This year, I’ll dispense with anything that could be held against me at a later date and, instead, leave you with the latest mixtape: The HFoS Prog Rock Xmas Stocking Filler.

Granted, it’s not particularly festive, nor exclusively prog-orientated, but it’s the best you’ll get from me this side of 2012.

There’s a few Christmassy tracks and titles on there; some wintery stuff; Keith Christmas, for obvious reasons; and one or two wildcards such as David McWilliams and Van der Graaf Generator, chucked in just for the hell of it.

So all it remains for me to say is Merry Christmas and HFoS will be back some time in the new year (when we’ll be three) with more of the same.

Hit the play button for a mildly festive feast. (Track list below)

[See post to listen to audio]

^{Jethro Tull – Christmas Song [Excerpt of outro] (from This Was)}

^{The Who – Christmas (from Tommy)}

^{Tomorrow – Hallucinations (from Tomorrow)}

^{Procol Harum – A Christmas Camel (from Procol Harum)}

^{David McWilliams – Lord Offaly (from Lord Offaly)}

^{Keith Christmas – Foothills (from Brighter Day)}

^{Camel – Air Born (from Moonmadness)}

^{Andrew Bown – Tarot (The Ace of Wands)}

^{Lindisfarne – Winter Song (from Nicely Out of Tune)}

^{Gentle Giant – Pantagruel’s Nativity (from Acquiring the Taste)}

^{Cressida – Winter is Coming Again (from Cressida)}

^{Mountain – Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin) (from Nantucket Sleighride)}

^{The Idle Race – I Like My Toys (from The Birthday Party)}

^{ELO – Whisper in the Night (from The Electric Light Orchestra)}

^{Jethro Tull – Christmas Song (from This Was)}

^{Wizzard – Rock ‘n’ Roll Winter (from Introducing Eddy and the Falcons)}

^{Greg Lake – I Believe in Father Christmas}

^{Van der Graaf Generator – Theme One (from Pawn Hearts)}

^{Jethro Tull – Ring Out, Solstice Bells (from Songs From the Wood)}

^{Wizzard – I Wish it Could Be Christmas Everyday [Excerpt of outro] (from Wizzard Brew)}

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So what festive fare have I picked randomly from the ether for you spend your Our Price vouchers on this year? Read on, my fine fellows and fellowettes:

Rick Wakeman – Journey to the Centre of the Earth

As it’s Christmas, something supremely daft is in order and they don’t come much dafter than this live recording. A man in a cape, with enough electric pianos, organs, Moogs, Mellotrons and what-have-yous to cause an energy crisis on a small Mediterranean island. The London Symphony Orchestra. The English Chamber Choir. Narration from the preposterously eyebrowed David Hemmings (following Billy Dainty’s scheduling conflict). An audience anticipating something with the subtlety of a broken bottle to the throat… What the deuce were they all thinking?

Thankfully, it’s 1974 and this type of thing was pretty much the norm in progressive rock circles. It is also quite the delightful listen, resplendent in its scope and sheer audacity, with grumpy old Rick in fine noodling form, employing the full range of his synthesised arsenal to create a weird and alien soundscape through which Jules Verne’s 19th century tale is interpreted. With Will Malone also on hand to provide the arrangements, Journey to the Centre of the Earth is a fine, if deranged, melding of the rock and classical genres, relayed via the caped wonder’s extensive modular banks.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth, by Rick Wakeman, is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

Fat Mattress

Formed by Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist, Noel Redding, Fat Mattress’s self-titled 1969 debut is a refreshing cocktail of psychedelic rock and proto-prog, with generous lashings of folk and bluesy elements for good measure. Undoubted highlights of this thoroughly invigorating mix are the darkly baleful and Traffic-esque ‘Mr Moonshine’, the gentle, trippy psych of ‘Walking Through a Garden’ and the soaring ‘How Can I live’, but with neither hide nor hair of a duffer among the original tracks (with 11 further bonuses on the anthology edition), this musical gateway to a mind-altered reality is an essential addition to any Santa’s wishlist.

Fat Mattress, by Fat Mattress, is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

The End – Introspection

Included for no other reason than I wrote a feature about The End for Record Collector magazine earlier this year, 1969′s Introspection is a mellifluous collection of psychedelic pop, produced by no other than young William Wyman of popular beat combo, The Rolling Stones fame. Drifting harmonies and a fine line in organ textures, courtesy of sometime Spider From Mars and future record producer, Nicky Graham, provide an otherworldly ambience to tracks such as ‘Dreamworld’, ‘Under the Rainbow’, ‘Shades of Orange’ and ‘Loving, Sacred Loving’. They also add their own unique touch to Larry Williams’ ‘She Said Yeah’, the earlier Stones cover of which is featured on that irritating Bleu de Chanel advert. A full review of Introspection can be found here.

Introspection, by The End, is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

The Idle Race – Time Is

Recorded and released in 1971, following Jeff Lynne’s defection to The Move, The Idle Race’s third and final album is often overlooked in the grand scheme of things, overshadowed by the previous offerings featuring their soon-to-be world famous, former frontman. True, it lacks the endearing whimsy of Lynne’s toytown-flavoured songs, but there’s still a good deal of mileage to be had from The Idle Race’s new folk/progressive rock direction. The folk flavourings are particularly strong, with the pastoral opener ‘Dancing Flower’, ‘I Will See You’, ‘She Sang Hymns Out of Tune’ and a cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Bitter Green’, all making Time Is the perfect accompaniment to slip into a drunken, late-night Christmas Day reverie.

