The Metronomical Society by Egg, a collection of live and studio recordings made by the Stewart / Campbell / Brooks trio between 1969 and 1972. The CD features archive recordings unheard for nearly 40 years, including a sizeable segment of Egg's last Roundhouse concert. Also included are superior versions of selections from the band's radio sessions, material previously only available on poor-quality bootlegs. The Metronomical Society's foreword is written by the irrepressible Captain Sensible.
In Dave's words: "There have been a few Egg bootlegs over the years, all terrible sound quality with inaccurate or non-existent documentation. I felt we should try to remedy this, and was delighted when music fan David Carruthers told us he had over an hour of archive Egg material on tape, recordings he'd stored carefully for 35 years and never copied - hats off to him. That discovery made the idea of an Egg archive CD feasible. Some of the music was recorded at our last-ever London gig at the Roundhouse in July 1972; those tapes reflect exactly how the band sounded to me on stage, with a bite, attack and visceral power that our '70s albums failed to capture."
Tracks
1. While Growing My Hair (Campbell) - 3:46
2. Seven Is A Jolly Good Time (Stewart, Campbell) - 3:09
3. Germ Patrol (Stewart, Campbell) - 5:34
4. Enneagram (Campbell) - 8:51
5. Long Piece No. 3, Part 2 (Campbell) - 9:02
6. Long Piece No. 3, Part 4 (Campbell) - 3:12
7. There's No Business Like Show Business (Berlin) - 3:16
8. Blane Over Camden (Stewart) - 4:26
9. Long Piece No. 3, Part 3 (Campbell) - 6:48
10.Wring Out The Ground (Loosely Now) (Campbell) - 8:02
11.McGillicuddie The Pusillanimous (Campbell) - 5:00
12.I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside (Glover, Kind) - 0:42
Egg
*Dave Stewart - Keyboards, Tone Generator
*Mont Campbell - Bass, Vocals
*Clive Brooks - Drums
Organ / piano, bass guitar, and drums. Add occasional vocals and tone generator and that's it! Obviously not much rocking expected from that ensemble - for goodness sake, just three people and no guitars?
Well like so many of their Cantebury compats, these guys didn't read the memo and they created some ground breaking stuff. In fact the notes on the original LP read: The music on this LP is not dancing music, but basically music for listening to. It is harmonically and rhythmically complex, designed to be as original as possible within the confines of the instrumental lineup; so it's pretty demanding on the listener's attention.
Originally released in 1970, Egg took influences from such diverse genres as jazz, psychedelia, rock and fusion, but probably most important, from classical music - and Brahms, Stravinsky and Grieg are directly and indirectly represented here. And Egg in turn gave their own influences to a number of other Cantebury acts of the early '70s. Egg was Dave Stewart on keys and tones, Mont Campbell on bass and understated but very competent vocals, and Clive Brooks on drums. They were hatched from Uriel in 1969, after they'd lost their guitar player, Steve Hillage to his university studies.
Later, Stewart and Hillage would form Khan, and Stewart would move into the realms of Hatfield and Ayers and Campbell would join him in National Health. The family tree of the Cantebury scene is a complex web, and we won't try to unravel it here. Suffice it to say that this was one of the more influential if underrated acts of prog's golden age.
The music generated by this small lineup was heavily dependent on Stewart's organ and Campbell's bass - both of which were applied with flair and imagination - but all three artists were credited with various compositions. There's a lot of avant garde generation of weird and spacey tones, but the rest is an entertaining example of several budding progressive genres taking their first baby-steps.
The English sense of humor is present in many songs, although the lyrics tend toward the spaced out rather than the poetic. "The Song Of McGillicudie The Pusillanimous (or Don't Worry James, Your Socks Are Hanging In The Coal Cellar With Thomas)" could almost have come off an album by The Doors. And yes, that's the song's name! "I Will Be Absorbed" comes the closest to a prog 'song' in the traditional sense of the word. Symphony No. 2 is a 5-part 22-minute early-day-avant-garde attempt at a modern-era classic, in a similar vein to many of the Keith Emerson pieces that would come later.
