Shipping class: Single Issue

Shindig! No.39

THE END
The top tier of British Psychedelic albums contains one splendidly incongruous entry, Introspection by THE END. Made under the patronage of Bill Wyman, the legal difficulties that swirled around The Rolling Stones at the end of the ’60s ensured the release of The End’s album was delayed. By the time it crept out in November 1969 it was already the end of the ’60s, the end of psychedelia and the end of The End itself. Thankfully, the band continued with different personnel as TUCKY BUZZARD and many are still active on the music scene today.
AUSTIN MATTHEWS ventures under the rainbow with the surviving members

THE PEANUT BUTTER CONSPIRACY
As one of LA’s foremost psychedelic folk-rock acts, THE PEANUT BUTTER CONSPIRACY hold a unique place amongst proponents of flower-powered pop, combining the hip, jet-age sound of The Byrds with one of the finest vocal mixes this side of The Mamas & The Papas, centred around the crystal tones of lead singer Barbara Robison.
But, despite the “assistance” of industry heavyweights like Gary Usher and Curt Boettcher, the group’s phenomenal success as a live act wasn’t translated into record sales and they soon went the way of so many of their contemporaries, crushed by commercial concerns.
GRAY NEWELL hears founder members Alan Brackett and John Merrill spread the word.
Apology: An editing error has caused a section of text from this feature to be omitted. Please click here to read the missing words.

BONNIE DOBSON
BONNIE DOBSON will forever be associated with ‘Morning Dew’, the song she wrote in the early ’60s that spawned a thousand cover versions. Fifty years on she reflects on her socialist upbringing, the Greenwich Village folk scene and a surprise comeback album that finds her in stunningly fine voice.
CHRIS TWOMEY is smitten

THE SOUNDCARRIERS
In little over five years, Nottingham retro-futurists THE SOUNDCARRIERS have carved themselves a niche among admirers of ’60s film jazz, krautrock grooves, acid-folk fragility and analogue authenticity.
With a new long-player, Entropicalia, already cementing their reputation as one of Shindig!’s most treasured modern-day acts, CHRISTOPER BUDD meets the band.
Portrait by ADAM WOODFIELD

CHRIS FARLOWE
CHRIS FARLOWE emerged from the skiffle craze and flirted with rock ’n’ roll before immersing himself in R&B, cutting the UK’s first ska record, enjoying the patronage of The Beatles, Stones and Small Faces, topping the charts as England won the World Cup and eventually venturing into prog and jazz-rock pastures.
PHIL ISTINE meets the former John Henry Deighton in his native Islington to discuss shopping with Steve Marriott, being banned by the Beeb and knocking around with Otis Redding.
“I’ve never taken drugs, believe it or not”

EXPLODING GALAXY
A shimmering density of quaquaversal life; the importance of scrudge; a journey into THE EXPLODING GALAXY.
HUGH DELLAR heads back to the beating heart of London’s late ’60s counter-culture

Included in this issue: REVERBERATE MAGAZINE
featuring the latest sights and sounds from the ever-expanding new wave psych scene.

Shindig! No.38

NIGEL WAYMOUTH
By hatching up London’s first psychedelic boutique, the iconic and chameleonic Granny Takes A Trip, NIGEL WAYMOUTH – along with Sheila Cohen and the young tailor John Pearse – would go on to create one of the definitive looks of the ’60s British underground. A heady combination of Edwardian nostalgia, Art Nouveau floridness and neon-drenched pop facades, Granny’s was a place for the beautiful people to play dress up; a boutique that was, according to Jonathan Aitken’s 1967 account of Swinging London, The Young Meteors, “run by bizarre eccentrics for bizarre eccentrics”.
As Hapshash & The Coloured Coat – Nigel and art student Michael English’s psychedelic poster group cum avant-garde conceptual rock outfit – they’d prove to have an equally lasting impact.
SOPHIA SATCHELL-BAEZA sits down with Nigel to talk about those heady days.
“It was intense”

LINDA PERHACS
In 1970, dental hygienist LINDA PERHACS created a unique, forward thinking album, Parallelograms, produced by one of her clients, avant-garde composer and film scorer, Leonard Rosenman. Now recognised as a psych-folk masterpiece, it’s a singularly heady, cosmic record, full of sunshine and rain and Topanga Canyon otherworldliness. Upon its release, it was either too odd, too poorly pressed or too badly promoted, and quickly dropped off the radar, followed by Linda herself.
After a break of 42 years – a brace of low-key guest appearances and collaborations notwithstanding – Linda embarked on American and European tour dates to promote the release of a second album,
The Soul Of All Natural Things.
MARY EPWORTH enjoys an audience with this unique and beguiling artist.
“I love the universe – they have some very funny sounds out there”