Time Is, by the Idle Race, is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

Home – The Alchemist

And Christmas would not be Christmas without a spot of the fantastic, ably provided by Home’s epic 1973 concept album, The Alchemist. A tragic tale of schoolboys, wizards, imminent disaster and a Cornish fishing village makes this a narrative worthy of hungover Boxing Day morning TV, effectively set to some thumpingly good music. Previous albums from Home had enjoyed a guitar-based, more hard/country rock vibe, but in the case of The Alchemist, the four-piece roped in a keyboardist – Jimmy Anderson – and with a range of Mellotron, organ and synth arrangements complimenting the tracks, set forth along the prog rock route. The result is an admirably restrained and a sobering reminder that not all the progressive scene was about excess and grandiose statements. Sometimes the musicianship could be understated, allowing the story to shine through.

The Alchemist, by Home, is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

And there you have it, the 2011 Christmas selection pack. There should be a special Santa’s stocking prog mixtape on the way in the next few days, so I’ll refrain from wishing you a merry Christmas and making new year promises I won’t hold to, until then.

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With a timorous and unassuming bearing, it’s difficult to equate his appearance with the fearsome sound that King Crimson produced, beginning with the heart-stopping opening to ’21st Century Schizoid Man’, right through to the closer of 1974′s Red, the wonderfully eclectic and moving ‘Starless’.

1968′s The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles & Fripp, featuring Mike and Peter Giles – both of who would feature at some point or another in the ever-changing King Crimson line-up – came out a year before In the Court of the Crimson King, the KC debut, and couldn’t sound any more different to that album if it tried. What a difference a year makes, eh?

The Derek and Clive-style album cover signposts Cheerful Insanity… as a jocular affair. There is none of the oppressive, yet exhilarating darkness that would mark King Crimson out as a force to be reckoned with, nor any of the labyrinthine complexity that was a particular feature of their sound. Instead, Giles, Giles & Fripp offer a light-hearted trip into the realms of psychedelic pop whimsy, punctuated by the unfortunate saga of one Rodney Toady (narrated by Fripp, in Python mode) and a young chap called Just George.

Leaving King Crimson aside for the moment, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles & Fripp is a singular entity, deserving of consideration beyond the marvellously extensive legacy fashioned by its noble heir.

The first thing that strikes thee about the album is the Englishness of it all. From the aforementioned cover, to the polite gent-about-town channelling of Viv Stanshall’s behind-the-mic persona. It is supremely silly in places and moderately darker in others, while treading a musical path that is – in the spirit of the tremendous talent showcased here – interesting, though in no way revolutionary for the time.

The off-kilt, gentle humour that pervades throughout is largely the concept of the Giles brothers, who are credited with writing the majority of the material hereon. Indeed, it was allegedly Peter Giles’s desire to continue along this whimsical path that saw him ousted from the original King Crimson recording line-up in favour of Greg Lake, who would take his place on both bass and vocals.

The mundanities of life come under the microscope in minor gems such as ‘One in a Million’, ‘Digging my Lawn’ and ‘Thursday Morning’, all backed by a melodic, jazz-flavoured pleasantness. Fripp has his guitar moments throughout and his technique is really allowed to find a purchase on his own composition, the oft-busy, multi-faceted ‘Suite No. 1′.

With added string contingent, brass section, backing group and Rolling Stones’ cohort Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp is a beguiling and, most importantly, enjoyable romp through the green pastures of English eccentricity; a moderately more refined, less showy, take on toytown psychedelia.

As an added incentive, the bonus tracks on the CD reissue include the original version of Fripp’s otherworldy ‘Under the Sky’ (an alternative Julie Dyble sung rendition of which, is on the comprehensive The Brondesbury Tapes); later recorded by King Crimson lyricist, Pete Sinfield, and featured on August’s HFoS Prog Rock Mixtape.

The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp is reissued by Esoteric and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Indeed, and although some of the songs on HFoS Goes to Toytown may stretch the boundaries of what the purist might define as “Toytown Psychedelia”, I believe the term “slightly out of whack” can be applied to all.

They also demonstrate, in varying degrees, a jaunty childlike innocence; a harking back to an imagined, rose-tinted past; and an occasional darkness associated with things lurking under the bed. All characteristics that further define the paisley-patterned pathways of Toytown.

Seasoned HFoS veterans will probably know most of these songs already and you can debate among yourselves (or in the comments below, should the urge take you) whether the likes of ‘In Another Land’, ‘Berkshire Poppies’ and ‘Village Green’ can really be classed as “Toytown”.

It is what it is. If HFoS Goes to Toyland Vol. 2 ever sees the light of day, it’ll probably feature some decidedly more obscure, yet inarguably Toytown stuff… but until that day comes, hit the play button below and embark on a lysergic musical trip of S. G. Hulme Beaman proportions. (Track list below)

If this happens to tickle your fancy, The HFoS Prog Rock Summer Mixtape is also available.

[See post to listen to audio]

^{Tyrannosaurus Rex – Romany Soup [Excerpt of John Peel intro] (from Unicorn)}

^{Kevin Ayers – Joy Of A Toy Continued (from Joy of a Toy)}

^{Traffic – Hole In My Shoe (from Mr. Fantasy)}

^{The Rolling Stones – In Another Land (from Their Satanic Majesties Request)}

^{The Status Quo – Gentleman Joe’s Sidewalk Cafe (from Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo)}

^{July – Jolly Mary (from July)}

^{Mark Wirtz – He’s Our Dear Old Weatherman (from A Teenage Opera)}

^{The Kinks – Village Green (from Kinks Are the Village Preservation Society)}

^{Dantalian’s Chariot – Madman Running Through The Field (from Chariot Rising)}

^{The Alan Bown Set – Mr. Job}

^{World of Oz – Hum-Gum Tree (from The World of Oz)}

^{The Move – Curly (from Shazam)}

^{Alfie Shepherd – The Swallow’s Song (from The Wind in the Willows)}

^{Aphrodite’s Child – Mister Thomas (from End of the World)}

^{Kaleidoscope – Further Reflections In The Room Of Percussion (from Tangerine Dream)}