Honors for the all-round favorite, however, go to "Seven Is A Jolly Good Time" which is a bonus track here and wasn't on the original record. By 'good time' they're taking a stab at the fixation with odd time signatures.
by Duncan Glenday
Tracks
1. Bulb (Peter Gallen) - 0:09
2. While Growing My Hair - 4:02
3. I Will Be Absorbed - 5:11
4. Fugue In D Minor (Bach) - 2:49
5. They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano… - 1:21
6. The Song Of McGillicudie The Pusillanimous - 1:04
7. Symphony No. 2 - 23:58
8. Movement 1
9. Movement 2
10.Blane
11.Movement 3
12.Movement 4
13.Seven Is A Jolly Good Time - 2:47
14.You Are All Princes - 3:45
All songs by Clive Brooks, Mont Campbell, Dave Stewart except where indicated
Egg
*Dave Stewart - Organ, Piano, Tone Generator, Mellotron
*Mont Campbell - Bass, Vocals
*Clive Brooks - Drums
Harpers Bizarre "4" had a better selection of material. "Knock on Wood," the Beatles' "Blackbird," the Barry Mann-Gerry Goffin collaboration "Something Better," John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane," Kenny Rankin's "Cotton Candy Sandman," and (most unexpectedly) jazzman Jim Pepper's "Witchi Tai To" were all given the group's smooth harmony veneer and mock-rococo production.
Also on board were four bouncy, inconsequential group originals, and the theme to the movie I Love You, Alice B. Toklas. It still didn't add up to anything special -- not many groups could have stripped so much of the grit from "Knock on Wood" -- but was a soft rock marshmallow that was easier to swallow than their gooiest previous concoctions. Ry Cooder played occasional bottleneck guitar. The 2001 CD reissue on Sundazed added two bonus tracks, both from non-LP singles: Harry Nilsson's "Poly High," which is actually one of the group's better recordings, and Thomas Dorsey's gospel composition "If We Ever Needed the Lord Before."
by Richie Unterberger
Tracks
1. Soft Soundin' Music (Dick Scoppettone, Ted Templeman) - 4:10
2. Knock On Wood (Steve Cropper, Eddie Floyd) - 3:08
3. Witchi Tai To (Jim Pepper) - 2:42
4. Hard To Handle (Alvertis Isbell, Allen Jones, Otis Redding) - 2:16
5. When The Band Begins To Play (Scoppettone, Templeman) - 2:31
6. Something Better (Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann) - 2:43
7. Blackbird (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) - 1:59
8. I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (Elmer Bernstein, Paul Mazursky, Larry Tucker) - 2:08
9. There's No Time Like Today (Scoppettone, Templeman) - 2:05
10.All Through The Night (John Petersen, Scoppettone, Templeman) - 2:12
11.Cotton Candy Sandman (Sandman's Coming) (Kenny Rankin) - 2:57
12.Leaving On A Jet Plane (John Denver) - 2:22
13.Poly High (Harry Nilsson) - 2:39
14.If We Ever Needed The Lord Before (Traditional, Thomas A. Dorsey) - 2:56
Recorded in Hollywood, in 1967. Originally released on Warners, Harpers Bizarre debut album is an astonishingly varied concoction, with songs and stunning arrangements by some of Los Angeles' most creative talents (including Randy Newman, legendary singer-songwriter David Blue, and Van Dyke Parks) sharing space with Cole Porter and Glenn Miller classics and Doug Kershaw's Cajun "Louisiana Man." Extra tracks include the group's beautiful country-flavored lullaby-cum-love song, "Cotton Candy Sandman (Sandman's Coming)."
Tracks
1. (Intro) This Is Only The Beginning (Ted Koehler, Harold Arlen) - 1:44
2. Anything Goes (Cole Porter) - 2:00
3. Two Little Babes In The Wood (Cole Porter) - 3:45
4. The Biggest Night Of Her Life (Randy Newman) - 2:25
5. Pocketful Of Miracles (Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen) - 2:47
6. Snow (Randy Newman) - 2:39
7. Chattanooga Choo Choo (Mack Gordon, Harry Warren) - 2:35
8. Hey You In The Crowd (Dick Scoppettone, Ted Templeman) - 2:25
9. Louisiana Man (Doug Kershaw) - 2:36
10.Milord (Monnot, Moustaki) - 3:07
11.Virginia City (Dick Scoppettone, Ted Templeman) - 2:08
12.Jessie (Mike Gordon, Jimmy Griffin) - 3:45
13.You Need A Change (David Blue) - 2:43
14.High Coin (Van Dyke Parks) - 2:35
One of the bands that came to Warner Bros. in their buyout of Autumn Records were the Tikis. They had only recorded a handful of singles, and in terms of musical direction and group identity, they definitely had potential. Enter producer Lenny Waronker and session musician/arranger/songwriter/general musical architect Van Dyke Parks. The two of them brought then-drummer Ted Templeman up to the front as co-lead vocalist, along with Dick Scoppettone, and created a soft-rock identity for the group, renaming them Harpers Bizarre.
