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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Alfie Shepherd – The Wind in the Willows

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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World of Oz – The World of Oz

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.

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

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

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World of Oz -- The Hum Gum Tree

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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Real Life Permanent Dreams – a cornucopia of British psychedelia 1965-1970 (compilation week)

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.

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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The High Dials -- Killer of Dragons

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’.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOKFpEl_EPU

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Head Full of Snow, One Year Old Today

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.

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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Billy Nicholls -- London Social Degree

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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Tomorrow’s debut album

Taken from a proposed, yet aborted, rock opera by Mark Wirtz, ‘Grocer Jack’ is possibly the only song featuring a man suffering and dying from a heart attack to reach No. 2 in the UK charts (Madness’s ‘Cardiac Arrest’ having peaked at No. 14). Typifying a good deal of the Toytown psych pop genre, ‘Grocer Jack’ harks back to a bygone era that probably never existed. Keith West of short-lived, but long remembered, Brit-psychedelic band Tomorrow, sings the poignant tale of Jack, a forgotten relic in a world of apathy, who frets about how the unappreciative town will function if he can’t make his deliveries, even as he breathes his last.

Released in July 1967, ‘Grocer Jack’ was kept off of the No. 1 spot by Engelbert Humperdinck’s (he of the made up name and equally fictitious hair) ‘The Last Waltz’. The popularity of the song ensured it was still getting radio airplay ten to fifteen years later, by which time it would’ve been weaving its way into the consciousness of yours truly.

‘Grocer Jack’ and similar excursions by the likes of Kaleidoscope, The Idle Race, the Alan Bown Set and many, many more, offers quaint English storytelling by bands and songwriters brought up on Enid Blyton and influenced by the Trumptonshire worlds of Gordon Murray, The Magic Roundabout, and the Smallfilms productions of Oliver Postgate. Such bizarre, yet wonderfully endearing songs nowadays belong to another bygone era, the likes of which they espoused. The summer of love, an equally whimsical, semi-fictitious time, when a song about a dying green grocer in a picture postcard town could (almost) top the charts. It wouldn’t happen today. And neither would this video featuring a man sporting a jauntily-patterned jacket (Keith West) leading a group of small children off into the woods. Such is the loss of innocence.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENblHOxi1c4

‘Grocer Jack (Excerpt from a Teenage Opera)’ by Keith West appears on A Teenage Opera: The Original Soundtrack Recording, the collected recorded songs intended for the original 60′s project, released in 1996.

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Keith West -- Grocer Jack (Excerpt from a Teenage Opera)

Whether you love or hate it, there’s no denying that if at some point over the last 42 years you’ve heard a bit of music, there’s more chance of it being ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ than anything else.

Though not their best song, it managed to capture a moment in the summer of 1967 when, if you were fortunate enough not to have to work for a living and bought into the whole flower power freedom movement, anything seemed possible. The fact it caught on with the mainstream too, quickly elevated AWSoP to the legendary stature it enjoys today.

Its phenomenal success was not solely down to it being a damn fine song. A spot of canny marketing saw the disc released to a pirate radio station first (Radio London), creating a deluge of interest. The single was given an immediate, yet limited, release of 1000 copies, further stoking public enthusiasm for something not everyone had the chance of getting their hands on. When the enormous demand was finally met, record stores in the UK were seen with makeshift signs in the window declaring “A WHITER SHADE OF PALE AVAILABLE HERE”, and the record hit the top spot of the singles charts on June 10th 1967.

Since then ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ has gone on to be both a blessing and a curse to the group. A blessing in that it has made Gary Brooker (vocalist and songwriter) and Keith Reid (the band’s behind the scenes lyricist) a ton of cash. And a curse in that Procol Harum could never shake free of its considerable presence. Despite going on to produce ten albums in ten years, some people will only ever think of them as a one hit wonder.

Court cases aside -- Hammond organist Matthew Fisher won a claim to a percentage of the royalties in 2009 -- ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ remains to this day a stone cold classic of psychedelia.

Enough of my nonsense, behold the beast!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb3iPP-tHdA

‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ appears as a bonus track on the 40th Anniversary reissue of Procol Harum’s debut album, available from Amazon.co.uk

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Procol Harum Week: A Whiter Shade of Pale

A side-project of new wave act, XTC, The Dukes Of Stratosphear released an EP 25 O’Clock in 1985 and the album Psionic Psunspot in 1987. Chips From the Chocolate Fireball is the aforementioned records collected onto one disc, and what a belter it is.

