Sunday, April 10, 2016

Reupload - Dr. Marigold's Prescription - Breaking The Heart Of A Good Man/ Night Hurries On By

- Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About , Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Bell
Year of Release: 1970

When you're browsing through the record racks looking for a pleasing obscurity, Bell Records frequently don't offer many contenders when it comes to non-glam rock records (and in fact, even some of its glam output is frankly rather cheap and nasty whether hit parade bothering or no).  Things aren't always as they seem, however, and in between the more bubblegum oriented output lies a few interesting discs.

A band with a name like Dr. Marigold's Prescription should of course mean that the musical gang in question were provincial psychedelic non-pop stars being roundly ignored by the general public.  In truth, that's not quite accurate.  They were actually a slightly boogie-influenced pop band, which their Cook and Greenaway penned A-side "Breaking The Heart of A Good Man" demonstrates keenly here.  All gnashing vocals and pounding drums, the track is perfectly OK, but could perhaps have done with more peaks and troughs in the arrangement to give the proceedings some sort of momentum.  The lyrics seem to deal with some cold-hearted woman who doesn't appreciate her man and spends all his wages on trinkets and other such nonsense.  Can't she see he's in the red, godammit?  Clearly not.

More interesting to me is the bizarre, decidedly popsike B-side "Night Hurries On By", dealing with the life of a nightwatchman through the shimmering haze of his shift-side fire and some rather late sixties recording studio effects.  It's not something which necessarily should have been compiled by now, but nonetheless, I'm a bit surprised that somebody at Bam Caruso or Past and Present didn't see an opportunity here to include it on one of their albums.  It's a warm yet wintery piece of whimsical psych, and sounds a lot stronger than much of the output on the "Circus Days" series of albums, to give an example of one series where it might have found a place.  

Dr Marigold's Prescription apparently began life in 1968 as the backing group for Billy Fury, before moving on to also carry out live work with John Walker (of the Walker Brothers).  Despite being a relatively hitless bunch, their recording career lasted until 1975 before they completely gave up the ghost, and two albums emerged, the scarce 1969 release "Pictures of Life" and 1973's "Hello Girl".  The "Tapestry of Delights" book describes them as "a middle of the road outfit, although the name promises better".  Several online psych fans argue that's an extremely unfair and snappy overview of their work, which is a debate we may be able to have at some later point if I manage to dig up some more of their work.

[This entry was originally uploaded in February 2011. I still haven't got around to buying a DMP album, which I must do soon. Another track of theirs, "Muddy Water", can be found on the blog here].







Label: Bell
Year of Release: 1970

When you're browsing through the record racks looking for a pleasing obscurity, Bell Records frequently don't offer many contenders when it comes to non-glam rock records (and in fact, even some of its glam output is frankly rather cheap and nasty whether hit parade bothering or no).  Things aren't always as they seem, however, and in between the more bubblegum oriented output lies a few interesting discs.

A band with a name like Dr. Marigold's Prescription should of course mean that the musical gang in question were provincial psychedelic non-pop stars being roundly ignored by the general public.  In truth, that's not quite accurate.  They were actually a slightly boogie-influenced pop band, which their Cook and Greenaway penned A-side "Breaking The Heart of A Good Man" demonstrates keenly here.  All gnashing vocals and pounding drums, the track is perfectly OK, but could perhaps have done with more peaks and troughs in the arrangement to give the proceedings some sort of momentum.  The lyrics seem to deal with some cold-hearted woman who doesn't appreciate her man and spends all his wages on trinkets and other such nonsense.  Can't she see he's in the red, godammit?  Clearly not.

More interesting to me is the bizarre, decidedly popsike B-side "Night Hurries On By", dealing with the life of a nightwatchman through the shimmering haze of his shift-side fire and some rather late sixties recording studio effects.  It's not something which necessarily should have been compiled by now, but nonetheless, I'm a bit surprised that somebody at Bam Caruso or Past and Present didn't see an opportunity here to include it on one of their albums.  It's a warm yet wintery piece of whimsical psych, and sounds a lot stronger than much of the output on the "Circus Days" series of albums, to give an example of one series where it might have found a place.  

