"Room Full off Mirrors" Jimi Hendrix Experience...

Not the widely known version from the Rainbow Bridge soundtrack. This version, which to my mind is far superior, is a lot darker with a real sense of brooding and malevolence. Jimi's vocal are on top form, and the guitar break is searing and concise. Hope you enjoy this one from the vaults. The film was made as a tribute to the great man, and in honour of the 40th anniversary of his parting with this life.

How to Record an Album With a Blown Mind...

The majesty of Alexander 'Skip' Spence's late 60's ragged folk/ psych masterpiece "Oar".

Oar by Alexander 'Skip' Spence.

Before 'Oar'
The road to 'Oar' for Skip had been exciting, joyous, manic, unpredictable, dangerous, dark and eventually plain old insane.
Skip's first brush with fame came in the original line up of San Francisco psychedelic stalwarts Jefferson Airplane. Skip not only played drums but co-wrote some of the best early airplane songs including the gloomy psych folk hit "Blues From an Airplane" and wrote "My Best Friend" released on the groups "Surrealistic Pillow" L.P. He was fired by the autocratic Marty Balin for missing an Airplane gig.

After leaving Jefferson Airplane, Skip joined Moby Grape, the greatest almost-rans of the late 60's West Coast scene. During the recording of the groups second album "Wow" in New York, Spence, who had always been fond of altered states, seems to have gone right out of his mind and flipped over to the dark-side. After putting a fire axe through his band mate Don Stevenson's door, he headed downtown to the studio where the rest of the band were working, in his pajamas, axe in hand seemingly to finish the job he had started. After being apprehended, Skip was arrested, booked and shipped off for a six month stay at New York's notorious Bellevue Hospital.

It's here where the story of 'Oar' really commences. Skip was released from Bellevue with nothing more than the clothes on his back and a head full of songs, however he was still under contract to Columbia records. After being given a guitar by Fender, and playing his songs to record producer David Rubinson, Skip bought a chopper with an advance from Columbia and headed to Nashville where he wanted to record his record, presumably away from anyone he might run into from his not too distant past, and, so it was that Skip arrived in early December 1968.

Skip during his time with Moby Grape.

'Oar'

Skip recorded 28 pieces of music in six days between December 3 and 12 and by the 16th was back on his chopper and gone, West to California and oblivion. He alone handled all the vocals, played bass, drums and acoustic and electric guitar; and produced the finished album with the help of Mike Figlio, a Columbia staff engineer. 

The simple instrumentation upon which Skip hung his transcendent and ghostly vocals, was partly due to the constraints of recording on an old three track machine at Columbia, and partly due to Skips one man recording band ethos. And it's these factors along with Skips extraordinary songs that combined to make Oar sound like nothing else at the time and almost nothing since. Writing for Rolling Stone in 1968, Greil Marcus described the L.P. thus, "Much of Oar sounds like the sort of haphazard folk music that might have been made around campfires after the California gold rush burned itself out – sad, clumsy tunes that seem to laugh at themselves as Spence takes the listener on a tour through his six or seven voices..." He goes on to compare Spence, somewhat erroneously to Wildman Fischer and the album to Bob Dylan's "Basement Tapes".

"Little Hands"

The original album, opens with a gentle strum of acoustic guitar followed by a stab of  electric guitar against marching band drums, liquid bass and the glorious, folk gospel off "Little Hands". Skips snake guitar wraps around his strange, shimmering vocal.
"Cripple Creek"

The dark and eerie "Cripple Creek", written about a cripple in his wheelchair and sung in a baritone equal parts Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen, fizzes with Spence's rattling acoustic rhythm and pretty, flamenco like flourishes. 
"Diana"

"Diana" is both sung and growled by Skip in an otherworldly, broken and pained voice, hung on rattling disjointed acoustics, fractured drumming and faraway soaring electric fills. It's a spooky unnerving song, not a million miles from Arthur Lee & Love. 
"Margaret – Tiger Rug"

This odd song is held together by a disjointed, clanking bass and more military drums with a strange lyric influenced it seems by his time in Bellevue. Skips vocals are delivered in a half sung, half spoken, off key, almost jokingly shambolic manner. Childlike would be the accurate word. The song  staggers to it's conclusion before cutting dead. 
"Weighted Down (The Prison Song)"

Skip's soul laid bare and accompanied by that beautiful, mournful baritone and his lightly strummed acoustic. The feeling is dread, doped and heavy, but also a weary kind of comfort and release. Skip's words come to us like some old time spiritual salvation hymn. The weight of the delivery saturates the listener and pulls us into Skips broken down world. 
"War in Peace"

Skip guides us from the depths of his soul to the heavens with the gloriously stumbling and tripped out "War in Peace". Skip's delivery is a high pitched whistle of a whisper, heavily delayed and reminiscent of some of the late Syd Barratt's solo work. Full 'band' here with Skip taking the song to task with double lead guitar, chugging rhythm and great bass and drum interplay. All topped off with Skip's strange bird whistles and ethereal whispers. He finishes off with a nod to Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love' in the closing guitar run. 
"Broken Heart"

"Broken Heart" comes on like some lost Hank Williams hymn from the mid 50's. But Hank never wrote lyrics as off the wall as this.
"All Come to Meet Her" 

This is Skip at his most fragile and most beautiful. Soaring wordless harmonies that morph into lyrics. Skip's elastic twang of guitar echoes the vocals throughout, all set against the bony, skeleton bare rattle of Skips drums. Unnerving but gorgeous, heart warming as some ancient and lost gospel hymn.
"Books of Moses"

This cracked biblical epic is seeped in the same kind of fear and dread conjured up by the murder ballads of Robert Johnson and Leadbelly. With it's strained, demented vocal and dark twanging acoustic guitar set against a radiophonic workshop of rain, thunderstorms and howling wind, it's a 50's B Horror Movie set to music. The results are chilling, until it segues straight into the up beat and comedic "Dixie Peach Promenade (Yin for Yang)". It echo's the Moby Grape track "Just Like Gene Autry (A Fox-trot)". This however, would be it's slightly deranged, sex starved, hillbilly cousin after too much moonshine and not enough beaver!
"Lawrence of Euphoria"

The strangeness continues to grow with the jocular, bouncy and defiantly unhinged "Lawrence of Euphoria". Skips great, thumping, strummed bass carries the song along against a willfully, out of tune yet triumphantly strident one chord guitar accompaniment. Again, Skips vocals are half sung half leered into the microphone.

