Review: Twelve Caesars - Ride The American Wave (No’West Remix EP) (Ramrock Red Records)

World Surf League followers will be just recovering from the recent Malibu Longboard Championships but the big winner on our finals chart is the No'West remixes of 'Ride the American Wave'.

This year we've really enjoyed Twelve Caesars' album 'Scenes From Wild Eyed Dreams' (see review HERE) and particularly the single, 'California Sleaze' (see review HERE) but label big wigs apparently always had there eye on the closing track on the album, 'Ride the American Wave' for a full Twelve 'bore' Caesars Beedle/Morris/Wallace coming down the barrel remix.

The EP comes in 3 versions, 'No'West Vocal', 'No'West Dub', 'No'West Insturmenta' together with the original.  And if you thought the original was on the Californian West Coast Highway road trip with CS&N, Beach Boys, Grateful Dead the No'West version(s) get even more psychedelic with the addition of Darren Morris's fuzz pedal and the violin wave that gives it some British 70s rock to it, did someone say, "Beatles, The Who, Supertramp, Man and many more" who's somehow slithered into the the mixing desk and makes the trio of remixes even more complete; rumours of a 'The Whole Side Of 'Side-A' Edit' may be exagerated but it's not a bad idea as this is a fantastic 20 minutes that can satisify your all your soft rock balaerics needs.

And what is this 'Ride The American Wave' about? Apparently it's an adaptation from Hilaire Belloc's book, 'The Modern Traveller' (free to download on Project Gutenberg) and there's a deeper sense of foreboding going on the keeps your attention throughout; especially if your waxing your boards.

PS. Point Break is the best surf-inspired action films of all time. 

Artist: Twelve Caesars

Title: Ride The American Wave 

Release date: 3rd November, 2023

Label: Ramrock Red Records

Cat. No: RRR054

Review: Twelve Caesars - Scenes From Wild Eyed Dreams (RamRockRed)

If you're familiar with the earlier singles, you'll have been dreaming about the release of the debut Twelves Caesars' album, 'Scene From Wild Eyed Dreams' for a while but it's finally here.

The cover looks a bit B-movie and the title sounds a bit prog but Andrew Pipe and Stephen Ennever (for they are Twelve Caesars) have pulled together 12 tracks of 'thumbs up' tunes to get ya rocks off to.

Kicking off with 'Swan Fendered Mercury' (I bet Peter Frampton had one) and the BBC 6 Music hit, 'Calfiornia Sleaze' (see review HERE).

But it's not all Americana folk rock Byrds/CS&N/Eagles as the 'prog' is represented by the the idea that there are 11 ways to get to/from the underworld and here some portals include US Civil Rights ('California Sleaze'), Tiananmen Square uprising ('When The Revolution Dies') and the fall of the Berlin Wall ('Fall Of The Berlin Wall').

It's quite tense, like 'City Of Angels' and 'Palestine Hotel', so in British terms, it's like a softer John Cale/Kevin Coyne (which is a good thing) and at it's most dramatic, 'The Human Race' gets almost Peter Hammill and ' 'When The Revolution Dies' it's a bit Billy Bragg (when he played with Ian McLagan - definitely a good thing).

You'd really want to see these guys live (especially, if they were playing with with their label mates, Marcus Malone & The Motor City Hustlers - see review HERE) and be prepared for their next big hits, 'Ride The American Wave' and 'Eleven Ways From Hell'; choose one and get the album.

Artist: Twelve Caesars

Title: Scenes From Wild Eyed Dreams

Release date: 14th April, 2023

Label: Ramrock Red Records

Cat. No: RRRLP009

Review: Twelve Caesars - California Sleaze EP (F*CLR Music)

We've got the follow-up to Wearing Shoes' EP, 'Never Pretend' on F*CLR [pronounced F.Star.Clear] and it's shows that as a label have got their finger on more than one pulse with Twelves Caesars' 'California Sleaze'.

It's odd that we've just had the Flying Mojito Bros "Refrito" version of 'Tigers Roar' by James Alexander Bright (review HERE)  and other West Coast soft rock "finds" (with BBE's compilation by Paul Hillery,'Once Again, We Are The Children Of The Sun') (review HERE) which is where 'California Slease' sits in vocal and instrumental versions.

Hardly surprising as the duo that is Twelve Caesars (aka Andrew Pipe and Stephen Ennever) cruise along Pacific Coast highway taking inspiration from Mahalia Jackson’s ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’ and Blind Willie Johnson ‘Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed’ plus a bit of Robert F Kennedy.

Well, there's a bit of a Weatherallisation to this as add to a sunny CS&N just a bit of dobro (I think it's a dobro - with slide?), added organ which just falls short of Ms Smith's, "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine" ('Glora'). 

Great artwork (as was their last release, 'Swan Fendered Mercury') but this time we've got to wait for the North Street West remix versions (really looking forward to see if they can match the 'Swan Fendered Mercury' dub with 'California Sleaze' with that organ and some added horns; it'll be brilliant).  Even now, if Charlie Gillett/John Peel were around today this would be high in their charts so I say it should be on yours too!

In the review of 'Never Pretend' I said, "lets have more from F*CLR" and they haven't let us down as this follows George T's 'Automatic Self On Hold' featuring Joseph Malik (review HERE).

Artist: Twelve Caesars 

Title: California Sleaze EP

Release date: 31st March, 2023

Label : F*CLR Music .

Catalog Number : Digital / Bandcamp