So here’s part two on Ed Kuepper as singer-songwriter featuring in my Classic Albums set with his second band called Laughing Clowns. Today I’m highlighting the album Law Of Nature here. It’s a 1984 album which was my intro to them visa just the video clip above at the top of the page. Eternally Yours was yet another on I seen on late night TV show rage in my small home town and for a long time I only had the VHS tape with that one song.
I picked up the album reissue of this somewhere in the 90’s and then re-buy it all again in the mid 2000’s with the box-set of the complete recordings called Cruel But Fair. I’ve got a few YouTube streaming tracks below but not the whole album, some are missing but if you’ve never heard them before it with give you a little taste.
I did say I was seeing him Ed on Saturday and I did say doing three posts which going to be over that weekend but I’m running a little late so this one is here on Tuesday morning and get the next one up hopefully tomorrow sometime, fingers crossed. He didn’t play any of these songs the other night or even song or any from the Jean Lee And The Yellow Dog album so maybe I’m the only one who likes these but I can’t be, can I? The selist that night was very heavy of his solo late 80’s and 90’s tracks which is pretty much the ones I did say in the last post I’ll skip over these three posts I was planning and come back to it at a later date but it might have to be sooner than later because I do love Ed so much. I should be writing about that gig really, hey?
Anyway a little about the Laughing Clowns now and the album Law Of Nature is the second last album before Ghost Of The Ideal Wife album then calling the band quits or just the third album. Before that they had various 7″ singles, EPs or mini-albums and two albums plus some comp albums of those tracks not on albums. From the years 1979 to 1985 was the life span of the band before the late 2000’s short lived reunion. At that time they were called everything from post-punk, post-jazz, jazz-punk, avant-garde or just simply alternative, indie rock. A lot of labels got thrown around because no one eg. music journalists knew what the hell to call them, they really defined the post-everything label. You know what I mean? Pushing the idea of what music can be and what it can do. I think the only reason the jazz thing was said was because they had a saxophone player, music critics don’t have much of a imagination sometime like now any male Aussie singer with deep voice and dark hair and/or lyrics gets the stock stranded “like Nick Cave.”
So those are all the tracks I can find on YouTube, not the whole album but it seem I can’t find the album to stream anywhere? I highly recommend just to buy it, I’m not into uploading anything so you can download it for free or what not because artists should get something for their art. So if you like these sample tracks just fork out your cash and get it, OK? It’s not for everyone I know that, the Laughing Clowns was one of a lot of bands that one ex-gf banned me for playing when we lived together, it was a very long list in the end so it could be the reason we didn’t last but who knows about shit like that.
This is the third album to have Chris Abrahams playing keys in my Classic Albums set after Sex album by The Necks, the various artists’ Where Joy Kill Sorrow album, he guest features on Eating Off The Floor here and also the track Possessions which was on the 90’s reissue but I’ve the original 80’s track listing below which is the one I never had, oh well. Ed did write in the liner notes for the box-set about how much he loved interplay between the guitar and the piano on the later track and he’s dead right, it’s amazing.
After Ed the main player in this band is Jeffery Wegener, the drummer who also played drums on the Jean Lee And The Yellow Dog album. Wagener also played with a few other punk or post-punk bands from Australia like Rowland S. Howard first ever band Young Charlatans then did play drums in The Birthday Party for a very short time, also joined The Saints after Laughing Clowns break-up and off course that wasn’t the time Ed was in the band too plus don’t forget he was in the under rated late 70’s band simply called Last Words, not that he was on any of the recording as far as I can tell. Louise Elliot is pretty the main sax player but they did have other one on the early recording and Peter Walsh was the bass player at the time. Laughing Clowns was a band mainly based in Sydney in the early 80’s even if Ed was from Queensland, they were all living down there then. The album cover art was done by Judi Dransifield Kuepper yet again but around this time they must have just got married and they are still together now.
So I might leave it at that because these posts are just suppose to be little intros to each album and I rabbit on and on. Please leave a reply/comment below if you wanna say something about the Laughing Clowns, OK?
Law Of Nature track listing:
1. Monkey See Monkey Do
2. Law Of Nature
3. Eternally Yours
4. Bride Of Jesus
5. Eating Off The Floor
6. Written In Exile
7. As Your Bridges Burn Behind You
8. The Year Is More Important
9. Stinking To High Heaven
All my Classic Albums posts are linked below, off course it’s a work in progress:
Tales From The Australian Underground – Volume 1 & 2 by Various Artists
Station To Station by David Bowie
Unplugged In New York by Nirvana
Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs by Marty Robbins
Henry’s Dream by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Whatever You Love, You Are by Dirty Three
In The Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra
The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by Pink Floyd
Songs Of Love And Hate by Leonard Cohen
Warm Leatherette by Grace Jones
Silence Is Sexy by Einstürzende Neubauten
Kings Of The Wild Frontier by Adam And The Ants
Drowning In The Fountain Of Youth by Dan Kelly And The Alpha Males
Sings Christmas Carols by Mark Kozelek
What Are Rock Stars Doing Today by Magic Dirt
Big Name, No Blankets by Warumpi Band
Where Joy Kills Sorrow by Various Artists
King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime by Faith No More
Jean Lee And The Yellow Dog by Ed Kuepper
Law Of Nature by Laughing Clowns
So, this was the reason I started this blog. The idea is simply to write page/post about one of my fave album each that I consider a classic album. Please leave your own comments below about each album because I would love to hear what everyone think and has to say about them? Cheers!
a1000mistakes 