Repent Mat Fischer

Heres lookin' at you kid

We have sat on this article (anonymously authored even before BtP had evolved out of the 'Shine on Brightly' website in October 1997) until the time seemed right for 'the truth' to leak out. We publish it now 'as is', without overusing the '[sic!]' that its style of writing would seem to merit.

Draw, as they say, your own conclusions.

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies" is what we learned on Mommas knee, also used by a cat called Obie Clayton on his album called Obie Clayton, the DJM label DJLPS 458 (1975).

Fall of '82, thereabouts, I'm browsing the used goodies in this traveling sale, and I come across this Clayton disk. Its got a clipped corner so I guess its done time in bargain land. The pic on the sleeve shows a bit of old piano with Clayton (I guess) flashing his bare chest and medallion.

Then the dude thats selling slips me a clipping out of a UK mag Zig Zag which says Clayton was Mat Fischer out of Procol! So now I took a bit notice. Journeys end and I'll be there came out in '74 and '75, great albums. I figured I'd missed out on a few because the next up (that I'd found) was Mathew fisher and Strange days from '80 and '81 (that I found in Europe). So Clayton makes the missing link, says the dude, and I pay him and head for the hills.

Clayton on the cover looks smooth and kinda smarmy, but all the Fischer album pics are a hairy guy and downbeat dresser, only on the back he's here in a smart gown, down round his feet, and he's playing piano. Then he's got brown hair here but he's blonde on the front. Can't be the same guy as Mat, I figure, though the way he works the same with two sidemen laying down rhythm tracks (John Atkinson on bass who overdubs violin and clarinet, Alan Eden on drums and Gerry Conway does percussion). Obie takes vocals, keyboards, guitars, harmonica and orchestral strings arrangements, the same amazing talents Fischer has on his albums.

But that doesn't mean he's the same guy, so I'm sleuthing on the label for clues. Theres something about Chrysalis Music there who also did Mats publishing on the '74 and '80 albums, and it could be his typical humor "Rockbottom Music" or "This Record Company", but there again it couldn't be.

On it theres Take good care of my baby by Goffin and Carole King so I put that on, and straight out its obviously Mat with piano, organ and bass turning the Brill sound into something classic with new changes, synth under the vocal like on Whiter shade of pale though the vocal is real throaty and theres a great swoop that comes twice and it sounds a whole lot more sexy than Mats voice on his other albums.

All the rest are self-penned so I fix a drink and put them on. Say you're sorry is kinda poppy with typical electric piano that Mat loves and slow tempo, and its about making a mistake, in the lyrics. The vocal is tracked a couple of times and sounds like the Four Tops when he hums. Its really down, though which tells us its him, and when he sings "Bring your light home and brightly will I shine" we know the Zig Zag tip is true by the quote of Keith Reid from Shine brightly.

On Window on the world he's playing a lot of guitar, two in fact, and rock piano, and sings about "mess around the dance floor for hours on end and take a girl home" but then "I see your little circus clearly from my window on the world" where he's sidelined like he always seems to be in the other Mat albums. He never sang a lyric like "real good time" before but he does here, all part of the disguise I guess. But the guitar has got no guts here.

If he did the Rob Trower records in '73 thru '75 I guess that'll be where he gets the spunk to go solo on this with a different producer Tony Cox. Someone out there can check out the name and see what else he's done, but nobody has ever heard of Clayton before or since so I doubt he was a real artiste, just an anonymous try by Mat to get an image and make people take him seriously for what he was without the Procol tag.

The dude that sold it to me said that Mat also did an album with a country singer Roger someone in disguise and that what put the idea of an album into his head done under a false alias, everyone knows Mat's dad used to publish stories under a false ID so its in the blood.

Blues for beginners was never a blues but has slap echo and the vocal is again a real outsider singing with "I'm slowly turning grey/she won't be pleased till she takes my breath away" and "I'm like a lizard in the winter-time" or "a scarecrow in the dark" though he seems to get hay fever as well. Someone's overdubbing National guitar in my right ear or my left ear and it sounds tricksy, and theres some sexy gasping, clavinet, nothing you find on the proper Fischer cuts so either its not him or its him trying very hard to be someone else. Or his brother. He doesn't even sound like a Brit in parts.

Lucky boy had upbeat backing but the lyric are schmaltz about "Nobody believes him" and "songs come telling about his sorrow". It could be off Pepper in the backing but its light weight all the way. So I'm thinking its not Mat and someone has got wrong facts when Break heart boulevard comes on and its real gorgeous with great arrangement and changes. "Way back in '27 I had the eyes to drive you wild/my swimming pool had seen them all" shows Mat again with the pool showing wealth like in "Going for a song" and maybe even it was "Way back in '67" for a working lyric and he changed it for the cover-up so we did not know it was about him and Procol on "Its a long time since Coco Chanel and I were friends, my old director" Coco being Procol but the words are hard to hear. Theres Duane Eddy guitar and something on synth when the vocal stops that sounds like Mat in a classic mood. The first side ends here and its not knockout but solid just the same and could have been someone imitating anything around that time, Bowie, The Glamor Tubes, type of stuff.