"Grey/Afro"
The albums closer is the meditative, prayer like "Grey/Afro". Skip is in strange, swampy and alien waters, swimming in a heavily phased and swelling mix of strummed bass and splashing drum fills. It's hypnotic, spoken in tongues atmosphere comes on like a lost ship at sea being tossed around in a tempest of sound. Skips voice comes and goes like the wind, a lost soul crying out from beneath the stormy, boiling sea of sound.

After 'Oar'

Oar, unsurprisingly sold little on it's initial release, and was resigned to the lost classic bin. Skip headed West and continued to play throughout his downward spiral into schizophrenia. He joined various line ups of a reformed Moby Grape over the yeas. He contributed a track to the 1996 X-Files album, recorded with old friend Jack Cassidy. The track was never used, deemed to weird for the sci-fi programme. 


30 years after it's release a tribute album was releasedt. It featured among others, Robert Plant (who'd always been a champion of both Skip and Moby Grape), Beck, Wilco and Robyn Hitchcock. 

Sundazed released Oar in an expanded edition which included the lost second half of "Grey/Afro" titled "The Time has Come". And a further nine tracks, some incomplete from the original Oar sessions.


Skip passed away on 16th. April 1999 after living for some years with his girlfriend in a trailer park in Santa Cruz, California.  Keep on clapping, little hands, and shine on, shine on, shine on.


All authors own work.

Bobby Brown...Not Whitney's Bad Boy

I discovered this, to put it mildly, strange artist through my friend, NZ musician Stefan Neville. Read his strange story at the excellent Mutant Sounds blogspot. I can't work out whether I actually like this album, 1972's "The Enlightening Beam Of Axonda", but I keep listening to it so something's going on. He would've made a brilliant cult leader I'm sure. No idea who Johnny is in the narrative of the album, maybe it was Bobby himself.  He loved his dogs. Very tripped out and spooky...Read the article, download the music here: http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/01/bobby-brown-1972-enlightening-beam-of.html

Mr. Bobby Brown

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band

I've just recently got into this act from the late '60's. They seem very eclectic but interesting if a little patchy. I'll write more once I've investigated them a bit further. In the meantime...



I made this film to go with this insanely great little track "Roger the Rocket Ship", from the album "Markley, A Group"..."Look out for me I'll tear you apart, look out for me I have no heart". Very Charlie Manson lyrically and a little bit disturbing. Got that west coast 1969 spook to it. Just Fab!

Captain Beefheart - I'm Gonna Booglarize You Baby

Great footage, great band, great tune, great moves, great outfits...Captain gives me the willies!

The greatest B-Side of all time...

Of course it's "Rain" by The Beatles.



and this version was recorded for the Ed Sullivan show. The Beatles look ghostly.It sounds massive, must be something to do with the re broadcast. It's sounds wildly distorted and much washier. Cool!!!

More Greatness from the Freekly Archives...

Pink Floyd: Games For May
Miles, NME, 1976

TEN YEARS AGO...
Pink Floyd were a semi formed idea in the mind of one Syd Barrett. Nine years ago they were the darlings of the Flower Punks and playing games for May at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Three weeks ago, MILES dusted off his archives and went in depth into that era of hysteria and hallucinogenics and how the Floyd threaded their way through the paisley wasteland to Make good.

When the ten-year time-lock on the vaults of the International Underground Conspiracy sprang open recently, astonishing documents and relics revealed a leading role played in this unsavory movement by the rock and roll group The Pink Floyd.


Not only did they play at venues variously described as "Beautiful Sound Light Touch Stareye Bodytaste Everyone Is Staying So UFO" and the "UFOric UFOria Festival", but were also the stars of "Freak Out Alice" of all things.


Where did it all begin?
"Spontaneous Underground" was held at the Marquee Club every Sunday afternoon from February 1966 onwards. The invitation to the first afternoon read: "Who will be there? Poets, pop-singers-hoods, Americans, homosexuals (because they make up 10% of the population), 20 clowns, jazz musicians, one murderer, sculptors, politicians, and some girls who defy description are among the invited."


Nothing was promised, nothing advertised, nothing expected. The audience was its own entertainment and they soon began to bring things with them off the street, rags, off-cuts from the nearby garment trade, mailing tubes to sing down, little mods in Carnaby Street gear, cardboard boxes to jump into, scissors and posters and paste, streamers and crepe paper.
It was the era of the mini-skirt and the bohemian look. People came in beautiful coloured clothing, causing sensations in the streets, and made themselves some strange garb while they were there. It was the beginning of the underground scene and the more outrageous the better. Donovan, in red Cleopatra makeup, sang to six sitars and a conga drum accompaniment and couldn't even remember it the next day.


AMM – Cornelius Cardew, Lou Gare, Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe and Lawrence Sheaff, a forerunner of the Scratch Orchestra – played their curious free-form music using cello, sax, transistor radios, while dressed in white coats like ice-cream men as blue movies were projected over the dancers.


