Week of February 17, 2008
Personnel:
Bent Åserud - guitars, keyboards, vocals, flute
Geir Bøhren - -drums, lead vocals, sax, clarinet
Freddy Dahl - -guitars, lead vocals
Helge Grøslie - organ, lead vocals
Øyvind Vilbo - bass, vocals
Arve Sakariassen - bass
Lars Hesla - keyboards
Johnny Bøgeberg - bass
Albums:
Friendship - 1971 Sonet SLP 1413/14; CD: Sonet (KSCD 4), Universal Music
AS, 2003
Communication - 1973 ONLPS1
Best Of - 1975 On
Rewind (1969-1978) - 1981 Hammer HLP 4001
This Oslo group did what The Mothers Of Invention had done in 1966 and
Magma
had done in 1970: they started their recording career (in 1971) with a
double album! Junipher Greene were the first Norwegian group to release a
double album, although among the Scandinavians they were preceded by
Burnin' Red Ivanhoe's
“M144” (dating from 1969). The album “Friendship” is an ambitious
effort and a milestone in Scandinavian (if not European) progressive rock,
bridging the hippie idealism of the sixties to the growing instrumental
aspirations of the seventies. Junipher Greene started performing under
this name in 1967 and the content of “Friendship” spanned several years.
Many of the songs on the first album of the set echo the slow rock of
The Beatles and
Pretty Things
circa 1969/70 with vocals treated with Leslie effects (as favoured by John
Lennon) and clever guitar riffing. "Try To Understand" embraced the
sentiments of "Come Together" and the young generation's movement. It's
the excellent songwriting that lifts “Friendship” above many of its
rivals. Still many parts of it proved they had learned from contemporary
Deep Purple,
Jethro Tull and
Pink Floyd. The more 'progressive' parts (full of electric guitars, organ
and flute) are most notable on the set’s second disc's "Friendship Suite"
- a masterwork of progressive rock lasting for over 25 minutes.
Freddy Dahl left Junipher Greene soon after the album was released.
Demoralized by an exhaustive tour in Poland, Helge Grøslie also left the band.
He would later play with
Titanic for some years.
The remaining trio nonetheless decided to carry on. Their rather laboured
efforts resulted in "Communication" (1973). The joy and enthusiasm of “Friendship”
had now gone and the two albums offer a striking illustration of how the hippie
dream turned sour (as it did for thousands of people). Rarely have I heard such
a bad-spirited, patchy album. You are invited to take part in a self-indulgent
search for artistic fulfilment by musicians short of both studio time and money.
They almost succeeded on the 12-minute title track, but the remaining tracks are
sleepy, rural progressive folk-rock numbers highlighting their crumbling
motivation. None of the three members had strong voices for lead vocals and even
worse was their mischievous treatment of the English language.
“Rewind” (1981) contained, apart from a remix of "Take The Road Across
The Bridge" and the 1973 single "Ugha Mugha Sunshine Boy", previously
unissued tracks (two from 1969 and ten from the period 1976 to 1978). This
material sounds more dated today than their earlier output and is of limited
interest. Bøhren and Åserud kept the group moniker for various new incarnations
in the 80s. These bore little resemblance to the original group. Since then,
they have built up a strong reputation as the supreme creators of movie
soundtracks in Norway. Surprisingly, they now detest their early work and it's
unlikely that “Communication” will ever be officially re-released.
Taken from Scented Gardens of the Mind - A guide to the Golden Era of Progressive Rock (1968-1980) in more than 20 European Countries, by Dag Erik Asbjørnsen, Borderline Productions, ISBN 1-899855-12-2