Nick Ashron performed with his fun band Crazy 4 Animals at the first ever New Age/Ambient night club The Seed in London's Soho. Read a review by Brian Lee below:
Nick Ashron's Crazy 4 Animals
Live at The Seed Club April 11th 1992
Nick's 12 year old daughter thought up the name for an environmental group and he thought it would be a good name for his band. It was great to see him do justice to the pieces from his 1990 album Into the Fire [now Temple of the Sun] with Steve Jay on drums, Oliver Gillespie on keyboards, Phillip Bowering on bass, Mark Ives (from Woo) on rhythm guitar and Ruby on backing vocals all joining Nick on E-bow guitar and keyboards. All credit to him for getting such a dynamic group together.
They hit gold right from the first piece, the title track from Into the Fire, with its solid, almost Latin rhythm and its soaring, spacious lines and then proceeded to cap it with a version of Solar Warrior with a sustained ecstatic feeling that got a cheer from the packed club. We were then allowed to recover with a short song called The Dawning of the Day from Philbo on acoustic guitar which was followed by Nick's latest piece Dreaming of Wonderland, a truly visionary piece referring to the world that is there for us to make. Soon to be released on a vocal album [Sing For You (Thoughts on a Day)].
The last piece was Somewhere Out There, returning us to the neo-psychedelic feeling of the first part of the set. 'Psychedelic' for those of us who have forgotten means 'opens the soul' and the music of Nick Ashron does that. It also embraces, transports and lifts the listener. Not only that, it's legal.
Brain Lee
(Soundwaves / E-Mix Review 1992) |