Uncovering the underrated and overlooked

HENRY BADOWSKI Life Is A Grand… (reissue, 1981)

CAROLINE TRUE

7/10 First reissue of ex punk scenester’s only solo LP

Badowski: strangely charming

GIVEN the renown or notoriety of so many of Henry Badowski’s punk peers, it’s odd that his own name largely draws a blank from all but the most avid ’70s genealogists. His CV hardly lacks weight: Badowski played bass for Chelsea in 1977 (as Henry Daze), served on keyboards with Wreckless Eric and played alongside Captain Sensible twice – first, briefly, in The Doomed (on bass) and then in the fleeting King, on keyboards. He also drummed for Mark Perry’s more experimental post-ATV project The Good Missionaries.

After punk gasped its last, Badowski struck out solo and released his debut single, “Making Love With My Wife” in February 1979, on Miles Copeland’s none-moreniche Deptford Fun City label. This was an unexpected turn down a psychedelic-pop/new-wave road which introduced him as a talented songwriter with an offcentre, individual style and underlined his instrumental range (it was a wholly solo effort). Carried along on a rudimentary organ phrase, with bleats of freeform sax, comical pings and self-consciously naive lyrics with a cynical slant, it suggests Syd Barrett with a Flying Nun fixation. Though the song didn’t appear on Badowski’s debut (and only) album, the B-side, “Baby Sign Here With Me”, did. With mates from Chelsea and Johnny Moped lending a hand, the track tilts at the contractual nature of relationships over Roxy-ish art pop with Meek-like production, and is the penultimate track on Life Is A Grand…. Originally released on A&M in 1981, it’s now being reissued for the first time on both CD (with “Making Love With My Wife” as a bonus) and vinyl.

The songs, which come at pop from a slightly odd angle, are immediate and strangely charming, and though they’re of a kind, each has some small, distinctive detail. The set’s of an era, too, but it’s not fixed, rather sliding interestingly between the ’60s (psychedelic/pastoral pop) and the ’80s (art/synth pop, new wave). Only one track fits the post-punk description, which given the record’s date stamp and Badowski’s own history, is perhaps surprising. Alongside Barrett and Roxy Music, there are intimations of Bowie (on the instrumental title track), Eno, Robert Wyatt, Fripp (“The Inside Out”) and The Clean (“My Face”), with electronic details often establishing a mood (notably, on “Swimming With The Fish In The Sea”). “This Was Meant To Be” startles in its throwing forward to Pulp’s “Common People”, while the standouts are a Sparks-ish “Silver Trees” and “Anywhere Else”, a Wire-y, satisfyingly linear nag weighted with matter-of-fact lines about the hours following a break-up, sung by Badowski in a downcast murmur.

Captain Sensible has described Life Is A Grand… as “a work of genius from start to finish”. Though not quite a “lost” album, it’s certainly been overlooked: this reissue restores something of value missed, albeit in hindsight for most.

SHARON O’CONNELL