Their first single was perhaps their greatest shot: a cover of the then-brand new Paul Simon song, "Feelin' Groovy." Buttressed by an amazing Leon Russell arrangement and some great performances from the A-list of L.A. session cats, the song quickly went into the Top Ten. The resulting album is almost as great as the single, with songs by Van Dyke Parks ("Come to the Sunshine"), Randy Newman ("Debutante's Ball"), and others. An excellent and definitive slice of California soft pop. The 2001 CD reissue on Sundazed adds two bonus tracks, both taken from the 1966 "Bye, Bye, Bye"/"Lost My Love Today" single by the Tikis, the San Francisco group that evolved into Harper's Bizarre."
by Matthew Greenwald
Tracks
1. Come To The Sunshine (Van Dyke Parks) - 2:33
2. Happy Talk (Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II) - 2:12
3. Come Love (Bergman, Keith, Marks) - 2:02
4. Raspberry Rug (Leon Russell, Washburn) - 2:25
5. The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) (Paul Simon) - 2:39
6. The Debutante's Ball (Randy Newman) - 3:08
7. Happy Land (Randy Newman) - 2:20
8. Peter And The Wolf (Ron Elliott, Sergei Prokofiev, Durand) - 1:57
9. I Can Hear The Darkness (Russell, Washburn) - 2:03
10.Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear (Randy Newman) - 2:21
There’s a charming contemporary newspaper clipping reproduced in the sleevenotes of Chapters & Phases which bears the heading: “Blo: A Date To Blow Your Mind Off”. Whatever disquieting mental image this conjures forth, rest assured that this compilation amply answers your prayers if you’ve been craving a band capable of combining the sticky, lopsided funk of The Meters with the loose cannon edginess of Malcolm Mooney-era Can.
Ostensibly inspired by their tenure in Salt with Ginger Baker, guitarist Berkely Jones and drummer Laolu Akintobi recruited bassist Mike Odumosu and set about casually turning Nigeria on its ear. The Lagos-based Blo made their live debut on 23 December 1972, supporting Osibisa at Lagos City Stadium and, by all accounts, blowing the headliners clean through the back wall with their ballsy, wayward “Afro-delia”.
A debt to Cream is indeed detectable in Odumosu’s bubbling, rude, upfront bass and the wah-wah extrapolations of Jones, but the overall tone of expansive joy is the polar opposite of Cream’s combative, murderous intensity. If anything, We Are Out Together, It’s Gonna Be A Good Day and Do It You’ll Like It are closer in spirit to the communal craziness of Sly & The Family Stone and Parliament.
by Marco Rossi
Tracks
Chapter One 1973
1. Preacherman (Berkely Ike Jones) - 4:43
2. Time to Face the Sun (B. Ike Jones) - 4:04
3. Beware / We Gonna Have a Party (Mike Odumosu, Berkely Ike Jones, Laolu Akintobi) - 4:08
4. Don't (B. Ike Jones) - 3:24
5. Chant to Mother Earth (Mike Odumosu) - 6:15
6. (Intro) We Are out Together (Instrumental) (Berkely Ike Jones) - 2:02
7. We Are out Together (Berkely Ike Jones) - 2:46
8. Miss Sagitt (Instrumental) (Berkely Ike Jones) - 4:47 Phase II 1975
9. BLO (Mike Odumosu) - 5:26
10.It's Gonna Be a Good Day (Laolu Akintobi) - 4:16
11.Native Doctor (Berkely Ike Jones) - 5:16
12.Do It You'll Like It (Berkely Ike Jones) - 3:42
13.Don't Take Her Away from Me (Jackson, Akinitobi, Nyam, Jones) - 4:30
14.Whole Lot of Shit (Berkely Ike Jones) - 5:15
15.Atide (Laolu Akintobi) - 3:03
B.L.O.
*Berkely "Ike" Jones - Guitar, Vocals
*Mike Odumusu - Bass, Vocals
*Laolu "Akins" Akintobi - Conga, Drums, Vocals With
*Segun Bucknor - Piano
*Joni Haastrup - Organ
*Friday Pozo - Conga
The most misunderstood of all the so-called "psych" bands of the late 1960s, the only LP by Autosalvage is the first and best US psych-into-prog record of them all.
Recorded in 1967, ahead of its time, this record took a Byrds/Airplane-inspired acid-folk-rock mixture and crafted songs unique, catchy, raucous, and truly flipped in an early Zappa-like way (who had a hand in getting them signed, apparently).
Autosalvage stays heavily focused on music rather than zaniness, but the song titles indicate that there's plenty of gimlet-eyed humor as well: "Rampant Generalities," "Glimpses of the Next World's World," "The Great Brain Robbery," plus a jaw-dropping rendition of Leadbelly's "Good Morning Blues."
