Created By: Jonathan Dysart (DJJD)
Original Creation Year: 2008
Year of Re-master: 2010
Song Listing
Side A
Side B
Side C
Side D
Video Lyrics [Remastered]
These video lyrics are much preferred to watch / listen to get the overall concept of the album.
Origin of the Album
In the terms of creativity, I was on a roll creative wise, starting on the DJJD Volume 27 project. DJJD Volume 27. This was a spontaneous creation (done practically in one day) while the DJJD Volume 28 project took longer but with very view creative obstacles. Given my increase interest with philosophy in art and current events, I wanted to make a more philosophical concept album (i.e. Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”) rather than a strictly autobiographical one, say DJJD Volume 27.
Like the previous two projects, I continued that creative wave on the DJJD Volume 29 project.
I initially pondered about a philosophical concept of being a modern-day prisoner, a driving force behind the famous 1960’s British TV show The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan. Its concept is mainly the slavery and confinement of individuals within modern society, among other things. It was an interesting concept but not easy to conceptualize through music that I knew at the time. So, back to the drawing books!
What really started the spark of this album was discovering “The Idle Race” on the iTunes Music Store. Their discography was new to me, only knew them based upon the founding member of this band Jeff Lynne – who is well known as one of the founders of my favorite band “Electric Light Orchestra” and member of the Travelin’ Wilburys.
(See the section: “The Idle Race: Jeff Lynne’s Original Band”).
The iTunes Music Store included a compilation of their work, including their first album “The Birthday Party”. The album “The Birthday Party” is a psychedelic pop album, with a lot of tracks having a circus-style sound to it. The most notable tracks were "The Skeleton and the Roundabout" and “On with the Show”. I loved the album so much, including the idea that this was Jeff Lynne’s first album even, I eventually bought the rare album on vinyl on eBay.
Later on, my pre-development stage, I was going through the iTunes Music Store for any other inspiration. Remembering about Leo Slayer from DJJD Volume 9, I started looking through his discography, and I found his album “Silverbird”. The first track of the album was “The Show Must Go On”, a song that was made famous by Three Dog Night. This song also had a circus style to it as well.
I decided to download the song, listening to it very closely. And then it hit me! The song is basically about connecting modern society that to the circus and being a clown to this “circus of life”. Then I recalled a great song that I loved from Supertramp’s album “Crime of the Century”, which is If Everyone Was Listening. This also has a similar theme that to Leo Sayer’s “The Show Must Go On”. In my interpretation, the narrator is the ringmaster and circus is modern life.
IF EVERYONE WAS LISTENING
Supertramp
The stage is in darkness and clear
For raising the curtain
And no one's quite certain whose play it is
[How long ago how long]
If only we had listened in
If we'd know just how right
We were going to be
For we dreamed a lot
And we schemed a lot
And we tried to sing of love before
The stage fell apart
If everyone was listening you know
There'd be a chance that we could save the show
Who'll be the last clown
If everyone was listening you know
There'd be a chance that we could save the show
Who'll be the last clown
To bring the house down
Oh no please no
Oh no please no
Don't let the curtain fall
Well what is your costume today
Who are the props in your play
You're acting apart which you thought
From the start was an honest one
Well what is your costume today
Who are the props in your play
You're acting apart which you thought
From the start was an honest one
Well how do you plead
An actor indeed
Go re-learn your lines
You don't know what you've done
The final is begun
If everyone was listening you know
There'd be a chance that we could save the show
If everyone was listening you know
There'd be a chance that we could save the show
Who'll be the last clown
To bring the house down
Oh no please no
Oh no please no
Don't let the curtain fall
From there I got the initial concept and started creating the album using the Leo Sayer song, and three songs from “The Idle Race”. I was originally thinking about utilizing this Supertramp song but decided not to. From this initial concept (and these four songs), I built the album getting inspiration from other ideas and movies: “American Beauty”, Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof”, John Lennon’s “Walls and Bridges”, etc. Some personal experiences were even added to this album, tying to various concepts of modern life.
When I started putting the pieces together, I knew that I was creating something really special. The last portion I had to put together was the first quarter of the album, which I now consider the best first quarter of any album that I ever created. The flow of those songs of that quarter reminds me of the album flow of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”. In fact, I needed one song left that was crucial to finish it, but it was not available at the iTunes Music Store. That song was “Star” by Stealers Wheel. I had to buy the Stealers Wheel’s Greatest Hits CD from Amazon just to get that song. And it was well worth it. It’s the best!