JOHN McLAUGHLIN
JOHN McLAUGHLIN remains one of progressive jazz’s pre-eminent figures. He worked alongside Miles Davis, Tony Williams’ Lifetime and Carlos Santana, became an international rock icon with The Mahavishnu Orchestra, enjoyed Top 20 albums, Grammy nominations and the universal esteem of his peers, before abandoning the rock world to pioneer world music with Shakti and espouse the path of Bengali mystic Sri Chinmoy.
Yet Yorkshireman McLaughlin had already enjoyed an 11 year professional career in Britain before leaving for America, a career that encompassed trad jazz, British rock ’n’ roll, the beginnings of the R&B boom, British soul, psychedelic rock, free jazz and mainstream pop sessions. Georgie Fame, Graham Bond, Tony Meehan, Duffy Power and others claimed him as a band member – Tom Jones, Donovan, Herman’s Hermits and David Bowie used him on their sessions.
As a new biography reveals in detail for the first time the story of John McLaughlin’s incredible path through the golden age of British pop, its author COLIN HARPER takes us down the road to devotion

LEAF HOUND
LEAF HOUND’s moment was fleeting. Born of late ’60s UK blues boomers Black Cat Bones (who also begat Free’s Paul Kossoff and Simon Kirke), the London quintet added a heavy dose of pulp horror fiction and urban grime to their sound to craft one of the era’s best-loved and most valuable long-players, Growers Of Mushroom.
Their pedigree afforded them a major label deal but crooked management killed their promise. The band had split before the album was even released.
Years of cult acclaim led to a surprise rebirth in 2004 and a new version of Leaf Hound has been on the road ever since.
DARIUS DREWE meets front man PETE FRENCH

MARY LOVE
MARY LOVE’s career spanned three decades but only produced a modest handful of recordings, most of which are now considered beacons of ’60s soul.
On the eve of the first comprehensive overview of her work, PAUL RITCHIE investigates the highs and lows of this enigmatic singer

TWINK
As the man who occupied the drum stool in The Fairies, The In Crowd, Tomorrow, The Pretty Things, The Pink Fairies and Syd Barrett’s Stars, who pioneered the use of mime and performance art in psychedelic rock, and who embraced punk like few of his ’60s peers, TWINK has lived the life of 10 men.
Here, the psychedelic renaissance man waxes lyrical on his formative years in Essex, the white heat of the London underground scene and converting to Islam.
ANDY MORTEN marvels at a unique and hedonistic artistic journey

Shindig! No.35

Beatleisms
When The Beatles split in 1970 it marked the end of pop music’s first and brightest golden era. But, not content with having been the most widely-imitated and influential act on the planet for much of the previous decade, The Fabs continued to inform the development of pop, rock, singer-songwriters and even prog, well into the next. The Fabs’ ’70s offspring left us with a legacy of brilliant, diverse and often-overlooked albums that ran the gamut from slavish recreation to nostalgic songcraft to experimental adventurism, each acknowledging its debt to the unsurpassed work of the masters.
Allow Shindig! to guide you around some of our favourites

Paul McCartney
The dawning of the ’70s was a troubling time for PAUL McCARTNEY.
The last member of The Most Famous Band Ever to leave, he infuriated The Other Three by then being the first to publicly announce his departure, while the release of his curious, misunderstood solo debut forced The Beatles’ decidedly un-Fab swansong Let It Be to be rescheduled.
In the meantime, the dejected McCartney gathered his new family and beat a hasty retreat to his remote Scottish farm where he virtually abandoned the notion of making music and struggled with depression and alcoholism amidst fanatical rumours of death and insanity.
As if things couldn’t get any worse, The Beatles were plunged deep into a roller coaster of complex and destructive litigation that brought years of seething personal resentment and deep-rooted psychodrama to the surface.
Somehow, in the middle of this mire, Paul regrouped, quietly put together a little band and fashioned what many regard as a high watermark of his career, Ram.
In this extract from his new book on McCartney’s adventures in the ’70s, TOM DOYLE paints a fascinating picture of creative highs and personal lows.
“It’s a bit like after an operation, where you want to rest but you’ve got to push it.”