Full-on lead guitars, nasally vocals (the worst feature for some, but I find them punkish), and extended yet carefully arranged 6-minute acid/jam/extrapolations are artfully wrapped in hummable tunes.
Traditional themes were mixed with jugband music, while the adventurous, quirky compositions blended shimmering guitar with textured instrumentation. Commercial indifference doomed their continuation and by the end of the decade Autosalvage had broken up
by Will Jackson
Tracks
1. Autosalvage - 5:37
2. Burglar Song - 2:20
3. Rampant Generalities - 3:10
4. Medley:Our Life As We Lived It/Good Morning Blues - 6:30
5. Ancestral Wants - 3:50
6. Hundred Days - 2:14
7. Land Of Their Dreams - 3:07
8. Parahighway - 2:35
9. Medley: The Great Brain Robbery/Glimpses Of The Next World's World - 5:15
Though the band reached the peak of their commercial success at the start of the Seventies, their origins lay further back in the diverse, exciting and woefully ignored Dutch scene of the mid-Sixties.
The Dutch beat boom started when Johnny Kendall and the Heralds' version of 'St James' Infirmary' charted in late 1964. Prior to that, most of the home- grown acts to find success had either been wholesome teen stars or guitar instrumental acts in the style of the Shadows.
Robbie van Leeuwen, guitarist, songwriter and effectively leader of Shocking Blue, had previously held a similar position in the Motions in their early hit making phase. Those hits included 'It's Gone', 'Wasted Words' (a paean to Dr. Martin Luther King), 'Every Step I Take' and 'Everything That's Mine' the latter one of the finest slices of Mod/Art Pop produced anywhere in the world.
The Shocking Blue story effectively started when Van Leeuwen left the Motions in 1967 due to conflicts with lead singer Rudy Bennett. He recruited members from other Hague bands for his new group: the line-up for the first Shocking Blue singles, up to and including the first hit, 'Lucy Brown Is Back In Town', was Van Leeuwen (guitar), Fred de Wilde (vocals), Klaasje van de Waal (bass) and Cor van Beek (drums). The single charted well, things were about to change.
About the same time as Lucy Brown's release, fellow Hague band Golden Earring had hit the jackpot with the pure bubblegum of 'Dong Dong Di Ki Di Gi Dong'. A band was hired to play at the party they held to celebrate their first Number 1; named the Bumble Bees, they were fronted by a strong and striking female vocalist. Shocking Blue's manager and publisher both attended the party, and both felt certain this singer would be ideal for their band. The woman in question was Mariska Veres.
Tracks
1. Love Is In The Air (R.Van Leeuwen, Dimitri) - 2:39
2. Ooh Wee There's Music In Me - 2:35
3. What You Gonna Do - 2:19
4. Whisky Don't Wash My Brains - 1:02
5. Little Maggie - 2:50
6. Jail My Second Home (R.Van Leeuwen, Dimitri) - 2:25
7. What's Wrong Bertha (R.Van Leeuwen, B. Hay) - 2:27
8. League Of Angels - 2:10
9. Rockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu (Huey Piano Smith) - 2:02
10.That's Allright (Arthur Crudup) - 2:25
11.Crazy Drunken Man Dreams (R.Van Leeuwen, B. Hay) - 2:53
12.Beggarman (R.Van Leeuwen, Dimitri) - 2:33
13.Hold Me, Hug Me, Rock Me (G.Vincent, B.Davis) - 2:03
14.Where My Baby's Gone (R.Van Leeuwen, Dimitri) - 5:12
15.Lusi Brown Is Back In Town - 2:55
16.Fix Your Hair Darling - 2:18
All songs by R.Van Leeuwen except where stated
Shocking Blue
*Robbie Van Leeuwen - Guitar, Vocals
*Cor Van Der Beek - Drums
*Klaasje Van Der Wal - Bass Guitar
*Fred De Wilde - Vocals
It’s a schizophrenic son of a bitch, this record. Most of what would have been the first side is instrumental and – the psychedelic surf tag notwithstanding – these tracks exhibit to my ears a combination of the guileless chord sequences and melodies that Joe Meek was using with his instrumental combos a decade earlier and the sonic palette of Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti Western soundtracks, in the arrangements but also notably in the clean, springy lead guitar work, with a whiff of Lost In Space electronic frippery thrown in for good measure. “Dancing Doris” has an intermittent Middle Eastern zither riff that makes you want to scratch, and “Goodbye Pamela Ann” brazenly steals the jerky drum pattern from the Fabs’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”.
