Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets

The Plastic Eno Band for example

...I think Brian used that name in his early breakaway from Roxy days.

 

Nice description, I agree it has a real charm which is easy to forget with such a bizarre and wild album.

I'm not sure it was ever really overlooked though. It might not make those tiresome music critic lists of the greatest albums ever made, whereas I guess Another Green World sometimes or often does. But even as a schoolkid in 1984-5 before the internet etc when I first properly started listening to Eno, I was aware that Warm Jets and Tiger Mountain were very influential and highly regarded even though as a kid it made no difference to me one way or the other. Early post-Roxy Eno was namechecked in the booklet inside Adam and the Ants huge Kings of the Wild Frontier album in 1980, Bauhaus had released a high profile cover of Third Uncle on the flip of their Ziggy Stardust hit single in 1982 which was also on the same year's No 4 album The Sky's Gone Out, and three quarters of Bauhaus would namecheck Warm Jets in the title track of their debut album as Love and Rockets in 1985, a song about their pre Bauhaus teenage years, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven:

"a quicksilver stud and the Warm Jets, made your leopard skin dream complete..".

I'm pretty sure if memory serves Jets/Mountain era Eno was also often talked about in 1970s-80s interviews by eg Siouxsie, Julian Cope, Sparks, Pere Ubu and others..

 

Also 90s band Warm Jets took their name from the album. Their only album Future Signs isn't bad.

 

I've heard of them now you mention it but never heard them as far as I know. Also Factory Records Joy Division contemporaries A Certain Ratio named themselves in 1977 after a Tiger Mountain lyric despite the band sounding nothing like early Eno whatsoever. His fans and influence were seemingly very wide!

 

I love the title track but when he gives himself actual lyrics to sing, it doesn’t work for me. He seems to be trying too hard to ape Bryan Ferry’s style but lacks the vocal chops.

 

When I was a kid the title track was my least favourite, but I grew to absolutely love it. I think it was when I got my first decent pair of headphones in the late 80s. The mysteriously buried voice that seems to be fighting its way through, the off-kilter drums and bizarre, never quite on the beat, rhythm. Really powerful and emotional, moving really.

When I hear that track nowadays, if you forget the past and ignore the future, it has a feeling of farewell, an elegy about it. Here's my first album, but goodbye!

It wasn't goodbye, thank goodness.

 

It is an absolutely amazing album.

 

This may sound odd but whenever Brian gives interviews, he can come across as overly focused on demonstrating his intelligence (1). I find a similar air of pretension clings to some of tracks on this album but the title track, with its unintelligible lyric, feels like the truest representation of who he is. I’d go for a pint with the Brian who gave us that but if the chap who sung The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch invited me to a darts match, I’d be washing my feather boa.

(1) Though his brother Roger is much worse

 

Summed up perfectly. My friend bought Warm Jets when it was released and after listening to it picked one up myself immediately (back when local department stores stocked all types of albums). Still my favorite of his.

 

I wish a better sounding version of the Eno & The Winkies live set from Derby in '74 would turn up. I think somebody mentioned there being one rumoured to exist. You can hear that something interesting is going on onstage as in the blend of avant garde and more basic r'n'r ideas. JUst the main circulating version is pretty distant sounding.

But anyway the vocal rock things that Eno was doing at the time all seem pretty interesting, as do the contrasting ambient instrumental experiments.
Him with Robert Fripp is pretty great too. When I was first hearing that Evening Star stuff I heard it as a part component of Sonic Youth who were just emerging at the time. Think It was mainly something i was hearing throughout Bad Moon Rising melded with other things like the Stooges etc so this would be about 84 or 85 when I was first listening to Evening Star heavily. Do love Index Of Metals.

 

Since the original title is pretty scatological would be interested to hear what the crowd member response to the name was.

 

I second that. Live Eno / Winkies in listenable quality would be like manna from heaven to me. The BBC session they did is tremendous, really so good, and you’re right, the Derby recording sounds like it was cracking gig but the sonic quality is sadly appalling.

 

The landscape looks like Joshua Tree in California.

 

I've only got the 2004 remaster but it sounds excellent.

 

I've always been curious about this tribute version of Taking Tiger Mountain. Has anyone heard it?
Doug Hilsinger With Caroleen Beatty - Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy

 

What are the half speed masters like ??? I’ve been offered then for £10 each which is a bargain in theory but would I end up with a load of badly mastered wax ?

 

Streaming the album now. It's pure gold.

 

I do. It's quite good. Eno gives his approval in the liner. Worth seeking out.

 

I have two first UKs, the recent vinyl reissue and the Heyworth CD. They all sound good, but the first UK is the best. Don't expect miracles though, it's a heavily overdubbed and futzed with recording.

Based on somewhat recent interviews Eno doesn't seem to like this record too much, nor the second either. Most musicians are embarrassed/conflicted about their early work, but think Eno especially feels somewhat embarrassed by the first two. The sometimes "goofy" vocals and occasionally daft "comedy" I'm guessing are some of what bothers him. "O headless chicken"... and such. Lots of musicians at the time were watching Monty Python during studio down time. I sometimes think the Goons or Monty Python don't get the credit they deserve for the quite apparent influence on the UK pop music aesthetic. It however didn't stop him from making some money by recently reissuing them. If only Ralph and Florian were more willing.

I like the first four albums very much. The first two obviously being more of a pair. That was when Eno was truly adding more "atoms" to his music. Dead Finks, Faraway Beach, Some of Them are Old, Cindy Tells Me are favourites on the first. Scintillating guitar tones abound on his first two records.

 

No, the EG cd...

Interesting. Did Eno oversee the re-release?

 

I doubt it. They just did a DSD transfer. But no idea what happened when they mastered that transfer for CD.

 

Best solo of Robert Fripp's life. Maybe of anybody's life, for that matter.

 

Is there no end to the man's talents...

 

hmmmm
I'll have to go back and check those waveforms again....it's been a number of years LOL

I thought it was a straight transfer on those 2004 digi-pacs