Nilsson
Having released two baroque pop albums that didn’t register with the critics or record buying public, it took a Fred Neil cover belatedly lifted from Aerial Ballet to become a million-selling movie theme and bring NILSSON to the masses.
JON ‘MOJO’ MILLS follows the friend of The Beatles and in-demand writer through a madcap feature film about an LSD-fuelled prison break and the final albums and animated feature that led him into a new era

Klaatu
?It took three unassuming young Canadian musicians schooled in Toronto garage bands to accidentally start rumours of a Beatles reformation in 1977 via their otherworldly brand of progressive pop.
PAT CURRAN goes interplanetary with the once secretive KLAATU

The Rutles
?Conceived as a throwaway spoof on a late night UK TV comedy show,
THE RUTLES soon outgrew such humble origins to spawn one of the first and best “mockumentary” movies, two highly regarded albums, several law suits and a dedicated hardcore of disciples around the world, including members of the very band they sought to pastiche.
CHRIS TWOMEY enjoys a spot of cheese and (glass) onions with lead Rutle and keeper of the flame, NEIL INNES.
“I never set out to become a parodist…”

Stackridge
STACKRIDGE were in a field of their own; quite literally, being West Country boys from Yeovil, Bristol and Bath. In the ’70s, they stamped their individuality on half a dozen albums and countless live shows, gaining a devoted following but never quite achieving that elusive commercial breakthrough.
RICHARD NASH hears from band mainstay ANDY DAVIS about sleeping on floors, recording with George Martin and finding doing it all again more fun than ever

Hammersmith Gorillas • The Hollywood Stars • Simones • The Deviants and more…

Shindig! No.34

HARRY NILSSON
Before Nilsson Schmilsson spawned a massive smash hit reworking of Badfinger’s ‘Without You’ and its successful, bearded singer was enjoying his ongoing “drunken weekend”, propping up bars with a coterie of boozy, coked-up rock star friends, Harry Nilsson was a prolific clean-cut songwriter who became an unwitting pop star himself. In the first part of our Nilsson odyssey Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills follows the aftermath of penning ‘Cuddly Toy’ for The Monkees through the baroque-pop delights of Pandemonium Shadow Show and Ariel Ballet… and, oh yes, The Beatles.

GENE CLARK
GENE CLARK hit it big with The Byrds in 1965, left them a year later and spent the rest of his life trying to replicate their success. His post-Byrds career is rife with false starts, blown chances and commercial failures. Critics labelled him an underachiever.
TOM SANDFORD examines the period leading up to Two Sides To Every Story, Clark’s last album for a major label, and comes to a very different conclusion.

MORGEN
Until recently STEVE MORGEN, the main man behind 1968’s extraordinary heavy psych opus, Morgen, was a complete enigma. His continued silence was all the more strange given that the album he wrote and produced stands cheek to jowl with any psychedelic rock LP of the period.
Now resurfaced, Steve tells AUSTIN MATTHEWS the story of the masterpiece his band recorded and how they were waylaid by a frightening group of New York junior Mafioso

THE STEPPES
?Signed to pioneering garage revival label Voxx (although not a garage band) and later pursued by U2’s Mother Records (even if far from mainstream rock), Irish/ American quartet THE STEPPES and their genuinely literary psychedelic music sat in its own unique space throughout the late ’80s and early ’90s.
“We really did want to be a big, popular band, but often our best stuff was too heavy or too odd to be radio-friendly.”
JEREMY GLUCK holds court

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
GRAHAME BENT speaks with John ‘Drumbo’ French about those far-off, fondly remembered days when CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & HIS MAGIC BAND first set foot in the country that was shortly to become their spiritual home

DAVE DAVIES
If any one musician requires no introduction in these pages it’s DAVE DAVIES. Some of you will regard him as the guitarist with the finest sound, style and swagger ever to have strapped on a Guild or Flying V, others as the vital creative counterpoint in the greatest band this country ever produced.
Kinks-krazy VIC TEMPLAR kompiled the kollected kwestions of the Shindig! kontributors and here’s what happened

SWAMP DOGG
Just like David Banner became The Incredible Hulk, R&B singer and producer extraordinaire Jerry Williams Jr grew in epic proportions to the larger than life, no holds barred, soul/funk one-of-a-kind SWAMP DOGG.
MIKE FORNATALE learns new tricks