A girl in white tights played a Bach Prelude and Fugue while most of the Ginger Johnson African Drummers furiously pounded out cross-rhythms all around her, played trumpet reveilles, and even brought out "the big log." Actually you could hardly see what was happening through the dope smoke.


Then there was The Pink Floyd who alternated extraordinarily loud and muffled versions of ‘Louie Louie’ and Chuck Berry numbers with instrumental numbers which built up layer upon layer of electronic feedback until it broke in waves over the cardboard cut-out stage decor and filled the heads of all those gathered there with amazement.




*
Now you must remember that this is when Nancy Sinatra's ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ had just pushed 'The Overlanders' ‘Michelle’ from number one position.The Floyd were the loudest band anyone had ever heard at that time. They were also the weirdest. And they were without doubt the hippest. We all dug them. They were our band.
I think this was the occasion when The Floyd played one number lasting about an hour.
While red and blue arc lights alternately illuminated the stage, movies flickered across the walls, the dancers began that snakey undulating swaying associated with large amounts of acid, a triumph of chromosome-damaged cunning.


Acid had been available on the scene in quantity since mid-1965, brought in by Michael Hollingshead from Tim Leary's Millbrook Centre. (Hoillingshead was the man who first turned Leary on to LSD). Psychedelic music came from the use of psychedelics – even though, in the Floyd's case, Syd was the only one taking them. It was about this time that Pete Jenner first saw The Pink Floyd. Biddy Peppin had made a huge pink jelly for Sunday afternoon – the first of them notorious pink jellies that characterised the British underground as much more loony than any others. I don't recall who jumped into it first, but soon the floor of the Marquee, insalubrious at the best of times, was covered in a sea of writhing squirming flower-children, drool-chinned amid gallons of pink jelly ooze, bodies painted in day-glow with symbolic representations of the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries, flashing peace signs and wedding tackle in their frenzied search for poozle. The Pink Floyd moved into the second chorus of ‘Roadrunner’ and Pete Jenner's whole purpose in life came to him just as a cloud of aerosol hash mist purveyed by a World-famous experimental psychiatrist hit him in the face. "He would manage The Pink Floyd!"


But since this is an early history of The Pink Floyd, what of their early history?
Roger Keith (Syd) Barrett landed on this planet in January 1946 in Cambridge. After reading comics and smoking in the bogs in the company of Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour at Cambridge High School for boys he came down to London, to Camberwell School of Art, where he learned how to smoke dope, pull chicks and play the guitar.


He played in various rock and blues bands, among them Geoff Mott and the Mottoes, the Hollering Blues and, as a folk duo, with Dave Gilmour who taught him Stones licks during the lunch break. Pretty soon, they swapped their acoustic guitars for electric ones. George Roger Waters left Cambridge to study architecture at the Regent Street Polytechnic. Doing the same course were Nicholas Berkeley and Richard William Wright, both Londoners, who'd arrived at the Poly via Frensham Heights and Haberdashers'. They made a nice middle class group and called themselves Sigma 6. Sigma 6 even had a manager, Ken Chapman, an ex-Poly student. He had cards printed up for them and had actually met a record producer. He arranged for them to sing some romantic lyrics set to a tune ripped-off from Tchaikovsky at an audition with Gerry Bron. The world, however, was not yet ready for Sigma 6 – nor for The T-Set or The Abdabs (or even The Screaming Abdabs as they were sometimes called). Alas, The Abdabs finally broke up. Juliette Gale married Rick Wright and Mason, Wright and Walters brought in jazz guitarist Bob Close. Waters also brought in his old school chum Syd Barrett.
Syd was freaky. Syd had taken acid.


One day, while he was meditating on the ley-line that runs through Glastonbury Tor, the name "Pink Floyd" was transmitted to him from a flying saucer hovering overhead. No, that's not true. Actually Syd had an album by Georgia bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Since the name Anderson Council sounded like a local authority he called the band The Pink Floyd Sound. Bob Close liked the traditional jazz approach to music. Syd on the other hand, was into the Stones, mysticism, sex and drugs. Bob Close left. We have now reached the point where our heroes begin playing at "Spontaneous Underground" at The Marquee, in which flower children roll in jelly, everyone smokes plenty of dope, and Pete has a dream.




*
London Free SchoolON OCTOBER 14th 1966, The Pink Floyd got a regular weekly gig at the London Free School's Sound/Light Workshop in All Saint's Church Hall. The LFS was a prototype community self-help organisation in Notting Hill and was made up of local working class people, a few Black Power activists including Michael X, and Notting Hill hippies.
One of the organisers was John Hopkins, known as "Hoppy" and it was through him that the Floyd got the job. Hoppy had helped with Steve Stollman's "Spontaneous Underground" events at the Marquee and later used that experience in starting the legendary UFO club.
One evening when the Floyd were playing at the Free School, an American couple called Joel and Tom Brown brought their slide projector along and amazed everyone by projecting slides with the music. No one had done it before – at least not over here. It was fairly rudimentary since the slides didn't move, but everyone was knocked out be the creepy effect they had.
It was also about this time that Hoppy and I were planning to start International Times (IT), Britain's first underground newspaper.


During Easter 1966 we printed and published The Global Moon Edition Of The Long Hair Times and distributed it on the Aldermaston March. Few could understand it. The headlines were "Pay The Landlord In Marmalade" and "Fuck For Peace" and it contained articles on Tim Leary's arrest – a cartoon strip called "Sugarman", a jazz column by Ron Atkins (now jazz critic for "The Guardian"), a column from Ed Sanders who later led The Fugs, the first issue of "The Gate", and 20 pounds competition paid for by Paul McCartney. The new paper was launched with a huge party at the Roundhouse. It was this same party that launched The Pink Floyd.