Dr Marigold's Prescription apparently began life in 1968 as the backing group for Billy Fury, before moving on to also carry out live work with John Walker (of the Walker Brothers).  Despite being a relatively hitless bunch, their recording career lasted until 1975 before they completely gave up the ghost, and two albums emerged, the scarce 1969 release "Pictures of Life" and 1973's "Hello Girl".  The "Tapestry of Delights" book describes them as "a middle of the road outfit, although the name promises better".  Several online psych fans argue that's an extremely unfair and snappy overview of their work, which is a debate we may be able to have at some later point if I manage to dig up some more of their work.

[This entry was originally uploaded in February 2011. I still haven't got around to buying a DMP album, which I must do soon. Another track of theirs, "Muddy Water", can be found on the blog here].





Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Sweet Chariot - Wish I Were A Child/ Heavenly Road

- Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About , Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: MCA
Year of Release: 1969

Another John Carter penned song on the blog so soon after the last? Well, why not. Both singles are very obscure efforts and both act as a testament to the fact that you can trace his talent not just in his hit productions, but in a lot of tracks which also fell by the wayside.

"Wish I Were A Child" has a much more serious, almost country rock flavour to it than most of his output, and is possibly indicative of Carter's desire to produce work which was slightly different to his poppier singles (though only he would be able to confirm this). It has a yearning, adult flavour to it that party crackers like "A Little Bit Of Soul" don't have. Perhaps that's why it failed to crack the charts, and remains almost completely unheard - there wasn't much of an outlet for songs like this one in the UK at the time.

The B-side "Heavenly Road" goes down the old gospel road and is even more unexpected. 

Sweet Chariot seem to be another studio-based outlet created for the realisation of one of John Carter's songs, rather than a 'proper' touring group. It's not unlikely that Carter contributed to the performance on the record in some way himself. 

Apologies for the slightly scuffed nature of both sides of this record.




Label: MCA
Year of Release: 1969

Another John Carter penned song on the blog so soon after the last? Well, why not. Both singles are very obscure efforts and both act as a testament to the fact that you can trace his talent not just in his hit productions, but in a lot of tracks which also fell by the wayside.

"Wish I Were A Child" has a much more serious, almost country rock flavour to it than most of his output, and is possibly indicative of Carter's desire to produce work which was slightly different to his poppier singles (though only he would be able to confirm this). It has a yearning, adult flavour to it that party crackers like "A Little Bit Of Soul" don't have. Perhaps that's why it failed to crack the charts, and remains almost completely unheard - there wasn't much of an outlet for songs like this one in the UK at the time.

The B-side "Heavenly Road" goes down the old gospel road and is even more unexpected. 

Sweet Chariot seem to be another studio-based outlet created for the realisation of one of John Carter's songs, rather than a 'proper' touring group. It's not unlikely that Carter contributed to the performance on the record in some way himself. 

Apologies for the slightly scuffed nature of both sides of this record.


Sunday, April 3, 2016

Boutique - Butterfly & Strawberries and Cream

- Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About , Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .
























Label: Trade 2
Year of Release: 1995

Boutique were one of the first bands I wrote about on this blog, and - partly due to the lack of information available at the time, and partly due to inexperience - I spewed out some utterly inaccurate drivel on to the screen. Life is a learning curve, dear readers, and allow me to try and do a slightly better job now.

Arriving at the height of Britpop in the mid-nineties, Boutique almost seemed like a calculated gamble of a signing by the record company, who may have sensed a possible turning tide away from the laddism of the period. Rather than sticking to the tried and tested classic songwriting paths of Blur or Oasis at that point, Boutique were all camp attitudes and art school pretence, owing more of a debt to early eighties synth-pop than sixties mod. At the point of their inception no scene appeared to exist which seemed relevant to their cause, but Taylor Parkes referenced them in a review as an example of a band who might fit a scene he was nurturing called Romo (or Romantic Modernism). Romo would owe a debt to the New Romantic movement of the early eighties, but attempt to also be progressive in its sounds. How well it succeeded on this level is something I'd throw open to question - indeed, I'd argue that for all its rather trad limitations, Britpop did at least allow more creative and extraordinary groups like Pulp and Super Furry Animals to get caught up in its slipstream - but nonetheless nuggets of pop goodness did get spat out of Romo.