Concept and Theme of the Album
The initial concept of this album, as mentioned above, is about modern life is a circus. As mentioned in Leo Sayer’s “The Show Must Go On”, the narrator of this album observes his life that to a circus clown doing a performance that the audience (i.e. people of modern life) either mock or ignores. The circus clown is tired of performing “the show” and wants to stop. The other founding track that ties to this concept were Idle Race’s “On with the Show”.
Another major concept comes from the circuses (or carnivals) are roundabouts, which is another name for a carousel.
A carousel (from French carrousel, from Italian carosello), or merry-go-round, is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating circular platform with seats for riders. The "seats" are traditionally in the form of rows of wooden horses or other animals mounted on posts, many of which are moved up and down via gear work to simulate galloping, to the accompaniment of looped circus music. This leads to one of the alternative names, the galloper. Other popular names are roundabout and flying horses.
A roundabout is a type of circular intersection, a junction in which road traffic flows in one direction around a central island. In a roundabout, entering traffic must always yield to traffic already in the circle, and roundabouts have additional restrictions on the junction layout to give high safety. Roundabouts, in their modern form, were standardized in the UK, based on the experience of traffic circles in the US; they are now common in many countries around the world.
The word roundabout dates from the early 20th century. In the US, the term traffic circle is used where entering traffic is either controlled by stop signs, traffic signals or is not formally controlled at all, while the roundabout is reserved for circles where entering traffic must yield to traffic already in the circle.
The concept is that modern life, in both a micro and macro sense, is cyclical. History repeats itself. Even the daily life of the average person is cyclical – wake up, preparation, go to work, go home, and deal with personal and/or family cares. Even personal journeys seem to be cyclical: successes and failures, riches and poverties, good and bad relationships, etc. And it seems that we cannot break from these cycles with own strength. There is also the sense that the success does not last in our lifetimes, and that message is prevalent in this album.
There are other smaller concepts that relate to the struggles of modern life. Some of them are bibliographical - not as prevalent as it was in DJJD Volume 27. Those personal concepts include the need to escape, disillusionment, and confusion.
This album is by far the most philosophically dense of all the albums that I have created before. DJJD Volume 27 and this album are probably the most satisfactory masterpieces that I personally developed, and pretty much set the highest of my personal standards.
Concept and the Album Cover
To visually associate the album with its main theme of modern life as a circus-inspired by Supertramp’s “If Everyone Was Listening” and Leo Sayer’s “The Show Must Go On”, I decided to display a circus ringmaster for the album cover. Instead of just finding a picture of a circus ringmaster shown with an audience, I wanted to make the cover surreal a bit, like someone seeing it through their memory. To do that, I decided to incorporate various circus elements together and not have them in correct perspective.
One element is a circus performer where he is dangling an umbrella on his face. Another element is an audience in a circus, or it might be a theater – I forget. I applied those elements together on a back background and then adjusted their colors. To finish it off, I added a 3-D multi-colored album title.
For the remastered version of this album, I wanted to make the album cover more surreal. Therefore, I decided to warp the elements every more and more colorization. Instead of placing the cover on a simple frame as before, I decided to apply the combined elements at an angle to a sort-of painted looking frame to add more texture and appeal. I was not impressed with the album title, so I redid it using a different perspective and color combination.
For the back-album cover, I took a picture of a carousel, decolorized it, and warped it, thus placing it also on a black background. After that, I added a famous painting of a sad circus clown – don’t know what artist, but it was appropriate. Then using various colors, I added the song listing and created a black/white album title.
The Idle Race: Jeff Lynne’s Original Band
The Idle Race was a British rock group from Birmingham in the late 1960s and early 1970s who had a cult following but never enjoyed mass commercial success. In addition to being the springboard for Jeff Lynne, the band holds a place of significance in British Midlands' pop-rock history as a link between The Move, the Electric Light Orchestra, Steve Gibbons Band and Mike Sheridan and The Nightriders.
Band History
The core of the group, rhythm guitarist Dave Pritchard, bass guitarist Greg Masters and drummer Roger Spencer, was relatively unchanged from 1959 until February 1972. The band went through several incarnations, names, lead guitarists and lead singers: first Billy King and later, more successfully, with Mike Sheridan, with whom they first rose to prominence and, in 1964, to a record deal with EMI.
While Mike Sheridan and The Nightriders failed to crack the charts, the band's lineup during this period included a young lead guitarist and composer named Roy Wood, whose first commercial song "Make Them Understand," appeared on one of the band's B-sides in 1965.
Wood jumped ship to join the then Brum 'supergroup' The Move in December 1965. Sheridan left shortly thereafter.
