UK 1960s May-June 2009

WE ARE THE MOLES
A year ago MARCO ROSSI interviewed THE DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR for Shindig!
Now he gets to step inside the two albums they left behind and do it all over again.

THE DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR
25 O’Clock
Psonic Psunspot
Ape CDs
www.ape.uk.net
To the unenlightened dabbler, ingénue or Johnny-come-lately, it may appear that the construction of a convincingly psychedelic record simply involves slapping on generous quantities of phasing and backward guitar, and voila: Bob’s your uncle, Stefanie Powers is your Girl from UNCLE and Lord Kitchener’s Valet is your couturier. But bunging a Paco Rabanne link dress on to a mannequin doesn’t transform it into Brigitte Bardot; and all the trimmings don’t make a roast dinner if the chef has forgotten to prepare the meat. Or nut cutlet.
XTC understood this better than anyone when they came to fully flex their latent paisley pop muscles under the guise of The Dukes Of Stratosphear in the mid-80s. This was no mere whim: Andy Partridge in particular had harboured the desire to “be in a band like Tomorrow or Pink Floyd” since his teens, and a circuitous combination of circumstances (the full story of which is contained in Shindig! volume 2, issue 4) led to the sudden and enigmatic appearance of the startling six-track 25 O’Clock EP, memorably released on April Fool’s Day 1985. The EP in question, and its remarkable full-length ’87 follow-up Psonic Psunspot, now reappear in vastly expanded format, packaged in profoundly lickable hardback book covers and each graced with 25 pages of notes, photos and memorabilia.
So how do the Dukes sound a quarter of a century down the line, near as dammit? Well, unutterably and headily magnificent, obviously: but the first thing that strikes you from this remove is the way in which these records have seamlessly become recognised psychedelic touchstones in their own right. The mystique and grand fiction of the Dukes initiative – “a fancy dress ball,” as Andy Partridge described it – worked so well, and proved so compelling, that you could in all probability take any of these songs and place them on a compilation alongside the best-loved and most distinguished popsike from the
’66-69 era, and no one would turn a hair or raise a dissenting voice.
The second thing that strikes you is the palpable enthusiasm beaming from the grooves. 25 O’Clock in particular is, audibly, the work of an energised band all too briefly freed from care. This playful indulgence, in which the studio is a toy box and the creative process is a fistful of crayons, is indicative of the band’s total immersion in the British psychedelic mindset and chimes beautifully with the childlike sense of wonder and unfettered imagination displayed by the compositions themselves.
Did we just mention indulgence? I should quickly quantify this by adding that the real beauty of the Dukes material is its concision. Nothing sprawls, nothing drags; what you get instead are tight, punchy vignettes haemorrhaging colour and simply crammed with knowing detail. When I spoke to Sir John Johns and Lord Cornelius Plum– or, out of bandsmen’s uniforms, Andy Partridge and Dave Gregory – for Shindig!’s Dukes article, Andy noted that “we’re from that school of specifically British psychedelic singles – you know, the refined, no spare flesh school of psychedelia. ‘See Emily Play’, ‘We Are The Moles’, ‘My White Bicycle’…”
Accordingly, 25 O’Clock and Psonic Psunspot find them compressing a universe of ideas into a series of vivid thumbnails – or gleefully smashing them into one another. Thereby, ‘My Love Explodes’ fuses The Yardbirds, The Who and The Pretty Things into a pop art apocalypse: the stoical uphill trudge of ‘Collideascope’ is John Lennon elbowing aside Roy Wood of The Move; ‘Have You Seen Jackie?’ superimposes Mark Wirtz on to the blithely creepy mark one Pink Floyd; and ‘Your Gold Dress’ plants a decorous Nicky Hopkins squarely into the middle of a bludgeoning riff face-off a la The Mickey Finn.
The fact that these myriad influences are simultaneously integrated and effortlessly transcended says as much about the enduring worth of the songcraft exercised by Partridge and bassist Colin Moulding (The Red Curtain, in Dukes guise) as it does about the care taken in tightening the nuts and bolts. In this, the band were aided immeasurably with the presence of “the fifth Duke”, producer John Leckie – credited with due ceremony as Swami Anand Nagara. Leckie’s copper-bottomed psych credentials were forged in the crucible of creativity which was Abbey Road Studios in the late ’60s; and the ethos was evidently still in his blood. “He worked miracles,” remembers Dave Gregory. “Without even having to be asked, he knew exactly what we were trying to do, the sounds we were looking for.”
So what are the highlights on these extraordinary records? I promise you, there are just too many to list: but from 25 O’Clock, ‘The Mole From The Ministry’ merits special honours for its inspired lyrical conceit and the gorgeous, blurry depth of its fixation on the soundworld of ’67-era Beatles: the way it kicks up a semitone after the choruses… the whinnying horse – so redolent of the ‘Penny Lane’ promo film – which magically appears in the middle eight… The weary Mellotron… the shimmering, perfectly judged cymbal smashes in the second bar of the outro, courtesy of E I E I Owen (Dave Gregory’s brother Ian, a drummer with an invaluable sense of swing)…
As regards Psonic Psunspot, ‘Pale And Precious’ tops the billing by turning a Beach Boys homage into an oddly poignant reverie. If Brian Wilson had heard it at the time it would have unseated him so much that it would doubtless have sent him back to bed for a few more years; and Andy Partridge was savvy enough to up the emotional ante by singing it in the style of Carl Wilson, with that characteristic vocal wobble.
Both albums come tricked out with a clutch of demos and a promo video apiece: the ‘Walrus’-style garden japery of the ‘Mole’ video on 25 O’Clock and the vaudevillian puppetry of ‘You’re A Good Man Albert Brown’ on Psonic Psunspot. Of particular interest for completists are the extra recordings on 25 O’Clock: ‘Black Jewelled Serpent Of Sound’, a sinuous reimagining of the theme from the Fry’s Turkish Delight advert, ‘Open A Can Of Human Beans’ which previously appeared on an MS Society charity CD, and ‘Tin Toy Clockwork Train’, which would slot in nicely among the tracks on the first Idle Race album.
What a joy it is to see these jewels of the UK psych firmament finally and fittingly being presented in their own lovingly fashioned jewel boxes…
Marco Rossi

VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Upside Down World of John Pantry
Wooden Hill CD
www.tenthplanet-woodenhill.co.uk
Can there conceivably be a better name for a British ’60s pop/psych icon than John Pantry? The warm, homespun, busy and frankly tasty connotations of the word “pantry” seem entirely apposite for this inexplicably overlooked one-man cottage industry of the genre. Tellingly, Vivian Stanshall nailed the essential difference between agit-prop American and quaint English psych archetypes with the memorable declaration “KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHER… And they had marmalade and kicked the pantry out into the street, and lived happily ever after.”
Prior to this, my knowledge of Pantry’s work was pretty much limited to my prized demo copy of the ‘Little Girl Lost And Found’ single by Peter & The Wolves – one of a great many ensembles and artistes whose work bore the John Pantry imprimatur somewhere along the line. Now, however, I am fully up to speed thanks to this vastly expanded double-CD version of 1999’s limited edition vinyl-only compilation, and its characteristically fascinating and painstakingly thorough sleeve notes from David Wells.
The first thing that strikes you is Pantry’s bulletproof quality control when it came to songwriting. This pop polymath, who alternated hats as an IBC Studios engineer and the keyboardist/vocalist with hard-working Essex hopefuls Sounds Around, rapidly developed an all-too-rare ear for an unusual, heart-tugging melodic motif and a picturesque lyric. Between ’66 and ’71, Pantry simply haemorrhaged the good stuff, and The Upside Down World… collects together his entire output – near as dammit – from the period in question.
Included among the 53 (!) tracks are reams of Pantry’s own demos – generally banged out with immense conviction on piano and sung in his appealingly unadorned high tenor – and it is these which provide concrete proof of the innate quality of his songs from the ground up, whether it be the Bee Gees-style soft focus intensity of ‘Marigold’, the soulful, Todd Rundgren-prefiguring verticality of the title track or the tumbling Gilbert O’Sullivan phrasing of ‘Smokey Wood Air’.
Elsewhere, you’ll find good-natured proto-glam (‘Birthday’ by The Bunch), swooning superpop perfection (‘Jewel’ by Wolfe), fiercely compressed airborne psych (‘Try A Little Sunshine’ by The Factory) and, best of all, the sweetly affecting and suitably lambent ‘Lantern Light’ by Peter & The Wolves; one of the great lost singles of ’68.
Marco Rossi

THE ANIMATED EGG
Guitar Freakout
Sundazed CD
www.sundazed.com
Like Austin Matthews’ excellent Shindig! features on psych-exploito cinema and literature, the studio concoction of aging straights The Animated Egg (session guitar supreme Jerry Cole and friends, not the hippies on the cover) ably aped the zeitgeist in a Hollywood recording studio laying on the freakouts thick and heavy. And like the material Matthews has covered, Guitar Freakout’s attempts at every drugged-out head music trick in the book come out sounding a little contrived and not that overly weird at all. It’s surf music for freaks with fuzz and tremolo and a Hendrix tone thrown in for measure. A tad goofy, but not without merit.
Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills

CANNED HEAT
The Boogie House Tapes Volume Three
Ruf CD
www.rufrecords.de
Southern California-based Canned Heat gained worldwide recognition when their emotional 1968 cover of the Memphis Jug Band’s ‘On The Road Again’ (featured here twice) reached the Top 10 in both Britain and America. This 25 track, two CD project is the last in a series of unreleased Heat studio and live recordings from Ruf and proves fully as rewarding as the first two. Most of the sides date from the late ’60s and early ’70s and many feature guests on the order of Sunnyland Slim (‘World In A Jug’), Gatemouth Brown and The Chambers Brothers (on the topical ‘Election Blues’ from ’73), James Harmon, John Lee Hooker and guitarist Harvey Mandel — who steps to the fore on the searing instrumental ‘Before Six’. Inspired reprises of other Heat favorites like ‘Catfish Blues’, ‘Let’s Work Together’ and ‘Future Blues’ also impress.
Hats off to Belgium’s infamous Dr. Boogie, Germany’s Thomas Ruf and Heat survivor Fito de la Parra for keeping the flame alive.
Gary von Tersch

MARK ERIC
A Midsummer’s Day Dream
Now Sounds CD
www.nowsounds.co.uk
For several years, A Midsummer’s Day Dream was considered a lost late ’60s classic, a sort of bastard child of Pet Sounds. The album is assuredly not but is an excellent soft pop album basking in the California ethos. Mark Eric – with his Santa Monica upbringing and blond locks – seemed every bit the California surfer boy and, like Brian Wilson, was greatly influenced by the pastoral harmonies of The Four Freshmen. The album is marked (no pun intended) by a very unique, muted lead vocal styling, and soft harmonies and serene aural images abound on tracks like ‘California Home’, ‘Where Do The Girls Of The Summer Go’, the maudlin ‘Sad Is The Way That I Feel’ and, perhaps the track closest to Pet Sounds in spirit and execution, ‘Take Me With You’. Eric shows he’s got some cohones (albeit small ones) on ‘Move With The Dawn’ and ‘Night Of The Lions’. Eric saved the best for last with ‘Lynn’s Baby,’ a heart-tugging true story about a lost love.
This updated Now Sounds reissue adds oodles of bonus tracks – 16 in all – including mono 45 mixes of several of the album’s tracks, along with songs Eric recorded after A Midsummer’s Day Dream. ‘Place For The Summer’ and ‘Build Your Own Dreams’ are every bit as good as the album.
David Bash

WAYLON JENNINGS AND THE KIMBERLYS
Country Folk
Righteous CD
www.cherryred.co.uk
Waylon Jennings – the country misfit well known for both his lifestyle excesses and his bleak lyrics – was not so unruly in his early career. He teamed up in 1969 with well-groomed family harmony group The Kimberlys for an album that’s occasionally country, seldom folk, but a whole lot of cheerful sunshine pop; a good few fathoms away from Jennings’ Outlaw-era darkness.
Despite the obviousness of some song choices on this album, Country Folk is a pleasant listen with Jennings and The Kimberlys democratically sharing vocals to good effect. The standout is ‘These New Changing Times’, an inspired overblown pop nugget that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Fifth Dimension album. Another gem is ‘Cindy, Oh Cindy’, its gentle melodic quality roughed up by Waylon’s authentic country feel.
Anyone expecting foreshadows of Jennings’ later recordings won’t find many clues here. Instead, it’s a fascinating glimpse of Waylon as a clean pop crooner, a role with which he felt ill-suited but was clearly more than capable of pulling off.
Jeanette Leech

SAGITTARIUS
The Blue Marble
Sundazed CD
www.sundazed.com
By no means a bad album, but Curt Boettcher – who propelled Sagittarius’ debut Present Tense into the realms of genius – is barely present on what should really be called Gary Usher’s The Blue Marble. Boettcher was working hard on his newly launched Together label (on which this album was released in 1969) and producing Sandy Salisbury, so he only sung a few songs and wrote one. His presence is missed! The lush, well arranged harmonies are barely evident and on the back of his Moog experimentations with The Byrds Usher drops in farts and burps at every opportunity. That said, there’s enough here to satiate sunshine pop fans but this can’t hold a candle to Present Tense.
Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills

SANDY SALISBURY
Catchy
Sonic Past CD
www.sonicpastmusic.com
According to Joey Stec, the producer and keeper of the Millennium vaults, these are the last of the demos recorded by Sandy during the years 1966-68. Some were recorded at home on his four-track recorder and others at Original Sound with backing from the various members of The Millennium.
Even if these are the last tracks by no means has the quality diminished, in fact you wonder why some of these songs have taken until the fourth album to be released.
The opener ‘Maui’ is beautifully sung with Curt Boettcher. Other highlights include Sandy’s own version of one of his first songwriting successes, ‘Rag Doll Boy’ – which was released as a single on Kapp by Thee Prophets and covered in the UK by The Naked Truth – and ‘Tale Of Timeless Love’, a superb folk tune with wonderful acoustic guitar just crying out for a baroque string arrangement.
This is sunshine pop of the highest order, harmonies abound and the songs have a sparkle and innocence which makes this release highly recommended.
Pat Curran