Boutique appeared to consist of Chris Johnstone on vocals and Gary Chapman on synths, both of whom were a pair of outsiders from small-town Essex (The PO Reply Box on the back of the record's sleeve suggests Harlow) who, had Romo come along or not, would doubtless have carried on down their own particular electronic pop path in spite of the dominant trends around them. Three singles were issued on Trade 2 Records, none of which managed to even crack the Top 100 in the UK, though they did manage to make their presence felt in the indie chart. This wasn't enough to satisfy anyone at the record company that it was worthwhile issuing their LP, however, and it was filed away in the vaults where it remains unheard to this day.

A slight shame, that, because while all their singles ("Butterfly", "Strawberries and Cream" and "I've Told You Before") were simple, short, sharp affairs, there was an angularity to their style and arrangements that made them compelling. That's keenly in evidence on "Butterfly", where Johnstone's hiccuping, eey-oreing vocals collide with bleeping and gurgling antiquated synths, antiquated by both today's standards and certainly 1995's as well. Even duos like Erasure were trying to constantly modernise and update their synth equipment at this point, so the arrangement here feels consciously dated, in much the same manner that the arrangements of Cast or The Las were in thrall to a certain sixties period.

(Entry continues beneath the sound files)
























Label: Trade 2
Year of Release: 1996

For my money, however, the band's best single was their third and final offering, "Strawberries and Cream". There are obvious and cheeky steals from both The Jam's "Start" (or is it The Beatles' "Taxman"?) here as well as David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes", making it a thoroughly bizarre meshing of two pop cultures. But besides that, it's a two minute wonder of a single, effortless and optimistic while also being plainly strange. The buzzing, ringing synths throughout the chorus try their hardest to convey a perfect summer scene, then the clod-hopping guitars thump in immediately afterwards... and it's an enjoyable confusion of a record created by two people who were clearly in love with many different aspects of pop music, however fashionable those may or may not have been.

Their promo videos have finally been uploaded to Youtube too, meaning you can observe the style of a band who, while they were definitely in thrall to Bowie and the early eighties, seem unquestionably mid-nineties to me as well. Something about their youthful enthusiasm, magpie thievery and spark date-stamps them to an era when faintly dorky kids with huge record collections could gain record contracts and raid the pop charts - and while so much of that time was littered with bilge, if it allowed groups like Boutique to have their little moment, maybe that's an acceptable price to pay.

Butterfly
I've Told You Before
Strawberries and Cream






























Label: Trade 2
Year of Release: 1995

Boutique were one of the first bands I wrote about on this blog, and - partly due to the lack of information available at the time, and partly due to inexperience - I spewed out some utterly inaccurate drivel on to the screen. Life is a learning curve, dear readers, and allow me to try and do a slightly better job now.

Arriving at the height of Britpop in the mid-nineties, Boutique almost seemed like a calculated gamble of a signing by the record company, who may have sensed a possible turning tide away from the laddism of the period. Rather than sticking to the tried and tested classic songwriting paths of Blur or Oasis at that point, Boutique were all camp attitudes and art school pretence, owing more of a debt to early eighties synth-pop than sixties mod. At the point of their inception no scene appeared to exist which seemed relevant to their cause, but Taylor Parkes referenced them in a review as an example of a band who might fit a scene he was nurturing called Romo (or Romantic Modernism). Romo would owe a debt to the New Romantic movement of the early eighties, but attempt to also be progressive in its sounds. How well it succeeded on this level is something I'd throw open to question - indeed, I'd argue that for all its rather trad limitations, Britpop did at least allow more creative and extraordinary groups like Pulp and Super Furry Animals to get caught up in its slipstream - but nonetheless nuggets of pop goodness did get spat out of Romo.

