People Band – People Band 1968

Welcome to Bad Music Week! For the next five days I'll be revisiting some of the most abhorrent monstrosities in my library. So plug your ears and let's see if these are as bad as I remember!

1970 • Transatlantic Records

I don't know if my distaste for free improvisation comes from just listening to the wrong albums, but People Band 1968 isn't helping the case. Even with a bit of jazz flair, its formlessness and amateur-sounding improv style result in a hopeless, disappointing mess that I'm surprised I managed to listen to once, let alone twice.

Supposedly, a bunch of people were simply gathered and told to just play, without any sort of instruction or direction, and it totally shows. It's pretty clear that these people have no idea what they are doing. With the exception of the "Conduction" tracks, the instruments are all off in their own worlds, and not one takes a lead role in guiding the others along any common path. Instead, everyone just sort of hangs back, timidly banging away, and it goes on for nearly an hour without anyone figuring out how to command the group. That isn't to say there's no group mentality; they tend to do dynamics together okay, but that doesn't go far in making up for their lack of coherence in any other category. On the "Conduction" tracks, though, it actually doesn't sound too bad—with someone actually leading the performers, the result is way more listenable, although still not particuarly good, and those tracks are undeservingly short.

Here and there, though, are glimmers of what could have been decent music—a moment of cello droning, some neat drumming, etc. But these moments are brief and rudely interrupted by the random squealing and crashing that makes up too much of the album. The fact that there were almost some good sounds here makes the whole experience that much more disheartening. And, of course, the vast majority of the sounds aren't good; things like random yelping, violin screeching, harpsichord mashing, etc. would sound horrid on their own and they're even worse in a group.

It just goes to show that no matter how good a group of musicians you can gather, it doesn't mean much without preparation or leadership. With more "Conduction"-style tracks with actual form and dynamics, this album might have been redeemable, but the rest of it is just plain awful. I can't even bring myself to listen to the whole thing at once, as it would probably drive me insane, and I'm baffled at how the album's producers thought this was a good idea. The title "Skip to Part 3" is good advice, but I can do better: skip this album.

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