Hell’s teeth! It’s that time of year again. When I make a host of rash promises for what the new year at HFoS may bring, before buggering off to imbibe the Christmas spirit for a month or so.

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.

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mixtapes, prog rock, progressive folk, psych-pop, psychedelic rock

The constraints of time have decreed that there will only be the one HFoS Selection Pack this year; an amalgamation of three as opposed to the usual singular entities. Time has also put paid to the promised King Crimson reviews, but fear not, they will arrive – like a forgetful Santa – in the new year.

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?

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album reviews, folk rock, prog rock, psych-folk, psych-pop, psychedelic rock

Although it’s widely accepted that Billy Dainty invented prog rock in 1968, while on a works beano to Cleethorpes, there were many bands around at the time that also played their part in authoring the blueprint for what would later become this much derided genre.

One such purveyor of proto-prog goodness was keyboardist and singer, Norman Haines, who fronted Birmingham band Locomotive – which, following his departure, became The Dog That Bit People – and went on to form The Norman Haines Band. As was often the case with bands from my hometown (for every Move or Traffic, there’s twenty Worlds of Oz) none of these incarnations found the success they sought and were pretty much forgotten to the purple haze of time. Good news for rare vinyl collectors, bad news for the rest of us.

Fortunately, Esoteric has completed the harvesting of these three lost gems, with the recent reissue of the Haines Band’s Den of Iniquity. First up though, is Locomotive’s 1970 album, We Are Everything You See.

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album reviews, prog rock, psychedelic rock

Call me a tenuous bandwagon-jumper, if you like. I readily hold my hands up.

Well, it is Halloween, so what better than a horrifying mix of prog, psych and folk to blow the cobwebs from your proverbial tombstones?

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folk, mixtapes, prog rock, psychedelic rock

In 1966, before the term jazz-rock/fusion had been coined, you had your jazz camp and your rock camp; rarely did the twain meet, let alone sit around in a circle, crack open the super-strength chamomile tea and indulge in a full-on jam session.

Unless, of course, you were New York’s own The Free Spirits, whose sole album, Out of Sight and Sound, is widely regarded as one of the first jazz-rock excursions. Live at the Scene captures the band in February 1967, tearing up the then legendary NYC venue, Steve Paul’s The Scene. Well, perhaps not “tearing up”, but giving it a jolly good seeing to, nonetheless.

Fronted by jazz-rock stalwart and veteran guitarist, Larry Coryell (responsible for pushing the embryonic Spirits in a rock direction), the band was a celebrated live phenomenon, some of the unbridled energy and passion of which Live at the Scene attempts to convey. And if it’s a raw, Mr. Sheen-free document you’re after, of possibly the first fusion band engaging in some psychedelically-charged, sonic livestock-worrying, then this release could be right up your jazz-rock boulevard.

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album reviews, jazz rock, psychedelic rock

In general Toytown songs should be at least one of the following: light, bouncy, jangly, slightly off-key or slightly out of whack – Marmalade Skies

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.

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mixtapes, psych-pop, psychedelic rock

In the pantheon of cult bands, the liturgical devotion that surrounds The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (or WCPAEB, as we’ll refer to them from now on, to save on both space and my fingertips) is up there with the likes of Tomorrow, the 13th Floor Elevators, July and The Barron Knights.

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.

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album reviews, psych-pop, psychedelic rock

Did you think I would leave you crying, when there’s room on me hoss for two? So said Rolf Harris to a small boy and it’s with a nod to this spirit of benevolence that I’ve put together a summer treat for both of my loyal readers. The one’s that put up with this nonsense week in, week out.

Yes, the first – and quite possibly last – ever Head Full of Snow progressive rock mix is here to tickle your royal earholes (track listing below).

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acid-folk, mixtapes, prog rock, progressive folk, psychedelic rock

The decision by prog’s own shrinking violets, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, to foray into the corporate aspect of the music biz, bore fruit as the Manticore record label. From the off, they brought a rum assortment of characters to the stable, from Italian proggers such as PFM, to American hard rockers like Stray Dog, via English singer-songwriters… well, Keith Christmas anyway.