THE COMBUSTIBLES
Highly explosive out of time garage-punk from India!
JON ‘MOJO’ MILLS marvels at the wyld sounds of Bombay’s THE COMBUSTIBLES

Shindig! No.31

SHOCKING BLUE
That any act, no matter how fleeting their success, should be thought of as a one-hit wonder, is a cruel misrepresentation of their legacy. In SHOCKING BLUE’s case it’s verging on the criminal.
There’s no getting around the fact that ‘Venus’ – their global smash hit from 1969 – remains the song with which they’ll forever be mostly closely associated, despite it having suffered via overexposure in countless movies, TV
commercials and adverts, and in the hands of any number of clueless interpreters.

But if you’re under the impression that ‘Venus’ represents Shocking Blue’s creative apex, or that the band itself is merely some kind of kitsch footnote in the story of late ’60s/early ’70s pop, then it’s time for you to listen up, and listen up good. BRIAN GREENE will be shocking you

THE ROLLING STONES
KRIS NEEDS is on the home run as THE ROLLING STONES get higher and record Their Satanic Majesties Request, Brian Jones faces his demons and Keef discovers the open G from old blues records and re-invents the Stones in the image we know ’em and love ’em to this day

IAIN MATTHEWS
IAIN MATTHEWS was in the original line up of Fairport Convention, adding his wonderfully sweet vocals to the group’s very own version of Californian folk-rock. After splitting from them during the making of their third album, Matthews continued refining the American songbook, releasing three fine albums as Matthews Southern Comfort, one with Plainsong and two solo. Now he’s back, picking up from where he left off in the early ’70s.
KINGSLEY ABBOTT joins the dots

JELLYFISH
JELLYFISH burst onto the early ’90s music scene in a riot of ’60s and ’70s pop classicism, technicolour tunesmithery and cartoonish imagery that alienated as many listeners as it engrossed.
Three frantic years and two explosive albums later they were no more.

On the 20th anniversary of their acknowledged masterpiece, Spilt Milk, CHRIS TWOMEY talks to the major players

THE BEVIS FROND
Let’s fast forward from our usual ’60s malarkey for a moment and delve into the deepest, darkest depths of the ’80s. Not a decade readily associated with Shindig!-friendly gems, one major exception – and an album that stands up alongside its earlier counterparts in terms of atmosphere, songwriting and aura – is Triptych by THE BEVIS FROND. This “band” is essentially an outlet for the talents of Nick Saloman, who kindly gave AUSTIN MATTHEWS the inside track on the creation of this early pinnacle

NEW BANDS
Ian Skelly

On hiatus from his drumming duties with The Coral, IAN SKELLY swoops from the heavens to speak with TOM SANDFORD about his darkly mystical psych gem, Cut From A Star
The Greg Foat Group

THOMAS PATTERSON meets pianist Greg Foat, the UK jazz talent who wigs out over kaleidoscopic cinematic vibes

Kontiki Suite

ASHLEY NORRIS discovers Northern England’s sunniest sounds

PLUS:

RICHARD THOMPSON • THE BEE GEES • JEFFERSON AIRPLANE

AND MUCH MORE!

Shindig! 27

THE CHOCOLATE WATCHBAND
On the vangard of strangely-named groups that began rippling out across the sunny streets of California during the heady days and nights of 1966, a San Jose-based quintet calling themselves THE CHOCOLATE WATCHBAND were among the strongest contenders to infiltrate the already thriving San Francisco music scene.
The Watchband drew heavily from the rough-hewn elements of R&B, plus the forward-thinking sonic experimentalism displayed by the harder-edged British outfits such as the Stones, The Kinks and especially, The Yardbirds.

Mentored by svengali Ed Cobb (‘Tainted Love’, ‘Dirty Water’), the group released a run of spellbinding 45s and albums, and trod the boards of many of San Francisco’s hippest psychedelic rock venues, yet attained only a fraction of the success of many of their lesser contemporaries. They even found their way onto the silver screen via a cameo in one of Hollywood’s most memorable drugsploitation flicks. As the group’s status as trailblazers of original garage and psychedelic sounds continues to grow, LENNY HELSING listens in as the group’s still-ongoing tale unfolds.