Swimming in a sea of Tomorrow, Kaleidoscope, Pink Floyd, Grapefruit and numerous other British and US psychedelic bands, The Dukes Of Stratosphear dip into this proud heritage, gifting us an album that sounds like it’s the real deal and could easily pass for a lost work from that much cherished era.

Which is exactly how the original 25 O’Clock EP was marketed in 1985, even enjoying an April 1st release date to hint at the parody until XTC were ready to reveal their hand.

The references on Chips From the Chocolate Fireball are too many to mention but the Dukes cover just about every diverse aspect of psychedelic pop and acid rock, with the US garage psych of ’25 O’Clock’ leading into the Barrett/ Floydian ‘Bike Ride to the Moon’ – the first two tracks nailing their eclectically eccentric colours to the mast.

As a homage to the sounds of those acid-soaked times it nears perfection, scooping up the jangly, the grinding and the fuzziest of guitar riffs into one paisley blend of kaleidoscopic joy. And then there’s the obligatory mellotrons, sitars, bongos and a host of other weird and wonderful instrumentation to augment the authenticity.

Highlight of Chips From the Chocolate Fireball has to be the ‘The Mole From the Ministry‘, six minutes of Magical Mystery Tourism that celebrates The Beatles’ ventures into the lands of Walrus inhabited surrealism. ‘Have You Seen Jackie?’ and ‘Collideascope’ fight it out for second place on the honours role and in keeping with the traditions of Brit psychedelia there’s a jaunty music-hall style sing-along in the shape of ‘You’re a Good Man Albert Brown‘, echoing similar sojourns twenty years previous by the likes of Cream (‘Mothers Lament’) and The Kinks (‘All of my Friends Were There’).

Chips From the Chocolate Fireball is an essential album for lovers of all things psychedelic. A tantalising take on the genre as a whole, condensed into one perfectly formed and manageable package.

Both 25 O’Clock and Psonic Psunspot have recently been reissued, remastered and revamped with extra goodies, whereas Chips From the Chocolate Fireball remains available from Amazon.co.uk

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The Dukes of Stratosphear – Chips From the Chocolate Fireball

Maintaining a steady balance between psychedelic rock and psych-pop, The Birthday Party avoids slipping into the heavily phased and prolonged freakouts that sometimes characterised the former, without drifting into the overt feyness that often brushed a ruffled shirt cuff against the latter.

Jaunty is a good way to describe the album, with plenty of quirky touches and lyrics to match. Jeff Lynne’s vocal style and delivery (long before he acquired the mid-atlantic accent of later ELO records) match his subject matter perfectly and the use of sound effects throughout – and in the case of the exquisite ‘The Lady Who Said She Could Fly’, orchestral lavishment – is spot on.

The starter for ten, and first single to be taken from the album, ‘Skeleton and the Roundabout’ seems to sample a brief burst of The Magic Roundabout at the start before launching into a playful ditty concerning “a fairground man at heart” who becoming so thin from constantly turning the handle of his roundabout, falls ill and finds himself unable to do his job. Salvation comes in the form of the ghost train owner with the offer to hang from the gate of his ride as the ghost train skeleton!?!?!

Biting satire on capitalist exploitation or unadulterated psychedelic zanery? I’d wager the latter, and it’s this that sets the tone for much of the remainder of the album, with nearly all the songs sharing an almost absurdist vein of humour.

‘I Like my Toys‘ is a gleefully impudent wee composition concerning a shameless fellow of thirty-one who shuns responsibility in favour of his toys, which he goes on to list with relish. It also contains the priceless lines: “…  But my mother says I should get a job, Or my father she will tell, She says sixteen years is a long enough rest, Though I say that I’m not well …” A man clearly after my own heart.

‘Sitting in My Tree’, ‘Lucky Man’  and to a certain extent the music hall-styled ‘Don’t Put Your Boys in the Army, Mrs. Ward’ all continue this rich seam of jaunty tomfoolery, though that’s not to say there aren’t the more serious moments.

‘The Birthday‘ is a prime example of a song being both quirky and dark, conjuring images of sadness and loneliness, resulting in possible death, whilst the aforementioned ‘The Lady Who Said She Could Fly’, is epically moving  fayre.

Lynne’s love of The Beatles is well documented (he would namecheck all four in ‘Girl at the Window’ on the follow-up album, Idle Race, and of course, the original aim of ELO was to take up where ‘I Am the Walrus’ had left off) and the influence of their more off-the wall moments can be felt throughout The Birthday Party.