The Nightriders soldiered on with a new lead guitarist, Johnny Mann, for a few months. When they placed an advert in May 1966 for a younger replacement, the winning applicant was Lynne, then a relatively unknown guitar prodigy from the Birmingham district of Shard End. The Nightriders recorded one single for Polydor, "It's Only the Dog/Your Friend", released in November 1966 with Lynne on lead guitar. Spencer sang lead on the former; the latter was written and sung by Pritchard.
Eager to showcase Lynne's vocal and guitar skills as well as his growing cache of catchy Beatlesque songs, the group changed its name, first to Idyll Race, then Idle Race. Wood, now a major star as the Move became a successful chart act, helped arrange a partnership with pop producers Eddie Offord and Gerald Chevin for his old bandmates. In 1967, The Idle Race was the first major signing by the new British arm of Liberty Records (which would soon merge with United Artists).
The group was well-received by the music press for their melodies, whimsical lyrics, and inventive production. They often appeared on the same bill with such bands as The Spencer Davis Group, The Who, The Small Faces, Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues, Status Quo, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Yes, Free, and The Move.
During this period, Idle Race was also, as one member later termed it, a very "schizophrenic" band. While their records were awash in melodic hooks, paisley-pop backdrops, and lilting harmonies, they were a much heavier act in a live setting. Lynne's early trademark around the clubs and colleges was his ability to coax an unusual "violin" sound out of his guitar, while Masters would occasionally take a bow to his Hofner bass. In addition to original material, their set list included extended covers of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild", The Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Purple Haze", Moby Grape's "Hey Grandma," The Lemon Pipers' "Blueberry Blue," The Doors' "Love Me Two Times", and an electric version of "Debora" by Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Influential BBC disc jockeys such as John Peel and Kenny Everett were big boosters of the group. But despite critical respect and famous admirers such as The Beatles and Marc Bolan, Idle Race failed to catch fire with the public.
Bad luck sabotaged efforts from the start. Their debut single on Liberty, a cover of Wood's "Here We Go 'Round the Lemon Tree", was scheduled for release and heavily promoted in September 1967. When the Move's version began getting national in airplay around the UK as the B-side of the hit "Flowers in the Rain," Liberty abruptly pulled the single in the UK (although it was still released by Liberty in the US). The record company replaced it with Lynne's crunching "Impostors of Life's Magazine" in October. With no promotion, "Impostors" received critical praise but this did not result in strong sales.
"The Skeleton and the Roundabout" (February 1968) and "The End of the Road" (June 1968) suffered similar fates. Work continued throughout the year on the Idle Race's debut album, the group commuting in from Birmingham to London on Sundays, when they were granted free studio time at Advision. The resulting "The Birthday Party" was released in October of that year to strong reviews but tepid sales. (Surprisingly, it was issued in the US on Liberty with a modified cover.)
Lynne and Wood's mutual respect and friendship deepened. The demo for the Move hit "Blackberry Way" was recorded in Lynne's front room and borrowed motifs from the Idle Race; the chorus of Lynne's 1969 rocker "Days of the Broken Arrows" lifted part of a riff from the Move's "Wild Tiger Woman". Wood and Lynne often spoke of working together on a project that would integrate classical instruments within a pop/rock idiom.
Lynne received an offer to replace Trevor Burton in the Move in February 1969 but declined with hopes of steering The Idle Race to commercial success — and producing the band's second LP for Liberty.
The self-titled Idle Race was eventually released in November 1969 (in the UK but not in the US). When the two Lynne-penned, Lynne-produced singles that preceded the LP, "Days of the Broken Arrows" (April 1969) and "Come With Me" (July 1969) also failed to chart, their composer's frustration mounted.
Despite more good reviews “Idle Race”, the first album to be produced by Lynne flopped.
In January 1970, Lynne accepted a second offer by Wood to join the Move, on condition that they would eventually retire that band and concentrate on a new venture of Electric Light Orchestra.
Lynne made two albums (Looking On and Message From the Country) and a handful of singles with the Move, including the first version of "Do Ya", as work on the first ELO album continued in the studio throughout 1970 and 1971. The Move, now comprising just Wood, Lynne and drummer Bev Bevan, ceased touring in 1970 and adopted its ELO alter ego permanently in 1972.
Meanwhile, Mike Hopkins (guitar) and Dave Walker (vocals) were hired to replace Lynne in The Idle Race. A cover of Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime" on Liberty in 1970 finally got them into the top 10—in Argentina. A cover of Hotlegs' "Neanderthal Man" didn't fare as well.
In 1971 the band produced their final album, “Time Is” for Regal Zonophone (the UK only). Pritchard and Spencer, later to become [comic "Ollie" Spencer], left shortly thereafter. After Masters and Hopkins quit the group in 1972, the remnants became the Steve Gibbons Band.
