Man In The Bowler Hat

If you are looking for great melodic pop then look no further. Man in a Bowler Hat is simply the best successor to Abbey Road that you will ever find. It's not that Stackridge sound exactly like the Beatles, it's that they embody the same creative and melodic spirit like no other band. It helps that this album was produced by George Martin but the similarities were there all along. Yes Stackridge take diversions and yes they are sometimes a comedy/novelty act but Bowler Hat is a consistently good pop album from the first note to the last.My rating is for the music content on this CD but I do have some critical comments about the Angel Air reissue:ARTWORK: Awful! The only black mark I can find on the whole Stackridge remaster program is that the artwork is hideous. I mean BAD! The colors on the covers are not accurate and the images are very fuzzy. Some of the liner note photos are pixilated and hardly worth using. I can't say enough bad things about the artwork. Truly some of the worst reissue artwork I have in my collection - especially give the high quality of the original LP art.PACKAGING: Fair. With bad artwork its hard for the packaging to be good. The problem is that the packaging looks like a homemade job at best and just isn't consistent with the amazing cover art the band had going for it. The photos in the booklets are minimal and the memorabilia looks like it was photographed by kids. The liner notes are okay but just not detailed enough to be worth the time to read them.BONUS TRACKS: None. Note that the Amazon listing is wrong as of the writing of this review. This CD is the orginal album only (10 tracks). For the bonus tracks you need to buy Friendliness.SOUND: Unforunately the Edsel is still the way to go for the original sound of the album. This one uses modern mastering which some will like and audiophiles will hate.Fortunately it's the music that prevails here. For the high prices of the CDs and for a band that had interesting LP covers I wish Angel Air had invested just a little more in the art and packaging. Perhaps that's looking a gift horse in the mouth?

Another "hooked me" by Amazon. I bought one CD by the group (Anyone For Tennis)and really ejoyed it, so I istended to the preview and bought another by the same group. They have a new album out - you can actch one song from it performed live on You Tube - Stackridge appeared on Craig Fergusen (after Letterman) a few months ago.Amazon shipping great, on time, nice boxes.

A great unknown treasure from the 60’s and 70's, just pick this wonderful melodic but very different record (cd) and sit back and enjoy something quite different but at the same soul lifting as you become at bliss with play being put on not for you but for all.

Great album. Thank you very much...

Great (yet obscure) album from a wonderful band who have been playing together since the 60s.

Stackridge, were a collection of like-minded English West country eccentrics comprising a former timber yard labourer, a bookshop assistant, a cleaner in a birdseed factory, a bricklayer, a bus conductor and a professional inventor, whose musical influences encompass everything from "Mozart To Road Drills" had built up a very solid dedicated live following and released two album's, the second of which "Friendliness", had delighted the critic's and hard core fans, but had continued to bemuse the listening public at large, leaving the bands quest for world musical dominance rather hanging out in the wind.But in mid - 1973 the band's record label MCA Record, ensconced them in London's Air Studios, with ex-Beatles producer George Martin (Stackridge were the first band that Martin worked with after "The Beatles" whose influence can be heard here on all the songs on this fine album "Man In The Bowler Hat").On the stage Stackridge split into two definite factions, the serious minded of the band, shall we say the working musicians. Warren, Walter & Sparkle. Whilst the other three, lets just call the Nutters down the front. Stage shows included, lots of ludicrously easy repetitive dance steps ("Do The Stanley"), the bashing together of giant dustbin lids ("Let There Be Lids"), general chaos and mayhem, Mass audience participation, both singing, clapping, stomping, with some looney like Sandilands down the front leaping about with a giant leek. Great fun, no wonder they were probably the most popular band on the college circuit in the early seventies.But "The Man In The Bowler Hat" was definitely make or break time, in the studio the two factions of the live show, would join forces and each member made an equal contribution and with Martin as producer, the band was definitely concentrating on making their "Magnum Opus". Working on the melodic and rhythmic patterns and in particular the harmonies, the resultant album which was released in February 1974 whilst full of recognizable Stackridge trademarks, (strong beat, massive use of instrument not normally associated with Rock `n' Roll, and plenty of extravagant titles) had strong echoes of the Fab Four and marked the artistic and creative peak of the band on record including "The Galloping Gaucho" and the ambitious "God Speed The Plough".Unfortunately after this it all went dramatically pear-shaped, with Mutter Slater being the first to leave hating the idea of trying to create this album on stage amid the chaos of their live show, within six months only Andy Davis was left from this line up. Today their music still exudes and evokes warmth, joy, happiness, and a welter of memories, real and imagined, and there in lines their lasting success, the ability to stand out from the crowd and create clever songs, with witty lyrics and highly original arrangements.Goodbye Stackridge, it was a blast. And all together now "C'mon and Stanley Lets all do the Stanley now".Mott the Dog.