^{Pink Floyd – Matilda Mother (from Piper At the Gates of Dawn)}

^{Fat Mattress – Walking Through A Garden (from Fat Mattress)}

^{Traffic – Berkshire Poppies (From Mr. Fantasy)}

^{World of Oz – Muffin Man (from The World of Oz)}

^{The Small Faces – HappyDaysToyTown (from Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake)}

^{Keith West – Grocer Jack}

^{The Sweetshop – Barefoot and Tiptoe [Excerpt of outro]}

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Releasing four, increasingly creepy albums between 1967 and 1969, the band has its place cemented in the annals of psychedelic folklore, via the personal tragedies of its individual members and the sleazy predilections of its vaguely sinister frontman, Bob Markley.

Nevertheless, those four albums live on as a testament to what was going on in the sun-soaked Californian psychedelic pop/folk scene of the late 60s, which beggars the question, what does one buy the WCPAEB fan who has it all? Well, you could do worse than Companion, a compilation of rare recordings made by the band members before, during and after the WCPAEB’s moment in the spotlight.

One for the completist, Companion pulls together 29 tracks of varying quality – and occasional tenuity in their association to WCPAEB – which stretch back as early as 1960 and culminate in 1971. The solo Markley stuff is largely forgettable, reflecting the yearning for stardom that drove the heir to an oil tycoon’s fortune to latch onto any trend that would have him during the early 60s.

It isn’t until the other band members enter the picture that things become interesting. For instance, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’ by The Rogues, featuring guitarist Michael Lloyd and bassist Shaun Harris, is a scorching medley of electric fuzz that predates the psychedelic distortion soon to become vogue. The Laughing Wind, where Lloyd and Harris were joined by the latter’s younger sibling Danny, serves as an embryonic forerunner to the WCPAEB; lighter in tone than The Rogues and featuring the hippy sunshine harmonies that would become a bedrock of the later band’s sound. The four tracks included here prove to be inoffensive slices of West Coast flower pop, with 1966′s folky ‘Good to Be Around’, in particular, evoking a tranquil prelude to the following year’s summer of love

The WCPAEB themselves are represented by the refreshing ‘Sassafras’ and ‘I Won’t Hurt You’, the former recorded prior to Markley’s arrival and the latter a different version to that which appears on the band’s Reprise debut Part One, featuring Lloyd on lead vocals. A cover version of ‘I Won’t Hurt You’, by Brits Neo Maya (also known as Episode Six and featuring a pre-Purple Ian Gillan), is also included, providing a darker-in-tone take on the song.

Various other incarnations of musical collaborations between Michael Lloyd and the Harris brothers also feature, including California Spectrum, Rockit (with a version of ‘Blame it on the Pony Express’ that sounds uncannily similar to the Scooby Doo, Where Are You! theme) and most interestingly Brigadune, with three fine songs from 1971. The emotional ‘I’ll Cry Out From My Grave (God I’m Sorry)’ provides a particularly grim highlight, with its suicidal unburdening of a catalogue of regret to a dead lover, along with the redolent ‘Misty Mornin”.

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band Companion is a decent collection, made all the better by concentrating on the talent behind the band (Lloyd and the Harris brothers), while sidelining the odious chancer that is Markley and keeping his solo material to a bare minimum.

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band Companion is released by Sunbeam Records and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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300 copies of the album were originally pressed, the sessions funded by Nelson’s local record shop in Wakefield. It took the intervention of legendary bumbler John Peel – as was so often the case – to bring Northern Dream to a wider audience and set young Bill on a road that would lead to the forming of unconventional prog act, Be-Bop Deluxe, and numerous other successes thereafter.

The music on Northern Dream transverses various styles, soaking up the psychedelic, folk, blues and even a smattering of country rock (‘Sad Feelings’). As the artist himself states, in this new CD reissue’s liner notes, he “wandered the fields of Yorkshire trying to live the ‘peace and love’, post-hippie dream… some sort of psychedelic troubadour or something.”

It’s a rough-and-ready pair of mud-splashed moccasins he fits well, as the ten, mostly gentle songs that form Northern Dream – along with a brief preface and coda – drift soothingly from a musical age that, although no longer du jour, lasted well into the 70s – a decade later defined by cynicism and turmoil. Choppy, psychedelic folk guitars reinforce this self-declared hippie fiefdom on the exhilarating ode to Mother Nature’s handiwork, ‘Rejoice’.

And it’s Nelson’s guitar that provides the signature for Northern Dream, whether flying off at a tangent with some fancy finger-work at the close of ‘Everybody’s Hero’, or through the reversed looping which acts as the midsection on the album’s extended and progressive swansong, ‘Smiles’.

Elsewhere, the budgetary restraints are challenged on ‘Love’s A Way’, where the occasional phased vocals, as revealed in the liner notes, are achieved with the use of a metal bucket and handheld microphone. The effect may be no ‘Itchycoo Park’ (though that song apparently uses a technique called flanging), but it does the job adequately.

As does Northern Dream… more than adequate, in fact. Bill Nelson’s debut is a charming collection of unassuming gems that actually benefits from its economical approach to production, with Nelson using the limited tools at hand to create a full sound, which, at the same time, remains unpretentious and warm.

Moral of the tale: never judge an album by its less than impressive cover.

Northern Dream by Bill Nelson is reissued by Cocteau Discs on Monday 27^th June 2011, and is available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk

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Its follow up, and volume two in the Electric Sound Show series, In King Solomon’s Minds, continues in a similar vein to its prismatic predecessor, trawling the lesser known arcana of late 1960’s psychedelic pop.

