SFA 1 ( first published Aug/Sept 2001 )

WHY? How uncanny it's the...
S*F*A*
SWEET FLORAL ALBION
...crew with their bizarre ramblings on the subject of
UK PSYCHEDELIC CULTURE.

O====(August/September 2001)=====(No. 1)=======(Price: GRATIS!)=========O

HELLO and WELCOME to Sweet Floral Albion!
Those of you who know us will understand what we're up to...so, the following is for those of you who haven't had the pleasure:- Basically this is a mag about UK PSYCHEDELIA and related stuff, written by fans for fans. We felt there was a need for a mag like this- certainly among the collectors, fans, dealers, issuers that we know- because (a.) Record Collector 's 'Psych Trip' has been such an astonishing popular success, and (b.) there hasn't been a decent mag devoted to the subject for such a long long time. We'll primarily be concentrating on the music, but will include articles on fashion, art, drug culture, anything really, which we think fits the bill and might be fun, or interesting, or both. We ain't gonna come on all snooty and elitist (WE know we're clever- we've nothing to prove!), but we are gonna tell it straight when the wind -sorry, need -arises. On the whole , though, if we don't like something we'll probably just ignore it- we won't waste your time or ours being nasty- that just gets peoples' backs up and will make us look like a gang of curmudgeonly old gits. Conversely, if we think something is fab, groovy, gear and great...or unfairly neglected, we'll chin-wag about it 'til the proverbial cows come home! We also hope to impart some of our knowledge to others and in return we hope to learn more from YOU. After all, "The colours you give out will return to you". Or so we used to say. At the end of the day this mag is an OPEN HOUSE- we want YOU to write it. All we wanna do is co-ordinate things a little. If you do -or even if you don't- like what we're doing tell us why. Come aboard! All are welcome-
Dave Thubron (Editor)

Jon Kerr
J. Barrington Phillips, Esq
Paul Hodges
Lucy Nation
Jason Scott
} Humble scribes one and all

This *PREMIER grand cru ISSUE* contains the following, though not necessarily in this order~
O--OUT IN THE COLD
O--LIBROS PSICEDELICOS- Book Reviews
O--E.L.O.- An undiscovered psych gem
O--UK PSYCHEDELIA DISCOGRAPHY Continued
O--LYRICS
O-JUNE '68: a Trip on the Thyme Machine
O--TAGES: Sweden's Finest
O-TECHNICOLORED SWAP SHOP
O-'Til we meet again/ Odds 'n' sods -

OUT IN THE COLD
by Jason Scott
A long-neglected treasure is given a brisk wipe with an EMItex cloth and put on the Dansette for a quick reappraisal...