When the vocals start to infiltrate on what was originally the flipside it’s clear that the band are off on a shamelessly lysergic expedition. The nearest thing to a conventional sung song is “Mother Of My Children” with its classic chat-up line refrain “woman, would you be the mother of my children?” “Think For Yourself” is a four-chord garage bash with melodica, wah-wah guitar and schizophonic stereo-split vocals, whilst “Shapes Of Sleep” is Beefheart’s Magic Band reflected in a distorting mirror and the hysterical plane-crash narrative of “Sylvan Shores” boasts wilfully out-of-tune bass guitar and an appropriately disintegrating outro. The lengthy closing “The Raven”, based on Poe’s verses of the same name, combines proto-punk vocals and chainsaw rhythm guitar with further primitive electronic squeals. The five “songs” are seamlessly segued with short intermissions incorporating backwards instrumentals, found sounds, vocal gibberish and a fake radio newsreel. It really shouldn’t work, but it all does, though it might take you several plays to rub down to the shine beneath the verdigris.
The band lasted around six years, but despite frequent gigging and a parallel career for Walker and fellow guitarist Bob Narloch as a folk club duo the album never raised major label interest and would remain their sole recorded product and a great rarity until reissued by Sundazed in 1999. Interestingly three of the band actually worked at Phoenix International’s pressing contractor and literally pressed their own album, probably a first in rock annals.
by Len Liechti
Tracks
1. I Don't Know - 2:27
2. Patti's Dream - 4:31
3. Dancing Doris - 3:34
4. Goodbye Pamela Ann - 3:39
5. Monologue - 0:52
6. Black Sunshine (Charles R. Hauke) - 2:50
7. Think For Yourself - 2:49
8. The Bug, The Goat And The Hearse - 0:42
9. Shapes Of Sleep - 2:43
10.Clouds Of Lead - 0:37
11.Mother Of My Children - 2:44
12.1001 Twice - 1:05
13.Sylvan Shores - 2:51
14.Bulletin!! - 0:30
15.The Raven - 5:23
All songs written by Ken Walker except where stated
Today, Wil Malone is a first-call arranger in the music industry – “The Malone Arranger”, naturally – who has worked with pretty much everyone from Corinne Bailey Rae to Massive Attack via DJ Shadow and The Verve. Back in 1970, however, the tireless Orange Bicycle/ Fickle Pickle mainstay and Morgan Studios operative was the progenitor of a needlessly obscure solo album, dribbled on to the marketplace with minimal fanfare by Fontana, which has since been recognised as a classic of acid-folk – even if no one was calling it that at the time.
Baroque, restrained and wintry, it’s a masterpiece of languorous introspection. Malone surrounds his dry, careworn vocals with a warmly protective cordon of sympathetic cello, flute and oboe, closest in essence to Chris Gunning’s arrangements on Colin Blunstone’s One Year, on the exquisitely forlorn Down Maundies, the shimmering Winter In Boston and One More Flight To Parker.
The 15 “lost” bonus tracks include the staggering LA – harmonic sunshine pop in excelsis – the unnerving Lean On My Gun and the Randy Newman-esque narrative of One Foot In The Gutter. Wil Malone is also the latest album in RC’s series of classic vinyl reissues: snap it up with confidence and salivatory anticipation.
by Marco Rossi
Tracks
1. Catherine Wheel - 2:11
2. I Could Write A Book - 3:05
3. February Face - 2:16
4. Love In The Afternoon - 2:33
5. Winter In Boston - 2:05
6. Caravan - 3:07
7. Down Maundies - 2:39
8. Suzy - 2:41
9. Tale To Tell - 2:54
10.One More Flight To Parker - 3:01
11.At The Silver Slipper - 3:00
12.How About Then - 2:30
13.Jesus - 3:08
14.Until The End Dreamer - 0:42
15.Jane (Danny Beckerman) - 2:35
16.Until The End Drifter - 0:38
17.L.A. - 3:07
18.Until The End Songbird - 0:49
19.Message To Mary - 2:15
20.Jake And The Wife (Danny Beckerman) - 2:04
21.Madame Le Mar (Danny Beckerman) - 2:12
22.Until The End Angel - 0:40
23.Lean On My Gun - 1:39
24.Do You Remember The Day - 2:52
25.Beautiful Green - 1:32
26.One Foot In The Gutter - 3:19
27.Jesus (Alternative Version) - 3:06
All compositions by Wil Malone except where stated
Bonus Tracks 13-27 Until The End (The Long Lost Album?)