A sterling, in places genuinely funny, debut from a HFoS favourite.

The Birthday Party is part of the Back to the Story compilation, containing all three of The Idle Race’s albums plus bonus tracks, and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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The Idle Race – The Birthday Party

Birmingham’s very own kaleidoscopic curios blossomed out of beat group The Nightriders, who at one time counted Roy Wood amongst their numbers. With the arrival of Jeff Lynne -- later of The Move and, of course, the Electric Light Orchestra -- and his psychedelic songbook, they changed their name and set about trying to make a mark on the flower power world of paisley-hued pop and rock.

‘I Like my Toys’ is as jaunty as it is silly and taken from 1968′s album The Birthday Party, a review of which will follow next week. It’s the daft tale of a man who refuses to bow to life’s responsibilities -- a man of incredible good sense in my opinion -- and even when all else has gone to pot, it still manages to raise a smile.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmH0jWyhneQ

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The Idle Race -- I Like my Toys

First one out the trap, the group’s debut from 1967 (though not released in the UK until January ’68) simply titled Procol Harum, which arrived in the wake of the record breaking success of ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’. Recently named number one in a BBC Radio 2 chart of ‘Most played songs in public places’, the “Summer of Love” favourite was left off the original album – as was often the case with singles in those days – but is restored here as one of the eleven bonus tracks in all its classical, Hammond organ-soaked psychedelic glory. The rest of the album’s not half bad either.

Procol Harum continues the trend set by ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, incorporating classical elements, whirling Dervish organ riffs and abstract lyrics throughout, skilfully delivered by Gary Brooker’s powerful, ‘blue-eyed soul’ voice.

The largely piano-driven songs mix the sombre (‘Something Following Me’, ‘Repent Walpurgis’) with the oft-jaunty (‘She Wandered through the Garden Fence’, ‘Good Captain Clack’), without sounding like a mish-mash of styles, although the abundance of jauntiness does make it a little lightweight in places. But hey, this was 1967 and psychedelic poppiness was still the main event, even though Procol Harum do experiment with a more progressive/psychedelic rock sound on tracks like the mythology courting ‘Cerdes (Outside the Gates of)’ and the instrumental closer ‘Repent Walpurgis’.

The songwriting partnership of Gary Brooker (music) and Keith Reid (lyrics) is a peculiar one, in that that was all Reid did. He was a writer first and foremost and despite Procol Harum being a fully functioning band, Reid was content to remain in the background, acting as the Bernie Taupin to Brooker’s Elton John.

A lot has been made of the abstract nature of Procol Harum’s lyrics, so much so that ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ has gone on to have serious theses written about its supposed meanings. Whatever was going through the mind of Reid when he penned these songs is neither here nor there, all that matters is that they evoke powerful images when listened to in verse, the true mark of a skilled writer, song or otherwise.

The ten original songs on Procol Harum are complemented by a feast of bonus tracks, including ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’s’ follow-up single, the classical lament of ‘Homburg’, and what is the crowning glory of the entire album, the gently moving, previously unreleased, ‘Understandably Blue’ aka ‘I Realise’.

Complete with orchestral segments throughout, ‘Understandably Blue’ is a real find, here seamlessly mixed from two different recording sessions. It just pips the evergreen ‘Whiter Shade…’ to the title of HFoS fave, which in itself is a first, drawing both the top tracks from the bonuses.

A proud booklet accompanies the reissue, filled with in-depth liner notes and photographs from the vaults, what has become the norm with these Fly Reissues and the standard to which other labels and artists should aspire (Universal/ The Rolling Stones take note).

A little lightweight in places, as already stated, and by no means the group’s best – that was still to come and the following album Shine on Brightly would signal this with its shift towards a more concrete footing in progressive rock – but overall Procol Harum is an enjoyable cathedral of organ-laced psych-pop. One that’s well worth taking time out for the occasional pilgrimage.

The 40th Anniversary Edition of Procol Harum is reissued by Fly Records and available from Amazon.co.uk

See also:

Procol Harum – Shine on Brightly reissue
Procol Harum – A Salty Dog

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Procol Harum Debut Album (Reissue)

Maybe… But wait! This isn’t your normal Kenny Rogers. This is Kenny Rogers smacked off his tits on some hallucinogenic, psychedelic sound, whilst idling on a kaleidoscopic duvet.