Boutique appeared to consist of Chris Johnstone on vocals and Gary Chapman on synths, both of whom were a pair of outsiders from small-town Essex (The PO Reply Box on the back of the record's sleeve suggests Harlow) who, had Romo come along or not, would doubtless have carried on down their own particular electronic pop path in spite of the dominant trends around them. Three singles were issued on Trade 2 Records, none of which managed to even crack the Top 100 in the UK, though they did manage to make their presence felt in the indie chart. This wasn't enough to satisfy anyone at the record company that it was worthwhile issuing their LP, however, and it was filed away in the vaults where it remains unheard to this day.

A slight shame, that, because while all their singles ("Butterfly", "Strawberries and Cream" and "I've Told You Before") were simple, short, sharp affairs, there was an angularity to their style and arrangements that made them compelling. That's keenly in evidence on "Butterfly", where Johnstone's hiccuping, eey-oreing vocals collide with bleeping and gurgling antiquated synths, antiquated by both today's standards and certainly 1995's as well. Even duos like Erasure were trying to constantly modernise and update their synth equipment at this point, so the arrangement here feels consciously dated, in much the same manner that the arrangements of Cast or The Las were in thrall to a certain sixties period.

(Entry continues beneath the sound files)
























Label: Trade 2
Year of Release: 1996

For my money, however, the band's best single was their third and final offering, "Strawberries and Cream". There are obvious and cheeky steals from both The Jam's "Start" (or is it The Beatles' "Taxman"?) here as well as David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes", making it a thoroughly bizarre meshing of two pop cultures. But besides that, it's a two minute wonder of a single, effortless and optimistic while also being plainly strange. The buzzing, ringing synths throughout the chorus try their hardest to convey a perfect summer scene, then the clod-hopping guitars thump in immediately afterwards... and it's an enjoyable confusion of a record created by two people who were clearly in love with many different aspects of pop music, however fashionable those may or may not have been.

Their promo videos have finally been uploaded to Youtube too, meaning you can observe the style of a band who, while they were definitely in thrall to Bowie and the early eighties, seem unquestionably mid-nineties to me as well. Something about their youthful enthusiasm, magpie thievery and spark date-stamps them to an era when faintly dorky kids with huge record collections could gain record contracts and raid the pop charts - and while so much of that time was littered with bilge, if it allowed groups like Boutique to have their little moment, maybe that's an acceptable price to pay.

Butterfly
I've Told You Before
Strawberries and Cream







Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Richard - A Little Bit/ Take Me

- Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About , Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Parlophone
Year of Release: 1969

We've already covered the production and songwriting work of Mark Wirtz elsewhere on this blog, which leaves me with very little to add. Besides Wirtz's ambitious Teenage Opera work, he was also constantly on the look-out for conventional pop hits. 

"A Little Bit", penned by his protege Miki Anthony - also covered elsewhere on this blog, though I admittedly had trouble identifying him at the time - is as straight-ahead at it gets, sounding like a strange, late sixties approximation of a beat boom number. The lyrics are about persuading a likely lady to move closer to her suitor, and again, it conveys this message with an early sixties innocence rather than shooting the whole track through with suggestiveness (though as with many tracks of this ilk, somehow that makes it feel slightly more manipulative and creepy). Perhaps that's the reason it failed to break through into the charts. It's not that such records didn't make it at all in 1969, but they usually had richer, more complicated arrangements than the raw bounce of this one - it's ironic that Wirtz, a man renowned for pushing the envelope, fell behind the curve here. Still, it's a perfectly good single with some neat electric organ noises, and might have fared better if it had been issued a few years earlier.

As for Richard, I have not a clue who he might have been. There was an artist in the Quebec region of Canada operating under the same name at the same time, but that need not mean anything. Whatever the facts, "A Little Bit" was, so far as I can tell, the only single credited simply to Richard in the UK, unless we count another issue on RAK in 1975 - and once again, I doubt that's the same person, but probably another performer who decided to dispense with his surname.