Unlike the first outing, In King Solomon’s Minds lacks anything as wonderfully awful as Rodney Bewes’s ‘Meter Maid’ to recommend it. Never mind though, as a frisky selection comprised mainly of jangly guitars, Hammond organ melodies and typically idiosyncratic lyrics still awaits those in search of some of the more inaccessible terrain of the psych-pop era.

The second volume sees the blanket of anonymity ripped aside to cast daylight upon barely known bands such as The Fascination, Thor, The Motives, Grobbert & Duff, Tropical Fish and Charge. They parade across the stage like the final march of the neverbeens; their music last heard oscillating the eggboxed walls of a recording studio somewhere in 1968.

As with We All Live On Candy Green, volume two provides another 25 tracks that, like a mixed bag of psychedelic sweeties, encompass all shades of the quality rainbow, ensuring there’s pretty much something for everyone, regardless of their level of submersion into the lysergic waters of the genre.

Remaining predominately effervescent throughout, In King Solomon’s Mind occasionally departs from this high-spirited recipe of first-across-the-line, post-Mod, power pop guitar energy and delves into the darker recesses of the substance-altered mind. This is demonstrated on the splendidly bizarre ‘Brand New Sky Blue Place’ by The Meek; ‘I Can Hear Colours’ by The Motives; and ‘Plastic Daffodils’ by Atlanta Roots. Also worthy of note are ‘13^th Floor’ by The Fascination (Gary Walker and the Rain?); ‘Lindsay Davis’ by Thor; and ‘Green is My Mind’ by Clown. All of the aforementioned offer a suitably edgy wooziness to the psychotropic ride.

In King Solomon’s Mind is a harmless collection that doesn’t test the listener too much, made all the better by some completely “out there” moments. Many of the tracks aren’t cleaned up either, so hardcore vinyl-fiends can revel in the sound of the needle fluff, retained from the original Incredible Sound Show compilations.

Which brings us to the point where I should tie up this review with an allusion to the Wisdom of Solomon. Unfortunately, I can’t think of one, so feel free to write your own.

In King Solomon’s Mind is reissued by Elastic Cat and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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It may no longer be necessary to secrete a prog purchase inside a copy of Razzle, to avoid the embarrassment of being seen out with something as shameful as Rick Wakeman’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII, but the smorgasbord collections that have emerged to cash in on this newfound respectability tend to stick to very much the same blueprint, taking few chances and recycling the same artists and songs over again. The two-disc edition of Wondrous Stories is a perfect example of this and what to expect from any number of similar releases hoping to bag their share of the prog/curious pound.

As I said, it’s extremely doubtful you’d find any songs by Clouds gracing these cynical exercises in bandwagon jumping, as this three-piece ensemble, originally from Scotland, flew just a little too low beneath the radar. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Clouds’ debut album, 1969’s The Clouds Scrapbook, is a curious mix of prog, jaunty psychedelia, flowery pop and balladry. Even with the largest of shoehorns it would be difficult to prise this album into any singular category, where the likes of HFoS could point at it and say “yes, that goes there.” Such is our wont.

As such, Scrapbook is an uneven piece, benefitting from flashes of brilliance that are all too often countered by moments of the mundane.

It’s an album bookended by its title-track; an acoustic lament to the loss of childhood/happier times that strikes a melancholic chord with anybody who looks upon their past with a rose-tinted air of sadness. But this sombre mood is quickly swept away by the first track proper, the Hammond organ saturated, innuendo-laden punnery of ‘Carpenter’; the breakneck pace of which well and truly blows away any cobwebs formed during the titular intro.

Following some prosaic passages of lacklustre balladry that sound as though they’re being beamed in straight from 1964, we’re suddenly plunged into the realms of the quaint, with a healthy dose of Ray Davies-style homespun whimsy, typified by the bittersweet music hall quirkiness of ‘Grandad’. And then there’s ‘Union Jack’, fashioned from the jauntiest of British psych, which is a warm tribute to shop stewards, convenors and Trade Union men everywhere; an endearing antithesis to the poisonously snide sentiment of the Strawbs’ ‘Part of the Union’.

The progressive chops get a run out on the instrumental ‘Humdrum’, in preparation for the extravagant prog blowout that is ‘Waiter, There’s Something in my Soup’, rounding off Scrapbook in eccentric and eclectic fashion.

Like the weather, Scrapbook is uneven, occasionally dreary, but prone to spells of glorious sunshine and the very fact you won’t find them on any of the no-frills, carbon copy compilations doing the rounds is reason enough to dig deeper.

A second album, recycling tracks from Scrapbook, was released to the US market only, before the more consistent Watercolour Days followed in 1971, after which Clouds dispersed and called it a day.

Scrapbook by Clouds is reissued along with Watercolour Days by Beat Goes On Records and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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The fourth FdM release in a matter of a month is by the Sidewalk Society. They appeared on A Phase We’re Going Through, the fine Fruits de Mer album released earlier this year, performing the rare Bee Gees psychedelic excursion, ‘Red Chair, Fade Away’.

For this EP, released on limited edition vinyl as per, it’s once again a case of lesser known tracks from household names. Four, in fact.

There’s ‘In the First Place’, originally by George Harrison and The Remo Four; ‘(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?’ by The Small Faces; ‘Lazy Old Sun’ by The Kinks; and finally, ‘Dandelion’ by The Rolling Stones.

These are all given a jolly good seeing to by L.A.’s own, Sidewalk Society. That’s right; it’s our colonial cousins reinterpreting songs by some thoroughly British bands. I say, dashed unsporting, what? God Save the Queen and all that!

But wait. Before questions are asked in the House and heads encouraged to roll, let’s take a listen.

