Love, Peace & Poetry | British Psychedelic Music

Psychedelic Trippers from late 1960s and early 70s Britain

Love, Peace & Poetry | British Psychedelic Music | The Journey Continues . . . There is no easy path to take in describing the relationship between American and British psychedelic music. While the US has the stronger claim to the original territories of rock and roll, the musical traditions of both nations are ultimately part and parcel of far broader histories of colonialism.

Perhaps in the most oversimplified sense, psychedelia is the bastard child of a menage a trois between LSD, Vietnam and the Baby Boom. Or, perhaps it was conceived during the apocryphal-Bob-Dylan-marijuana-initiation-escapade-visit to The Beatles’ New York hotel suite in 1965 (or when George Harrison was introduced to his first Ravi Shankar album by then-Byrd David Crosby).

As it always is with history, there is never an actual moment of origin waiting to be to uncovered, just a series of very early moments all vying for the front of the line. What can be said is that the histories of psychedelic music in the US and UK are closely intertwined, and while these histories have their grand and spectacular moments like “Revolver” “Forever Changes” “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” “Are You Experienced?” “Shine On Brightly”, what can also be said is that it is the lesser known (though often just as spectacular) moments – the lost history of British Psychedelic Music – that is our focus here.

One obvious difference between England and the United States is the size of their populations, which translates to major differences in the size of their respective music audiences, and accounts for the major rarity status of many UK albums released on major (or semi-major) labels.

Love, Peace & Poetry | British Psychedelic Music

RED DIRT, whose self-titled sole LP was released in the UK in 1970 on the Fontana label, is one such example. Such is also the case with GARY WALKER & THE RAIN‘s “Album No. 1”, a UK quartet led by an American artist and released on the Phillips label in 1968 but, for reasons never made clear, released only in Japan and now one of the “holy grails” of lost psychedelia.

Gary Walker (a “Walker Brother” until 1967) teamed up with Joey Molland (later of Badfinger) in a quartet whose vocal harmonies mixed with strong guitars and phasing effects to produce a number of extraordinary tracks like “Magazine Woman” (included here).

Rare ’68 debut

Like RED DIRT and GARY WALKER & THE RAIN, ANDWELLA’S DREAM‘s excruciatingly rare 1968 debut was also first issued by a major label (CBS). While their later LPs (under the shortened name “Andwella”) are rather pedestrian affairs and of little interest here, their debut is a minor masterpiece of Procol Harum-like keyboard-driven songs with a sound that is quintessentially representative of late-Sixties British psychedelia.

Rewind now back to the end of the 1980s, before the proliferation of internet search engines and Borderline guide books, when the body of common knowledge surrounding rare and obscure psychedelic records was contained mostly within a small box of homemade mail order catalogues created by a small circle of US and UK dealer/collectors.

At times contradictory, filled with fabrications, rumours and half-truths, these lists offered fantastic descriptions of unknown records with correspondingly fantastic price tags. In a US catalogue issued sometime around 1989 the phrase “the holy trinity of rare UK psych” was first applied to the trio of albums by DARK, Forever Amber and Complex.

Love, Peace & Poetry | British Psychedelic Music

While the reputation of the Complex album has suffered somewhat in the intervening years, the mystique surrounding “Dark Round The Edges” has only grown as the album has received a wider audience in the wake of three LP and two CD reissues. Pressed up for the band and friends in 1972, approximately 50 original albums were made and inserted into a mix of color gatefold, black & white gatefold and black & white non-gatefold sleeve variations (with the black & white gatefold the rarest variation).

The track “Maypole” is consistent with the complex song structures and heavy distorted guitar leads found throughout this most impressive album. Record collectors may be interested to hear (for the very first time) the details surrounding the rediscovery of the first copy of the DARK album: In 1984, on one of a series of record buying trips to England, US collector/dealer Paul Major ended a long day of record hunting at a London record shop called Vinyl Solutions. Down to his last 10 pounds and pocket change for the tube, he had one record in each hand.

Homemade

In one, an original copy of an early Fairport Convention album he knew he could resell for $30; in the other, a very homemade looking gatefold record by an unknown band called DARK. Both were priced at ten pounds. He asked the shop owner, a collector of Sixties garage 45’s, to play a bit of the DARK LP.

