Gentle Ben & HisSensitive Side - The Dogsof Valparasio

Sat 27th Aug, 2005 in Music Reviews

Due to an illness to the intended review, this review of Gentle Ben and his Sensitive Side’s single The Dogs of Valparaiso will be conducted by fakeplasticme’s grandfather Barry.

When I heard about Gentle Ben and his Sensitive Side, I thought that I’d be happy to listen to it and requested a copy on vinyl. “It’ll be a nice little ballad,” I thought. “He wouldn’t be ‘sensitive’ otherwise.”

Imagine my surprise when firstly I was told that the track was only available on compact disc. To make matters worse, my granddaughter showed me a video of a band from up in Brisbane called SixFtHick. Apparently Gentle Ben plays in the band, but I was appalled at the content. There was no ‘sensitive’ side, rather I found the band confronting, threatening and with too much alcohol in their system to be taken seriously.

“Oh well,” I thought. “Surely he must display some balladry here otherwise he wouldn’t have given his band the name.”

I slipped the disc into my hi-fi system and was greeted by a guitar sound which sounded quite nice until the voice of Gentle Ben kicked in. What sort of sensitive side is this? He howls and moans I can imagine that he would throw himself around on stage as if he is some sort of rag doll. Nice keyboard sounds are soothing, but then Gentle Ben has to scream over the top of it all and ruin what would be a perfectly lovely track. And that blood-curdling scream at the 2.25 minute mark? Entirely unnecessary.

So onto track 2. It’s called Don’t Spill My Courage and I’m reliably informed that it is a cover by an artist called Walls of Voodoo, which is a rather silly name if you ask me. The song is not as raucous as the first song, and there’s some nice Flamenco guitar involved. Gentle Ben has calmed down a bit and you know what? He can actually sing. But then he starts speaking in a derogatory fashion about Christian TV and I turn the hi-fi system off.

I wouldn’t have been so upset if the compact disc had have been labeled correctly. I was expecting something gentle which I could listen to when I had a cup of tea. If they had have called their band “threatening Ben and his aggressive side” I wouldn’t have picked it up in the first place and I wouldn’t be here today talking to you through this new-fangled technology.

Fakeplasticme’s note: The Dogs of Valparaiso is the first single to be lifted from the forthcoming Gentle Ben sophomore release. And you can discount everything written above if you are a fan of fine rock and roll – as Gentle Ben is one of the finest exponents of down and dirty riffs in the country.