*
Freak OutGERRY FITZGERALD made a monster jelly for this one using a bath as the mold, but the Floyd ran over it in their van while they were setting up so few people saw it in its original magnificence. Contrary to popular belief, the sugar cubes given out at the top of the stairs were quite harmless though lot of people tripped out on them, using them as an excuse to let go. Of course, many brought their own. There were no attendants, no bouncers and no doormen. We did have a doctor there though, just in case.


Simon Postuma and Marijke Koger – the Amsterdam couple who called themselves "The Fool", later ran the ill-fated Apple Boutique, and for whom Graham Nash produced a diabolical album – had a psychedelic palm-reading and fortune-telling tent of extraordinary coloured nets and screens.


Paul McCartney came dressed as an arab in white robes and head-dress and consequently blended right in with no-one recognising him or Jane.


The Soft Machine played a brilliant set. Their line-up then consisted of Kevin Ayers, Daevid Allen, Mike Ratledge and Robert Wyatt. For this gig they added a motorcycle with a contact mike attached to the cylinder head which was revved up at appropriate moments.
It was the first time. The Pink Floyd had played before a large audience and they were in top form. The IT report said: "The Pink Floyd, psychedelic pop group, did weird things to the feel of the event with their scary feedback sounds, slide projections playing on their skin (drops of paint ran riot on the slides to produce outer space/prehistoric textures on the skin) spotlights flashing in time with the drums."


It was the first time that most of the audience had seen a light-show and many people stood gaping for hours at the expanding, pulsating bubbles of light.


The Floyd were using some unconventional techniques: playing the guitar with a metal cigarette lighter and rolling ball-bearings down the guitar neck to give an amazing Bo Diddley feedback sound (something which they might have picked up from working with AMM who also used it). Finally, towards the end of ‘Interstellar Overdrive’, they blew out the power as a dramatic, if unintentional, climax to their set.


There was a crush of fans round them as I pushed through to pay them afterwards. £12.00d pounds for The soft Machine and £15.00d for The Pink Floyd. The Floyd got more because they had a light show to pay for.




*
The Big TimeON DECEMBER 3 they featured at another Roundhouse happening, this time organised in aid of Zimbabwe. "Psychodelphia Versus Ian Smith" was quickly thrown together as a fundraiser for the Africans in response to Ian Smith declaring UDI in Rhodesia. The Floyd followed it with an Oxfam benefit concert at the Royal Albert Hall on the 12th. The Floyd were very community conscious, always willing to play for a good cause. It was the same spirit that was manifest on the West Coast with groups like the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.


On October 31 they finally signed a management contract with Peter Jenner and Andrew King, setting up Blackhill Enterprises, a six-way partnership, to run their affairs. Almost immediately they went into the studio for the first recording sessions. These took place at Thompson Private Recording Company in Hemel Hempstead and were made with the intention of making demos to play to record companies.


On Tuesday November 29, they played the last of their regular shows at the Free School's Sound/Light workshop. Norman Evans reviewed it in International Times:
"Their work is largely improvisational and lead guitarist Syd Barrett shoulders most of the burden of providing continuity and attack in the improvised parts. He was providing a huge range of sounds with the new equipment, from throttled shrieks to mellow feedback roars.
"Visually the show was less adventurous. Three projectors bathed the group, the walls and sometimes the audience in vivid colour..."


The Free School had virtually collapsed and Hoppy was turning most of his attention to International Times. He devised the UFO Club largely as a means of funding the paper and of providing additional employment for its staff, most of whom were paid 8 pounds or 10 pounds a week, if there was any money at all. UFO was the market place of the underground; all deals, scoring, pulling, organising, meeting and heavy socialising were done there. It was held in an Irish dance hall called The Blarney Club in the basement of 31 Tottenham Court Road every Friday night beginning December 23, 1966.


Hoppy and Joe Boyd ran the place, with Joe booking the groups. The staff of International Times handled the door, the stage, the sound and the food. The back rooms were always filled with people meeting: the Council for Civil Liberties, concerned about the ever-increasing rate of drug busts, on hand for the ever-expected police raid; Michael X relieving some liberal of guilt-money for his various Black Power projects or maybe just inviting a few friends back for one of his great soul-food cookouts; Caroline Coon talking someone down from a bad trip or Steve Abrams about to go on one; organising his SOMA society which eventually placed the full page "legalise pot" ad in The times.


The Tottenham Court Road copshop used to dread Friday nights and would draw lots for the task of visiting UFO using broken plastic spoons. The principle danger was from acid-crazed Hells Angels, anxious to practice love 'n' peace in order to pull hippie nookie, who would insist on French-kissing every policeman they saw. Eventually noddin' and gruntin' arrangements were arrived at. The police would stand at the top of the stairs holding a squirming naked hippie at arm's length, eyes revolving like catherine wheels. "One of yours?" they would inquire. "We'll have 'im", Mick Farren would reply.




*
MANY INTERESTING groups began there. The Giant Sun Trolly began as a pick-up group, later became Hydrogen Jukebox and finally The Third Ear Band. The Purple Gang formed and their song ‘Granny Takes A Trip’, produced by Joe Boyd, became virtually the signature tune of the underground. The group themselves even appeared at UFO once, before their leader, Peter "Lucifer" Walker (who always appeared in a mask to protect the innocent), disbanded the group in order to go and become initiated as a warlock. Procol Harum played at UFO the day that ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ was released and again the following week.Tomorrow was another UFO house band, one of the few that didn't make it. Their ‘My White Bicycle’ was another underground anthem.


