Pink Hedgehog Records - Reviews (Plastic Guitar)

ANTON BARBEAU ~ PLASTIC GUITAR

Now that I've pretty much abandoned all pretence of prog content and am just banging
on about things I like in the dying moments of the column, I feel I must register my love
of Plastic Guitar (Pink Hedgehog), the umptillionth album by acoustic guitar-toting
Sacramento psych sage Anton Barbeau. Prolific as Barbara Cartland he may be, yet
somehow his inbuilt quality control never so much as wavers. Plastic Guitar sees him
flexing that limitless imagination to delightful effect ('Quorn Fingers', 'Bending Like A
Spoon') and, in the beguiling triptych of 'Dear Miss', 'I Used To Say Your Name' and
'Boat Called Home', gifting us with his most affecting compositions yet.

Reviewed in Shindig! by Marco Rossi, UK

Yet another winner from the psychedelic troubadour whose unique and brilliantly produced
music usually showcases a glittering extrovert, drunkenly swaggering through the best of
British pop, rock and folk to build something marvellous, chaotic and colourful as seen from
America’s West Coast. Usually. If 2007’s Apple Sun was Ant’s Sgt Pepper then Plastic
Guitar is probably his Let It Be, or maybe his Abbey Road. Mellower than previous works,
it offers Ant as introvert: a man doing a lot of thinking and re-assessing. I quote those later
Beatles albums (the Fabs are name checked in at least two songs - and you’d swear they’re
doing harmonies on ‘Better Drink Your Water’) because, towards the end, they wrote songs
that sounded less like pop and more like hymns - and there really is no hiding the fact that
Ant has been thinking about God. ‘Boat Called Home’, ‘Say It With Ease’ and ‘I Used To
Say Your Name’ (with its incredible electric guitar by Barry Melton) brings ‘god’ to the fore
in a way that no other Ant album has. I don’t know if he’s just "got" religion, always had it, or
is just using ‘god’ as a focus for introspection, but this new preoccupation renders much
of Plastic Guitar elegiac and thoughtful. And, like those later Beatles albums, this is also
a less psychedelic offering from Ant. But, don’t worry, it’s still chaotic and marvellous, and
the fun’s still there: in the lyrics and uncorrected vocals (stand up Su Jordan) of ‘Banana
Song’, the psychedelia of ‘Doctor Take Care’, and the insane whimsy of ‘Quorn Fingers’
(this album’s ‘Revolution # 9’). The catchy tunes that Ant so brilliantly crafts are here, too;
the title track ploughs along like folk meeting new wave; amusing stalker love-song ‘Dear
Miss’ expands in the mind the more you hear it (sounding like Lennon and Bowie should
have done when they recorded together in the 70s); and ‘Bending Like A Spoon’ is a
mini-epic, of intense guitaring. In fact, it’s the guitars that, quite appropriately, drive the
album forward, solidly and efficiently, without being showy. One outstanding example
is the work in ‘Eye Kinda’, another very Lennon-sounding song. But Plastic Guitar’s
standout track is ‘Raino Disco’, whose drum machine, bass and looped vocal
samples produce a brilliantly hypnotic, pulsing groove. This is a very modern
psychedelia that only leaves me with anticipation for the day Anton records
his White Album.

Reviewed in Music-Zine by Elton Townend Jones, UK

SOUNDS LIKE? The aural equivelent of some distant uncle coming up to you at a family wedding
and saying, "I'm bonkers, me." before going on to tell you a joke you don't understand that leaves
him in fits of giggles. As you leave you spot the same uncle trying to pin a pointy party hat to a pot
plant. You later learn that a distant uncle was Syd Barrett and he wasn't your uncle, he just turned
up with four camels and an aging Bonnie Tyler and no one had the heart to tell him he was dead.
And if you can imagine what that sounds like then you are probably wrong, but closer than you
were before you read this. IS IT ANY GOOD? I really like the song 'Banana'. It sounds mournful,
but keeps me laughing. Basically, psychedelic type musings from a mostprolific Californian who
has somehow ended up here in England, probably something to do with drugs, although most
musicians and singers don't mention drugs in their music, there are only so many references
that can be made to drugs in the world, and Hip-Hop is taking up everyones quota. And anyway,
psychedelic music isn't made with the help of drugs anymore, it's made by people who have
listened to lots of people who used to take drugs in the Sixties, back when the drugs had drugs
in them rather than rat shavings and dog polish. That was the basic sum up, in which I managed
to not only miss the point, but blunt it entirely. Playing with styles like a child plays with carcasses
found in the road (which means with a sense of ghoulish wonder and the fear you may be spotted
by an adult) Anton manages to craft song after song of irreverent charm that probably has a massive
fanbase who all listen to Radio 6 and prefer the countryside to people. I'm not one of those people,
but I did find enough on this CD to entertain me for a while, which is all you can really hope for in a
world full of smug pretentious teenagers wearing tight trousers and claiming their music cures
cancer, poverty, war and irony in varying degrees. Oh, and he wrote a song asking for a banana
that you can hold a lighter in the air to (or mobile phone, it depends how old you are).

