Tenpole Tudor - Let the Four Winds Blow

Name: Tenpole Tudor
Album: Let the Four Winds Blow
Year: 1981
Style: Rockabilly, Punk
Similar Bands: XTC, Clash, Mink Deville, Dead Milkmen, Sugarplastic
"One-Word" Review: Jokey Theatrical Punk
Based Out Of: London England 
Label: Stiff

Cover, Record

Back, Record

Let the Four Winds Blow (1981)

1. Let the Four Winds Blow 3:24 (single)
2. Throwing My Baby Out With the Bathwater 3:28 (single)
3. Trumpeters 4:10
4. It's Easy to See 3:48
5. What You Doing in Bombay 4:03 /
6. Local Animal 4:04
7. Her Fruit is Forbidden 2:58
8. Tonight is the Night 3:45
9. The Unpaid Debt 3:19
10. The King of Siam 3:58

Album Rating (1-10): 9.0

Members & Other Bands:

• Eddie Tudorpole - Vox, Sax, Guitar, Piano (Sex Pistols, Visitors, Cage Against the Machine, Richard O'Brien, Petter Baarli, Die Toten Hosen)
• Gary Long - Vox, Drums, Percussion (Tudors, The Commercials, Pearl Harbour, The Deadbeats)
• Bob Kingston - Vox, Guitar, Piano (Tudors, Pearl Harbour)
• Dick Crippen - Vox, Bass (Tudors, The Weird Things, King Kurt, Ministry of Ska, Pearl Harbour)
• Munch Universe - Vox, Guitar, Percussion
• Jos Holloway - Indispensable Man
• Alan Winstanley - Producer, Finger Cymbals
• Dave Allen - Machinery Operator
• Kim Aldis - Photos

Unknown-ness: Never heard of this band. Their name, album art and album name create a concept album of medieval reenactments. They look like a group ready to embark on an album of Baroque / Prog meanderings.

Album Review: Their style and chosen identity is not represented at all musically. They are a mix of punk ala The Clash and rockabilly like Stray Cats, with some complex arrangements of mid-period XTC sprinkled in. 
Their big break was when singer Tudor-Pole starred in the Sex Pistol's 1980 film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, and instead of replacing Johnny Rotten, Vicious died & the Sex Pistols folded, and he was able to pick up with the group he organized a few years earlier. While they only lasted a few years, and put out two albums and a slew of singles, Tudor-Pole has reformed the grouped often over the years, and has a bit of a style-rollercoaster of a career, playing in Cajun, jazz and swing acts and focused on acting for a time, which included hosting a UK gameshow The Crystal Maze in the late 90's. They were apparently goofy odd-balls with a wacky live show, adopting the chain mail and knights armor on stage stemming from Tudor-Pole's claim to descend from Henry VIII's lineage. 

Stand Out Track: The King of Siam, Let the Four Winds Blow

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