No, I haven’t been at the happy pills. This is the coward of the county himself in his pre-country, pre-Santa beard guise, belting out (or miming in this instance) an acid-dipped tune, the lyrics to which wouldn’t have sat out of place on a watered-down, poppier version of  Country Joe and the Fish’s debut album, Electric Music For the Mind and the Body.

Sporting a polo-neck sweater and some stripy trousers to boot, Kenny may look like someone’s dad trying to get down with the ‘kids’ but the tune’s bob-on, nonetheless.

Recorded for the subversive-lite American comedy show The Smother Brothers (on which Keith Moon infamously blew up his drum kit), let Kenny give it some welly with 1968′s ‘Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)’.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ8k6fVe25k

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Kenny Rogers and the First Edition -- Just Dropped In

Okay, it might seem unfair to single out Roy Wood, as The Move were – at the time of recording, at least – Carl Wayne, Bev Bevan, Trevor Burton and Chris ‘Ace’ Kefford, but being the creative whirlwind responsible for the lion’s share of their songs, the two are, and always will be, inextricably linked. Even if nowadays you are more likely to think of Christmas at the mention of his name.

But back to the album, here presented in another expanded, digipack reissue by Fly Records. This one’s a lavish two-disc affair with the usual, informative booklet, and featuring on disc one the original mono album as it was released in April 1968, complete with bonus tracks of the single A and B-sides that didn’t feature. Disc two is called ‘New Movement’ and is a newly created stereo mix of the original album with a slightly different track listing and a couple of alternate versions.

Well that’s all well and good, but is it any cop?

Of course it is! It’s The Move and any regular visitor to these hallowed shores of musical goodness will be fully aware that Head Full of Snow loves The Move. Granted, it has to be said that in my humble opinion this is their weakest album but that only illustrates the fact of how good Shazam, Looking On and Message From the Country are. I mean, it’s baffling how Roy Wood’s songwriting talents have largely been forgotten with the passage of time? Everybody remembers Lennon and McCartney; Mick and Keef; Ray Davies; Pete Townsend; but not Roy Wood. Maybe it’s a regional bias against the bearded Brummy or the fact that The Move never broke America or even the fact that his long career in the music business has somehow been overshadowed by a certain Christmas song.

As I said, The Move was recorded over a period of 14 months and it shows. The change in musical styles is evident, from the early rock ‘n’ roll vibe of ‘Weekend’  to the full-blown psych-tinged pop of the perennial ‘Flowers in the Rain’, but even upon its release times had changed with psychedelic-pop giving way to psychedelic and progressive rock, and ’singles’ artists now eager to be considered more serious ‘album’ artists.  This would be remedied with The Move’s follow-up, Shazam, which set them on the progressive road to E.L.O.

The original album kicks off with ‘Yellow Rainbow’, delivering a warning to a world on the brink of apocalypse amidst a fuzzy haze of phasing and psychedelic goodness. From then on in it’s a non-stop ride of pop and psych-pop mastery, taking in the glorious sights of ‘Flowers in the Rain’, ‘Fire Brigade’, ‘Mist on a Monday Morning’ and ‘Cherry Blossom Clinic’ on the way. The five bonus tracks include ‘Night of Fear’ and ‘I Can Hear the Grass Grow’.

Of the 18 tracks that make up disc one of this remastered reissue, 15 are written by Roy Wood. The remaining three are covers, Eddie Cochran’s ‘Weekend’, Moby Grape’s slightly dull ‘Hey Grandma’ and the Coasters’ ‘Zing Went the Strings of my Heart’, featuring the dulcet, double-bass tones of Bev Bevan.

Roy Wood ’s often bizarre, often cheeky lyrics are no better exemplified than on ‘(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree’, which would go on to be covered by fellow Brummies, psychedelic popsters and home of future Move member, Jeff Lynne: The Idle Race. This is a brand of psychedelic pop unique to the British with its tongue-in-cheek, whimsical lyrics about, in Roy’s own words, “a nut-case bird”. The psychedelic feel throughout stems from Roy Wood’s love for writing children’s stories and not from illicit substances, or as Bev Bevan says in the excellent booklet, “Once in a while, we’d lock him in a hotel room with a bottle of vodka and say, ‘Write a new single!’ But that’s the nearest he ever got to getting blasted.”

The Move is another handsome reissue from Fly Records and a cracking album to boot. The second ‘New Movement’ stereo-mixed disc is probably my preferred listening as it does away with the aforementioned ‘Hey Grandma’ (I don’t like the Moby Grape original either) and the equally lacklustre ‘Wave the Flag and Stop the Train’. Saying that it also misses off the excellent ‘Yellow Rainbow’, ‘Disturbance’ and ‘I Can Hear the Grass Grow’, so alternating is the wisest move.