All answers on a postcard, please. Or a comment in the comment box will do.





Label: Parlophone
Year of Release: 1969

We've already covered the production and songwriting work of Mark Wirtz elsewhere on this blog, which leaves me with very little to add. Besides Wirtz's ambitious Teenage Opera work, he was also constantly on the look-out for conventional pop hits. 

"A Little Bit", penned by his protege Miki Anthony - also covered elsewhere on this blog, though I admittedly had trouble identifying him at the time - is as straight-ahead at it gets, sounding like a strange, late sixties approximation of a beat boom number. The lyrics are about persuading a likely lady to move closer to her suitor, and again, it conveys this message with an early sixties innocence rather than shooting the whole track through with suggestiveness (though as with many tracks of this ilk, somehow that makes it feel slightly more manipulative and creepy). Perhaps that's the reason it failed to break through into the charts. It's not that such records didn't make it at all in 1969, but they usually had richer, more complicated arrangements than the raw bounce of this one - it's ironic that Wirtz, a man renowned for pushing the envelope, fell behind the curve here. Still, it's a perfectly good single with some neat electric organ noises, and might have fared better if it had been issued a few years earlier.

As for Richard, I have not a clue who he might have been. There was an artist in the Quebec region of Canada operating under the same name at the same time, but that need not mean anything. Whatever the facts, "A Little Bit" was, so far as I can tell, the only single credited simply to Richard in the UK, unless we count another issue on RAK in 1975 - and once again, I doubt that's the same person, but probably another performer who decided to dispense with his surname.

All answers on a postcard, please. Or a comment in the comment box will do.



Tuesday, March 29, 2016

DJ'ing at Have Love Will Travel - 2nd April

- Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About , Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .


Ey up chaps. I'll be DJ'ing my usual blend of garage, psychedelia, mod pop, punk and post punk at the Have Love Will Travel event at the Mascara Bar in Stamford Hill on Saturday 2nd April, 9pm until late.

It promises to be massive fun and I've got some great and surprising 45s lined up, and will be DJ'ing alongside Sean Bright and the legendary John The Revelator.

For those who are unfamiliar with the format of the event, here are some of the artists they usually spin:

★ The Sonics ★ Devo ★ Little Richard ★ The Clash ★ B52s ★ Etta James ★ David Bowie ★ The Slits ★ Blondie ★ The Velvet Underground ★ Toots and the Maytals ★ Gang of Four ★ The Shangri-Las ★ T-Rex ★ Chuck Berry ★ Ramones ★ Jackie Wilson ★ The Rolling Stones ★ Talking Heads ★ Ray Charles ★ The Stranglers ★ Ike and Tina ★ Wanda Jackson ★ The Specials ★ The Kingsmen ★ The Runaways ★ Iggy Pop ★

The address of the Mascara Bar is 72 Stamford Hill, London N16 6XS, and the Facebook invite is here

See you there!


Ey up chaps. I'll be DJ'ing my usual blend of garage, psychedelia, mod pop, punk and post punk at the Have Love Will Travel event at the Mascara Bar in Stamford Hill on Saturday 2nd April, 9pm until late.

It promises to be massive fun and I've got some great and surprising 45s lined up, and will be DJ'ing alongside Sean Bright and the legendary John The Revelator.

For those who are unfamiliar with the format of the event, here are some of the artists they usually spin:

★ The Sonics ★ Devo ★ Little Richard ★ The Clash ★ B52s ★ Etta James ★ David Bowie ★ The Slits ★ Blondie ★ The Velvet Underground ★ Toots and the Maytals ★ Gang of Four ★ The Shangri-Las ★ T-Rex ★ Chuck Berry ★ Ramones ★ Jackie Wilson ★ The Rolling Stones ★ Talking Heads ★ Ray Charles ★ The Stranglers ★ Ike and Tina ★ Wanda Jackson ★ The Specials ★ The Kingsmen ★ The Runaways ★ Iggy Pop ★

The address of the Mascara Bar is 72 Stamford Hill, London N16 6XS, and the Facebook invite is here

See you there!

