The Red-sided Garter Snakes – Endless Sea
The first album release from two ex-members of one of Manchester’s greatest cult status bands, The Chameleons (John Lever and Dave Fielding) in collaboration with, among many others, James Mudriczki with his first public vocal exposure since the demise of his own legendary North Manchester outfit Puressence is going to cause a ripple or two that will spread out far and wide across the world. As it’s been 14 years since a proper Chameleons release and now already 4 years since Puressence’s excellent finale, Solid State Recital and with both former bands having massive following across Europe and in the case of the Chameleons deep into the USA, this is possibly one of “the “ most anticipated albums of the year by people in the know with great taste in proper non manufactured music.
The fact the album itself was recorded over a year in two Manchester studios is only half the story as the original idea was to update some of the Beefpig album that John Lever brought out with the Fishmonkeyman guys (led by Paul Denheyer) from Liverpool back in 1999, Beef up Beefpig was I think the idea, well they certainly have done that and then some. 
The re-recording/recording started at the very talented Stephen Wilson’s ( The Cornelius Crane) Canalside studios in Dunkinfield in Apr of 2014 , With the idea of Stephen leading Production along with Dave and John’s input. Steve was so up for giving his old band mate John a lift he offered his time and studio for free to help the project come to fruition. The only problem with this set up,which no-one fully foresaw, was that the recording schedule would be sporadic at best with all sessions having to fit around a busy recording studio and practice rooms and an even busier Steve Wilson along with the ability of Dave Fielding getting across from Lincoln. John obviously was very keen to get at it and wanted the album done in a week, out yesterday, and as the summer dragged on I think both great friends started to send the other slightly crazy. In fact I know they did.
So after a couple of stop starts when John and Steve struggled to actually work constructively together anymore, Dave stepped in to broker some love and peace and get the project back on the road. Sadly this didn’t last for long as time and work pressures took their toll. 
Steve had done some sterling work writing and recording some new tunes for the album and his true production skills came to the fore when he got Mary Joanna Coogan in to voice Feel Alive and managed to get a brilliant recording out of her. In the end though after a meeting in the studio where we all listened to all the tracks to see where we were with them Steve decided he probably shouldn’t be the one to mix the album as friction between him and John and James Mudriczki (who I managed to get involved after playing him some of the early recordings) was bubbling up again. What we didn’t know that day was Steve was waiting on some serious health issue results and he obviously had far bigger things on his mind than an enthusiastic bunch of musicians all trying to get their passionate views into the final recording .
So the whole thing got moved to John Delfs Edge Studio in Alderley Edge. By this time Simon Lawler from Blue Apple Music (the old Chameleons manager and financier) had got on board and he helped to secure some block time at said studio.
Things progressed quickly, Greg Mathews from local band Bauer came along and sang on three more of the tracks and all the final touches and mixing were finished off with the help of the talented young Studio Engineer Mark Winterburn. So the final result is probably pretty different from what would have emerged if the process had stayed with Steve and in his studio. It’s impossible to say which would have sounded best or how different they would have been. That would be an individual’s opinion if they ever had the chance to listen to the two versions. They won’t. But what I can say is, in my opinion, the difference would only have been in the final layer of polish on this album. The structures, tunes and essence of the album has not been lost in the swap over and everyone can be immensely proud of this work of art.
Endless Sea starts off with a very powerful intro, a wailing almost Native American chant that is actually Dave Fielding recorded on the night his mother died some years ago. Obviously a heavy start to proceedings and as the sample from
The Wicker Man fades, Steve Wilson’s Shape Yer Spine opens up into a psychedelic monster fueled with Dave’s E-bow, power chords and plectrum sliding antics. All driven along by John’s snare and floor tom pounding out the beat. Steve Wilson’s eerie reverberated vocals pulls it all together and we know within seconds that this is going to be a very special journey.
Crack In A Paper Cup, which before James added his magical vocals was actually called Endless sea where the album title came from, has Dave sounding as Chameleons like as at any other point in the album. Add in Jimmy’s voice and suddenly the many joint Chameleons and Puressence fans out there are suddenly wetting their pants in excitement. A North Manchester super group of epic proportions. It doesn’t disappoint. James’ voice soars whilst Dave’s guitar echoes and chimes away as if Reg Smithies was in the room with him as well. In the breakdown James ponders about smoking cigarettes and the five minute of your life each one is meant to take away from you and then follows up this deep train of thought with, Oh! well, floor needs sweeping, Jimmy at his humorous best.