UFO became the focal point of the whole scene. It was the place where the Beatles could come and sit on the floor all evening listening to The Soft Machine or the Floyd and no-one would ask for an autograph.


Pete Townshend would come and give many times the admission price knowing that the money helped the paper. It was at UFO that he found and signed the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, whose first album, Fire, he later produced.


It was the place that Jimi Hendrix could jam with the Soft Machine before a discerning and stoned audience instead of at the 'in-clubs’ filled with Swinging Londoners. And it was where The Pink Floyd perfected their sound before an audience that was right in there with them, living and feeling every note. The Floyd's roadies would come out and clear the areas in front of the speaker columns. This action was originally designed simply to prevent stoned hippies from burning out their ear-drums but it soon assumed a curious ritual significance like a Zen ceremony: the emptying of the space into which the Floyd's mysterious music was about to spurt.


Nick Mason talking about UFO in Zigzag magazine:
"It's got rosier with age, but there's a germ of truth in it because for a brief moment it looked as though there might actually be some combining of activities. People would go down to this place and a number of people would do a number of things, rather than simply one band performing. There would be some mad actors, a couple of light shows, perhaps the recitation of some poetry or verse, and a lot of wandering about and a lot of cheerful chatter going on."
Roger Waters: "There was so much dope and acid around in those days that I don't think anyone can remember anything about anything."


To those of us who survived UFO days – and a terrifying number of the people I've mentioned are now dead – UFO will always be remembered for the steady outer-space bleep of ‘Interstellar Overdrive’. Crowded on UFO's tiny stage, their flesh crawling with the pulsating blobs from their light show and dressed in standard Granny Takes A Trip frilly flower-patterned shirts with huge collars and flowing multi-coloured scarves, Roger and Syd would begin the familiar descending bass-line which always meant a good half-hour of weird sound effects, experiments and free-form rock. Ultimately, having explored to their satisfaction, Nick would begin the drum roll that led to the final run through of the theme and everyone could breath again.




*
Arnold LayneThought by many people to be the finest record they ever made, ‘Arnold Layne’ was produced by Joe Boyd at Sound Techniques in Chelsea on February 27, 1967. As well as the B-side they cut a version of ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ at the same session which has never been released (with the possible exception of a semi legendary French single).


Joe tells his story:
"I was theoretically going to be their record producer and we had a deal with Polydor. Then their agents told them they would make more, they'd get a bigger advance, if they made the record first and sold the master to EMI. And ultimately this was true.


"At the time most major companies, and particularly EMI, were very leery of independent producers. What happened was that EMI said 'We'll give you this contract and 5,000 pounds and we want you to use our studios and our staff producers and everything.’ So they immediately went in and said Thanks a lot for doing 'Arnold Layne,' Joe. See you around', and at the time I didn't really fight it. I didn't really know what to do about it.


"It was a bit galling to have Norman ('Hurricane') Smith suddenly appointed as their record producer and I remember at the time I was very conscious of the fact that they went in and spent a great deal of EMI's money and studio time, trying to get the sound I got down at Sound Techniques on ‘Arnold Layne’ for their follow-up 'See Emily Play', and ended up having to go down to Sound Techniques and get the same engineer to get the same sound."


Beechers Stevens, one of the last of the old-school record biz executives, was the man to sign the Floyd to EMI. He it was who thought of only playing the first half of singles on the radio, thus making the poor punter go out and buy the thing in order to hear the other half. He it was who refused to let important American acts tour Britain because he knew that as long as they remained remote glamorous idols they sold more records.


Stevens is quoted in a book on the Floyd by Rick Sanders:
"One of the boys in the group, and some of the people around them, seemed a bit strange, which is one of the reasons I wanted Norman Smith as their producer. I though he was close enough to their music to keep a firm hand on the sessions."


EMI were not sure what they had bought. Somewhere along the line "Psychedelic music" actually meant someone was taking drugs. Not wanting to be associated with that sort of thing, the company issued a press release: "The Pink Floyd does not know what people mean by psychedelic pop and are not trying to create hallucinatory effects on their audiences..."




*
UFO WAS NOT the only place that the Floyd played during this period. (In fact they only played there 11 times before it closed on October 6, 1967.) The group played The Marquee, David Bowie remembers them from The Ricky Tick, and they also played Blaises, Eel Pie Island and the university circuit.

One of their earliest gigs to an wholly appreciative audience away from the Free School was at Hornsey College of Art, November 18, 1966. The art students were eager to see their light/sound experiments and were duly knocked out.


The Floyd later played the Brighton Festival on April 15, 1967 accompanied by the Hornsey College of Art Light and Sound Workshop. That went OK, but usually when they were away from their London fans they had a very hard time. At places like The California Ballroom, Dunstable, the locals poured beer over them from the balcony – which might be regarded as paying one's dues except that they could have easily been electrocuted.


At East Dereham they had broken beer mugs smashing into the drum kit. Roger Waters: "I'll never forget that night. We did a double-header. First of all we played to a roomful of about 500 gypsies, hurling abuse and fighting – and then we did Ally Pally..."


The 14-Hour Technicolour Dream Free Speech Benefit for International Times at Alexandra Palace was the acme of all the British underground gatherings, the equivalent of the San Francisco and Central Be-Ins in the States. Perhaps more than any other event from that summer it has taken on legendary qualities, which of course are all true...International Times was raided by the police on orders from the director of Public Prosecutions. They seized every single piece of paper in the office: six tons of back issues, each item of correspondence, even the personal address books of the members of staff. It was a calculated move to close the paper and would certainly have closed down any normal business operation. But the paper continued, despite the fact that, deprived of all its records, there was no way of telling which distributors had paid and which hadn't nor what advertisements had been placed for the next issue. The police even took the telephone directories.