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Starbreaker - The Sound Of Summer/ Arizona Lost and Gone

- Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About , Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Air
Year of Release: 1977

John Carter should need no introduction to most of you, and yet "should" is probably the operative word there. While I've no doubt that many "Left and to the Back" readers are aware of his songwriting efforts for projects and bands as varied as The Flowerpot Men, First Class, Manfred Mann, The Music Explosion and The Ivy League, not to mention the efforts released under his own name such as the truly mind-boggling piece of psychedelic pop "Laughing Man", plenty of others won't be.

For the benefit of the people who have yet to delve into his back catalogue, Carter was a songwriter who undoubtedly heard Brian Wilson's efforts from across the pond and immediately decided that this was the future of sophisticated popsmithery as the world knew it. Therefore, a huge rump of his output from The Ivy League in the sixties through to First Class in the seventies dedicated itself to sunny and yet frequently despondent or introspective pop songwriting. The Ivy League's superb "My World Fell Down", later covered by US group Sagittarius to greater recognition, is a fine example of his experiments with an Anglicised approximation of the California sound.  When First Class's "Beach Baby" was issued in the seventies in the USA, it climbed into the Top 5 and most North Americans blithely assumed that it was the work of a Californian group. Unbeknownst to them, Carter had merely penned the track from his East Sheen house with his wife Gillian Shakespeare and given it to a studio group.

By the late seventies his hit rate was beginning to slow down, and Starbreaker's "The Sound Of Summer" stems from this less fertile period. However, there's utterly no reason why it should have failed. Beginning with what distinctly sounds like the noises of a seaside crowd in Brighton rather than the Californian coast, "The Sound Of Summer" springs into life with a fantastic clarion call, the usual effective vocal harmonies, and a sprightly, effervescent melody. It's sharp, riddled to the brim with hooks, and short and sweet. Had it been issued at any other period than the late seventies, it's easier to imagine it performing better.

Perhaps by the time this blog entry goes live, it will even summon an end to the freezing cold, grey English days that have dominated over the last few months. Here's living in hope. 




Label: Air
Year of Release: 1977

John Carter should need no introduction to most of you, and yet "should" is probably the operative word there. While I've no doubt that many "Left and to the Back" readers are aware of his songwriting efforts for projects and bands as varied as The Flowerpot Men, First Class, Manfred Mann, The Music Explosion and The Ivy League, not to mention the efforts released under his own name such as the truly mind-boggling piece of psychedelic pop "Laughing Man", plenty of others won't be.

For the benefit of the people who have yet to delve into his back catalogue, Carter was a songwriter who undoubtedly heard Brian Wilson's efforts from across the pond and immediately decided that this was the future of sophisticated popsmithery as the world knew it. Therefore, a huge rump of his output from The Ivy League in the sixties through to First Class in the seventies dedicated itself to sunny and yet frequently despondent or introspective pop songwriting. The Ivy League's superb "My World Fell Down", later covered by US group Sagittarius to greater recognition, is a fine example of his experiments with an Anglicised approximation of the California sound.  When First Class's "Beach Baby" was issued in the seventies in the USA, it climbed into the Top 5 and most North Americans blithely assumed that it was the work of a Californian group. Unbeknownst to them, Carter had merely penned the track from his East Sheen house with his wife Gillian Shakespeare and given it to a studio group.

By the late seventies his hit rate was beginning to slow down, and Starbreaker's "The Sound Of Summer" stems from this less fertile period. However, there's utterly no reason why it should have failed. Beginning with what distinctly sounds like the noises of a seaside crowd in Brighton rather than the Californian coast, "The Sound Of Summer" springs into life with a fantastic clarion call, the usual effective vocal harmonies, and a sprightly, effervescent melody. It's sharp, riddled to the brim with hooks, and short and sweet. Had it been issued at any other period than the late seventies, it's easier to imagine it performing better.