Reviewed at Unpeeled by Chris Watson, UK

The prolific Sacramentan’s 13th album (and sixth in the last three years!) is another wild carnival
ride of 60’s pop, 21st century laptop bleeps, and sentimental bedsit fare. Barbeau’s developed
a nasally Bowie-meets Peter Murphy drawl over the years and this is the first thing that leaps out
at you on ‘Bending Like A Spoon’ and the title track, but it’s his knack for crafting irresistibly catchy
melodies that will stay with you as you proceed through these dozen tracks. While Kimberley Rew
stops by to provide the "cat yowl fadeout guitar" (on ‘Doctor Take Care’), it’s his Soft Boy partner
Robyn Hitchcock that might spring to mind on that infectious title track. Even the melancholic
heartfelt ballads (like ‘Dear Miss’) are tinged with a spirit-lifting, upbeat melody not unlike the
brokenhearted ditties that Robert (The Cure) Smith dashes off with such aplomb. Years of
touring tea shops and stone circles throughout Britain have imbued his work with a very
British sensibility, most evident on the quietly introspective bedsitter images created on
tracks like the aforementioned ‘Dear Miss’ and ‘I Used To Say Your Name,’ featuring
Barry "The Fish" Melton on guitar. Al Stewart, Nick Drake, and Bert Jansch may have
been quite influential on this aspect of his songwriting, which has resulted in one of his
quietest albums to date. The occasional downbeat mood is lifted considerably by Ant’s
vaudevillian barrelhouse piano stomping on ‘Quorn Fingers,’ which sounds like the
background music to one of those extended (silent) Benny Hill skits. Not everything is
successful: the goofy vocal improvisations and sound effects on ‘Quorn Fingers’ are
unnecessary, while the childishly silly ‘Banana’ is immature and musically challenged
and sounds like something John Lennon and Harry Nilsson tossed off in the midst of a
three-day bender. But there’s enough carefully constructed arrangements and warm,
self-reflective tunes to warrant repeated listens. Overall, it’s another well-crafted variety
of tunes for fans of vintage Bowie, Drake, Stewart, Hitchcock and similar singer/songwriters.

Reviewed at Terrascope Online by Jeff Penczak, UK

Plastic Guitar is the umpteenth album by Sacramento/Oxford-based singer/songwriter
ANTON BARBEAU. For those who’ve followed the impish psych popster over the course
of his career, it’ll be no surprise that this is a strong record. Barbeau is one of those rare
artists who seem incapable of failure; between his melodic superpowers and penchant for
oddball (but rarely weird for weird’s sake) arrangements, Barbeau’s music is unfailingly
interesting. Of course, listeners with a low threshold for lyrical playfulness might be put off
by silly songs like 'Raino Disco (Bout the Raino)', 'Quorn Fingers' and 'Bending Like a
Spoon', but they shouldn’t dismiss him because of a sense of childlike whimsy. (Besides,
Barbeau records are like LOUD FAMILY albums – it’s just not the same without the
screwing around between more conventional songs). Like spiritual compatriots ROBYN
HITCHCOCK, SCOTT MILLER or – yes, I’ll say it – SYD BARRETT, Barbeau hides his
feelings behind wordplay, but he’s perfectly capable of lucid emotional moments. If
anything, Plastic Guitar contains some of his most naked work – the marriage of
melody and feeling on 'I Used to Say Your Name', 'Doctor Take Care' and Boat
Called Home' is what the phrase “music with heart” is all about. Even the remake
of his old tune 'Banana Song', while eye-rolling on the surface, has a desperate
undercurrent that lifts it beyond mere novelty status. Barbeau is in full command
of his considerable powers here, making Plastic Guitar one of the brightest
highlights in a shiny catalog.

Reviewed at The Big Takeover by Michael Toland, USA

The transplanted Californian pysch-pop wunderkind Anton Barbeau has issued six albums
from his Cambridge bolt hole in the past three years alone. Yet, while his heroes Julian Cope,
Robyn Hitchcock and XTC’s Andy Partridge spew copious volumes of lysergic miniatures in
the wake of once widespread fame, Barbeau has arrived at cult status from a standing start.
His 13th release opens misleadingly with the drum-machine clatter of 'Bending Like a Spoon',
so skip to the baroque hymnal of 'Boat Called Home', the echo chamber acoustic ballad 'Say
It with Ease' and 'Banana Song', a nonsense anthem recalling the Rutles’ tea-drinking period.

Reviewed in The Sunday Times by Stewart Lee, UK

Would you believe this is Anton’s 13th album and his 6th since 2006? Recorded in Oxford,
Cambridge and Sacramento and featuring guest appearances from members of The Soft
Boys, CAKE as well as Barry Melton (yes, he of Country Joe and the Fish, all bow down!)
it is of course idiosyncratic, psychedelic and features "a variety of styles, from 60’s-vibed
classic pop to laptop bleep-bop and electro-Kraut grooves" all delivered in a classic nasal
vocal we have grown to know and love. A couple of up tempo, strident songs give way just
on time to a ballad of sorts ‘Doctor Take Care’ and, already, you’re wondering what kind of
experiences this man has and then make your mind up it doesn’t really matter if you reach
deeper meanings or not because it’s all so damned infectious! By the time another slowie
‘Dear Miss’ comes along you’re pretty well hooked and before you know where you are the
strummed acoustic guitar intro of ‘I Used To Say Your Name’ has taken you away - the best
song so far I would say and with a country tinge too.

That is until you hear the next one, the beautifully heartfelt ‘Boat Called Home’, a song of
personal search if ever I heard one, a bit like an old Robbie Robertson ballad. Anton gets
into a hypnotic groove on ‘Raino Disco’ dominated by a repetitive bassline that perhaps
overstays its welcome a bit at nearly 8 minutes in length (‘70’s psycho-disco Anton calls it)
which is contrast to the laid back acoustic "Jesus-folk" of ‘Say It With Ease’. I am back
agonising about meanings again on ‘Banana Song’ but why bother - it can be frustrating
listening to Anton Barbeau’s music but that is undoubtedly part of its allure! Sometimes
the lyrics seem ‘throw away’ (but something else tells me they’re not!) as on the country
rock pastiche ‘Better Drink Your Water’ otherwise ‘John the Baptist will be ‘coming
after you’! Enigmatic but ultimately enjoyable.

Reviewed in Zeitgeist by Phil Jackson, UK