TOBY TWIRL
If ever further proof were needed that the ’60s were most unlike the way we’ve subsequently imagined them, then the strange story of TOBY TWIRL provides the ultimate evidence. Their very name exudes the childlike sense of wonder that embodies the essence of one playful strand of UK psychedelia, while their second 45 – the almost perfect pairing of pristine toytown psychedelic confections, ‘Toffee Apple Sunday’ and ‘Romeo And Juliet 1968’ – has long been regarded as one of the most sublime examples of paisley pop.
Yet beneath the groovy gear and Small Faces support slots lies a tale of scampi in the basket, cheap bitter, working men’s clubs, shared billings with Scouse comedian Freddie Starr and sets interrupted by a mad scramble for pub grub!
The Swinging London of magical myth this most certainly wasn’t, as HUGH DELLAR is about to find out

THE WHEELS / DEMICK & ARMSTRONG
Hot on the heels of Big Beat’s anthology of wild mid-60s R&B punks THE WHEELS and RPM’s reissue of DEMICK & ARMSTRONG’s soulful, rustic rock debut, Belfast boys and core members, Rod Demick and Herbie Armstong reflect on 50 years in rock ‘n’ roll with TREVOR HODGETT

VAN DYKE PARKS
The backroom boy and session man who became the maverick lyricist and songsmith that helped change the face of popular music in the ’60s. BILL KOPP discusses George Washington Brown, Donovan, Brian Wilson and worldbeat with VAN DYKE PARKS

TAV FALCO
?Sun Studios, John Fahey, Jim Dickinson and “not getting” his friend and mentor Alex Chilton’s Big Star – “I was listening to Stockhausen and country-blues”

KRIS NEEDS enjoys an audience with Memphis legend TAV FALCO

NIRVANA
NIRVANA, Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Alex Spyropoulous, were one of the first signings to Chris Blackwell’s legendary Island Records in 1967. Fusing the classical trappings of Procol Harum with romantic lyrics and fairytale settings, the band scored with ‘Rainbow Chaser’ and the future looked set. However, after two fine albums they were dropped from the label on delivery of their third, decidedly romantic venture, Black Flower.

GEORGE CANON hears PATRICK CAMPBELL-LYONS’ side of the story

JOY BANG
Post-Easy Rider American cinema had its fair share of sunny, liberated, hippy chick actresses, but few mastered the combination of cute and carefree as well as JOY BANG.

Far from ever becoming a household name, the Kansas City starlet’s brief but vivid filmography is dominated by visionaries like Andrew Meyer, Woody Allen, Roger Vadim and Norman Mailer.

The roles she was offered were rarely more than decorative with little dialogue, but Bang possessed an undeniable on-screen charm marked by a wide smile, a smoky voice and a sense of wild spontaneity. Not to mention a name that was hard to forget!
KIER-LA JANISSE bangs the gong

THE FALLEN ANGELS
THE FALLEN ANGELS burst out of Washington DC in 1966 and hit the ground running. Schooled in R&B, soul and jazz, and galvanised by Rubber Soul and Bringing It All Back Home, their intent was to fuse sophisticated jazz and classical motifs to visceral rock n soul grit.

Everyone who saw them live instantly became a fan, they left other bands quaking in their shadow.

But their records were rushed, their image mishandled and their firebrand spirit eventually extinguished by a clueless music industry. Yes, that old chestnut again.

In the first part of our epic band history ALASDAIR C MITCHELL charts the formation, early singles and debut album of this incredible band, one whose reputation should be mentioned alongside those of their more celebrated contemporaries The Nazz, The Vagrants and SRC

AMBOY DUKES
?Type “Amboy Dukes” into any search engine and you’ll get plenty of hits for the American Ted Nugent-led band, but not much about the Reading-based combo that unknowingly shared its name with the boys from Detroit. Not only is there precious little information about Britain’s Amboy Dukes on the net, most of it is just plain incorrect.

JOHN BLANEY meets with the band’s saxophonist,
Ken McColm, to put the record straight

plus THE SEE SEE • SUNBEAM RECORDS• BLUE OYSTER CULT and more!

SMALL FACES The Immediate Pleasure: acid, freedom and Ogdens’: 12 months of magic —— BEE GEES Horizontal, Idea and Odessa: part two of our exclusive timeline —— JADE Strange Wings, Strange Things: folk-rock from a higher place —— PUGWASH This year’s REAL Olympics: pop music for now people —— plus THE MIND GARAGE – THE PLIMSOULS – DAVE SWARBRICK – SRI LANKAN ROCK – GEORGE JACKSON – KALEIDOSCOPE – BREWER & SHIPLEY and more!