The numbered days of the label, beyond the collective wombs of the ELP ideas machine, is reflected in the title of this new compilation, Envelopes of Yesterday – The Manticore Records Anthology 1973-1976, brought to us by the good people at Esoteric.

It’s a two-disc box-set, resplendent in a lavish booklet and 26 tracks harvested from the albums released during the label’s modest existence. As such, it is a real mish-mash in both musical style and quality.

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album reviews, prog rock, psychedelic rock

Arthur Brown, crazy by name, extremely strange by nature. A man known to strap a cake tin to his head and set it alight, while gyrating like an escaped loon to the frantic, yet pleasingly Hammond organ-heavy blasts of psychedelic showmanship that emanated from the band’s self-titled debut. A recommended listen for anybody who enjoys that type of thing.

Strangelands is that album’s follow-up, recorded in 1969 but lost in the wilderness for a further two decades, before earning a 1988 release on the little known label, Reckless Records.

Without wishing to sound too harsh on old Arthur – whose original outing and the later Kingdom Come albums all make the HFoS approved list – it’s not difficult to see (or hear) why this didn’t find favour with Polydor when first hurled in their direction.

You want tunes, lyrics and some notion that there’s a point to all this? No dice! You want Arthur to sing and establish a logical progression between this and the previous album? Still no dice! You want an incoherent jumble presided over by a ranting lunatic? Be my guest.

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album reviews, prog rock, psychedelic rock

Two items of Pink Floyd news hit the headlines last week… Yes, two! Quite remarkable for a band whose ability to entertain all but ran dry following the departure of Syd Barrett and the release of their second album,  1968′s A Saucerful of Secrets – though 1970′s Atom Heart Mother and 1975′s Wish You Were Here do have their moments.

In the first bit of news, Roger Waters’ current 2011 touring of his criminally overrated snorefest The Wall, threw out a surprise for those fans who’d paid to see it at the O2 arena on Thursday night and somehow managed to stay awake. For only the second time in 30 years, he was joined on stage by the surviving members of Pink Floyd. Former adversaries, Dave Gilmour and Nick Mason.

Now, thankfully, I wasn’t there, but I can imagine it to have been a smug burying-of-the-hatchet type moment, accompanied by the musical equivalent of an overdose of Mogadon. Apparently, Nick Mason played a tambourine.

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feature, news, occasional musings, prog rock, psychedelic rock

Tricky German buggers that they are, Tangerine Dream is possibly one of those rarest of breeds, the review-proof band. It would make no odds what I, or anybody else, had to say regarding them, their albums, or the new Sunrise in the Third System anthology, as truth be told, either you like Tangerine Dream or you don’t.

Like Marmite, there’s no middle ground here. At least, that’s how I see it. The lack of melodies and anything approaching an approximation of a “tune” would send the casual listener running a mile; as would the fact it’s not unusual for a Tangerine Dream track to stretch past the 20 minute mark without anything as cumbersome as lyrics getting in the way.

Strictly instrumental, Tangerine Dream’s music is not about catchy hooks or hummable ditties. Like many of their Krautrock waffenbruder, when it came to using the recording studio as a canvas upon which to create their complex, sometimes impenetrable soundscapes, there was to be no compromise.

It’s true that Tangerine Dream shared their name with the title of the debut album from psych-folkies Kaleidoscope, but if you were expecting anything sailing close to that particular shoreline, then you’d be in for a huge disappointment. This is psychedelic voyaging of a different variety; pensive, labyrinthine, menacing. Space rock from the deepest, blackest depths of space; stretching further into the sparse, icy extremes of the outer realms than Pink Floyd’s ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ ever dared imagine.

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album reviews, krautrock, prog rock, psychedelic rock

Four bank holidays in the space of 11 days? HFoS cannot pass up on such an audacious challenge to one’s liver as this. Therefore, we will be back next week or possibly the week after, dependent, of course, on whether:

A)    I am still alive

B)    I am still alive

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music vid, prog rock, psychedelic rock

Those crazy Dutch! What with their pancakes, pornography and “specialist” coffee shops; they are a nation whose very fabric is cut from the most permissive of cloths. It pervades the culinary, the literary and what gets sprinkled on the Old Holborn. Let it be a lesson to us all: part a man from his bicycle and he’ll cock the proverbial snook at your fascist agenda ten millionfold.