This is The Move in their original, rawest form, one they’d never entertain again. By the time the album was released ‘Ace’ Kefford had already left because of drug problems and Trevor Burton was also to depart before the release of their follow-up, Shazam. The pop sound is one that would quickly disappear too as Roy Wood shifted the band towards the more experimental and satisfactory realms of psychedelic and progressive rock.

The Move (Deluxe 2-CD Expanded Edition) is reissued on Fly Records and available from Amazon.co.uk

See also:

The Move – Shazam

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The Move’s Debut Album

Partially recorded at the same time as the Stones were recording Their Satanic Majesties Request one might be forgiven for expecting to hear a powerhouse of psychedelic rock; a companion piece to the Stones’ album.

Unfortunately, Introspection is a much more subdued affair, gallantly straddling the saddle of psychedelic pop but taking no chances while it’s there.

This is not to say it isn’t any good. On the contrary, dear fellow, as an exponent of the late 60′s psychedelia vibe it’s very much passable, if a little unremarkable. The harder edges of some guitar-driven psycedelic pop have been smoothed away, leaving an elegant, sometimes bubbly album, complimented by a light sprinkling of the baroque.

However, despite the overall by-the-numbers feel, there are standout tracks that lift themselves above the rest, such as the ethereal opener ‘Dreamworld’, the wonderful mystique of ‘Under the Rainbow’ and the single ‘Shades of Orange’ – once thought by bootleggers to be a Stones/Beatles collaboration and bearing a certain similarity in sound to Bill Wyman’s ‘In Another Land’ from Satanic Majesties.

Given the opportunity, Introspection may have been enough to propel The End forwards onto bigger and better things. But the events that conspired against them only saw the group break up and fade into obscurity. Nevertheless, the album has enough going for it to find a welcoming home in the collection of any appreciative psychedelic-pop collector.

Introspection is reissued on the Decca label and available from Amazon.co.uk

Further reading:

The End: Their Satanic Majesties Forget!

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The End – Introspection

Image from: Marmalade Skies

In fact, mentioning Focal Point is no mere accident as two of the similarities between the misfortunes of the two bands sits firmly on the less desirable side of uncanny. Both had the sort of backing other bands could only dream of – Focal Point had The Beatles and The End had the Rolling Stones (more specifically Bill Wyman). Both were allowed to slip into obscurity through no fault of their own. The death of Beatles manager, Brian Epstein saw Focal Point’s priorities at Apple Records thrown onto the backburner, whilst Rolling Stones’ business manager Alan Klein sat on The End’s one and only album, Introspection, for eighteen months before it saw a release, at exactly the time when musical trends had moved on.

The End had started out as The Innocents, performing backing for singer Mike Berry, who ‘d later go on to appear in later series of British sit-com, Are You Being Served.

Now anybody whose heard The End’s Introspection will agree that they were far better than a session outfit for a future sub-holiday camp entertainer, a point not lost on Bill Wyman when their paths crossed in the first half of the 1960s, appearing further up the bill than the Stones, and he offered his assistance should the time come they wished to branch out on their own.

Which is what two members of The Innocents, Dave Brown and Colin Griffin, did, recruiting three more members, two of whom would later be replaced, and becoming The End.

Bill Wyman kept his word and prior to the band decamping to Spain to take a pop at the Spanish music circuit, he and the then Rolling Stones engineer, Glyn Johns, produced The End’s single ‘I Can’t Get Any Joy’ – a title that proved  an unfortunate portent to the band’s future fortunes in the UK market.  Success in Spain saw their sound drifting towards a more guitar-based psychedelic one and it was Wyman again who suggested the band begin working on an album to capitalise on the psychedelia buzz that casting its basket of flowers into the heart of the UK scene.

July 1967, and The End began work on Introspection – Their Bill Wyman produced, one and only album that down the years would become something of a psychedelic holy grail.

Recorded at around the same time as the Rolling Stones were recording Their Satanic Majesties Request, the album featured guest appearances from Charlie Watts and Nicky Hopkins (session keyboardist on many a classic Stones tune) and is unashamed psych-pop; a factor that would play a major part in Introspection’s lack of success, come its eventual release.