Feel Alive opens up with some crazy Arabic sounding horns and Didgeridoo and evolves into more sublime Chameleonesque guitar work from Dave and some great production and arrangement from Steve and John. It stood brilliantly as an instrumental before Mary Joanna Coogan was brought into the studio and Steve worked really hard with her to get one of “the” performances of the album out of her. Without doubt the most radio friendly track on the album and should be a worldwide massive hit if justice in this industry were ever to prevail. The jaunty bassline drives this song along with some tempered (for John) drumming keeping the main focus on the guitars and gorgeous vocals.
Love Yourself, a song written by John and Paul Denheyer on the original Beefpig album in ’99 is about people in the music business who manage to change with the times (David Bowie?) Killing off old persona’s,ego’s and changing styles without worrying about who they tread on in the process, something John says he has witnessed a few times in the business. Dave was brought in to add his unique style of guitar and the whole song was beefed up to match the sound of this project and the result is massive. Another masterpiece and we are not even half way through the album.
Found Again is Simon Collier’s (bass for SupaJamma) contribution to the album and finds our first chance to listen to Greg Mathews vocal talents, I have to be totally honest here, I’m not a big Bauer fan. Their soft and gentle brand of indie pop/rock Isn’t my personal cup of tea despite its tuneful songs. That said, given the massive sound of this band Greg’s voice starts to work wonders and he has made these tracks his own. “Discovery is recovery” the lyrics fit in brilliantly with the overall context of this album, a great introduction for the people who have not heard him before.
Gallipoli. “Theres something a wrong with me” Starts James Mudriczki in his second vocal outing “I’m finding it hard to breathe” Maybe the pondering about cigarettes in Paper Cup wasn’t for long enough? Another massive track with Jame’s powerful vocals doing battle against John’s huge drum sound as he beats the toms and snare half to death again. The distorted guitar work by Dave in this song is more reminiscent of early Puressence than anything ever done by the Chameleons and has been pushed up in the mix to add that extra bit of excitement to a song already bursting at the seams with energy.
Go Away. The Quirky one, the one that sound more like early Pink Floyd as opposed to some bits of the rest of the album which does have some post Barrett Floyd moments, based around a Kizilok Track written by Andy Clegg and his brother, its another transformed track that John’s imagination and Dave and Steve worked into a oddball beast of a song rounded off by another fantastic vocal performance by Greg backed up by Andy Clegg himself, thumbs up.
John’s Dream. Possibly my favourite track on the album. The basics written by Steve Wilson specifically for this Album as a gift to John and based around a simple but beautiful riff he made up whilst having a play on Dave’s Baritone guitar in the studio. The warmth and feeling of love flows from this instrumental and when Dave added his guitar into the mix its full of emotion. Johns drums drive it ever onward and it reminds me every time I hear it of sun sets on warm sunny foreign holidays with close friends, sipping drinks and eating BBQ food together. I love going to this place in my mind and love this song for sending me there.
Pistols at Dawn. Based around the original Beefpig track from the Beefpig album this is another magical transformation only keeping some basic elements from the 1999 version, including a sample of Dave’s guitar from The Chameleons Paper Tigers , Steve, Dave and John ripped it a new asshole. With its muffled low-fi intro and Johns explosive snare work the bass kicks in shortly after Greg starts his third and possible best venture in rounding off this album with words and harmonies. Then Dave’s E-bow cuts through it all whilst the Paper tiger sample reminds us of past glories . It breaks down only to blast off again with an early Edge like echo filled riff that seems to get lost in Greg’s fantastic finale …
Trancer. The basics of which were recorded by Dave some years ago when he had his CDF didgeridoo player, Paul Didge, available to add to his initial idea of this track, The low end didge and synths are brilliant and Dave’s playing style on guitar is so unlike Dave its actually surprising to hear its him. John sat down and played his floor tom with his bare hands to beef it up that bit more and I was passed the final version and asked to add some film samples. I played about with adding samples from Blade Runner and a couple of other ideas but when I added samples from Apocalypse now I knew I’d got it spot on. After playing them all to Dave we trimmed the Apocalypse Now sample down in the studio and the ending line by Dennis Hopper hopefully works just right…
Gaz Tops
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