:26
Speaker 1: but they still tour the UK. They're touring the UK
54:29
Speaker 1: either now or very soon. And I've seen them recent
54:35
Speaker 1: relatively recently, and you know, you get with them different guitarists,
54:41
Speaker 1: who's really good, very chaseful guitarists. They're still still releasing
54:46
Speaker 1: albums as Focus, but it's not. You know, you have
54:52
Speaker 1: to draw a line, almost draw a line at the
54:54
Speaker 1: end of really you draw a line. There's plenty of
54:57
Speaker 1: lines you can draw. You can draw a line in
54:59
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six and yeah, yeah left you can probably
55:02
Speaker 1: draw a line in nineteen seventy nine when they split up.
55:07
Speaker 1: You can draw I've extended dotted line to nineteen eighty
55:12
Speaker 1: five when this is half hearted attempt at a reconciliation.
55:16
Speaker 1: But that's it, really, So you either draw a lot.
55:18
Speaker 1: So that's where I've drawn the line. But you know,
55:21
Speaker 1: there's you could very very easily do. So. Focus didn't
55:27
Speaker 1: exist from effectively from apart from the odd festival thing,
55:33
Speaker 1: didn't exist from nineteen seventy nine until two thousand and
55:36
Speaker 1: two when the Verse the Ties version started touring again
55:44
Speaker 1: and they've released forgotten how many albums several albums since
55:50
Speaker 1: that are of a good standard as well, but they're
55:52
Speaker 1: not Focus. They're not the Focus we once knew.
55:55
Speaker 2: I've got them all, yeah, right up through twenty twenty
55:58
Speaker 2: four's Focus twelve.
56:00
Speaker 1: Focus twelve, Well there you go. Twelve albums, and to
56:04
Speaker 1: be fair to the band, I think when they reformed
56:08
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. In two thousand and two, there wasn't
56:11
Speaker 1: the weren't quite sure what the interest was. But now
56:17
Speaker 1: they've built up us into and I remember seeing them
56:19
Speaker 1: in a small club, playing in front of one hundred
56:21
Speaker 1: people a couple of times actually around about that time.
56:25
Speaker 1: And now they can play a tour, playing small theaters,
56:31
Speaker 1: big club, small theaters, and they set out, so they've
56:34
Speaker 1: re established themselves. It's quite The set is quite packed
56:39
Speaker 1: with the old stuff, as you expect. There's still quite
56:42
Speaker 1: a bit of improvisation and there's a lot of drum solos.
56:46
Speaker 2: Why do you think it is that they were able
56:48
Speaker 2: to get that audience back just constant touring, getting out there, and.
56:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so, I think so. I think they
56:53
Speaker 1: just said we're still here, We're still tour. I've just
56:57
Speaker 1: retired from running the festival Zena for I reside from
57:02
Speaker 1: it last year. But they played my festival in twenty
57:05
Speaker 1: twelve and they were great. They were great. That there's
57:09
Speaker 1: still a very high level of musicianship. So, and I
57:13
Speaker 1: think that's happened to a lot of bands. You get
57:14
Speaker 1: yourself back onto the circuit again and there's a gradual
57:18
Speaker 1: increase in interest. If you just don't go away, then
57:26
Speaker 1: I think sometimes you can kind of re establish interest.
57:30
Speaker 1: Same thing kind of happened to Yes, you know again
57:32
Speaker 1: they went through a period where they you know, either
57:35
Speaker 1: didn't exist and when they came back it was a
57:37
Speaker 1: kind of tentative thing and then gradually you're you build
57:40
Speaker 1: up your live audience again. So everyone would love to
57:44
Speaker 1: see Yan play come back. He's still playing and touring
57:49
Speaker 1: as well, doing his own thing. In fact, he's been
57:52
Speaker 1: doing a focus thing recently, okay quite perhaps for commercial
57:56
Speaker 1: He's been doing a thing which caused more which he
57:57
Speaker 1: calls my Focus, where he plays focus songs. He's always
58:01
Speaker 1: played a few in the live set, but he's normally
58:03
Speaker 1: done more of his sort of jazz stuff.
58:08
Speaker 2: The Bookdown Rock podcast is part of the Boneless Podcasting Network.
58:12
Speaker 2: If you're a fan of classic rock and classic film
58:14
Speaker 2: like I am, go to Boneless dot Lovable dot app
58:17
Speaker 2: to find over twenty great shows there that's Boneless Downlovable
58:21
Speaker 2: dot app, or just go to bookdown Rock dot com.
58:24
Speaker 2: The Boneless podcasting network. It is what you want to
58:27
Speaker 2: be Listen with Confidence. Focus nineteen sixty nine and nineteen
58:33
Speaker 2: eighty five out now, it's.
58:35
Speaker 1: Out in the UK. It's when I last checked it
58:38
Speaker 1: was still in a boat. So it'll be out in
58:40
Speaker 1: the USA within hopefully within four weeks. Okay, so it's
58:46
Speaker 1: it's very soon. It's as I say, it's out. It's
58:49
Speaker 1: been out in the UK for a couple of months.
58:50
Speaker 2: Great. And that's burnings Shed dot com is where you
58:52
Speaker 2: can get a copy.
58:53
Speaker 1: The best place to get it that most benefits well,
58:57
Speaker 1: I was going to say the author, but that's me, isn't.
58:59
Speaker 2: It to you?
59:01
Speaker 1: Most benefits of the company and the authors? To buy
59:04
Speaker 1: it from from our shop at Burning Shed, but Amazon,
59:07
Speaker 1: you know, wherever you buy your books, you can you
59:09
Speaker 1: can buy.
59:09
Speaker 2: It from and people can find you online where Stephen.
59:12
Speaker 3: Sonning One Publishing dot com, Sonic Bond Publishing dot com.
59:16
Speaker 2: Stephen Lamb, thank you so much. We've been on a
59:18
Speaker 2: roll with the Sonic Bond books. We had Richard James
59:22
Speaker 2: on recently for the Rush book. We've got Chris Sutton
59:25
Speaker 2: coming on soon for his Black Sabbath with Ronnie James
59:28
Speaker 2: deal book, which I'm looking forward to.
59:30
Speaker 1: We've got some stuff coming up that you're gonna like.
59:33
Speaker 1: We've got book on Springsteen.
59:34
Speaker 2: I saw that I saw that and I'm a huge
59:37
Speaker 2: Springsteen fan.
59:38
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I thought you were. Yeah. So we've got
59:43
Speaker 1: some stuff will interest you. I think coming out great. Thanks.
59:47
Speaker 1: Thank you my book, the for the company generally.
59:49
Speaker 2: Thank you, Stephen, thank you so much, and we hope
59:51
Speaker 2: to talk to you again down the road.
59:52
Speaker 1: Thanks Eric, so yah it it's in the books.