The big Battle Of The Bread going on at present in Britain (and mentioned in last month’s letter) is simmering nicely. With tours proliferating by the second — and the situation, in some provincial towns where the sole venue may normally function only at weekends, of seven-day back-to-back bookings by solid-wodged Big Names — the inevitable last-minute cancellations, poor houses, and blown-out schedules are starting to mount up.

Only if you’re truly the star of your league (like Mott, the Floyd, Sparks, Queen, or Tull) can you hope to do any business worth doing —: and normally safe draws are withering in the intense heat of street-level confrontations for kiddy kash. These, so far, include Genesis and Gentle Giant (tours off completely), Ronnie Lane (selected blow-outs), and The Incredible String Band (total surrender and final breakup).

However, taking the “We’re-AlrightJack” trophy with insolent ease right now, Queen is proving the winter season’s main surprise. They seem to have the critics thoroughly bamboozled with their teehno-flash/heavy-metal mixture and, following high-level slagging lavished on their first two albums by virtually anyone with a pen and a hand to hold it, they have achieved at least temporary critical credibility with their third, Sheer Heart Attack — on which they do exactly what they’ve always been doing, only with a wider production-screen and a whole bunch of the console card-tricks that Britishers, reliable as ever, absolutely lap up.

The U.K. is constructed of several racial groupings of hereditary feudal sluggards. Each devotes itself to holding up its particular labour tradition as the ideal of manly application - “a job well-done,” “pride in one’s work,” etc.

— whilst avoiding the accusations of parochial obsolescence by furiously observing football or television during the remainder of waking hours. In other words, the British are suckers for “expertise” — they like upfront credentials, respectability, and entertainment re-, plete with the fruits of endless hours of practice.

And thus was born Flash-Rock — a perfect mixture of Superior British Craftsmanship and The Great Classical Tradition. To be a British Flash-Rocker you have to be able to play Bach, somehow or other, on whatever instrument you adhere to; claim to like an obscure symphony or two by Prokofiev; be ready, willing, and able to pitch in with cosmic lyric concepts by handling a touch of 25/4 in hemidemiserniquavers; and, sooner or later, participate in the joint composition of a piece that’ll cover the entire side of one album which captures the very essence of universal awareness.

At least half the people have sussed this game by now — even though it’s been on-going since King Crimson’s debut album in 1969 — so the obvious move is to take the elements of the Flash-Rock idiom, going easy on the classical affiliations, and marry them with the harder, freakier stuff (say, Deep Purple) whilst bringing back the pretty-boy sex-symbol lead-singer suggested tongue-in-cheek by the recent glitter/decadence cycle.

For doing just this, Queen, despite making music so hollow that you could park a fleet of taxis inside it, is currently being hailed by the credulous as “The Beatles of The Seventies.” Good luck to them. " '

The remaining denizens of FlashRock are all, meanwhile, lining up meisterwerk essays in their genre for impending release. Tull have already got War Child out, Genesis is coming right atcha with a double-album package entitled The. Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (which might not be an absolute waste of money if their fairly reasonable last single, “I Know What I Like,” is anything to go by), Yes check in with Relayer, and Rick Wakeman, the Walt Disney of the movement, succeeds his triumphs with The Six Wives of King Henry VIII and Journey To The Centre Of The Earth with a quasi-musical mutation of The Myths And Legends of King Arthur and The Knights Of The Round Table.

Imagination was never Flash-Rock’s ace in the hole, as you must have gathered by now — and Emerson Lake and Palmer appear to have run out of what little supply they presumably started with since the tour-de-force of tastelessness they perpetrated with Brain Salad Surgery. One “live” triplealbum, and now they’re all into solo projects — which simply means we’re going to get harangued sometime next year with three horrendous new Manticore releases instead of a merciful one.

You may be thankful that America’s current darling combo, Olivia Newt & John, will never do likewise.