KEVIN AYERS-Joy Of A Toy (Harvest SHVL 763), originally released Nov '69.
In the entry for "Soft Machine" in Record Collector's 'British Psychedelic Trip', David Wells refers to the 'Joy Of A Toy' LP as a 'magnificent solo debut', and one of 'two' [the other being Syd Barrett's 'The Madcap Laaughs',] 'of the final flourishes of British psychedelia from two of its most important figures'. Whilst I whole-heartedly agree with this summing up, itis sadly apparent that Ayers' profile- outside of the cognoscenti- has sunk beneath the cold grey waters of neglect and indifference. The comparison with Barrett serves to high-light the disparity, in terms of media attention and fan appreciation, between these two very significant talents. That we don't know his work better is regrettable but perhaps unsurprising, given Ayers' reluctance to play the role of "rock star". It seems, that for most psych fans,when Ayers left the Soft Machine, he ceased making music of any interest to them. Whereas, in fact, Joy Of A Toy is both one of the great long-lost UK Psych LPs, and de facto a great Soft Machine album .The rest of the band helped Kevin out on this, his first solo LP, much as they also were also helping out Syd Barrett on his solo debut in the same studios (Abbey Road) at the same time (summer '69). In fact, the musical spirits of the Soft Machine AND Syd Barett both dominate this LP, as they came to dominate much of Ayers' career. This LP is far closer to psych/prog/pop territory than it is to the then prevalent prog/jazz/rock mood then smothering the underground.(Ouch!!) Where do you begin with an LP that contains such a surfeit of treasures? Why, at the beginning of course... Them old Abbey Road frequency test-tones pipe us aboard the magical carousel of 'Joy Of A Toy Continued'- absolutely nothing like its earlier (Soft Machine) near namesake. It's a la la la oompah oompah toy town extravaganza, replete with flute, kazoo, and "Here come the elephants and tigers/ Here come the kangaroos" lyrics. Pure bliss. 'Town Feeling', is a very stylish ballad, mellow and infused with piano, coronet and a tasty distorted guitar refrain. Next up, is 'The Clarietta Rag'- a five star pop psych marvel. Just dig the words- "Have you seen Miss Clarietta/ Riding round on her Lambetta/ On the mountainside". psycho-mod-elic. Although it's 'too late' for some psych folk, this is very much a product of the UFO years. Superb, subdued keyboard flourishes and a fandabbydozy stinging guitar break too.'Girl On A Swing' is a sublimely beautiful tune, with shimmering guitar and electric harpsichord wrapped around observational lyrics that typify English poetic whimsy-pop. Also, particularly nice are the sped-up vocal interlude and the way instruments move in/ out of the mix. Bloody lovely. 'Song For Insane Times' is a (censored) slightly re-titled re-vamp of a track the Soft Machine performed live, c. 1967-68. Again, it's a wonderful piece, a lyrical precis of "Swinging London". Keyboard (organ and piano interplay) dexterity to the max, and a "niiice" jazz vibe to top it off. 'Stop This Train' starts and ends, funnily enough, like a train, as the tape speed goes from "stop" to "sluggish" to "full throttle". Nice 'Path Through The Forest'-style vocals, and some trippy effects tastefully sprinkled like fairydust over the song. 'Eleanor's Cake (Which Ate Her)': What can you say that does this song justice? Nothing. Except perhaps that it out-drakes Nick Drake! Next song- 'Lady Rachel'- another song, another classic. The fuzzy muzzy backing track creates a claustrophobic ambience, perfectly suited to this creepy somnabulistic tale of nocturnal horrors. 'Oleh Oleh Bandu Bandong'. Weird title. I know what you're thinking- don't sound too promising does it? WRONG!!! Its off-kilter drum track and repetitive mantra-tastic queasiness is quite disturbing. Super duper doo we say! If this had been issued as a 45 in '68, it would certainly be up there with the big boys...Oh, by the way, do bendy endings get any better? Nice way into 'All This Crazy Gift Of Time', which rounds off this LP nicely in an anti-Dylan, down home sorta way. Oh yeah, Kevin Ayers has produced heaps of good music. Psych-Heads should also listen out for the dada-influenced 'Lunatics Lament, Pisser Dans Un Violon', on his second ('Shooting at The Moon') LP- marvellous stuff with some stunning psychedelic guitar licks from Mike Oldfield (Yes! Him!) plus a ton of tripped-out ravings. 'Oh! Wot A Dream' (from 1972), is Ayers' endearing tribute to Syd Barrett, a wonderfully evocative Cambridge-styled pop psych ditty it is too. Mr Ayers: We salute you!

LIBROS PSICEDELICOS
J. Barrington Phillips,Esq visits his local library and has a sniff around among those dusty tomes- dirty old sod...

