Not So Guilty Pleasures

Nicked by the Music Police

Long before DJ Sean Rowley copyrighted and franchised the concept of the Guilty Pleasure there was Club Beer, a night of music that, according to the promotional flyers, "only sounds good when you're drunk". Having occasionally swung my pants at Club Beer, I can attest that the basic premise was identical to Rowley's Guilty Pleasures, that is, to play music that most people would never openly admit to liking, but will happily spend an evening partying to when sufficiently mullered. Both Rowley's and Club Beer's events tapped into the seemingly inexhaustible appetite of the glacially cool music snob for irony in whatever form it takes, whether that be School Disco club nights or oh-so-tongue-in-cheek Top Shop-branded Iron Maiden T-shirts. As far as I can tell, the reason that Sean Rowley has enjoyed a level of success that the Club Beer promoters could only dream of is that 'Guilty Pleasures' is a more easily marketable name for the exact same product. Oh, and having his own radio show to promote the concept may have helped. The fact that the music on his show could all be found gracing any number of irony-free middle-of-the-road radio stations elsewhere was no doubt lost on his listeners. I suppose that being caught by your mates listening to Europe's The Final Countdown on Rowley's show in some way lends you a patina of knowing, disdainful cool. Being caught listening to the same track on Heart FM brands you a sad geek. If only somebody could dream up an ironic way of masturbating we could all sit around in public whacking one out with brazen impunity.

The point of this blog entry isn't to knock Sean Rowley's business acumen, but to pour scorn on the whole idea of any music constituting a guilty pleasure. There are as many reasons to like a song as there are songs themselves, but to secretly like a song, whilst pretending that you don't for fear of what others might think is, quite frankly, pathetic. Grow some nuts, for crying out loud! There will always be people who will criticise your musical taste, but instead of pretending only to like what the music police deem cool, how about defending your taste. Arm yourself with compelling reasons why Phil Collins' Face Value is an essential part of your collection. Plenty of sheep bought that album because they lacked the imagination to buy something other than an LP that, by topping the album charts, had the approval of their peers, but almost as many sheep offloaded the album when the coolerati decided Phil Collins was naff. At the risk of sounding like American Psycho's Patrick Bateman, I love Face Value. Phil Collins is an exceptional drummer who managed to coax a couple of long-overdue creditable performances out of Eric Clapton on an album that holds together beautifully as a document of the pain caused by a disintegrating marriage. Plus, it boasts the classic In The Air Tonight as its opening track. Some of his later solo work leaves me cold but, if you have good reason to love it, then fair play to you.

You may have noticed that in a recent post, amongst the LPs I bought at the Olympia Record Fair, was an Osmonds album. That's how contemptuous of the music police I am! The idea that the Osmonds might have had some redeeming features (beyond Marie Osmond's ability to get a pre-pubescent Shelf-Stacker's heart racing) first occured to me when I bought Tank's Crazy Horses 7" single back in 1982. In actual fact, I think it took a clued-up girlfriend a few years later to alert me to the fact that it was originally an Osmonds song. Much more recently a posting on my favourite blog made me curious to hear what other deep cuts might be hidden amongst the schmaltz in the Osmonds' back catalogue. And so, for your delectation, or possibly just mine, I proudly present a selection of decidedly irony-free, innocent pleasures from the seldom-heard, hard rocking, Osmonds back catalogue.

From the Crazy Horses LP we have Hold Her Tight, which blatantly steals the riff from Led Zep's Immigrant Song (listen to it and tell me I'm wrong!), then we have Crazy Horses itself which kicks off like a theremin-abusing Motörhead and, finally, the pace drops to a hazy, lysergic meander for Life Is Hard Enough Without Goodbyes. From what I can surmise, The Plan is a concept  album. What that concept is, I haven't the foggiest. Something to do with Mormonism I suspect. Regardless, Traffic In My Mind is a swaggering slice of psych complete with phased vocals and nagging fuzz guitar, whilst Movie Man is a Beatlesque chunk of carnival mood Power Pop that should put smiles on the faces of Jellyfish fans everywhere. Mirror, Mirror serves up another portion of  irresistible Power Pop which leans heavily on Jew's Harp and Harmonica for its perky, upbeat sound. Good luck keeping your foot from tapping when you listen to this one! Brainstorm provides the track that I first heard at the aforementioned blog. Gotta Get Love has a riff that brings to mind Thin Lizzy. A Billy Gibbons-alike semi-spoken lead vocal nonchalantly shares the grooves with an obnoxious, twisted, cocktail of guitars, phased backing vocals and spacey synths. Next time you see an Osmonds LP languishing in a charity shop, you could do a lot worse than to take it home with you, if only to play the "I bet you can't guess who this is" game with your mates.