The staff began again from scratch, hoping that subscribers would write and tell them their addresses and that advertisers would be sympathetic. The police told the editor as they left that if he brought out another issue they would come back and seize that too – so far a while things were done in conditions of total emergency and paranoia. The paper kept coming out, but it needed money badly.


Hoppy and Dave Howson organised the Technicolour Dream under conditions of appalling chaos and confusion in a frenzied rush of energy and excitement. It happened on April 29 until 10 am the next day. Michael McInnerney (later responsible for the gate-fold Tommy cover) did beautiful rainbow posters for it, 41 groups offered to play and early on the evening of 29th, rockets burst over London as an underground bat-signal of a special event.
Alexandra Palace is a vast Victorian cast-iron entertainment palace, larger than a cathedral, overlooking London from the heights of Muswell Hill. The room is so vast that it was decided to have two groups playing at once in order to get them all in. The center of the room was dominated by the sound/light gantry where, surrounded by incense and primitive electronics, Jack Henry Moore coordinated everything with intuitive magic.


10,000 people came, an army in tatty old lace and velvet, beads and bells, and stoned out of their minds. They were welcomed at the door by people such as Desmond from Notting Hill who introduced himself and gave them his address. He received over 40 visits over the next few weeks from people he'd met fleetingly at the Dream. There was a fibreglass igloo from which free banana-peel joints were dispensed (one of the weirder hypes of that year!) and there was even a full-sized fairground helter-skelter. Ah, how Manson would have loved it – with hippies tumbling down the shoot, holding their headbands, puffing on joints, incense in their hair.


There was poetry and theatre: Yoko Ono did her curious bit, Binder Edwards and Vaughn were there as were Ron Gessin, Barry Fantoni, Alexander Trocchi, Christopher Logue, Michael Horovitz and the 26 Kingly Street group of environmental artists.


Enormous underground pick-up bands such as The Utterly Incredible Too Long Ago To Remember Sometimes Shouting At People were there. So were Alexis Korner, Alex Harvey, Champion Jack Dupree, Graham Bond, Ginger Johnson, Savoy Brown, 117, The Pretty Things and The Flies. If you think Kiss or The Tubes are outrageous, then you should have seen The Flies – they were really vile. Dressed in palm-leaf skirts, capes and with painted faces, they heaved flour and water at the audience. When everyone moved away the lead singer disgustedly flashed his dick and pissed at them. It was a performance than ranks in grossness with The Fugs' "Great Spaghetti Death" of 1967 and Alice Cooper's 1969 chicken act at the Whiskey A-Go-Go.


The Purple Gang made one of their rare appearances with lead-singer Lucifer creeping about flashing everyone mysterious signs and mantras while the group strummed madly on mandolins and amplified washboards. ‘Granny Takes A Trip’ soon had everyone dancing nicely. Mick Farren in black satin screamed out Chuck Berry while the Social Deviants delivered a distorted roar of feedback-and-echo punk rock.


The Crazy World of Arthur Brown was a big attraction. Arthur in gleaming helmet and visor, his saffron robe billowing around him as he pranced and jerked his way through the lyrics, his white make-up emphasising his staccato Egyptian-mummy dancing.


The Soft Machine did a great set – Kevin Ayers well-away with rouged cheeks and a wide-brimmed hat surmounted by a huge pair of airplane wings, Daevid Allen in the miner's helmet to stop his brains falling out, and Mike Ratledge in top Doctor Strange form with cape and pointed collar looking menacing and distant. Robert Wyatt just sat there grinning.


Then there was a movement throughout the crowd and everyone turned to look at the huge east windows. They were glowing with the first faint pink approaches of dawn. At this magic moment of frozen time The Pink Floyd came on. Their music was eerie, solemn and calming. After a whole night of frolicking, festivities and acid came the celebration of the dawn.
A lot of people held hands with their neighbours in the ancient rite. The Floyd were probably not that good but in the moment they were superb. They gave voice to the feelings of the crowd. Syd's eyes blazed as his notes soared up into the strengthening light. Then came the rebirth of energy – another day and, with the sun, a burst of dancing and enthusiasm.
It was quite an event.




*
"GAMES FOR MAY", held at the South Bank Queen Elizabeth Hall on May 12, was a very important gig for the Floyd. The Christopher Hunt agency press release read:"The Floyd intend this concert to be a musical and visual exploration – not only for themselves, but for the audience too. New material had been written and will be aired for the first time, including some specially prepared four-way stereo tapes. Visually, the lights-men of the group have prepared an entirely new, bigger-than-ever-before show."


In those days it was unusual for any name group to play for more than half an hour, so Jenner and King's decision to take this big new hall, famous for its classical concerts, for a Floyd solo performance was not only unheard of but also very daring. Syd wrote a special song, ‘Games For May’, the title of which was later changed to ‘See Emily Play’ for the single. EMI erected huge speakers at the back of the hall to give the first quadraphonic PA system in Britain, a rudimentary forerunner of the Floyd's famed 'azimuth co-ordinator'. Shortly afterwards, on May 23, ‘See Emily Play’ was recorded down at Sound Techniques.