Acid: The Secret History of LSD, by David Black (Vision: London,1998.)
This is great . Well-researched, but still very much a product of those silly, paranoid conspiracy theory head-games we played back then. It would appear that Mr Black is of the op[inion that the whole Hippie/LSD thing was part of a ploy by the US Intelligence-Defence monolith to undermine Western democracy and thus strengthen their position. It is well documented that LSD was a mind-control weapon, part of the military's arsenal of "incapacitants", utilised to undermine the enemy's will to fight. This book covers all aspects of this story- from the CIA-fronted research project to the Leary-weather Underground imbroglios;from the "Great British LSD Plot" (Frendz, the Angry Brigade,et al)to the much revered Sam Hutt (Boeing Duveen)and his tincture of cannabis scam (celebrated on the front cover of IT no. 31, May 3-16 1968 ,with the slogan- "Cannabis legalis in Britanniae est"). And at the centre of it all is the enigmatic Ron Stark, a master puppeteer - an acid alchemist with links to both organised crime and the secret service (ie. a VERY heavy geezer). There's a fascinating quote from acid-guru Michael Hollingshead, which states that there may have been a significant difference in quality between the LSD of the early 'sixties and the mass-produced variety of the late sixties/early seventies'. The earlier LSD (d-LSD-25) was 'a semi-synthetic substance which required natural ergot for its synthesis. Because the illegal labs had to use the synthetic ergt known as ergotamine tartrate from 1966 onwards, the subjective effects are really very different from those reported at Harvard.' This goes some way towads explaining all those fried brains - its was the 'nasty', artifical (non-biological) powder that washed those brain cells whiter than white, or maybe it was 'BZ' - a chemical called Quinuclididinyl (US army manufactured) - 10 times stronger than LSD!!! Scarey stuff indeed.

Psychedelia Britannica, Edited by Antonio Melechi (Turnaround: London, 1997)
Another fine book. This one covers various aspects of UK psychedelia - literary (Alice), Psychiatric (R.D.Laing), Messianic (Holligshead); and chapters 6 ('Altered Sounds'), 7 ('Return to Eden'), and 8 ('Ecstasy Evangelists and Psychedelic Warriors') cover the musical side of things. There's a brief history of how those uptight little mods became 'really' cool and turned on, how indolence, pastoralism and infantillism was the real subject of UK psychedelia (ISB, Barrett, Donovan, et al). Sound techniques are discussed ("an overall emphasis on timbral sound (blurred, bright, tinkly, overlapping, associated with the intensification of colour and shape experience when tripping). Upward movement in pitch (and the comparison with an hallucinogenic high)..." They even include Tintern Abbeys 'Beeside', Virgin Sleep's 'Secret', The Beatles 'I'm only sleeping' and Soft Machine's 'Why Are We Sleeping?' as examples of the English route to enlightenment via indolence. They could have also included The Mirage's 'Lazy Man' (once referred to as their version of 'Rain' by The Beatles) as well as dozens of others. Also, nice to read again are Alex and Lyn Trocchi's LSD experiences, but overall this book is full of facts and theories, dreams and nightmares and is one of the best 'scholarly' works on the subject.

E.L.O.- An Undiscovered Psych Gem
by Paul Hodges

Yeah weird eh? If Jeff Lynne is thought of in connection with psych it's as part of the Idle Race and their late-60s attempt at pop success. Some hope. Well, dig a wee bit deeper and you'll unearth a 24 carat nugget who goes by the nane of Nellie. She can be found hiding on E.L.O.'s eponymously titled debut album (Harvest, 03/12/71). 'Nellie Takes Her Bow', clocks in at a chunky six minutes in length. It kicks off with a backwards string crescendo, before moving into typically rather bloated E.L.O. over-produced piano-lead ballad fashion. It continues in to move in and out of this mode for the rest of the song. The lyrics are typical domestis pop psych fare and it is a syle derived from Lynne's 'Walrus'-era Peatles strimg arrangements, with the odd reversed tape coming and going. It seems that the weird demons are fighting the straight demons for possession of the song. There's a very freaky cello-driven middle eight that is frigheningly intense, with avant garde pretensions (too much bleedin' Stockhausen) and psychedelis aspirations (too much bleedin' Acid) all rolled into one, this is followed by a section lifted almost note from note from the melody to "10,000 words in a cardboard box"! This blurs into God bless ye merry gentlemen. Then our Jeff's back again, distorted Lennon-like vocals and it gets a bit like "Fight for my Country" - Balls (another Brummie treasure)More strings, a French horn, some tinkling ivories a long held note and it's all over. Not your typical E.L.O. track (although they often strayed into UK whimsy pop territory - Horace Wimp etc) and not typical UK psychedelia either - simply a marvellous oddity by a band too long dismissed out of hand. (Note: This LP was reissued (on CD) by EMI in Dec. 2001 (30th anniversary) as a 2-CD package with loads of bonuses (alt. takes, Quadraphonic mixes, live performances, etc, etc) : EMI Harest 533 3730

