Description
Hit Me With Your Gibbon Stick… is a compilation album by the British alternative rock combo Eh! Geoff Mann Band, independently released in 2010. This compilation is taken from recordings made over several years at Eh! Geoff Mann Band rehearsals. A recorder was usually set up, and these recordings have circulated amoungst band and crew for several years, eventually being deemed of interest to the fans. A mix of songs from the two studio albums, sometimes in different arrangements, some live favourites, a couple of covers (Beatles and Twelfth Night) and six previously unheard new songs and works in progress.
Geoff Man led an interesting life to be sure, balancing his time as a progressive rock musician with his duty as vicar at St Luke’s, Deeplish, Rochdale. By the time of his tragic death in 1993, Geoff had amassed an impressive back catalogue, both from his time spent as vocalist for prog rock band Twelfth Night, to his own idiosyncratic albums both as a solo and with his band. This release is a retrospective collection of demos released with his last outfit, Eh! Geoff Mann Band. Those who have not heard Geoff and cohorts adventurous musical explorations before will be surprised to discover just how good they actually were. All of the musicians are accomplished and while the “production” is raw to the point of non-existence, its audio defects don’t detract that much from the music. My only criticism might be regarding Geoff’s heavy reliance on his “wobbly” guitar effect, which makes quite a few tracks sound a little like Pink Floyd’s «Run Like Hell», but as this was a much loved Mann trademark I’ll let that go. Not only was Geoff an excellent songwriter he was also a gifted band arranger as Eh! Geoff Mann Band’s arrangement of the Beatles evergreen «Eleanor Rigby» demonstrates that. Although this delve into the archives will, first and foremost, be snapped up by Geoff Mann/Twelfth Night completists there is music here which, despite the passing of time, would be enjoyed by any aficionado of the progressive end of rock music. [Gareth Hills, Cross Rhythms, June 2011]
By 1989 Geoff was curate in a church in Bolton, but with permission to maintain his music. Both The Bond and Alphabet had ended, and we found that we were again both available, music-wise. So, again with Gary, and this time with a different guitar player, John, from his church, The Earthlings re-convened, but now known as A Geoff Mann Band. The musical “clicking” of this line-up was, if anything, even more pronounced, and the first full day’s rehearsal produced “Obsessed” and “More To This”, both of which ended up on the first album.
Rehearsals were usually in the lounge at my church, a room with a nice acoustic, next to a kitchen with kettle, and with a nearby chip shop. Ideal really. First the kettle would go on, then we’d set up. Quite often a jam would start from one of us playing a few chords or notes, or a drum pattern from Gary and the others improvising over it. Sometimes these would fizzle out, sometimes a song idea would emerge, with Geoff providing flow-of-consciousness lyrics. We learned to have a tape machine ready as part of the set-up so that a good idea could be recorded for future use and development.
The contents of the CD compilation ‘Hit Me With Your Gibbon Stick’ (available from www.geoffmann.co.uk) are taken from those rehearsal tapes at Brunswick Church. John always said he liked the feel of those early versions of the songs as we bashed them out in one go, arranged in a circle and just enjoying playing. We tried to re-create that set up on our second album, ‘Ministry Of The Interior’, with three of us in a semi-circle facing the window looking into the drum room, amplifiers in other rooms (bass in the toilet!) for separation and sound fed back to speakers – not headphones – in the room we were in. This was how the basic tracks were recorded with vocals and keyboards and any other extra bits overdubbed.
‘Gibbon Stick’ is a mix of songs from our two albums, sometimes in different arrangements, plus others from the live set such as “Rest Assured”, Twelfth Night’s “Fact And Fiction” and Geoff’s superb version of “Eleanor Rigby”. There are also a number of songs in various stages of completion that could have been on our third album. One of them “On The Edge”, recorded at the time with Geoff’s semi-improvised lyrics, was subsequently finished, and a piece of paper containing the completed lyrics re-surfaced unfortunately just after the insert was printe. [Excerpt from the article “Geoff Mann: Remembering the life and times of a rock music original” by friend and band member Paul Keeble, published in Cross Rhythms, 10th February 2013]
CD tracklist:
01. Eleanor Rigby – 4:02
02. Rest Assured – 5:06
03. What in the World – 3:28
04. Signs of War – 6:09
05. Obsessed – 4:13
06. His Love – 6:04
07. Dayspring – 6:51
08. Bashan Beef – 4:30
09. Fact and Fiction – 4:08
10. What’s in a Name – 3:31
11. She Runs – 4:26
12. Catch Me – 3:44
13. Need Listening To – 5:36
14. On The Edge – 5:11
15. Untitled 1 – 4:47
16. Untitled 2 – 6:50
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