Be-bop deluxe meets XTC meets City boy, would be the best way to describe this album. This Stackridge release pre-dates the notable offerings from the more successful bands I've listed above.What can I say about "the man in the bowler hat '' to do it justice. This is one of those "every home should have one essential" releases.The opener 'Fundamentally yours' blows me away from the keyboard opening to the rocky drumming and superb deep bass lines and a fine tune with just the right vocals to match the quirky lyrics.Highlights abound on this album, but I'll give special mention to 'the road to Venezuela ' and ' The last plimsoll. ' The latter would be one of my 8 choices for 'desert island discs.'After I bought this, I read that, several longstanding fans ( which counts me out) , say this is the best album the band did. They had a number of line up changes after this, their most successful release. This is 5 star stuff, and like 'Stu Nunnery's little known of eponymous album (also 1973), Stackridge MITBH album is , for me at least, a lucky and recent find.

If you are tired of Stackridge - you are tired of life - to steal a lyric from an esteemed writer.Under the tight direction of a master at the recording desk, created whilst across the ocean Nixon is being impeached and at home the nation struggles under political uncertainty and power-cuts - a cult band from the Avon Cities created a timeless bunch of songs with all the panache of music hall vaudevillians - who 4 years earlier had opened the first ever Music Festival at Worthy Farm near Glastonbury.See this band LIVE before the nurse smiles serenly at you lying in the bed by the door in the Clement Atlee ward.Failing that - buy this album and close your eyes you will experience a range of musical styles - Stackridge combine the oral tradition of telling stories with tunes that will hook your imagination and put a spring in your step.

Stackridge were the cause of many a smile to pass my lips in the '70's. Of the five vinyl albums I had left, three were Stackridge and I am more than a bit pleased to have finally received the CD versions, plus some added bonus tracks."The Galloping Gaucho" is a forerunner of Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" but, for my money, more enjoyable and a good laugh. "For a six-foot drip with a plastic whip, he could not be compared" is just one line from this song that creases me up, still, 20+ years on. "Humiliation" (with piano from George Martin, I believe) is dam' fine."The Road To Venuzeula", "God Speed The Plough" and "Dangerous Bacon" (not "Beacon" as listed) explore different areas of their music, showing Stackridge to be a fine bunch of musicians.Incidentally, listen to some of Blur's "Park Life" era stuff and you'll find the influence of Stackridge too.With the addition of "Let There Be Lids" and "Do The Stanley", this is a marvellously enjoyable album for 40-somethings with a yen for the sounds of their youth.

I still have the original vinyl copy of this album, but was tempted to buy the CD by the good reviews.This, perhaps, with "Friendliness", is the best example from Stackridge's catalogue, with production by the legendary George Martin.It shows!This remastered CD is superb!

don't think george martin did a good job on production- some tracks too beatly and first track sounds like a gilbert o'sullivan tribute (god save us) but enough tracks retain the stackridge brilliance to make it worth listening to.Overall a very good