Will Sergeant - Weird As Fish / Le Via Luonge

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 8 / 3 / 2003

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Review

Will Sergeant's 'Weird as Fish' is part of Echo and the Bunnymen folk lore. It is beyond being legendary. 'Weird as Fish' prior to this lived on 7 cassettes, each one given to friends from the Eric's scene (Famous Liverpool late 70's club, where bands such as the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes played their first gigs-Ed). This is Paul Simpson's copy. Paul was a founder member of the Teardrop Explodes and also fronted his own band, the Wild Swans. Paul also records for Ochre at times as Skyray. 'Weird as Fish' was recorded back in 1978, just before the Bunnymen formed, when most punk influenced artists were still at the stage of just about being able to arrange some noise out of their guitars. It was well advanced for its time. Not many Bunnymen fans know this, but Will loves Roxy Music. He is also into vinyl, not minding at all if it is scratched, and Northern Soul, but his biggest love, which he drives home to the point of nagging, is the Residents.'Weird as Fish' was influenced by two of his favourite records of the time, Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music' and the Residents E.P.'Duck Stab'. I have never heard much of the Residents, but I have 'Metal Machine Music', and, to be honest, it doesn't sound much like that. 'Weird as Fish', 25 years on, still sounds incredibly modern and fresh, and not like a remastered cassette tape recording at all. It is eleven tracks of electronica-based material, with sketches of guitar on top of each one of them. It is very easy to digest, but not really edible for the part time Bunnyhead. You can see on it though how early patterns of material emerged on future Bunnymen hits. 'Vacuum' is keyboards based, but is reminiscent of 'The Cutter', while 'Darkness' sounds like the Mary Chain's 'In a Hole', but predates it by seven years. 'Cloudy Monday' reminds me of the Chemical Brothers. Again though Will was there first. 'Weird as Fish' closes with the only 70's sounding track, 'Foundation', which has a progressive rock sound. As a bonus we have another exclusive, 'Le Vin Lounge', which was originally added on to the end of the Bunnymen's 'Shine So Hard' VHS video and Arthouse cinema short. 'Le Vin Lounge' features two 10 minute plus instrumentals, one of which, 'K 100-A34-90MPH', is guitar driven and the soundtrack to an on the road Bunnies tour film. Added onto the end are two unearthed tracks from the same period, 'Racing the Train' and 'Uffizi', which are haunting and horror film like. It is good to see that Will's wacky angle was fresh back then and still continues in the Bunnies work today. We won't, however, be seeing that this year as no Bunnymen dates are planned this year. Who knows though we may get the remastered Echo and the Bunnymen original albums as promised instead ?

Track Listing:-

1 Seven Moons Glow
2 Incandescent Transistor
3 Viewscape
4 Fuzztronic
5 Vacuum
6 WAF
7 Darkness
8 The Barbel Dreams
9 Cloudy Monday
10 Anomaly
11 Foundation
12 K 100-A34-90MPH
13 Clermont Ferrand
14 Racing The Train
15 Uffizi