Song Of The Day 7/12/2013: Ariel - "Garden Of Frenzied Cortinas"

Australian '70s Music Week: Well, here's more prog. Ariel was quite entertaining, but also consigned to the scratch-your-head, "Who Are They Now?" file. Even our Australian night life reporter Colin Donald had to check his references on this one:

Your track list has a song by Ariel, which got me thinking if I could remember much about that band. All I can recall was the driving force was Mike Rudd, who came from a band "Spectrum" which morphed into "The Indelible Murtceps" (Spectrum spelled backwards). Ariel had its moment of glory, but the longer career was that of Mike Rudd who was very strong on the live performing circuit for many years, usually as part of a duo or trio of top flight musicians.

Fortunately, I got some supplemental information from one Billy Pinnell of Rhythms magazine, on what appears to be the official website of Mike Rudd & Bill Putt, about the early reception to Ariel's work from the industry and the Spectrum fan base:

The uncompromising, adventurous songwriting that was so admired in Rudd's Spectrum material caused a furore when the first Ariel album hit record stores. Three tracks were immediately banned from radio play, the Spectrum-ish "Chicken Shit (I Need a Fix of Chicken Shit)," a country-styled "Confessions of a Psychopathic Cowpoke" (a story of mayhem and necrophilia) [which is truly disturbing -- Ed.], and "Miracle Man" written by guitarist Tim Gaze (ex-Tamam Shud and Kahvas Jute) that apparently offended some members of the medical profession.

Yeah, when you've pissed off surgeons, you're pretty much at their mercy. And they got the scalpels.