A single, ‘Shades of Orange’ backed with ‘Loving Sacred Loving’, was released to a good reception and these songs would later go on to cause quite a stir amongst bootleg afficianados ever-eager to unearth the next lost pièce de résistance,  who mistakenly thought them to be unused Stones tracks – and if that wasn’t enough to get the juices flowing, ones  that featured The Beatles(!)

Once completed, Introspection was placed in the ‘capable’ hands of the aforementioned business manager, Alan Klein, where it would remain for eighteen months before seeing the light of day in 1969. Decent reviews weren’t enough to counter a lack of interest from The End’s record company Decca, nor the fact that the market had shifted to favour heavier psychedelic and progressive rock, and the album sank without trace. Colin Griffin says: “I think if Introspection had been released a year earlier it may have made an impact…”

Such was the fickle nature of the ever-changing swirl of trends and fashions that spiraled through the latter half of the 60s. An album eighteen months out of time.

The End drifted apart following the disastrous release, with three of the members (including Dave Brown) leaving psychedelia well and truly behind  to form hard rock act, Tucky Buzzard.

And that was it until 1999, thirty years on from the release of Introspection, when they reformed for a festival in Spain, the country in which they’d enjoyed the lion’s share of their success.

The End had their all-too-brief moment but were denied a shot at true greatness by the conspiracy of human ineptiitude, record company apathy and damned bad luck.

Introspection is released on the Decca label and available from Amazon.co.uk

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The End: Their Satanic Majesties Forget!

Pink Floyd -- Flaming

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5sg1hFNavE

A playful, child-like song typical of Syd Barrett’s fairy tale, wispy compositions. Taken from the 1967 album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn when Pink Floyd were still called The Pink Floyd, ‘Flaming’ is not to everyone’s taste, but for those who know Syd Barrett’s splendid psychedelic stylings, it’s a rare treat.

Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity -- This Wheel’s on Fire

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7sQvBkcJdY

The nymph-like bird with the bizarre barnet (which would go on to become even more bizarre once she grew the back and sides it into a curly mullet) would record three albums with Brian Auger & The Trinity and a further one with Brian Auger. This is their super psychedelic, souped-up 1968 rendition of the Bob Dylan song, ‘This Wheel’s on Fire’.

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown -- Fire

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2g-6QGsC8g

It’s not everyday you come across a bloke with a burning cake tin on his head. Not unless you were moving in the same circles as Arthur Brown in 1968, that is. Mad as a badger’s stag do, ‘crazy’ Arthur Brown would be a purveyor of progressive music up until the 80s and then returned to it in the 90s and continues to this day. ‘Fire’ is probably his most famous song, taken from the ’68 album The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

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Three Fiery Psychedelic Stormers

Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones were at the forefront of the mod movement in 1966 but by 1967 the lure of psychedelia had slipped its seductive fingers around their creative craw. This culminated in the 1968 album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, a psychedelic game of two halves, somewhat spoiled by the fairy tale interjections of hired idiot, Professor Stanley Unwin.

Ignoring the aforementioned paid purveyor of all things bollocks, here’s three crackers from the psych phase of one of the great British bands.

Itchycoo Park

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVThzJppeRk

Who cares if the song may be about getting high as a kite, or may be not? It’s ‘Itchycoo Park’. From 1967. The first British song to feature the psychedelic technique of phasing -- playing two tapes together at slightly different speeds to produce that slightly out-there sound.

Tin Soldier

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcKZoFRpZCI

Alright, not particularly psychedelic in the strictest sense, but a belter nonetheless. ‘Tin Soldier’ is also from 1967 and harks back to their mod roots with a distinct motown/R&B flavour thrown into the mix. Here featuring soulstress PP Arnold, for whom Marriott initially wrote the track but liking it so much, kept it for himself.

Happy Days Toytown

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pPCYlYWO6w

Here’s the Small Faces horsing about and having a rare old time with the final song on 1968′s Ogden’s Gone Nut Flake, and what a rip-snorter of a cock-er-nay knees-up it is, cor blimey guv. This is Steve Marriott and the Small Faces sinking into pure Brit-psychedelic music-hall whimsy. This is no surprise considering Marriott toured with the stage production of Oliver during his youth and provided the vocals for the Artful Dodger on the official stage show album. ‘Happy Days Toytown’ rounds off Ogden’s Gone Nut Flake in fine style.

All in all, three (with the exception of ‘Tin Soldier’) psych crackers. Even if I do say so myself. What more can a man ask for of a Saturday?

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The Small Faces: A Splendid Spot of Saturday Psychedelia