Curved Air - The Lost Broadcasts

As a long time aficionado of the Progrock band, Curved Air, I am mightily relieved to report that my eye-teeth are all but safe.  No longer are they under threat of exchange for a sample of dodgy live concert footage from their peak period between 1970 and 1972 as freshly arrived from a well known on-line retailer is a new DVD; ‘Curved Air – The Lost Broadcasts’.

As far as I am aware, this is one of only two videos in existence which captures them during their golden period even if it is not real concert footage and it has its own idiosyncrasies.  The good news is that the two sessions on this disk, recorded in March and September 1971 for the German TV programme, Beat Club, comprise a total of five songs from ‘Air Conditioning’ and ‘Second Album’ including ‘Back Street Luv’ and the epic ‘Piece of Mind’.  The bad news is that for the second broadcast, session drummer Barry deSouza fills in for regular drummer, Florian Pilkington-Miksa and the obsession with weird TV effects (1971-stylee) with blue screen backdrops and the like, is mildly irritating.  However, the only other video from this period, from a 1972 Belgian TV programme, suffers even more from irritating effects and cutaways, so mustn’t grumble.

So in the scheme of things, this is gold dust.  Looking distressingly young – they were all about 22 at the time – the band demonstrates just what a talented lot they were.  The two aspects that drew me to them in the first place are still mesmerisingly magnetic.  First, the combination of Darryl Way’s electric violin and Francis Monkman’s (at the time) groundbreaking use of the early VCS3 synthesiser still has an oddness about it that time has not diminished.

Second is the female vocals of Sonja Kristina Linwood, an asset that most rock bands of the day did not possess and which added a third unexpected layer to the overall sound.  In fact, her performance is even better than I remember from numerous 70s concerts, especially on the atonally difficult melody of ‘Piece of Mind’ where her confidence is awesome.

Of course, the hairstyles and clothes are laughable (whatever happened to velvet loons?) but the musicianship is first rate as one would expect from a band of this vintage.  It would only be a few years before this type of competency would be derided by the first wave of punk.  Nevertheless, with only five songs on offer, it’s a shame that they chose to include Way’s elongated party piece, ‘Vivaldi’, a mass of electronic effects and cleverness, which only just works on stage but falls a bit flat on screen.  But we do have ‘Back Street Luv’ and mercifully in it’s original form with Sonja’s cool haunted vocal rather than the histrionics we got a few years later.  And we do get a slightly-truncated-from-12-minutes version of their masterpiece, ‘Piece of Mind’ complete with spoken verses from TS Eliot’s ‘Wasteland’.  Magical.

Admittedly, this is probably no more than a curiosity to most viewers, a rather dated snapshot of another time and place, but to fans, this is indispensable.

Back Street Luv

I’ll let you into a little secret if you promise not to tell. In the very early 1970s, when I was about 15 or thereabouts, I was terribly in love with Sonja Kristina, vocalist with progrock band, Curved Air (voice from the back: ‘Yeah! You and 10,000 others!’).

In those days, rock bands were a male preserve and they generally didn’t have female singers. Exceptions I can think of were Jenny Haan (Babe Ruth), Maggie Bell (Stone the Crows) and Annie Haslam (Renaissance)…plus Elkie Brooks (Vinegar Joe)…Oh! And Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane)…OK, so there were a few! But not that many. The female led band didn’t really get going until the late 1970s when the configuration mushroomed immeasurably. But for a few years it was a bit of a novelty and in this environment Sonja ruled.

But there was more – Curved Air was a highly innovative band, which included 2 Royal College of Music inmates who used electric violin and synthesizers to augment the classic guitar based set up in general use. In these circumstances Sonja was really ‘one of the boys’ and early videos of the band confirm this feeling as she demurs to the band members for much of the time as their instrumental prowess overshadowed and at times sidelined her vocal talents.

It was only later; when the original line-up had disintegrated that she took control of the franchise, dressed herself up in evermore outlandish costumes and became a star in her own right, but by then the configuration of female led male band was in the ascendancy. Nevertheless, by the mid 1970s, audiences were calling for her the moment the band set foot on stage. Just to tease them, the band would often start with an instrumental piece whilst Sonja remained off stage! Presumably she was still struggling into those costumes.

In truth, the later reincarnations of the band were not much cop and musically, Curved Air’s finest moments are contained on their first three albums with the original line-up (Air Conditioning, Second Album and Phantasmagoria) plus ‘Air Cut’ with a revised line-up. These remain the ones worth investigating, but you never forget first love, do you? (For more about the effect of Curved Air on my life see 'Memoirs of a Music Obsessive')