Musician Barry Lamb, a former South Shields resident – he still calls it his ‘spiritual home’, featured in an earlier blog
In March he released his latest work Miniatures 2020 and his confidant Thomas Thumb got in touch.
“Think of Mott The Hoople and you immediately think of the Bowie written All the Young Dudes. From the moment you hear that iconic guitar intro you know you’re in for an immortal anthemic treat.
Not so instantly thought of might be the band’s keyboard player from 1973-76, Morgan Fisher.
In 1980 he came up with the unique idea of Miniatures; A sequence of 51 tiny masterpieces and produced the 51 one minute tracks from invited guests such as The Damned, the Pretenders, XTC and contributions from the more bizarre worlds of Ivor Cutler and The Residents. It became a cult classic. In 2000 came another, Miniatures 2 with 61 one minutes tracks.
To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the original, Lamb has orchestrated bringing about Miniatures 2020 which was released on March 15th. In 1977 Barry co-founded the Essex based indie record label Falling A Records which also found time to distribute the very first copies of the VIZ Comic.
A trailer for the album is now on YouTube – Miniatures 2020 Now Available which includes the link for purchasing”.
“There is a further South Shields connection. Mention the words ‘cult’ and ‘bizarre’ and it won’t be long before the name of Wavis O’Shave will crop up. Wavis was invited by Morgan to contribute to the original 1980 album but instead sent him someone else performing one of his songs, so it didn’t qualify.
Natural universal karma has now sought to correct that and Wavis can be found on the new album with his palindrome song ‘Mr Owl ate my metal worm’.
Music journalist Dmitry M. Epstein, author of books about The Doors, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath to name a few has this to say about the new album, ‘not the easiest, if surely absorbing, listening and a truly brilliant achievement – has all the chances to become one of the most interesting releases of 2021″.
Looks like another cult classic is on the way.
March 2021
ALIKIVI : NORTH EAST UK 