A Day At The Old Boys' Club

Okay, so there are exceptions, but on the whole, collecting is a male preserve. Yes, some women buy huge quantities of handbags and shoes, but they do this because they want to look nice, not because they have a pathological hoarding compulsion. I've yet to meet a woman who catalogues her shoes, who can quote the barcode number on the box they came in, or who can tell you the name of the particular operative responsible for stamping out the insoles in her favourite slingbacks. Last weekend I paid an overdue visit to the VIP Record Fair at Kensington Olympia and, when I finally came up for air after many hours inspecting matrix numbers and flipback sleeves, I felt something of a chill when I realised that, with the exception of a few long-suffering wives helping their husbands to 'man' the stalls, there was not a female to be seen.

Blokes looking at records

More blokes looking at records

 

It was like a horrific post-apocalyptic vision of a world where women have been wiped out by an awful plague or, more likely, just got fed up with their train-spotter menfolk and pissed off to make babies in test-tubes and watch Thelma And Louise together. And who could blame them?

Some more blokes looking at records

Oh, you get the idea...

I would like to say that my wife supports my record collecting compulsion, but I think that perhaps 'tolerates' would be a more accurate choice of verb. The danger with being a collector is that eventually your passion fools you into believing that not only is your hobby interesting, but by extension, so are you. I'm sure she thinks she's got away with it, but I've seen my wife's stifled yawns when I've attempted to explain the significance of a George Peckham Porky's Prime Cut, or why the weight of a vinyl LP is of less importance than the depth of the grooves. And, when you're done boring your nearest and dearest with the minutiae of vinyl acquisition, the next logical step is to write a blog about it in the hope of boring complete strangers. To paraphrase the Alien marketing tagline: 

"In cyberspace no one can see you yawn".

It would be wonderful if a scattering of members of the fairer sex brightened record fairs with their presence if only to stop me from feeling like such a deviant when I stumble, blinking, back into the daylight clutching bags heaving with vinyl. Do the organisers of the VIP Record Fairs really need to provide such conspicuous, bright yellow, plastic bags which draw attention so loudly to their contents? I would feel less self-conscious walking down the street wearing a gaping flasher-mac and holding a greasy, brown paper bag with the word "PORN" emblazoned on it in foot high letters. There must be some female record collectors out there who, by frequenting vinyl fairs and record shops, can make me feel less like the Steve Buscemi character in Ghost World (if you haven't seen it, you must). 

That bin must be like a Tardis inside!

I had toyed with the idea of attending the enormous two day record fair in Utrecht later in the year, but I'm not sure I could live with the shame. There's a fine line between enjoying the simple thrill of a train ride and standing on a murky station platform surrounded by other men in anoraks, jotting down engine numbers in a notepad. Utrecht may well be that murky platform.

The obligatory photo of highlights from my haul

Ronnie Montrose R.I.P.

Ronnie Montrose 1947 -2012

 
It seems like hardly a week goes by without news of the passing of yet another musical legend. My definition of a legend may well differ from yours. They don't necessarily have to be a household name or to have spent their life being scrutinized by the media. I unapologetically use the term 'legend' to describe someone whose music has colonised my soul and helped to shape the person I am. A bit over the top, you think? Consider this: during my lifetime music has gained me friends, lost me jobs, mended my broken heart, opened old wounds, dressed me, cut my hair, fucked up my hearing, made me dance like a man possessed, won me the girl and given me more joy than anything without a heartbeat could ever reasonably be expected to do. But, of course, music does have a pulse, a lifeforce that is breathed into it by the sorcerers who pick up their instruments and conjure up new and exciting ways to present the same old notes and rhythms. Recently we've lost Gerry Rafferty, Ronnie James Dio, John Martyn, John Barry, Phil Kennemore, Mike Edwards, Dobie Gray, Mike Starr, Kelly Groucutt, Gary Moore, Michael "Würzel" Burston, John Du Cann, Billy Powell, Mick Karn, Larry Reinhardt and Davy Jones to name just a handful of those whose music has enriched my life.