By George! I do believe they’ve got it. The rain in Spain does fall mainly on the plain, or, in this case, the Mojave Desert.

Such Rex Harrison caddishness aside, Fruits de Mer Vol. 14 is a rare vintage indeed. One bottled in 1967 and decanted now, just in time for Christmas. All four of the tracks were originally recorded in that year and Sidewalk Society manage to capture the essence perfectly.

‘In the First Place’, intended as part of the soundtrack to the film Wonderwall but unreleased until the 1990s, is a suitably trippy affair that sounds not a little unlike Bill Wyman protégés The End. Sidewalk Society matches that hazy, circa ’67 vibe perfectly.

The Small Faces were always at the more raucous end of the musical spectrum, even during their psychedelic phase and ‘(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?’ is no exception. This version captures the energy of Marriott and co. even invoking the spirit of the long-deceased lead singer for the shouts that augment the chorus and closing crescendo of “heyrs”. Immaculate, head-bobbing mod-rock.

‘Lazy Old Sun’ is a lysergic-fug of phasing and sound effects, psychedelic in every sense of the word and basting in the light of a late 60′s California sun. Every so often we’re reminded of the true source of this song, with typical Ray Davies moments of unaccompanied prose coming at the end of each verse. This technicolour reverie blends British and US psychedelia together for a sweeter-scented, if lethargic, summertime brew.

Finally, it’s the turn of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Dandelion’, a great song originally – as the B-side to ‘We Love You’, released following the much publicised drug busts – and a great song here in its Sidewalk Society overcoat. The fact it’s almost a carbon-copy of the original matters not a single jot.

A must for lovers of psychedelic pop and rock, Fruits de Mer Vol. 14 is a first-rate way to finish 2010 and one of the strongest FdM releases of the year.

You can order a copy of the Sidewalk Society’s EP (only 400 pressed) from the Fruits de Mer website.

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“Rodney Bewes?” I hear you say. “He of Bob Ferris/Likely Lads fame?” The one and same, I retort. The man with the helmet hairdo and sad eyes. It’s true that the singing talents of Bewes may not be what he’s primarily known for, but 1969 did see him make an assault on the charts with ‘Dear Mother, Love Albert’, the theme tune to his post-Likely Lad sitcom of the same name. The B-side was called ‘Meter Maid’, and it’s that song that features here on We All Live on Candy Green.

As this is a compilation of obscure and arcane psychedelic/power pop from the late sixties, the aforementioned ‘Meter Maid’ slots in perfectly. It’s a sub-Beatles, child-friendly interpretation of psychedelia, of course, with shades of Keith West whimsy thrown in for good measure, and, to be quite frank, it’s bloody awful. But that’s awful in a quite wonderful way. It’s like the bumblebee; it shouldn’t be able to fly but it does. Rodney Bewes’s ‘Meter Maid’ is terrible but endearing at the same time. His camp “oohs” towards the end are a particular joy.

But that’s just one song on a collection of 25, and we’ve spent more than enough time on it, so how’s about the rest?

Imagine distilling a moment in time that captured the sound of late 60′s British pop with a predominately psych edge and pouring it into a paisley patterned decanter, to enjoy at a later date. That is what Elastic Cat Records have done with We All Live on Candy Green, volume one of their Electric Sound Show Series, which, in turn, is the first reissue of the Incredible Sound Show Series, originally released on vinyl and described as 15 volumes of 60s psychedelia.

Pulling together a cast of the forgotten, the never heard of, the no-hit-wonders and Bewes, We All Live on Candy Green lives up to its title; skirting the edges of a more innocent time, when the skies rippled with a rainbow of colours, men wore flowery shirts without fear of arrest and LSD was handed out with the free school milk.

Not everything’s a winner on here, as is to be expected from such a large choice. For instance, the occasional track sounds as though it’s more of an estimation of the psychedelic sound put together by a committee. The sort of thing you might hear on the soundtrack to a chirpy sex-comedy starring Robin Asquith, when the plot requires him to pull some swinging sort in a badly mocked-up underground club, filled with over-aged extras dressed in flowery fashions six years out of date. But the occasional misfire is forgiven, when the rest of We All Live on Candy Green, is fizzier than a quarter bag of flying saucers and a handful of sherbet dabs.

Expect plenty of Hammond organ, spitting out brief bursts of swirling melody, and the occasional crunching guitar, complimented by lyrics that need a couple of bags of sand to stop them floating away.

Worth singling out for particular praise is the Motivation’s ‘Delighted to See You’, a cover of The Honeybus song, complete with a pleasingly pastoral flute motif, and Ken Saul’s ‘Pictures Framed in My Mind’, a hauntingly phased effort from 1970.

And then, of course, there’s young Rodney of Bewes. What more could the psych-pop aficionado ask for? Roll on Volume Two.

We All Live on Candy Green is released by Elastic Cat Records and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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But it wasn’t always so. If you were able to step back in time and follow the multi-hued swirl of marijuana smoke that emerges in 1968, then you would find a none too shabby psychedelic pop act, featuring a younger, mop-topped Rossi, along with full-term partner in crime’s against music, Rick Parfitt, and a cheeky little bassist known as Alan Lancaster. These three would form the kernel of Status Quo, a band that would go on to strike fear in the hearts of small children, the elderly and those of a nervous disposition alike.

The late 70s and the 80s were a particularly desperate time for listeners of Radio One, with The Quo rehashing the same song over and over again and unleashing it like a dirty bomb across the airwaves of Great Britain. It wasn’t until 1995, when The Quo was named as part of the axis of evil, that their reign of terror subsided.

