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PROG ROCK, PSYCH, AVANT GARDE...
And Others Genres Thereabouts
Exceptional CD Remasters
And Others Genres Thereabouts
Exceptional CD Remasters
Covering 1967 to 1977 - It Also Focuses On
Fusion Rock, Acid Folk, Art Rock and Underground
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"...Tramcar To Frankenstein..."
On Page 3 of the 40-leaf
chunky-monkey info fest that is the booklet to this latest 3CD Clamshell Mini
Box Set vaults-trawl from those provocative and fruity types over at Grapefruit
Records - there's a tiny period advert for the Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt,
Daevid Allen and Mike Ratledge first line-up of Soft Machine soon to play
Edinburgh - entitled "Lullaby For Catatonics". At the bottom it
helpfully adds - and for no other reason you suspect than its funny and its
going to mess with someone’s establishment head - "Literary Societies Give
Me The Shits".
In short - and in their
devil-may-care adventurous way - the inexperienced but ballsy London Art House
boys were informing a still culturally uptight world that we're playing this
Underground Music man (or Prog Rock or Art Rock or Psych or whatever else
phrase you want to call it) and if you don't like it son, you can bugger off.
Now let’s get the beers in and brush up on the agricultural maintenance of
unfeasibly large mushrooms in suburbia.
As you can no doubt tell, I
like these sort of catch-all sets and as other collectors like me have noticed
in the last few years - Cherry Red's Grapefruit Records label has become
rather good at it. Time to don the multi-coloured shirt and hat, put some
casters on the Mellotron and head out at dawn to Stonehenge (or some place with
camels maybe). Here are the windy song details...
UK released 31 May 2019 -
"Lullabies For Catatonics: A
Journey Through The British Avant-Pop/Art Rock Scene 1967-74" by VARIOUS
ARTISTS on Grapefruit Records CRSEGBOX056 (Barcode 5013929185609) is a 3CD
Clamshell Box Set of 49 Remastered Tracks that plays out as follows:
Disc 1 "Spontaneous
Underground" (78:47 minutes):
1. I Should've Known - THE
SOFT MACHINE (Not originally issued, recorded April 1967)
2. I'm Waiting For The Man -
THE RIOT SQUAD featuring DAVID BOWIE (Not originally issued, recorded April
1967)
3. Conquistador - PROCOL
HARUM (from the September 1967 US Debut LP "Procol Harum" on Decca
DES 18008)
4. Bypass The By-Pass - THE
END (not originally issued, recorded October 1967)
5. World War Three -
DANTALIAN'S CHARIOT (Not originally issued, recorded January 1968)
6. Butcher's Tale (Western
Front 1914) - THE ZOMBIES (from the April 1968 debut album "Odyssey &
Oracle" on CBS Records S BPG 63280 in Stereo)
7. I Talk To The Wind -
GILES, GILES & FRIPP [pre King Crimson] (Not originally issued, recorded
September 1968)
8. Tramcar To Frankenstein -
THE LIVERPOOL SCENE (from their November 1968 second UK LP "Amazing
Adventures Of The Liverpool Scene" on RCA Victor SF 7995 in Stereo)
9. The Battle - THE STRAWBS
(Not originally issued alternative version, recorded December 1968)
10. Xoanon Bay - WOODY KERN
(from the January 1969 debut album "The Awful Disclosures Of Maria
Monk" on Pye Records NSPL 18273 in Stereo)
11. In The Beginning -
GENESIS (from their March 1969 debut album "From Genesis To
Revelation" on Decca SKL 4990 in Stereo)
12. Wasted Ground (Memento
Mori) - THE VELVET FROGS (Not originally issued, recorded mid 1969)
13. Beyond And Before - YES
(from their July 1969 UK debut LP "Yes" on Atlantic Records 588 190
in Stereo)
14. Druid One - THIRD EAR
BAND (from their July 1969 debut album "Alchemy" on Harvest SHVL 756
in Stereo)
15. Through The Eyes Of A
Child - BACHDENKEL (Not originally issued, recorded September 1969)
16. All Over The Country -
THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN (Not originally issued, recorded late 1969)
17. Merry Go Round - EYES OF
BLUE (from their October 1969 second album "In Fields Of Ardath" on
Mercury SMCL 20164 in Stereo)
Disc 2 "Tea On The
Lawn" (79:03 minutes):
1. Egyptian Tomb - MIGHTY