I clearly remember a typically hysterical Daily Mail headline reporting the death of Led Zeppelin's drummer John Bonham back in September 1980 (of course I remember it, I still have the yellowing newspaper cutting in a box in the loft). It screams, 

"Rock: The Great Destroyer"

and goes on, in characteristic poor taste, to criticise the lifestyles of Bonham, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, when perhaps an even-handed, respectful obituary would have been more appropriate. Of course, what the sanctimonious cretins at the Daily Mail chose to ignore is that alcohol and drug abuse are not the sole preserve of rock stars. Indeed, the journalist responsible probably wrote his copy over a liquid lunch in some Fleet Street watering hole full of hacks well on their way to cirrhosis. The Daily Mail aside, perhaps we fetishise the rock stars who die young and fast because their demise seems comfortably removed from how we expect to meet our own ends. Perhaps what is most depressing about the recent glut of rock star deaths is the sheer mundanity of the cause of death in most of these cases, heart disease and cancer being the commonest culprits. It is all too easy to imagine that our own lives will one day be snuffed out, not by one too many speedballs and a spot of sexual over-exertion in a jacuzzi full of hookers, but by a banal, indiscriminately savage, yet common disease. To die at 28 from a heroin overdose is to have lived too quickly. To die at 64 from cancer is to have died far too young.

Despite having played incendiary guitar in his own bands, Montrose and Gamma, and having contributed his six string skills to classic albums by Van Morrison and Edgar Winter, Ronnie Montrose's name and his guitar playing don't seem to be as familiar to rock fans as they ought to be. If you loved Ronnie's playing you have no doubt already dug out Montrose's debut LP and given it a spin since hearing of his death.

For those of you unfamiliar with Ronnie, or who just need a reminder of the magic he produced, here are a couple of my personal favourites. Rest In Peace, Ronnie.

Fireballet: Close Tutu The Edge

There are some decisions that bands make, or perhaps that their managers railroad them into, from which there is no way back. I imagine that the recriminations still fly some 35 years after Fireballet allowed themselves to believe that the concept for the cover of their second LP would in some way enhance their fledgling career. To prepare the ground for the enormity of the horror that I am about to present to those of you unfamiliar with the artwork that adorns Fireballet’s sophomore LP, here is the perfectly acceptable, to my eyes, image that graces the cover of their debut album, Night On Bald Mountain.

Not much to complain about there: mysterious, hooded, druid-like figures emerging from a network of caves carrying flaming torches; numerous women in a state of semi-undress; a fiery, ritualistic dance (a fireballet perhaps) on a pentagram-festooned altar under the light of a full-moon and so on, and so on… Okay, the castrato Lemmy lookalike in the bejewelled Speedos doesn’t float my boat, but hey, it’s all atmosphere right? The rear sleeve continues to build on that atmosphere, presenting images that further pique the potential listener’s interest.

The border is decorated with yet more pentagrams, whilst a frame of fire surrounds a band portrait in which they look down on us from their lofty perch beside the ruins of a castle. To a man the band members are unsmiling, their attire intriguing (how big is that crucifix!?) and their general demeanour is unsettling, unwelcoming and borderline hostile. The vibrant blue sky is at odds with their pasty complexions, suggesting that they are unaccustomed to being abroad in the daylight hours. The band’s faces and the tumbledown castle walls seem to be locked in a battle to see which can appear most unkempt, most overgrown. This cover has all the ingredients that make me want to slip the record out of its sleeve and lower the needle into the groove: from the tantalising clues offered up by the artwork I’m pretty sure I’m going to like what I hear, but I couldn’t say with any certainty exactly what that might be. Perfect!

The same can not be said of the artwork that sullies Two, Too…!

I was going to say that after a few pints down the pub it probably seemed like a good idea, but, on reflection, I can’t imagine this cover concept seeming like a good idea after a dumper truck full of crack cocaine and hallucinogens. It would have been a truly appalling sleeve even if the band had found a bevy of beautiful young women to pose in the tutus, but what combination of mind-altering drugs and budget cuts in the art department could explain this horror? And, it doesn’t end there. Not content with inflicting their Darcey Bussell fantasies on the world just the once, we are treated to a further eight (yes, eight!) snaps from the same regrettable photo session on the rear sleeve. Helpfully, just in case we didn’t get the pun, (you know, album number two, Two, Too…, big hairy geezers in ballerina outfits), they re-title the album Tu, Tu… on the back cover. Slaps his forehead in moment of clarity: oh yeah, I see what they’re doing here. Lucky they spelled it out though or I’d have never twigged!