*
THE FLOYD had now accumulated a fair amount of road experience, from the home counties to all points north, playing in Belfast, Barnstable, Coventry, Leeds, Sheffield, Blackpool and so-on and encountering some heavy opposition to their freaky music along the way.
It was now that people first started to notice the change in Syd:
Joe Boyd:
"The Floyd hadn't played at UFO for two months or something, and they came back for their first gig after they'd really made it. They came back to play at UFO and I remember it was very very crowded. It was June 2, 1967, and because of the crowd and everything, there was only one way in. They had to go through the crowd to the dressing room. "And they came past me, just inside the door, and it was very crushed so it was like faces two inches from your nose. So they all came by, kind of 'Hi Joe!' 'How are you?', 'Great', you know, and I greeted them all as they came through and the last one was Syd. "And the great thing with Syd was that he had a twinkle in his eye. I mean, he was a real eye-twinkler. He had this impish look about him, this mischievous glint. "And he came by, and I said 'Hi Syd', and he just kind of looked at me. I looked right in his eye and there was no twinkle. No glint. It was like somebody had pulled the blinds – you know, nobody home."It was a real shock. Very, very sad.
"Though who's to say? I don't think you can delineate and say, 'Well, one minute he was this and the next minute he was something else'. All sorts of changes like that are just the surface manifestation of something that must have been going on for a long time. "People talk about acid casualties and everything, but who knows what really goes on?"


The UFO that Joe remembered was one of the last of the classic UFO's. It had become too fashionable, too 'in', too damn crowded. A huge mob had gathered to see the Floyd, including Jimi Hendrix, Chas Chandler, Eric Burdon, Pete Townshend and various Yardbirds. They played like bums," International Times reported the next week. That's about it really. ‘See Emily Play’ was released on June 16 and reached number 5 in the charts. On August 5, their first album The Piper At The Gates of Dawn was released, Syd taking the title from Wind In The Willows. The album reached number 6. They were famous. You know the rest.

© Miles

The Misunderstood - Children of The Sun

Killer track by "The Misunderstood", psych masters, championed by the late great John Peel who brought them to London, recorded their first LP and even put them up at his mum's house. Unfortunately  their music career was cut short by the American Vietnam war draft and the rest as they say is history.

The wild lap steel guitar is played by Glen Ross Campbell who strangely enough now lives in Auckland, of all places. Strange world...A

The Groundhogs – Split

Just thought I'd sing the praises of this much overlooked classic slab of English guitar madness by the mainly unknown British blues/psych band the Groundhogs. The Groundhogs were (and possibly still are) a three piece, formed in New Cross, London in 1963. I'm not going to write a whole biography of the band and members, for that go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Groundhogs

Their album 'Split' is possibly their most well known and in my humble opinion their best. The single 'Cherry Red' is a true lost guitar mayhem, buzzsaw, fuzzbuzz, mania, distorto, gonzo, psych, three piece blues masterpiece. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.

Hawkwind Space Ritual Article from 1973...

I am an unashamed Hawkwind fan. It took me a while to get what they were about, and some of their later stuff is truly dire, but everything in this article from Strait magazine, published in 1973 is bang on the nail. "Space Ritual", recorded live in Liverpool and London in 1973 is their masterpiece. Anyway, here's the article, courtesy of www.Freekly.com...

Hawkwind's Space Ritual and Kosmik Muzak

Gary Sperrazza!, Strait, 1973.

AS YOU ALL KNOW, the prime force, the "essence" if you'll permit, of good rock has always been Energy. Rock Energy is created through two different methods. One is Energy through enthusiasm: an excitement and freshness created humanly through youthful, joyfully unrestrained vocals and fresh pop arrangements, things like the Beach Boys, Wackers, Big Star, early Hollies, Blue Ash, early Stories, Stealer's Wheel, etc.

The second method is Energy through electricity: raw electric rock power which, in its throbbing pulse and relentless, continuous drive forces you to react, groups like the Stooges, Black Sabbath, Dust, Groundhogs, early Grand Funk, Pink Fairies etc. The electricity that seeps into your system can be absorbed and channeled, which supercedes you initial reaction to it. The fact that voltage enters your system is much more important than whether you belch, tap your feet or sit frozen, mesmerized by the sound itself. Embracing this electrical umbilical cord are Hawkwind, innovatively neanderthal, obscurely familiar and radically redundant. All in a positive sense, you understand.

Hawkwind have been together four years and Space Ritual makes their fourth album. Noted as a people's (read "hippie") band, they've attracted a wide following in England through their concerts (many of them free) and two singles, 'Silver Machine' (No. 3 in England; not on any album) and 'Urban Guerilla' (a new release; not on any album). The first three albums, Hawkwind, In Search of Space and Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do, while not always following a storyline as often as they'd have us believe, were conceptual in their initial inspiration, dealing with space themes, cosmic battles and intergalactic voyages.

The line-up of Hawkwind fluctuates as often as Marvel Comic's Avengers, but the basic five are: Dave Brock (guitar), Lemmy (bass), Simon King (a truly inhuman drummer), Nik Turner (sax) and Del Dettmar (synthesizer). Playing a crucially important role in the presentation is DikMik, whose audio generator creates a range of sounds from subsonic to ultrasonic frequencies; it is DikMik who helps one to feel the music so much more kinestheticly. Icing on the cake, are Stacia, whose extraordinary costumes and seductive dancing serve to cement those urges the music stimulates and Bob Calvert, a poet and narrator whose worthiness in the band is questionable.

Hawkwind is space muzak, oscillated heartbeats; an energy level that seeps into your body as well as into your ears. At first, they were regarded as a poor man's Pink Floyd, but Hawkwind has surpassed any physical impact Pink Floyd has foisted on us with swipe of Brock's guitar. Comparing Hawkwind to Pink Floyd is like comparing Fellini to Walt Disney. Pink Floyd gives the impression of being elitist in their conservatism; even their free form playing was highly structured. Pink Floyd programs their electricity so as to almost expect a certain reaction from their audience; but they know when to stop whereas Hawkwind doesn't. Pink Floyd is far from being an approximated risk which is one way of talking about Hawkwind.

