They just don’t make them like this anymore

By Henry Lipput

In May of 1967 Syd Barrett, Marianne Faithful, and George Martin booked time in Trident Studios in London. Throughout the summer, recording under the name The 3 Clubmen to avoid prying eyes and ears, the trio created four complete tracks in between their regular sessions with other artists. Released a few months after the juggernaut of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the four-song EP sunk without a trace.

Obviously, none of this ever happened but The 3 Clubmen is a real thing. Today it’s not Barrett, Faithful, and Martin but another musical powerhouse trio in Andy Partridge, Jen Olive, and Stu Rowe. Their self-titled EP (Burning Shed) is the kind of musically inventive and downright fun collection of songs that you just don’t hear much anymore; it’s the kind of thing the trio I made up in the opening paragraph of this review might have put together.

This current day trio made their first appearance when the first single from the EP, “Aviatrix,” was announced back in the Spring (a few weeks ago a glorious pop-art style video was released). In my review of the song I called it “mind-bending” and this also applies to the paint-splattering way all of these songs have been put together; there’s nothing in these songs that’s expected. 

Both Partridge and Olive provide alternating vocals on “Aviatrix” as well as on the lovely, very Partridge “Green Green Grasshopper.” Like a finger-picked folk song for children it’s the tale of a request for a grasshopper to take a journey to deliver a message of love. But there are dangers along the way: “take care you’re not breakfast for a bird in the sky” but more importantly when the destination is reached (there may have been a breakup or a misunderstanding between the lovers) “make note if there’s a Spring-time thunder look in her eye.” This grasshopper saga seems made for a children’s book or an animated short.

Olive sings lead on both “Racecar” and “Look at Those Stars” and both are about the ways someone handles down turns in their lives.

“I am blue/What should I do?” asks Olive in “Racecar.” The answer, at least for now, is to engage with a bit of conspicuous consumption: “You need to buy yourself a racecar baby.” The song has a metronome-like interplay of guitar and drums along with occasional spooky piano fills.

“Look at Those Stars” is the most accessible, out-and-out pop song on the EP (which is why it’s probably my favorite). It also provides a natural – as in nature – answer to the blues. “I’ve got the kind of blues/Don’t ever go away,” sings Olive, “I’ve got the kind of dues/I always got to pay.” The solution is to look skyward and there’s a joyful lyrical outburst reinforced by the sound of steel drums: “But hey!/Would you look at those stars/Nothing more beautiful!”