I know what you’re thinking: it can’t get any worse, right? Wrong! A lyric sheet is always a welcome addition to any LP. Or so I thought. The LSD trip was clearly at a peak in the collective Fireballet brain when the idea occurred to someone to present a cut-out-and-keep ballerina panorama on the flipside of the lyric insert, especially for all those members of the record buying public who are both progressive rock aficionados and fans of hairy brickies in drag. You know who you are.

It would appear from the photos on the lyric sheet that a couple of band members had begun to come down / have misgivings as they have turned their backs to the camera to conceal their identities. I think that horse may have bolted. The next day they probably sat, heads in hands, praying that the album sold really badly. Back in 1976 they will have consoled themselves with the fact that at least there was no way for the handful of people who owned their album to share these images with millions of complete strangers, worldwide, at the click of a button. Err, whoops!

Drugs? Just say no, kids!

Musically, the two Fireballet LPs differ insomuch as the debut has a more traditional, okay, derivative, symphonic progressive rock sound with the usual English influences of Yes, King Crimson and Genesis. Oh, and did I mention Yes?! King Crimson's Ian McDonald produces the LP and lends his saxophone and flute playing to proceedings, so shades of that particular band of Brits creeping in are perhaps inevitable. Two, Too... has a considerably updated sound with what some reviewers have termed 'prog rock cliché' being dropped in favour of a poppier, cleaner sound. I make no apology for loving a bit of prog rock cliché: give me multi-part cod-classical suites, up-front Chris Squire-alike bass (preferably with pedals), nods to the guitar playing of Steve Howe and Anthony Phillips, mellotron, pipe organ and synths a go-go, and, in the case of Night On Bald Mountain (Suite), melodramatic 'ah-ah' vocal harmonies reminiscent of Uriah-Heep at their finest. I don't always crave originality, sometimes I just want bells and whistles. Two, Too... is in the same general neighbourhood as Starcastle and Ambrosia with its all together cleaner, lighter, quirkier sound. Opener, Great Expectations, sounds like something from Hippie musical Hair, with its Age Of Aquarius-style chorus. Elsewhere, Fireballet's quirky Art Rock approach shares groove space with the Prog Rock of the debut LP to impressive effect. So, which is their better album? I would have given Night On Bald Mountain my backing, but having revisited both LPs for this blog entry, I'm no longer so sure. I love them both. One thing's for certain, both album sleeves feature some fine chin and lip frondescence.



For those magnificent Cheech Marin handlebars...

 

Re-imagining The Beatles #3 - Lone Star

It is rare that a cover version of a song takes the original, turns it inside out and creates an entirely different beast from its constituent parts. It is even rarer that the resulting piece of music improves on the, itself wonderful, original. Lone Star's take on the Beatles' She Said She Said owes so little to the original that handing over royalties to Lennon & McCartney must surely have rankled.

Mention She Said She Said to anyone but the most devoted Beatles fanatic and they are likely to have to flick through their Fab Four LPs just to remind themselves on which album it appears (Revolver, incidentally.) Conversely, if you ever stumble across a Lone Star fan, ask him about that band's Frankenstein's Monster reworking of the same track and watch him go misty eyed before waxing lyrical about its brilliance! Perhaps, in the rehearsal studio, it started life as a straight forward cover version of the Beatles' mildly lysergic, Byrdsian tune, but in the recording studio it clearly took on a life of its own, becoming a soaring, spacey, progressive, hard rock monster, stretching out the original tune from a blink-and-miss-it 155 seconds into an eight and a half minute epic. This is what I had in mind when I chose the "Re-imagining The Beatles" heading for these blog entries: artists who take a Beatles song as a starting point, dismantle it, rip out its innards, pack it full of their own heart and soul, stitch it back together, give it a swift  kick up the arse with a like-their-lives-depend-on-it performance and strut off into the sunset as high as kites in the knowledge of a job well done. I would love to know whether Lennon or McCartney ever heard Lone Star's version of their track and, if so, what they thought of it. I imagine that Paul McCartney is too busy being an utter god to read my blog, so I suppose we'll never find out.