This liberal mindset made the Dutch music scene of the late 60s and early 70s a hotbed of psychedelic and progressive experimentation, and Fantasio Daze is a fruity selection of some of the rarest English language singles to hit the Netherlands during this era.

It’s safe to say that every artist appearing on Fantasio Daze is new to HFoS and, as is the case with the majority of compilations, the spectrum of ‘fro-frazzlingly good, to knee-shreddingly awful is enthusiastically covered.

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album reviews, prog rock, psychedelic rock

Rare. Obscure. British. Psychedelic. Four words that effortlessly pique the interest of HFoS, whenever they’re employed in a healthy context. String them together in a single sentence and there’s every chance you could be onto a winner, as was the case with We All Live On Candy Green.

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.

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album reviews, psych-pop, psychedelic rock

Long mooted, though seemingly reluctant to leave its orbit, the Fruits de Mer space rock compilation has finally dropped from the darkest edge of the galaxy and landed, still smoking from atmospheric re-entry, on the doormat of HFoS Towers.

Yes, Roqueting Through Space is finally here and the question on the lips of all those discerning followers of FdM Records will be the one that lies behind 99.9% of what’s etched here on a weekly basis: Is it any ruddy good?

Well hold back one second and give yourself time to ruminate on such a query, while HFoS provides the all important specs regarding the inter-planetary vessel known as FdM 18.

Following on from the first commercially available Fruits de Mer album, A Phase We’re Going Through, the label has once again fulfilled its unwritten remit to provide some of the finest tunes of yesteryear, re-imagined and laced with a little of what you fancy from some of the most esoteric bands doing the rounds today.

Through a fuzz of galactic debris, Roqueting Through Space soars across the celestial plains, harvesting tracks originally recorded by the likes of Neu!, Pink Floyd, Can and Brainticket. Liberties have been taken with the “traditional” definition of what constitutes space rock, with the inclusion of versions of The Tornados’ ‘Telstar’ and Julian Cope’s ‘I Come From Another Planet, Baby’. Neither artist immediately lends themselves to the image of excessively hairy, chemically enhanced voyagers, embarking on a psychedelic trip to the furthest reaches of their mind, but as the FdM press release says, “… it [space rock] means different things to different people – spacey, spaced-out, sci-fi, electronic rock … We decided to drop the pretence of defining the genre, and instead allowed our chosen bands to decide for themselves what ‘space rock’ meant …”

Capital idea! And the end result is a suitably transcendental testament to all things beyond the reach of man and his rubbish inability to fly. Or something like that.

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album reviews, krautrock, prog rock, psychedelic rock

For those of you that read these nonsensical ramblings on a regular basis and – dare I say it? – enjoy the incessant stream of barely coherent jibber-jabber that spills from my keyboard, you may be interested to learn that Head Full of Snow has once again ventured beyond the confines of HFoS Towers to grace another publication with our carelessly chosen words.

As before, it is Record Collector magazine (March 2011) that is the beneficiary of what passes for wisdom within these hallowed halls, with an article penned by my good self, detailing the brief existence of 60s psych band and Bill Wyman proteges, The End.

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news, psychedelic rock

The Mighty Graham Bond express pulled into town in a variety of guises throughout the late 1960s. As a member of Alexis Korner’s Blues Inc. and titular host of the Graham Bond Organisation – a group that also included such luminaries as Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Dick Heckstall-Smith – his imposing frame sat at the forefront of the Brit-Blues explosion, playing a major part in revolutionising that sound with his incorporation of jazz influences.

Psychedelia beckoned and being both an early adopter of the Hammond organ and the first man in Britain to introduce audiences to the wonders of the Mellotron, the underground rock scene was ripe for a dose of Graham Bond exuberance.

