Roy Wood's Army Reviews

Roy Wood's Army, NYC
Pressed Rat

N. Y. Daily News
   From: Arts and Lifestyle | Music |
   Saturday, March 23, 2002
Standing in the Shadows
"'60s guitar hero Roy Wood shakes off decades of neglect to play N.Y."
   By JIM FARBER
   Daily News Music Critic
Archivists of British rock, take note.
Guitarist Roy Wood, one of the most criminally undersung stars in U.K. pop history, is performing his first New York shows in...drumroll...28 years. Wood's opening night, Thursday, at the Village Underground (he closes tomorrow) might not have convinced non-aficionados of his full talent. But at least it grazed the surface of his gift, leaving fans' memories to fill in the rest.

For those who haven't followed the story so far, Wood (not to be confused with Rolling Stone Ron Wood, no relation) rose to prominence in the mid-'60s fronting rabidly creative psychedelic band the Move. Later, Wood founded the string-pop act Electric Light Orchestra (with Jeff Lynne), only to quickly ditch them for the rockabilly-glam band Wizzard.
Wood's 75-minute show plucked hits from his early career, along with newer material that fans probably could have done without, given the legend's deep catalogue and long absence from these shores.
At least Wood's show had a campy theatricality. Sporting red and yellow hair extensions, the 55-year-old looked like Rob Zombie's demented father. Wood's splashy 12-piece backup band, "The Army," included eight young, mostly female horn players.
Wood's repertoire proved as sprawling as his band. It ranged from psychedelic baubles ("Fire Brigade" and "Blackberry Way," a No. 1 U.K. hit in '69) to proto-metal ("I Can Hear the Grass Grow") to glam-rock ("See My Baby Jive," another No. 1 in '73) to power pop (his best-known cut, "California Man," later made more famous by Cheap Trick). There was a mild cloddish quality to the band, with its plotzing horns. And Wood's boyish voice wasn't always strong. But to see this lost legend in such good humor had to thrill any Anglophile, not to mention anyone who appreciates finely written pop.
Rumor has it that Cheap Trick may show up at one of this weekend's events. If you can't make those, do yourself a favor and chase down Move albums such as "Message From the Country" or "Shazam", just in case Wood decides to pull another 28-year no-show. ЈЈЈЈЈ

NEW YORK TIMES
   March 28, 2002
   ROCK REVIEW | ROY WOOD
"Returning After 28 Years, Leading an Army of Brass"
   By JON PARELES
Bigger means better to Roy Wood, the English rocker whose four shows at the Village Underground were his first New York City performances since 1974. His music has always equated blare with rock 'n' roll bliss.
Electric guitars rang out when he led the Move in the late 1960's; cellos took over when he founded the Electric Light Orchestra with Jeff Lynne in 1971; and saxophones and voices buttressed Wizzard, his next band. Roy Wood's Army, the band he brought to the Village Underground, backed him with 12 musicians, including an eight-member horn section. Most of the band members were women. Mr. Wood looked much as he did in the 1970's, bearded with brightly dyed long hair.
Sunday's set was a brass-pumped retrospective of Mr. Wood's catalog from the Move to the present. Sung in his high, nervous tenor while female backup singers gestured in sync, the songs were the work of a songwriter proclaiming his love for an imagined 1950's paradise, full of pretty girls jiving to jukebox rock, or a man in thrall to the fearful power of women's charms. The Move's "Fire Brigade" calls for firemen to cool him down; a newer song, "Kiss Me Goodnight, Boadicea," begs the ancient warrior queen to "take a break from your pillage and destruction."

(Photo: Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times)
The songs often harked back to grand Phil Spector marches or a swinging rockabilly two-beat, but they weren't pure revivals; they threw in odd key changes or skipped beats, while Mr. Wood took guitar solos that swiveled their way toward brash dissonances. Other songs took Beatles-style pop and added extra crimps. The Army also played the Move's psychedelic artifacts "I Can Hear the Grass Grow" and "Flowers in the Rain," which showed Mr. Wood's ear for plant life.
With the horns hooting away, the Army came across like a mixture of a soul revue and a Las Vegas show band, conveying a skewed nostalgia. For "Are You Ready to Rock?" Mr. Wood piled on one more element: he marched onstage playing bagpipes. Proud of his eccentricities old and new, he had clearly decided that nothing succeeds like excess. ЈЈЈЈЈ

BRUMBEAT