Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets

Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets

1974

Island Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Needles in the Camel's Eye  2. The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch  3. Baby's on Fire  4. Cindy Tells Me  5. Driving Me Backwards  6. On Some Faraway Beach  7. Blank Frank  8. Dead Finks Don't Talk  9. Some of Them Are Old  10. Here Come the Warm Jets    


These Brian Eno albums were supposed to be something I should have checked out yeeeeeaaaaaars ago, but assumed would be something I wouldn't care for...See, the Brian Eno I grew up with was some dude who was actively trying to bore us to death with music that was literally made to be ignored. When I vacuum the house, I don't want to listen to ambient music. I want something that will motivate me. I'll listen to DRI or the Bad Brains or something. I don't like to ignore music. So yea, I was in no big rush to dig through his discography.

But about five or six years ago I was on a serious Roxy Music kick and after I burned through all their records I was hungry for more moRE MORE!!!! So I picked up a cheap used copy of Brian Eno's first solo album, recorded shortly after his departure from Roxy, "Here Come the Warm Jets" and the minute the album started I was in freakin' love. I was surprised to find that I love the first four Eno albums even more than the Roxy albums. That's right, I said it.

If you haven't heard it, take a minute to listen to that first track, "Needles in the Camel's Eye"...I'll wait...

My God! Did you hear what I just heard? It sounds like the Velvet Underground tossing the heroin and mainlining pure fucking joy instead! No ambient here. Just a brilliant, seriously bent pop album. So much to hear and take in when this thing plays. Eno's famous "treatments" where he processes the shit outta regular, boring old instruments and turn them into swarms of buzzing hornets or in the case of "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch," a couple of flapper robots from the 1920's flirting with each other.

 If you listen to "Driving Me Backwards," you'll get to ride on a giant piano as it flies serenely through the clouds, slowly searching for the song in the distance where it originally came from. If you listen to "Baby's on Fire," you'll get to witness a shredding guitar attempting to shred itself while the bass and drums watch on in suspenseful horror.   If you listen closely to "Some of Them Are Old," you'll get to see a barbershop quartet made up of dusty, nostalgic ghosts sing the alma mater of their old, long shuttered school...Who doesn't want to see, hear and feel these things?

There's nothing like this album, yet all interesting music that occurred since bears its stamp...My wife  even swears that there's some Maroon 5 song that sounds like "Here Come the Warm Jets" title track...I don't know about all that, but I know I love this record. It's so alive and warped and warm. I'll wager that it'll still be blowing minds 40 years from now...

Listen, I got laundry to do...Let's listen to some music...Here's "Here Come the Warm Jets" by Brian Eno...Eno-joy...