Bu, as I’ve already said, it wasn’t always so. In 1968 they were called *The* Status Quo. They basked in the technicolour sunshine of the musical experimentation prevalent at this unique moment in history, and, most importantly, they banged out some highly agreeable tunage.

Allow the defence to present ‘Pictures of Matchstick Men’. It may be the last track on Picturesque Matchstickable Messages From The Status Quo, but it’s easily the most enduring. Everybody knows that opening riff, and if they don’t, then where have they been for the past forty years?

‘Pictures of Matchstick Men‘ is one of the essential psych-pop singles. As far as Head Full of Snow is concerned it’s faultless; three minutes of absolute perfection, featuring phasing, LSD-spiked lyrics and one of the defining guitar riffs of the entire psychedelic era. The rest of Picturesque Matchstickable Messages From The Status Quo may not be able to top ‘… Matchstick Men’ but Rossi, Parfitt and co. give it a bloody good go.

Their version of The Bee Gees’ ‘Spicks and Specks’ is a bouncy treat and a sterling example of how to get away with lightweight pop; Rossi’s vocal giving it the edge over the Gibb boys’ original. Meanwhile, the likes of ‘Ice In the Sun’, ‘Technicolour Dreams’ and ‘When My Mind is Not Live’, all benefit from the psychedelic vibrations that resound throughout the entire exercise. Elsewhere, ‘Paradise Flat’ is a surprisingly sinister respite from all this electric-charged, flower power pop, with an ominous Rod Serling-style narration thrown in for good measure.

Picturesque Matchstickable Messages From The Status Quo is an album driven as much by its lysergic lyricism as it is by the Rossi/Parfitt guitar duumvirate and the mellifluous organ swirls of Roy Lynes. It is much further “out there” than anything released by the band’s previous incarnations as The Spectres and The Traffic Jam, and, indeed, anything that came after.

Although The Quo continued to release some decent music for the early part of the 1970s, culminating in the excellent post-psychedelic heavy grind that is ‘Paper Plane’, for me, they would never again scale the polychromatic heights that form the acid pop of their refreshingly pert debut.

Picturesque Matchstickable Messages From The Status Quo is reissued by Sanctuary in an expanded deluxe edition and is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Recorded for the now OOP Fruits de Mer Vol. Seven, Cranium Pie take the psychedelic-pop oddness of the original and turns up the insanity factor.

The result is a haywire, acid-charged headfuck that throws in a horizon-scorching guitar, backwards vocals and a hauntingly astral, vocoder chorus.

Nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3YyU0UGbkw

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I failed to grow up, but I was there in the early eighties. Alfie Shepherd wasn’t, but it didn’t stop him writing a concept album based on Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s novel, The Wind in the Willows. Ah, the innocent aspirations of the psychedelic age, when nobody would bat an eyelid if such a record were released.

Except it didn’t get released; not in 1969, as intended, anyway. You see, young Alfred wrote the piece for Angel Pavement, the psych-pop band with whom he played lead guitar. He recorded the whole thing in a home studio as a set of demos to play to the rest of the band. However, due to various unavoidable circumstances, what was meant to be, wasn’t to be, and the band split in 1970 leaving Alfie alone with his demos and his memories.

Until 2008 that is, when the good people at psychedelic archive and reassembly label, Wooden Hill/Tenth Planet, took it upon themselves to collect together the Wind in the Willows songs, along with a handful of others recorded around the same time, and unleash them upon those in the know (I may be being presumptuous, but I doubt the public at large have heard of the Wooden Hill label).

If fey whimsy delivered at an unusually high pitch is not your bag, look away now, but not before I advise you not to buy this album. Right. Have they gone? If there’s any stragglers still here, failing to heed my warning, then let it be known that I did try and tell thee.

So, if you can stomach such untoward daintiness, or even actively participate in it, then Alfie Shepherd’s psychedelic pop project could well be right up your woodland path.

It’s a shame that The Wind in the Willows was never fully realised, as despite its agreeability, there’s no getting past the fact that this is a just a collection of demos. A proper recording studio, some orchestral overdubs and a bloke on drums could’ve done wonders with the material on offer here. Not that it would’ve sold a bean, but who needs money when you have a little bit of peace and a little bit of love to tide you over?

It’s all inoffensively pleasant stuff that picks out events from its source material and adapts them to pretty much the same wispy template throughout, one exception being the bluesy ‘Bargin’.

The ten bonus tracks, all except ‘The Swallow’s Song’, are unconnected to The Wind in the Willows but remain in a similar vein, although a little more lyrically downbeat in places, such as on ‘Sandy’s Song’ and ‘Sad Statue’.

At the end of the day, if your thing is ultra-rare, toytown psychedelic pop that won’t frighten the horses then Alfie Shepherd’s The Wind in the Willows is well worth a listen. If you can get beyond the lo-fi demo quality (which in all honesty, isn’t that bad), and the untoward feyness then give it a go.

Wind in the Willows take me home.

Alfie Shepherd’s The Wind in the Willows is issued on Wooden Hill and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Aside from the occasional exception, we are in the territory of orchestral-infused flowery pop, which, don’t get me wrong, is no bad thing.

The World of Oz, released in 1969, sees the four Brummies responsible deliver a collection of melodic and instantly likeable songs that steer well clear of anything too far out, but set themselves apart, both lyrically and musically, from the standard pop fodder of the time.

‘The Muffin Man’, the album opener and a minor hit in Holland, lives up to the outlandish album cover with its nursery rhyme lyrics and toytown psych sensibilities. Its equally magical B-side, ‘Peter’s Birthday (Black and White Rainbow)’, is included here as a bonus track.

The rest of the album is given over to a more orthodox brand of flower pop, though one that’s invigorated by the lyrical content, which for the most part maintains an element of fairy tale, childhood innocence.