SHADOWS OF KNIGHT
Shadows Of Knight
Rev-Ola CD
www.revola.co.uk
Far too sexy and untamed for the burgeoning bubblegum market, Shadows Of Knight burst onto Super K in 1968 after the original Dunwich band had dissolved. Jim Sohns and a newly formed act hit gold with re-launch 45 ‘Shake’, which in our world at least has become something of a classic. That tinny 12-bar fuzz riff, the reedy Farfisa and those breakbeat drums and call-and-response vocals have all of the ingredients of a one in a million dynamic floor filler. A few cool singles followed and then in ’69 the self-titled LP. All – including the bubblegum/soul of ‘Run Run Billy Porter’ (a Crazy Elephant styled number) to the ‘Shake’-friendly groove ‘My Fire Department Needs a Fireman’ – are on this 15 track CD.
The LP itself is an uneven gem that sees Levine trying to popify Sohns on a number of tunes including opener ‘Follow’, which the unbridled singer majestically punks up, and some rather fuzzed-out monsters that were totally inappropriate for the intended audience: the Cream-wannabe ‘Uncle Wiggley’s Airship’, ‘I Wanna Make You Mine’ (think early Shads with Phil May and Reg Presley fighting for the mic), a messy lead guitar laden take of Buffalo Springfield’s ‘Bluebird’ and an inferior remake of ‘Shake’.
Unfinished and a tad overwrought, but it still may be their finest album.
Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Glitter And Gold: Words And Music by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil
Ace CD
www.acerecords.com
The number of legendary hits that flowed from the pen and piano of Mr Mann and Miss Weil in the mid-60s is matched only by that of Bacharach & David and Goffin & King. Forgoing the uber-obvious (‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’, ‘On Broadway’ et al) in favour of lesser-known gems, the pair’s first golden age of hits between ’62 and ’75 still shimmers with diversity. The Turtles’ ‘Glitter And Gold’, Mama Cass’ ‘It’s Getting Better’ and Nino & April’s ‘The Coldest Night Of The Year’ are big favourites of this writer. Del Shannon’s version of ‘Kicks’ gives the Raiders’ hit reading a run for its money while the Raiders themselves power through the equally delirious ‘Hungry’. Entries by The Chiffons, Arthur Alexander and Bill Medley add a dose of soul and R&B while B J Thomas and The Sweet Inspirations turn up the schmaltz.
Andy Morten

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Where The Girls Are Volume 7
Ace CD
www.acerecords.com
Welcome to the world of songs lasting under three minutes, mini pocket symphonies, kitchen sink dramas, boy meets girl, boy dumps girl etc... From ‘He’s My Boyfriend’ to ‘Too Bad He’s Bad’ in the space of 10 minutes. Isn’t life like that sometimes? Who needs some fancy intellectual lyrics when sometimes, a “doo-lang-doo-lang” or a “dum-da-de-doo” can say so much more. The songs from this collection come from a golden age of lost innocence.
Highlights include the brooding, echo laden opener ‘Tears Come Tumbling’ by The Teardrops; the Fashionettes irresistible pop soul confectionery of the never before released ‘Earthquake’ and Joani Camp’s heartfelt, impassioned vocals on ‘His Lips Get In The Way’.
Elsewhere, Northern Soul never sounded as bittersweet as it does on The Tandels’ pounding ‘Is It Love Baby’, the thumping, garage stomp of The Azaleas’ ‘Hands Off’ explodes from the speakers with some venom and the sheer beauty of The Shirelles’ ‘What Is Love’ will floor girl group fans.
I could go on and on but let’s just say this series is essential listening for anyone with a love of Brill Building/Wall Of Sound inspired perfect pop. Sadly, they don’t make ’em like this no more.
Paul Ritchie

WE FIVE
There Stands The Door: The Best Of We Five
Big Beat CD
www.acerecords.com
We Five had their origins in 1962 when Mike Stewart formed The Ridge Runners in the style of The Kingston Trio, of which his brother John was a member. Three years later We Five emerged, spunky vocalist Bev Bivens to the fore, with the archetypal folk-rock single, ‘You Were On My Mind’. Their follow-up, an innovative rearrangement of Dino Valenti’s anthem ‘Let’s Get Together’ suffered from poor promotion, barely nicking the Top Forty and by May ’67 it was all over.
This 22 tracker collects the best of their A&M recordings including an abundance of unissued material. Memorable moments comprise harmonically colorful covers of five John Stewart songs, a soulfully tortured version of the classic ‘High Flying Bird’ and the Byrds-like, raga romp title tune. Alec Palao’s exhaustive, band interview based, liners tell the whole tale alongside dozens of rare photos.
Gary von Tersch