A diet of heroin, the occult, depression and his eventual suicide in 1974, meant the creative flame that burned early in his career never really reignited and certainly didn’t rekindle the audience interest previously enjoyed. Love is the Law and Mighty Grahame Bond were recorded and released solely in America during 1968 and 1969 respectively, at a time when personal demons were taking a hold, the money was running out and the offer from a US label seemed hard to turn down. He never received a penny in royalties for either album.

Despite what was going on behind the scenes, neither Love is the Law nor Mighty Grahame Bond sound as bad as such turbulent circumstances might portend.

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album reviews, blues rock, psychedelic rock

Following its release in 1969, music paper Disc & Music Echo described the eponymously titled debut by Renaissance as “… a lovely album, with some lovely piano in a classical vein… the music defies classification.”

Maybe so back then, but nowadays we can appreciate Renaissance for being one of the many voices from the underground that would bring about the genesis of the genre known as progressive rock. With regards to the piano, the reviewer had it spot on.

Renaissance rose from the ashes of legendary Brit-blues battlers The Yardbirds, who during the course of their lifetime had employed the services of guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Prior to the band’s demise they had been exploring, in tracks such as ‘Shapes of Things’, a new experimental sound, in tune with the psychedelic rock/pop that was then very much du jour.

Founder Yardbirds, Keith Relf (vocals and guitar) and Jim McCarty (drums), enlisted bassist Louis Cennamo, Keith’s sister Jane (vocals) and, in a masterstroke, keyboardist and future Strawb, John Hawken. With their musical path signposted by the psych excursions of the band that would go on to become Led Zeppelin, Renaissance was born.

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album reviews, prog rock, psychedelic rock

Reading the liner notes of this recent reissue of Peter Bardens’ 1970 debut The Answer, reveals a prolific artist kept busy prior to his finding fame as the keyboardist with progressive rock group Camel. Aside from the psychedelic Ladbroke Grove act, The Village, he played in a whole host of bands during the British “Blues Boom” of the mid-sixties, alongside future household names such as Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green and Premier League rogerer, Sir Rodney of Stewart.

And there’s an element of blues rock bubbling away beneath the psychedelic/progressive mix that forms The Answer, particularly with regards to Bardens’ vocal delivery, which is a full-bodied blues drawl and, on occasion, remarkably similar in sound to another royal lady-roisterer, a certain Michael Jagger.

The title-track, first up on the album, is awash with energetic blues guitar licks, in this case provided by an uncredited Peter Green, which is bolstered throughout by Bardens’ elaborate organ artistry and pseudo-philosophical lyricism, popular in progressive and underground rock circles of this era.

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album reviews, blues rock, prog rock, psychedelic rock

Bah humbug! As I believe it’s customary to say around this time of year. Yes indeed, Christmas is upon us yet again and in want of a better idea, HFoS is resurrecting last year’s psych and prog selection packs for the delectation of our loyal readership. (You probably expect me to say “both of you” right now, but that gag has become a little tired and no longer satirical since I discovered there were actually only two of you reading. Hey ho!)

Now, I hope you don’t think this is to become some sort of annual event, as that would A) Elevate it in my mind to something beyond the end-of-term filler that it actually is, and B) None of us may be here next year. You might, but there’s no guarantee that I will. Such is life.

So, without wishing to piss on the Yuletide chips any further, here it be: the HFoS Psychedelic Rock Xmas Selection Pack 2010.

Sam Gopal – Escalator

If your idea of a good night out is a head full of methedrine and a backbeat provided by some Indian chap knocking the sweet bejaysus out of his tabla, then Sam Gopal’s Escalator is for you. This is dirty, grinding and menacing psychedelic rock from 1969, which bolts from the same Notting Hill stable that gave us the likes of the Pink Faries and Edgar Broughton. Lemmy wrote it and provides the you-looking-at-my-pint vocals. Witness the album cover and you’ll realise these boys aren’t to be messed with. Full review of Escalator here.

Sam Gopal’s Escalator is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk
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prog rock, psychedelic rock

What’s this? Another offering from the Fruits de Mer label? Hell’s teeth! Are they trying to spoil us or something?

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.

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psych-pop, psychedelic rock