‘The Hum-GumTree‘ is an exception, being a catchy little number, whose idyllic scene is quickly shattered by some heavy blasts of keyboard, shifting it momentarily into the realms of psychedelic rock. An honour shared by the wonderful ‘Like a Tear’, resplendent in a dressing of Eastern mysticism and eerie guitar, making it the one through and through psychedelic track on the album.

The orchestral elements on some of the tracks also set the songs apart from the realms of ordinary pop, as was the case with The Move’s debut album, and here they’re expertly arranged by Donovan collaborator, and composer, John Cameron.

Repertoire have done a splendid job with the remastered reissue of The World of Oz. Limited to just 2000 copies, the colourful packaging and enclosed booklet are tastier than the contents of a sweetshop and only half as damaging to your teeth. All the singles are included as bonuses, and these boys released a few singles before a lack of commercial success finished them off.

Although far from what I initially anticipated, The World of Oz has enough going for it to keep this weary hack diverted. It’s harmless, very British and harks back to a bygone time when you could quite happily get away with this sort of thing.

The World of Oz is reissued by Repertoire and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Their brand of flowery-pop tickled the underskirts of psychedelia but never managed to make an impact on their home shore. However, the brightly-attired troupe did manage a minor hit in Holland with the Toytown psych of ‘Muffin Man’.

‘The Hum-Gum Tree’ is a slightly harder-edged example of their output, and an absolutely splendid one at that.

Taken from their one and only album, 1969′s The World of Oz, ‘The Hum Gum Tree’ boasts a psychedelic feel without compromising on the poppiness, and lyrics that firmly belong in the realms of sinister childhood fantasy.

There will be a review of the album The World of Oz in these very pages, next week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79jnwlQvnmg

The World of Oz is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Real Life Permanent Dreams – a cornucopia of British psychedelia 1965-1970, from Sanctuary Records, is exactly what it says on the tin, a veritable abundance of psychedelic joy that’s as essential as it is comprehensive.

With four discs (yes, four), a 46-page, oversized glossy booklet, and a monumental 99 tracks that kick off with the original demo version of The Smoke’s ‘My Friend Jack’, is there really any need for me to continue this review?

The set is a mixture of rarities, unreleased tracks and live recordings. There are contributions from more established acts, such as The Small Faces, The Kinks, Soft Machine and The Nice, and an absolute wealth of material from lesser known artists. Ramases & Selket, The Orange Bicycle, Our Plastic Dream, Fat Mattress, Harmony Grass… Just looking at the names on the back of the elongated slipcase this treasure trove is housed in, is enough to send any psych, acid, or early prog enthusiasts bandy with excitement.

Each of the four discs on Real Life Permanent Dreams sports its own title, reflecting the chronological categorising of sound, as opposed to date, into which the five years have been divided. So it starts with Sowing the Seeds before moving onto Plant a Flower Child Today, then HappyDaysToyTown, and finishing on Circus Days Are Here Again. Any one of these discs, if sent out into the cruel world to fend for itself, would prove a formidable force to reckon with. When combined, like Dai-X on Star Fleet, they become both the unstoppable force and the immovable object that, if ever were to meet, would spell the end of the world.

Sowing the Seeds largely covers the raw, infant sound of psychedelia – though some tracks are as late as 1968 – with early, acid-laced examples from Donovan (‘Sunny Goodge Street’), John’s Children (‘The Lilac Hand of Menthol Dan’), Lord Sutch (‘The Cheat’) and future Quo, The Traffic Jam (‘I Don’t Want You’).

Plant a Flower Child Today blossoms the more flowery sound associated with the summer of love, as The End start things out with an alternative version of their ‘Loving Sacred Loving’, featuring a closing harpsichord flourish of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, absent from the album version. The disc finishes 26 tracks later, on another alternative take, this time an unreleased, brass-free version of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s ever-incandescent ‘Fire’.

HappyDaysToyTown hits the toytown and popsike trail with such little-heard gems as Timon’s ‘The Bitter Thoughts of Little Jane’, The Beatstalkers’ tale of the pot-smoking ‘Silver Tree Top School for Boys’ and Andy Ellison’s mellatron-infused ‘Fool FromUpper Eden’. If that’s not enough to tempt you, then there’s also a BBC session of one of the all time psychedelic-pop classics, The Status Quo’s ‘Pictures of Matchstick Men‘, as well as Birmingham’s own, and early Steve Gibbons excursion, The Uglys with ‘Love and Best Wishes’.

Circus Days Are Here Again charts the shift from psychedelic pop into the heavier territory of psychedelic and progressive rock, with Velvett Fogg (‘Lady Caroline’), Humble Pie (‘The Light of Love‘), Man (‘Empty Room’) and Bobak Jons Malone (‘On a Meadow Lea) all on fine form, among others. There’s a live snatch from one of the Soft Machine’s meandering excursions as well as, somewhat peculiarly, Andrew Bown’s ‘Tarot’, the theme tune to ITV’s 1970 kids’ series Ace of Wands.

Of course, there are notable omissions (Tomorrow, The Pretty Things, Pink Floyd…just a few), but when faced with the kaleidoscopic feast that’s on offer instead, that’s quickly forgotten. Besides, I’m sure anybody salivating at the thought of this collection will already have everything recorded by those bands and any other big name exclusions.

Real Life Permanent Dreams – the title, incidentally, coming from a Tomorrow song but included here as a cover by The Orange Machine – if you hadn’t already gathered, I quite like. All it leaves for me to say is make sure you get a hold of this superior psychedelic compilation. Through fair means or foul, it matters not; just get your hands on it. Now!