These solar beings are pulsating, raw, blood-red energy. Hawkwind are the ultimate heavy metal urgists with cosmic frills transmitted through oscillators and synthesizers. As there is a sense of morbidity and an attempt at escapism in their themes (lyrics); there is this same morbidity evident in the, seemingly redundant sound they throw at us. Even the packaging for Space Ritual has a cold, inhuman quality about it. A six-part cover that folds out to the size of six album jackets (one up on Blue Cheer's Outsidelnside) is covered with mid-60's acid-rockfreakism photography, cosmic fantasy drawings and a nude Stacia (a space goddess indeed) with Andromeda Strain computer printout type for related phrases over the pictures.

Space Ritual, recorded live in England, is a musical representation of a story so ambiguous that it forces the listener to do all the work in interpreting it. As a double, album of heavy attacking rock and formless experimentation (a minor part), it implies a conflict between their two styles. But it is the heavy metal aspect that dominates and it's Hawkwind's mastery of it that makes them so special. Space Ritual is helped along by fantasy writer Michael Moorcock who contributed themes, passages and poetry. Calvert's readings sound a bit ridiculous in context with the energy of the music, but supply quiet breaks from which Hawkwind's dramatic song openings can blast off of (some of the material is from older albums).

'Lord of Light' comes across as the most melodic of their heavier material. A fine bass line and solid drumming set the groundwork for a plea by Brock, keeping an attempt at consistent vocalization rather than the spontaneous tokenistic grunts that usually accompany Hawkwind's music. 'Space is Deep' is a space chant creating images of surviving Earthlings reflecting on their planet, long since dead. 'Orgone Accumulator' is a return to the Earth in the form of a cosmic boogie, a plutonian Canned Heat, possibly Disneyland's Pluto. 'Brainstorm,' taken from DoReMi, is my personal favorite, possibly creating a new energy level in its own right. Dave Brock sets up a slicing guitar riff as the band plays their bodies out, giving the song the full treatment it deserves. The flip of the 'Silver Machine' single, '7 X 7' is given a desperate feel as Brock casts his attacking view of Earth onto the audience, who, at this point, must be so intoxicated by the unreality of the whole Space Ritual that it passes unnoticed. The many other tunes are a furthering of the basic electric theme set down previously.

Surprisingly, Space Ritual is recorded well; Hawkwind, during the mixing, miked the drums and bass upfront to add the physical impact lacking in home seclusion, that is, versus a concert setting. That's why Hawkwind, in some of their incredibly long passages, can sustain interest because of drive, you really feel the music.

Lemmy deserves special mention as he is the best power bassist around; he brings Hawkwind back to the ground which defies their basic policy of ascension. Lemmy's bass chording is so rich and full that it, at times, functions as a rhythm guitar when Dave Brock goes through cosmic-menstruation. Drummer Simon King must have a stand-in ... or the drums play themselves; to sustain such energy and tightness throughout this double album is indeed astounding.

Dettmar and DikMik, while enhancing the special effects and giving Hawkwind a distinctive style, fall short of their potential at times in light of other's accomplishments on the synthesizer. For example, M. Frog (alias Jean Yves Labat, who accompanied Todd Rundgren on his spring tour) and Eno (late of Roxy Music) funneled their respective group's sound and acted as a coating while still shining in their own right; if there is a purpose in Hawkwind's synthesizer effects other than to accent the chaotic feel that Hawkwind preoccupies themselves with, it's generally lost.

Hawkwind's saga is what you want it to be. The more you get involved with them, the more you believe – it becomes elaborate. If they are as dumb as they look, their stupidity is probably instinctive. If they're doing this on purpose, if it all does make sense in some elevated fashion, they're definitely poking fun at us. Seemingly paradoxical is the fact that Hawkwind make Pink Floyd sound like the DeFranco Family and most heavy metal bands like Black Sabbath sound like classical composers.

As for Space Ritual, it's doomed to become a lost masterpiece. But if they're consistent with their philosophy, they won't care if no one buys it, right? Hawkwind have adhered to a simple formula: rather than help the audience to accept an image, they create their own and dare you to accept it. It's worked in England (as has David Bowie) but in America, the general audience is not tuned into experimentation; look at the charts. What amazes us is how rock Energy via pop, which is formula-based, is not accepted and rock Energy via electricity isn't accepted either. American kids don't like formulas and they don't like experimentation. What's left? Groups like Hawkwind, the definitive heavy metal masters of the '70s, left out because of no exposure. Space Ritual isn't for everybody, obviously, but it's hoped that those who crave this kind of Energy blast will find it themselves: I've done all I can.

© Gary Sperrazza.

Follow the Music Poster Design

One of my designs.

Love this font...

I don't know what it's called but I love the font on this album by Swedish or Danish (I really don't know anything about them) prog. rock band Euclid. I bet they did carry some heavy equipment. Seem like a nice bunch of guys all the same.

Os Mutantes...

F**k what that Scientology loving ass Beck says, this is quite simply the greatest thing to come out of Brazil and the Tropicalia scene. If you haven't got a copy of the album "Os Mutantes", released in 1967, you ain't living baby!!! Here's a trailer for the upcoming doco about the band (it seems to have stalled in production). Enjoy, it's impossible not to.

Smashed Blocked promo...They don't make them like this anymore!

I had to post this. Where do you think I got the name from? I'm not that clever...The song is magnificent, the clip is so Spinal Tap it's not funny. Fake tears!! Fake crying!! So young. Pre Bolan. Looked good in the white gear I thought. My head is so spinning round...
John's Children...Smashed Blocked