Unlike many artists who use cover versions to pad out otherwise lacklustre albums, Lone Star's debut is filled to bursting with inspired songwriting, stunning musicianship and Paul Rodgers-esque vocal performances. And, to prove it was no flook, their follow-up album, Firing On All Six, is similarly endowed, albeit with a Robert Plant disciple installed on vocals this time around. It is baffling that this band failed to conquer the planet and take their deserved seats alongside the Led Zeppelins and Deep Purples of this world. Guitarist, Paul Chapman, subsequently found himself the target of much undue criticism when he replaced Michael Schenker in UFO, whilst John Sloman (lead vocalist on Firing On All Six) fleetingly became a member of Uriah Heep, staying just long enough to record their most contentious LP, Conquest.

The Firing On All Six Line-Up

 In addition to their overhaul of She Said She Said, take a listen here to the standout track from their second LP, namely The Bells Of Berlin. Both LPs were recently reissued on CD by Rock Candy Records and are regularly offered for sale on ebay in their original vinyl incarnations should you want to listen to them the way the music gods intended. Whichever format you choose, do yourselves a favour and enrich your collection with these two Classic Rock masterpieces.

Last Crate Dig Of The Year!

To me there's always been something special about the act of buying my last records of the year. It's a bit like savouring the last Malteser left in the packet after having crunched your way through the others with reckless abandon. It tastes all the sweeter for being the final one. Of course, there will be other Maltesers and, inevitably, there will be other records in the New Year, but nevertheless, I want to be sure that I don't chuck my cash at any old piece of vinyl as the year draws to a close. The last records of the year are second in importance only to the first records I buy each year. Don't ask me why. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that (anorak alert!), for the last thirty years I have kept a note of every record I've bought, when it was purchased, what I paid for it and where I got it from. Back in my childhood I'd sellotape a sheet of A4 paper to the back of my bedroom door and keep track of my acquisitions there. To think that, once upon a time, one sheet of paper was sufficient to log a year's worth of additions to the collection! Clearly, there was no hiding from any errors of judgement as I was reminded of my purchases every time I passed through my bedroom door. And, more importantly, evidence of any misguided vinyl choices was permanently on display for any visiting friends to see and judge me by. Like I could give a monkeys what anyone thinks of my musical taste now, but as a thirteen year old, that's the stuff that matters! It was fine to have a Vardis 7" somewhere in the list, but not at the top of the heap. Did I really want people to think that, of all the records that I could have chosen to begin a year's collecting, that was the one that called out to me from the racks of my local record shop. Surely it was better to have Black Sabbath's Master Of Reality or UFO's Lights Out in pride of place.

I would have been more than content for my year to have ended on the vinyl high provided by my brother's Christmas gift of the 3-LP/2-CD boxset of Judas Priest's Nostradamus album, but a post-Crimbo visit to the in-laws in Manchester meant that a trip to Sifter's and Kingbee was inevitable. (For more on these digging spots, click here.) What I hadn't anticipated was that a subsequent quick wiggle over Snake's Pass to meet some of my wife's old school friends in Sheffield would result in my discovering the unimaginatively named Record Collector shop in the Broomhill district of the city.

Now, this is a serious collectors' shop! In the psych/prog section the tightly-packed racks contain a mouth-watering selection of highly desirable titles. I'm not sure you'll find any bargains here, but neither are the prices completely unrealistic given the rarity of much of the stock. My browsing was hampered by both post-Christmas 'short arms/deep pockets syndrome' and the presence of my three year-old who, when he wasn't falling down the store steps or ripping posters off the wall, insisted repeatedly, and very loudly, that I only buy Judas Priest albums. As a result I came away with just two modestly priced LPs: a reissue of Camel's debut and Jimmie Spheeris' Isle Of View. Perhaps the day is approaching when, instead of spending £50 and expecting to come home with a dozen LPs, I spend the same amount on one rare LP. Or perhaps not: I like a bargain too much. The real rarities in my collection have been bought for small change and that's just so satisfying. Anyone can 'do a Manchester City' and assemble a top class team with an unlimited budget. The real skill and pleasure comes from careful and creative appropriation of limited funds. Just think of me as the Arsène Wenger of record collecting!