So there you have it. Our psychedelic/prog/folk compilation week reaches its end. Now that’s over with, Jeffman’s headed for a long lie down beneath a heavy cloud of polychromatic sounds. Until next time…

Real Life Permanent Dreams – a cornucopia of British psychedelia 1965-1970 appears to have been deleted, but if you have money to burn it can be picked up for extortionate prices at Amazon.co.uk

Also in Compilation Week:

Looking Towards the Sky – Progressive, Psychedelic and Folk Rock from the Ember Vaults

Cave of Clear Light – The Pye and Dawn Records Underground Trip 1967-1975

Strange Folk

Spirit of Joy – Tales from the Polydor Underground 1967-1974

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Well, as I’m never less than a man of my word,  I shall be featuring some new stuff in the not too distant future, possibly under a big, flowery banner bearing a self-assuring title such as “New-Psych” or “New-Prog”,  just so that I remain fully aware we’re not wandering too far from my original remit and I can continue to sleep at night.

Anyway, incoherent babbling aside, and keeping on the theme of new stuff, here’s a video from The High Dials, a psychedelic pop band from Montreal, Canada. Taken from their 2008 album Moon Country, ‘Killer of Dragons’ sports a sumptuous video pitched somewhere between The Lord of the Rings and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The song’s not bad either, mixing the sound of the more laidback American psych-pop/garage bands of the 60s with a distinctly modern influence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQtHM_uibEU

You can find out more about The High Dials at their offical website and myspace page.

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Jeff Lynne and the Idle Race boys react to the news HFoS is one year old

365 days may have passed since the first proper posting here, but as I promised at the start of the year, we shan’t be doing anything to celebrate.

If the desire takes you though, feel free to sport your trilby at a jauntier angle than per usual.

In the absence of a cake or balloons, try a bit of Birmingham’s own Idle Race instead. From their 1968 debut The Birthday Party, the aptly titled ‘Birthday’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOKFpEl_EPU

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Probably the most famous example of authority-baiting via the medium of song is The Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, although John Lennon dismissed such speculation as mere coincidence. Billy Nicholls was another such artist willing to nail his colours to the mast, penning ‘London Social Degree’, taken from his 1968 album Would You Believe.

A backing vocalist on the Small Faces’ psychedelic tour de force Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake and The Nice’s ‘The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack’, from the album of the same name, Billy Nicholls got his break when he signed to Immediate, the label of former Rolling Stones’ manager and producer, Andrew Loog Oldham. The album, Would You Believe, was touted as the British answer to The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, but due to a severe case of cash-strappeditis at Immediate only 100 copies were issued. The album was eventually released on Nicholls’ own label in 1998.

‘London Social Degree’ is a hymn to the all-encompassing powers of LSD – the old chestnuts of free love and furthering the mind – from a time when the wide range of casualties had yet to be revealed. It’s a bouncy burst of psychedelic pop, encapsulating the sound of a 60′s swinging London that’s as far from the underground UFO Club and Middle Earth scene of the Floyd, Soft Machine et al, as it’s possible to get.

Nevertheless it’s still some solid psych-pop, worthy of an airing right here on these very pages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd_43mm9RaU

As it’s now deleted, the Expanded edition of Would You Believe can be picked up for silly money over at Amazon.co.uk

Billy Nicholls’ website

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Despite being the first band to record a BBC Radio 1 John Peel session, commercial success eluded them, and even a firm, if brief, following on the underground wasn’t enough to make 1968′s self-titled debut anything more than a lone shot at album glory.

The fickle nature of swinging 60′s musical adulation may have prevented Tomorrow from recording beyond 1967, but it doesn’t stop the eponymous record from being anything short of a minor classic.

The band was made up of Keith West (who had scored a hit in 1967 with ‘Grocer Jack – Extract From a Teenage Opera‘), Steve Howe (future Yes guitarist), Twink (soon to be drummer and lunatic-in-residence with The Pretty Things and The Pink Fairies) and bassist John ‘Junior’ Wood.

‘My White Bicycle’, a three minute psychedelic masterstroke in the truest sense of the word, kicks Tomorrow off with its backwards-phased guitar and seemingly carefree lyrics, allegedly celebrating the work of a Dutch anarchist group and their communal bicycle program. From then on in we’re treated to a polychromatic smorgasbord of blistering psychedelic rock, toytown-psych and the baroque, knitted together with a yarn flecked by the finest phasing and sitar chicanery.

‘Real Life Permanent Dream’ needs no introduction to anybody with a love of technicoloured dreamscapes, resplendent in its sitar-festooned overcoat, and ‘Revolution’, despite its cringe-inducing preamble, is a driving ode to subversion, fractured by intermittent blasts of scorching guitar.

Away from such harder-edged tracks, the toytown-psychedelia crowd are also well catered for, with the likes of ‘Colonel Brown’, ‘Shy Boy’, ‘Auntie Mary’s Dress Shop’ and, to a lesser extent, the whimsically jaunty ‘Three Jolly Dwarfs’ putting in a good showing.

Tomorrow even find time to cover The Beatles’ ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ in a manner that sounds as though they haven’t taken the trouble to piss on John Lennon’s (albeit not yet dug) grave en route to the studio. Yes, Tomorrow is everything and more. A microcosm of 1967′s swinging London distilled onto one disc.

The 1999 reissue features a host of bonus tracks, including ‘Claramount Lake’, the B-side to the single release of ‘My White Bicycle’. The only downside to of all this is that the remastering is terrible, with the sound all over the shop – hollow in places, completely sucked out in others. Unfortunately the 1999 CD reissue is the only way of hearing this brilliant album at present (away from an original vinyl pressing, of course). EMI are in dire need of remedying that ASAP, though 11 years on, one holds out little hope.

Tomorrow, by Tomorrow, is reissued by EMI and available from Amazon.co.uk

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