BABY [ex The Action] (from their November 1969 debut album "Mighty
Baby" on Head Records HDLS 6002)
2. Banquet - AUDIENCE (from
their December 1969 UK debut LP "Audience" on Polydor 583 065 in
Stereo)
3. To Play Your Little Game
- CRESSIDA (from their February 1970 UK debut LP "Cressida" on
Vertigo VO 7)
4. Parachute - PRETTY THINGS
(from their June 1970 fifth studio album "Parachute" on Harvest SHVL
774)
5. Crytallised Petard -
RUSTIC HINGE (not originally issued, recorded mid 1970)
6. Vivaldi - CURVED AIR
(from their November 1970 debut album "Air Conditioning" on Warner
Brothers WS 3012)
7. World Of Ice - SWEET SLAG
(from their January 1971 debut and only album "Tracking With
Close-Ups" on President PTLS 1042)
8. Mocking Bird - BARCLAY
JAMES HARVEST (from their February 1971 second album "Once Again" on
Harvest SHVL 788)
9. The Prisoner - COMUS
(from their February 1971 UK debut LP "First Utterance" on Dawn DNLS
3019)
10. Home (Reconstruction) -
NIRVANA (from their March 1971 third studio album "Local Anaesthetic"
on Vertigo 6360 031)
11. Death May Be Your Santa
Claus - SECOND HAND (from their April 1971 LP "Death May Be Your Santa
Claus" on Mushroom Records 200 MR 6)
12. The Prisoner (Eight by
Ten) - SPRING (from their May 1971 debut album "Spring" on RCA Neon
NE 6)
13. Don Alfonso - THE
COXHILL-BEDFORD DUO [Lol Coxhill and David Bedford - ex Kevin Ayers Band] (from
the June 1971 Lol Coxhill double-album "Ear Of Beholder" on Dandelion
DSD 8008)
14. Grande Piano -
STACKRIDGE (from their August 1971 debut album "Stackridge" on MCA
Records MDKS 8002)
15. Saving It Up For So Long
- SAMURAI (from their August 1971 debut album "Samurai" on Greenwich
Gramophone Co. Records GSLP 1003)
16. No. 2 Psychological
Decontamination Unit - BLONDE ON BLONDE (from their October 1971 debut album
"Reflections On A life" on Ember Records NR 5058)
17. Me And My Kite - FUCHSIA
(from their October 1971 UK debut LP "Fuchsia" on Pegasus Records PEG
8)
Disc 3 "The Wind Sings
Winter Songs" (79:50 minutes):
1. Welcome For A Soldier -
DEEP FEELING (from their November 1971 debut album "Deep Feeling" on
DJM Records DJLP 419)
2. Can I See You - OPEN ROAD
(Previously Unreleased recording, early 1972)
3. O Caroline - MATCHING
MOLE (from their February 1972 UK debut album "Matching Mole" on CBS
Records S 64850)
4. Unhinged - 9.30 FLY (from
their June 1972 UK debut LP "9.30 Fly" on Ember Records NR 5062)
5. The Machine Grinds On -
GNOME SWEET GNOME (Previously Unreleased, recorded July 1972)
6. No More Sunshine Until
May - AS YOU LIKE IT (Previously Unreleased, recorded circa 1972)
7. A Winter's Tale - JADE
WARRIOR (from their December 1972 third studio album "Last Autumn's
Dream" on Vertigo 6360 079)
8. C.F.D.T. (Colonel
Fright's Dancing Terrapins) - BOND & BROWN [Graham Bond and Pete Brown]
(from the December 1972 UK LP "Two Heads Are Better Than One" on
Chapter One Records CHS-R-813)
9. Ship - GNIDROLOG (from
their December 1972 second UK LP "Lady Lake" on RCA Victor SF 8322)
10. Anvils In Fire - RUPERT
HINE (from the March 1973 UK LP "Unfinished Picture" on Purple
Records TPSA 7509)
11. Upon Composition - RON
GEESIN (from the April 1973 self-published LP
"As He Stands" on (No Label) RON 28)
12. Growing Up And I'm Fine
- MICK RONSON (from the March 1974 UK debut album "Slaughter On 10th
Avenue" on RCA Victor APL-1 0353)
13. Adventures In A Yorkshire
Landscape - BE-BOP DELUXE [featuring Bill Nelson] (from their June 1974 UK
Debut album "Axe Victim" on Harvest SHVL 813)
14. Somewhere In Hollywood -
10cc (from their May 1974 second UK LP "Sheet Music" on UK Records
UKAL 1007)
15. Mother Russia -
RENAISSANCE (from their May 1974 US LP "Turn Of The Cards" on Sire
Records SAS 7502, issued March 1975 in the UK on RCA/BYM Records BTM 1000)
Compiled and Annotated by
DAVID WELLS with Project Management from the legendary JOHN REED – long
standing Audio Engineer SIMON MURPHY has done the mastering for Another Planet
Music and as you can imagine with so many sources, it’s a mixed bag of gruff
vs. gorgeous with thankfully the emphasis more on the latter. The 40-page