“You like this?” asked the puzzled shop owner as the Fairport LP was quickly replaced in the bin. The rest of that story in now part of our shared history here. Collectors might also note that the Kissing Spell label has been responsible for reissuing many rare albums and making a wide path of lost music available to a larger audience.

It was Kissing Spell who reissued the DARK album on CD and also first made available in affordable reissue form the very rare 1970 LP by the guitar-based quartet, DOGFEET. One slightly cynical criticism of the rare record marketplace could be directed at the not-too-uncommon ploy in which a $20 folk record is magically transformed (linguistically, not musically) into a $200 “folk-psych” record.

Love, Peace & Poetry | British Psychedelic Music

The territory of rare British psychedelic folk is a veritable minefield peppered with innumerable albums pressed up in the requisite 99 copies by amateur traditional English folk bands hoping to make a few extra pounds at their local pub gigs. While a handful of these are quite good, even the best will leave the psychedelic collector scratching his head, wondering exactly where the “psych” in the “folk-psych” might be hiding.

For me, the “trinity” of small label rare British psychedelic folk LPs is comprised of Magic Carpet, Stone Angel, and TONY, CARO & JOHN. Arguably the best and without question the rarest, “All On The First Day” was released in 1972 in a tiny private pressing of 99 copies (a number common to UK private releases of the era as it was the maximum number allowed in order to avoid sales taxes) of which perhaps less than 10 survive.

If you can imagine an acoustic set by Procol Harum with Gary Brooker’s vocals and the dark surrealism of Keith Reid’s lyrics with the addition of female vocals and swirling tape effects . . . I think you get the idea. This brilliant album is represented here by the track “There Are No Greater Heroes”.

Pussy Plays

Long held to represent one of the best examples of British progressive psychedelia, the sole LP by PUSSY was originally released on the Morgan Bluetown label in 1969. Originally known as Fortes Mentum, PUSSY employs strong keyboards and guitars amid electronic effects and wild imagery throughout “Pussy Plays”, among the more rare and sought collectable UK albums of the era.

While collectors have known about PUSSY for quite a while, “Day” by CANDIDA PAX was virtually unknown prior to its recent reissue on the German Shadoks label. Originally released in 1971 on the Deroy label in a small pressing of 35 copies made to be given away to friends. 10 copies bore a small sticker on front and the remaining 25 were left in white sleeves but given an added insert and poster.

Charmingly amateurish and sufficiently exuberant with a slight spiritual bent and represented here by the track “Reach Out”.

Love, Peace & Poetry | British Psychedelic Music

If you can imagine Procol Harum recording an “unplugged” session released under the pseudonym “Tony, Caro & John” perhaps you can also imagine Donovan circa “Sunshine Superman” escaping the flowers and pace of London and taking a vacation in Italy. Tanned and rested, he rents some studio time and records an LP only released there in a small pressing.

Imagine that, and then listen to “Dreaming With Alice” by MARK FRY and tell me it’s not at the very least a plausible theory. I don’t want to give the wrong impression; this is a very strong and lovely album In its own right and with a strong sense of itself. But the Donovan connection is strong enough that the recent reissue on the Akarma label actually replaces the original sleeve with a slightly altered version of the sleeve for Donovan’s “Barabajagal” album!

Reputation has grown

While you are in the mood for imagining, try this one: Imagine “Mr. Fantasy” era Traffic opting to record a more experimental and non-commercial album for a tiny UK label. Now you’ve gone and imagined MOTHERLIGHT. Over the years during which the album’s reputation has grown among collectors of the obscure, the some of the album has somehow become confused with the name of the band, BOBAK, JONS, MALONE. An odd trio in which two members sing all the vocals and play all the instruments while the third, Andy Jons, is responsible for mixing the results in a manner sufficiently distinctive to merit full member status.

Released at the time of PUSSY and on the same label, MOTHERLIGHT has long been one of the stronger rarities of the era, represented here by the stunning “On A Meadow-Lea”.

The Holyground Recording Studios were founded in the Yorkshire town of Wakefield in 1967. In the years that followed, Holyground would issue a series of albums that have become major psychedelic collectibles. Many readers here will recognize Holyground titles like “A To Austr” “Number Nine Bread Street” “Jumble Lane” “Blue Epitath” “Skybird” “Junction 32” and “Tears On The Console”.

