Back Door - Vienna Breakdown: The Recordings 1971-1976 - 5 CD Box Set

2025

Back Door first came together in 1971 as a trio featuring Colin Hodkinson (bass, guitar, vocals), Ron Aspery (saxes, flute, electric piano) and Tony Hicks (drums) and recorded their first album in 1972. This self-financed and independently released record came to the attention of the London music press and after enthusiastic reviews and a short residency at Ronnie Scott's club in Soho, the band secured a wider release of their album with Warner Bros. 

Around this time Back Door also began to record sessions for BBC Radio 1 and had a supporter in legendary DJ John Peel. Over the next few years they recorded a further three albums, '8th Street Nights', 'Another Fine Mess' (which saw keyboard player Dave McRae added to their ranks) and 'Activate' (which featured new drummer Adrian Tilbrook). The band also undertook a tour of the USA supporting Emerson, Lake & Palmer with Carl Palmer produced Back Door's final album 'Activate' in 1976.

Review
It was a whole different world back then, me lad. A person could not simply plug in a couple gizmos and record an album in their bedroom—well, not a very good-sounding one at any rate. It was fairly rare for an early-'70s combo to wing it on their own (or at least with a friendly venue owner's help) without company or label support. Those who know the name Back Door, though, know that their whole career was practically built on willful stubbornness. It may not have brought them much fame or commercial success, but let them carve out a distinct (if small) catalogue in a distinct (if small) electric fusion niche of their own.

Colin Hodgkinson and Ron Aspery had crossed paths as busy working players and hit it off nicely, often joking that they basically found their way into everything by sneaking through the back door. That approach felt no different when it came to forming their own group. Hodgkinson's deep-down devotion to the blues coexisted with a punchy electric bass tone and an out-in-front brashness to rival that of a loud rock guitarist. The clear tenor wail of Aspery's saxophone could give grace to a smooth ballad or pierce the ears with John Coltrane's sheets-of- sound squealing. In Tony Hicks, they found a drummer with the same wildness and finesse, a balance that kicked off a four-LP run that made the group something of a legend, albeit the most subtly under-the-radar kind.

Too bad that it took decades for the catalogue to see a defining compilation, but the similarly small-and-independent Cherry Red Records has done it respectful justice with some crisp remastering and a helping of extra goodies. Vienna Breakdown: The Recordings 1971-76 is a lovingly assembled package that finally offers a full overview of the time until their late-'70s split. Unfortunately it is a starkly minimal box-with- cardboard-sleeves package, most likely for economic reasons, but that also feels aptly Back Doorish in its own way—a setup as simple and basic as you can get while the action still packs a mighty punch.

For an unassuming yet blisteringly clever trio, it is no surprise the muse kept them pathologically restless, even to some patchy results. Their self-titled debut (Warner Brothers, 1972) is a tidy half-hour of hard-hitting instrumental grooves that has lasted lo these many decades without a scratch. The pieces cram in a truly wild amount of flailing and clattering while tying the skronks to a framework of razor-sharp hooks and licks. The latest remastering here is sharp and snappy in similar fashion to past reissues; likewise for its somewhat more traditional blues-and-rootsy followup 8th Street Nites (Warner Brothers, 1973), featuring an iconic solo bass-and-voice treatment of Robert Johnson's "32-20 Blues," and for the more expansive sound palette of the eclectic Another Fine Mess (Warner Brothers, 1975). 

While Mess showcased some of the trademark interplay, the group had started pulling in several directions at once; the grooves are rounded out with a small battery of keyboards, kicking off with a surprisingly catchy verse-chorus tune and closing up with a wacky slapstick romp. There are always some prime moments throughout each record, even though one can perhaps understand why the less popular high-voltage funk outing of Activate (Warner Brothers, 1976) never got a CD pressing until this set. Hodgkinson muses in hindsight that they had lost the essence of the band (in addition to losing Hicks) by that point, yet he undersells the brilliance that still peeks through in some sparkling thump-and-wail jams, or the uncharacteristic extended flight of "Moon Mad Woman."

In addition to the group's original '70s run, the box includes a disc of live BBC tracks (the three sessions previously collected as The Human Bed (Hux Records, 2002) combined with the archival LP/download release BBC in Concert (Gearbox Records, 2013)). A pre-debut studio rehearsal tape that was first released in 2023 as The Impulse Session (Bonfire Records) rounds out the set, which makes quite a fun counterpart to the album that came soon afterwards. While its first release was thin enough to sound like a copy-of-a-copy bootleg, those tracks are spruced up here with a warmth that gives the more rounded feeling of being there in the room.

With no shortage of epic-sized fancy packages and exhaustive essays out there, it cannot help feeling unfair that this group's entire early-days catalogue makes a small box you can fit in one hand—basic and no-frills, much like the sound that first earned Back Door that crucial word of mouth to start them off. Nonetheless, there is a lot to dig into (they still include an insightful liner essay) and the mostly-fresh material shows just why being so far under the radar makes them no less legendary. 

Geno Thackara
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/vienna-breakdown-the-recordings-1971-1976-back-door-cherry-red-records