booklet is a stunning achievement – rammed to the gunnels with facts and
memory-jogging details, black and white and colour promo photos of every band
and artist (I’ve never seen a photo of the band Woody Kern who featured Rik
Kenton, the one-time Bassist for Roxy Music and the one seen as they played
“Virginia Plain” on Top Of The Pops in 1972. There are trade adverts from Cream
Magazine, NME and Melody Maker - the disastrous reverse-psychology Purple
Records campaign for Rupert Hine’s LP advising punters to not buy it if they
didn’t like it, and it worked - or an interview with Patrick Campbell-Lyons of
Nirvana on their third platter and latest incarnation.
You get lesser-seen LP
covers like Samurai, Liverpool Scene and Comus, foreign picture sleeves for
obscuro singles from Mighty Baby and their Egyptian Tomb or Procol Harum’s
Conquistador in its Yank sleeve. There is a two-page colour spread of gig
posters and festival art adorning the centre - famous venues like The
Roundhouse in London and Mothers in Birmingham as well as the lowly but cute
Adam And Eve Folk Club in Bradford Street where you could ogle The Strawbs on
26 September 1969 for the frankly iMac extortionate fee of six schillings and
six pence (who got the six pence gravy, that’s what I want to know). Each CD
card is fronted by a band of the time, Giles, Giles & Fripp for Disc 1,
Mighty Baby for Disc 2 and 10cc as we enter into 1974. As you can imagine - its
fab stuff – now to the music...
Proceedings on CD1 open
strongly, two well-recorded and period-groovy unissued recordings from April
1967 - Soft Machine and none other than David Bowie on his short stint with The
Riot Squad. The first is even Mod Soulful (should've known it wouldn't last
type lyrics) whilst Twig the Wonder Kid does his best Lou Reed drawl on their
cover of The Velvet Undergrounds more-dead-than-alive drugs song "I'm
Waiting For The Man". While I appreciate its place in musical history
(arrangements and sound) - I never want to hear Procol Harum's hammy
"Conquistador" ever again. Far better is Bill Wyman's involvement in
The End and their surprisingly good unissued "Bypass The By-Pass" -
great audio on a tune about people drinking and the authorities downing on them
with breathalysers. But then things kick up a real Heavy Psych notch with the
"World War Three" from Dantalian's Chariot - future Police guitarist
Andy Summers screaming on those effects peddles with thunderous and genuinely
exciting effect. Speaking of bizarre, probably because of its war references
and pleading "Please let me go home..." lyrics, Epic issued The
Zombies "Odyssey & Oracle" track "Butcher's Tale (Western
Front 1914)" as a 45 in the USA - whatever you look at the politics behind
that - its an extraordinary song on an album that only grows in stature as the
decades pass (much like The Pretty Things material over on Disc 2).
Other corkers include an
alternate take on the whimsical but sweet pre Crimson version of "I Talk
To The Wind" by Giles, Giles & Fripp that would of course re-emerge on
their October 1969 debut "In The Court Of The Crimson King" over on
Island Records - a landmark LP itself due yet another multi-disc Anniversary
issue this October 2019. While the song choices made for obscuro bands like
Woody Kern, The Velvet frogs and even the darling Eyes Of Blue leave me a bit cold,
no such thing with the genuinely chilling and brilliant "Tramcar To
Frankenstein" by The Liverpool Scene (with Andy Roberts) sounding almost
like pre Sabbath. A real discovery also comes in "Through The Eyes Of A
Child" by Bachdenkel (brilliant) and dare we say it - the weird baroque
and almost uncatagorizeable cool of Third Ear Band stringing it up on
"Druid One". And you can so hear why bands like Yes and Genesis went
on to true genius (even if the Gabriel debut LP only sold 645 copies on Decca)
- the greatness and tune-craft was already there right from the start. I would
say though that audio-wise the Strawbs alternate for "The Battle" is
intrusively hissy and some may find entries on CD1 more noodle than song.