The majority of Holyground productions are almost unclassifiable melting pots of folk, rock, classical, jazz and “other” influences that result in descriptions that tend to employ phrases like “for the adventurous” or “an acquired taste.” Most releases were pressed up in “avoid the purchase tax” editions of 99 copies often issued in fairly elaborate sleeves and packages.

Love, Peace & Poetry | British Psychedelic Music

Surprisingly, among Holyground alum one may count Be-Box Deluxe founder, Bill Nelson. Nelson’s solo LP “Northern Dream” is most certainly the best known Holyground production, and his contribution to the third relevant Holyground release, 1971’s “Astral Navigations” is of specific interest here.

“Astral Navigations” is the title of an album split between two bands. Thundermother is a fairly heavy psychedelic rock band whose tracks fill one side; LIGHT YEARS AWAY is a more folk oriented affair on which Bill Nelson contributes to three songs including the atypical “Yesterday” with its effects and fuzz guitar break.

Heavy guitars

Among the rarest of this crop of exceptionally rare LPs, the 1972 self-titled LP by BODKIN is also an excellent blending of Deep Purple heavy organ with equally heavy guitar parts and good songwriting. A Scottish band, their LP was issued in a plain white sleeve which was later adorned with two different designs. An early CD reissue on the Witch & Warlock label created yet a third version of a front cover.

In an article published in the UK magazine Record Collector, David Wells (British collector and owner of the 10th Planet record label) wrote that “Love Cycle” by FOREVER AMBER ” . . . would be a notable accomplishment had it been recorded by a late Sixties major label pop psych outfit; for a provincial band, it’s a staggering achievement.”

Formed in the mid-60’s as The Country Cousins. FOREVER AMBER assumed their more mysterious name in 1967 (after, I suspect, either an Otto Preminger film or the novel upon which it was based). The origin of what is simply the best psychedelic private-press album I’ve ever heard is to be Mond in an encounter between the band’s manager and a local undergraduate, John M. Hudson, who’d written an album of songs and needed a band to record them.

No master tapes survive

What Hudson had created was a cycle of 16 songs that describe a classic “boy meets girl-boy gets girl-boy loses girl” story. Recorded with vocal harmonies that bear up under comparisons to “Pet Sounds” and more instantly memorable melodic hooks per inch than any other album I’ve heard (or could imagine) the end result is like a more perfect “Odessey and Oracle” steeped in a certain kind of innocence that will never pass our way again.

No master tapes survive. The original LP was issued on the Advance label in 1969 in a pressing of 99 copies. “The Dreamer Flies Back” is the one explicitly psychedelic track on the album.

Love, Peace & Poetry | British Psychedelic Music

OLIVER released his private LP “Standing Stone” in 1974. A long album (at 50 minutes) much of its appeal is in the eclectic character of the material which varies from John Fahey-like folk to Captain Beefheart and Pink Floyd-like progressive psychedelia. Originally issued in a blue sleeve, Oliver had the sleeve redone in green for later copies when the blue turned out to be so dark as to obscure the printing.

About three or four years ago I recall getting two calls, one from England and the other from Belgium, both asking in hushed tones if I’d heard of an album by a UK band named PARAMETER. By the mid-to-late 1990s the majority of “Hey! I found something!” announcements turned out to be false alarms and the number of real undiscovered treasures was dwindling down to the chilling realms of absolute zero. In that context, the sudden appearance of PARAMETER was cause for some celebration among fans of the “next big thing.”

Time capsule

The closest US LP comparison might be to Stone Harbor; seriously stoned acid folk crudely recorded in a basement somewhere at the ragged edge of nowhere, touched slightly by Syd Barrett sensibilities and tossed thoughtlessly into the swirling winds of the culture with some faint hope of being unearthed at some future date, like a haphazard time capsule in which all involved were just too stoned to ever recall exactly where they buried it.

Recorded two years before CANDIDA PAX, PARAMETER was pressed (as were both Complex LPs) at the studio/pressing plant combination at Deroy, a small operation where pressing runs of as few as 10 copies could be arranged. PARAMETER is three guys playing stoned folk with electric guitar leads and occasional effects.

With less than 50 copies originally pressed, PARAMETER may be the single rarest LP represented here. Not just another collection of rare singles tracks, this series is designed to introduce you to a large box of albums you may have heard of but have never heard; designed to show you that there was a bit more Love, Peace and Poetry around than you might have thought. (Stan Denski, 2001)