Happy crate-digging and a prosperous 2012 to you all!

The Great Pomp Rock Conspiracy

Ohio's Strongbow and Southern California's Emperor, despite their geographical separation and a gap of two years between their respective eponymous albums, have their feet planted in the same musical ballpark, both bands offering up a tasty concoction of vaguely proggy pomp rock. 

Strongbow (1975)

Emperor (1977)

An inexplicable synchronicity, a raft of similarities between these two groups of musicians suggests to me that in a pre-internet world where 'scenes' are generated and bandwagons boarded worldwide in an instant, there must have been other forces at work to cause this disconcerting affinity, some kind of shared, dark secret. The evidence for this synchronicity? Strongbow and Emperor each comprise five members, all of whom contribute vocals. Each band features one clean shaven face, three moustaches and one full-on beard. 

Strongbow

Emperor

  

And, perhaps spookiest of all, one member of each group wears a brocade-edged velvet waistcoat (or strictly speaking, a 'vest', as they're American) which suggests participation in the black arts, or at least, membership of the Magic Circle. Coincidences? I don't think so. Look closely at the Strongbow band photo. See anything strange? Look again. Do you notice the thumbs hooked nonchalantly into pockets and over waistbands? What these thumbs are actually doing is steering the eye downwards where, out of shot, each band member has his bare feet firmly planted on a zebra crossing. What are they trying to tell us? Are they all doppelgängers? Had all five original band members been wiped out in an automobile accident prior to recording their  album? Emperor too may well be made up of stand-ins for the recently deceased original members. The evidence is staring us in the face. Look at the front cover: to the left a ghostly band ascends a staircase (to heaven?) and a fit as fiddles fivesome of lookalikes stands to the right ready to step into their shoes. What does it all mean? What it means is that Shelf-Stacker has got a bit carried away after reading an excellent book on the 'Paul Is Dead' rumour that pursued the Beatles in 1969, namely Turn Me On, Dead Man by Andru J. Reeve. And it also means that there are probably a couple of organ grinders in the USA whose pissed-off monkeys want their waistcoats back.

Enough of that nonsense. Let's get to the music. Strongbow's album features electric trombone, an instrument that is a new one on me. I'm guessing that this is a regular trombone with a microphone attached which is fed through various effects pedals. That's certainly what it sounds like. The first time I heard The Only One Around my ears immediately pricked up at this bizarre sound and had me scurrying to read the musicians credits in the sleevenotes. The Only One Around is a slow-burner, barely upping the languid pace of its Supertramp-like electric piano intro through an unhurried vocal and the aforementioned trombone solo until a tasteful but insistent guitar solo provides an understated climax. The musicianship throughout is superb, but special mention must go to John Durzo whose constantly evolving Fender bassline I find totally enthralling. How Can I Be Loving You comes on like a pomp rock Steely Dan with Fender Rhodes piano and that Fender bass locking into some jazz-inflected grooves. A Herbie Mann-style flute solo adds to the jazzy texture before making way for an organ-underpinned guitar solo that's accomplished without being overly histrionic. As for Emperor, they are quite typical of many bands of their era in that they can't resist bunging the occasional bit of bar-room boogie into the mix when an album of pure soaring pomp would surely have been more satisfying. I'm indulging in  pure speculation here, but I expect that Emperor had played their fair share of bars and the diversity of their repertoire no doubt reflected the demands of an often hard-to-please audience. Dreamer is very reminiscent of Uriah Heep in the latter stages of David Byron's tenure with the band, full of impressive multi-part harmonies and even a Mick Box-apeing wah-wah guitar solo to give the song an even greater whiff of Heepness. I'm Alive, not the Electric Light Orchestra song of the same name, is as proggy as Emperor's album gets, clocking in at nearly eight minutes, with time changes aplenty, a vocal that brings to mind Jon Anderson and keyboard flourishes that owe something to Rick Wakeman. That's not to say that Emperor are Yes clones, far from it, but the influence certainly makes itself felt on this track.



The Face Fungus-Ometer was created for bands like Strongbow and Emperor.

A joint eight out of ten! Even if the Face Fungus-Ometer can't differentiate between them, I think Strongbow just edge it for that crop-top, chiffon scarf and 'tache combo. Very brave.