After the slightly
disjointed CD1 – the largely Prog-based Disc 2 ups the brilliance level
considerably opening with an absolute corker from Mighty Baby - their
"Egyptian Tomb" - pictured in its Dutch Philips Records picture
sleeve on Page 16 in the booklet. Amazing sound - Eastern and Western influences
converging - the ex Action boys did more than good and were surely a strong
rival to Yes for syncopated rhythms and sheer musicality. Howard Werth's
Audience and the Shakespearian named Cressida trump up two goodies from their
debuts - melodies and fine playing (Iain Clark from Cressida later joined Uriah
Heep for their 1971 platter "Look At Yourself"). Superb Beach Boys
harmonies come next in Phil May's brilliant "Parachute" - The Pretty
Things proving that 1968's "P. F. Sorrow" wasn't just a one-off
masterpiece. Ex World Of Arthur Brown, its clear Rustic Hinge have been
absolutely pigging out on Captain Beefheart's 1969 double-opus "Trout Mask
Replica" - their "Crystallised Petard" meshing Stockhausen with
the Mighty Beef in no uncertain terms (unreleased at the time, the LP would
eventually see UK light of day in 1988 on Reckless Records RECK 3 as
"Replicas" - now where do I know that label from - oh yes I worked
for the buggers for 20 years). Other corkers include Fuchsia (see my separate
review for their self-titled LP) and the amazing debut of Comus - their
"First Utterance" horror gatefold artwork completely undermining the
Dando Shaft meets Steve Marriott brilliance contained within. Lysergic plant
name or not, I can't say I liked Sweet Slag, or the childish misplaced nonsense
of Lol Coxhill and David Bedford, nor the three Mellotrons of Spring - already
feeling like a wildly dated sound by at least 4 years when issued in 1971.
CD3 comes stomping in with
Deep Feeling's musically accomplished take on the Vietnam War in "Welcome
For A Soldier" - an A Cappella centre section that will have Harmony
Vocals fans nodding a cap. Part of Donovan's musical crew for the 1970 Dawn
Records album "Open Road" (incredibly his ninth studio album by that
time) – several members of the ensemble including writer John Carr took the
name for their own band. After Open Road's "Windy Daze" debut album
on Greenwich Gramophone Company Records hit the shops in 1971 – they recruited
Bassist and Singer Tony Reeves (soon-to-be the front man for Greenslade) for a
completed second album but on TR’s departure, it never got released. Here we
get the opening track – the impressive "Can I See You?" Ex Soft
Machine, Matching Mole made two revered albums for CBS Records in 1972, with
the pretty Robert Wyatt-sung "O Caroline" being a highlight on the
April debut (Bob Stanley featured it on the "English Weather" CD
compilation he did in 2017 for Ace Records - see my review). Other winners
include Jade Warrior with their touching "A Winter's Tale" - Mick
Ronson contemplating David Cassidy fame on "Growing Up And I'm Fine"
- while 10cc and Renaissance bring it all home with complicated Rock brilliance
from their superb "Sheet Music" and "Turn Of The Cards"
albums.
I can imagine some will feel
that much of "Lullabies For Catatonics:
A Journey Through The British Avant-Pop/Art Rock Scene 1967-74" is
interesting noodle, but not much else. I'd argue they'd be wrong (the good far
outweighs the dud big time) and once again Grapefruit Records have kicked out
another 3CD reissue winner – the kind of catchall Box Set that will have you
chasing down those obscuro albums with glee (time to get your Be-Bop Deluxe and
Gnidrolog fetishes quenched boys).
If your ears are up for
Ealing Art College musical adventures and hairy-bottomed Mellotron romps in the
Yorkshire, Canterbury and Gloucestershire landscape with your third-eye tackle
out – then look no further...