Perhaps by the time this blog entry goes live, it will even summon an end to the freezing cold, grey English days that have dominated over the last few months. Here's living in hope. 


Wednesday, March 23, 2016

The Hinge - The Village Postman/ You'd Better Go Home

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Label: RCA
Year of Release: 1968

One more from the bottomless pit of popsike records about ordinary people in small towns or villages toiling away doing their day jobs. Grocer Jack in "Teenage Opera" might have started the ball rolling, but there are tons of others too - The Decision introduced us to "Constable Jones", Cyan to the sweetshop owner Toby, Bulldog Breed to the street corner newspaper salesman, Dr Marigold's Prescription to the nightwatchman... on and on the list goes.

"The Village Postman", far from being a tribute to The Singing Postman aka Allan Smethurst, is a jolly ditty about the trials, tribulations and light-hearted moments of being a hard-working postie close to retirement. "He has to work in all the weathers", the band inform us, in case we'd overlooked that aspect of the role. It bounces and chimes along nicely, the simplicity of the arrangement suiting the lyrical theme well.

The Hinge were a duo consisting of Gerry Levene and Chris Sedgewick. Levene was for some considerable time a legend on the Birmingham gig circuit, being frontman of hard-gigging beat group Gerry Levene and The Avengers who took their act all around the UK, including Liverpool's Cavern Club in the early sixties. Perhaps more significantly, that band had Roy Wood in its ranks at one point, before Wood departed to more fully realise his own ambitions. The Hinge came long after Levene's period with The Avengers drew to a close, and involved a significantly different sound for him, but sadly not one which paid greater commercial dividends.

Following the failure of "The Village Postman", Levene continued his music career, being involved in the band Crossbones who released "Shakin' All Over" on the Penny Farthing label in 1972, and also forming his own publishing and record company Sovereign which remained active until very recently, issuing solo work of his own as well as others. He has also specialised in music management (taking on the accounts of Danny King and Cozy Powell) and dog breeding. Sedgewick's movements are less clear, although it would seem that he continued songwriting for awhile afterwards.

Sadly, Levene passed away on 20th December 2011.





Label: RCA
Year of Release: 1968

One more from the bottomless pit of popsike records about ordinary people in small towns or villages toiling away doing their day jobs. Grocer Jack in "Teenage Opera" might have started the ball rolling, but there are tons of others too - The Decision introduced us to "Constable Jones", Cyan to the sweetshop owner Toby, Bulldog Breed to the street corner newspaper salesman, Dr Marigold's Prescription to the nightwatchman... on and on the list goes.

"The Village Postman", far from being a tribute to The Singing Postman aka Allan Smethurst, is a jolly ditty about the trials, tribulations and light-hearted moments of being a hard-working postie close to retirement. "He has to work in all the weathers", the band inform us, in case we'd overlooked that aspect of the role. It bounces and chimes along nicely, the simplicity of the arrangement suiting the lyrical theme well.

The Hinge were a duo consisting of Gerry Levene and Chris Sedgewick. Levene was for some considerable time a legend on the Birmingham gig circuit, being frontman of hard-gigging beat group Gerry Levene and The Avengers who took their act all around the UK, including Liverpool's Cavern Club in the early sixties. Perhaps more significantly, that band had Roy Wood in its ranks at one point, before Wood departed to more fully realise his own ambitions. The Hinge came long after Levene's period with The Avengers drew to a close, and involved a significantly different sound for him, but sadly not one which paid greater commercial dividends.

Following the failure of "The Village Postman", Levene continued his music career, being involved in the band Crossbones who released "Shakin' All Over" on the Penny Farthing label in 1972, and also forming his own publishing and record company Sovereign which remained active until very recently, issuing solo work of his own as well as others. He has also specialised in music management (taking on the accounts of Danny King and Cozy Powell) and dog breeding. Sedgewick's movements are less clear, although it would seem that he continued songwriting for awhile afterwards.

Sadly, Levene passed away on 20th December 2011.