Daevid Allen's University of Errors
Money Doesn't Make It (Inner Space)

What becomes a legend most? In rock circles, the
answer would be playing with young bucks half your
age and making them keep up. There's a long
tradition in rock of aging elder statesmen employing
bands whose ages are closer to the star's children
than the star. Carlos Santana, Frank Zappa, Eric
Clapton, and many others have routinely surrounded
themselves with bands considerably more youthful
than themselves.

To that list, add the storied name of Daevid Allen,
founder of Soft Machine and Gong, who wandered into
a studio with a young and accomplished progressive
rock band called Mushroom (whose latest album
without Allen is out soon, also on Inner Space) and
produced an arty and weirdly satisfying project under
the weighty title of University of Errors. This has
been a banner period for this sort of thing, as Robert
Wyatt returned to the art rock heap with his
magnificent album Shleep last year, while this year
has seen the re-emergence of psychedelic folkie
Kevin Coyne. For Daevid Allen, this is merely the
latest in a graduated comeback, which also includes a
new album from his part-time project, Brainville, with
Hugh Hopper, Pip Pyle, and Kramer.

Allen's lyrical content on Money Doesn't Make It
generally concerns the widespread and fundamental
failures of the educational system, while Mushroom
concocts a jazzy/rocky soundtrack that suggests King
Crimson at its most experimental, with fusion flashes
of Jeff Beck and Al diMeola. With odd little
observational songs like "Involve Me" ("Tell me and I
will forget that/Show me and I will remember"), "False
Teacher" ("Save me from the teacher...who has too
much power/Sometimes it takes a bad teacher to
make a wise student"), and the title track ("Burn your
money, free that child/Don't teach children to walk
that crooked mile"), Allen and Mushroom have come
up with a contemporary atmospheric version of Roger
Waters' The Wall. Although Allen sounds slightly
potty throughout Money Doesn't Make It, it still stands
as a fairly incredible album, especially when
considered as the last panel of the sonic triptych with
Wyatt's and Coyne's last albums. And like his fellow
giants of '60s art rock, Daevid Allen has definitively
proved his current worth and mettle with his
collaboration with the equally capable Mushroom.