UK PSYCH DISCOGRAPHY - Part 18

THE MINDBENDERS - Little Nightingale - Far Across Town
The first of these 2 goodies is off the '66 eponymously titled LP (most famous for 'A Groovy Kind Of Love'). Not a particularly uncommon album, but this track which is Mod-going-Odd, has been ignored for too long. The track, a cover, on the surface doesn't appear too promising but its echo-laden spookiness, sustained (minor) chords, whiney guitar solo and aura of wired nonchalonce manifest the right spritit of adventuorous experimentation a true treasure of '66 Beat-psych. 'Far Across Town' was the 'b' side of the truly awful 'We'll Talk About it Tomorrow' a song with absolutely no redeeming qualities and no chance of chart action, and an untypical lowpoint for this excellent band. '.. Town' sort of falls between two stools- the lyrics ('I will be happy there/I will not have a care/There I'll lose my mind...) hints at the changing times (ie 1967) as does the Who-flavoured melody and arrangement in general, but the 'Peggy Sue' guitar sound is very 'old hat'. However, overall it's a little gem (that's a good tune, not a small lettuce).
THE KINKS - Fancy Off the 'Face To Face' LP (Pye NSPL/NPL 18149) 1966.
It's another excursion into Indian Raga drone territory- first tried out by Davies & co on the seminal 'See My Friends'. This is similar in feel and deserves more attention from an uncaring world.

MAIL - Omnibus (Parlophone) 1971.
This received some typically disparaging remarks on Vol 3 of the dodgy 'Purple Heart Surgery' set. They said: "a fairly dire single"- WHAT??? We say: "Poppycock! It's a fine version of a bloomin' fine song. Very out of fashion for '71. It was most likely cut in '68, when they did 'Blueberry blue'. From the Lemon Pipers' bubble-psych to Move sexual innuendo in a quick foxtrot- clever chaps! Whatever happened to 'em?

THE SWEET- Mr McGallagher (Parlophone R5848) 1970.
OK, OK...so it's another one from the dreaded seventies. Well, we like it a lot.In point of fact, it's so good you'd never know it was from those chinny chap glam merchants. 'Time' ain't so bad, and 'The Juicer' has a certain rough-house charm. But, it's this one that's the stand-out from a triumvirate of quality 'B'sides. Love the lines "Mr McGallagher, my what a character/ I've got a feeling that you'll go far/ In a menagerie of limited capacity/ Teachin' himself to be a superstar"and "If you should think of a magical show/ An incredible show you would like to see/ Just go and see the mechanical hat/ of the magical cat in his menagerie..." Lovely organ, esp in the break, and delicious guitar embellishments. Sort of punchy post-psych pop going prog-pop going...where? In to the deletion bins, unfortunately.

LEE KINGS - Orient Express (Swedish 45) 1967.
BLIMEY!!! This is the dogs' ! If you can imagine the result of The Sea-Ders locked in Abbey Road for a week-end, driving the engineer to distraction with their piggin English and endless Arabic guitar runs, until finally the poor bleeder loses his marbles, speeds up the master tapes, adds burps, pops and slapstick nonsense to it, before running from the studio screaming... then you're more than half-way towards appreciating this. A minor beat-psych masterpiece. It's on one of the international 'Pebbles' volumes, I seem to remember.

PANDAMONIUM - No Presents For Me - The Sun Shines From His Eyes
No! Not the obvious, well known cuts issued on CBS 45s, but ALTERNATIVE VERSIONS and STEREO too!!! Oh, yes yes yes! Both are truly fantastic and available only on a cash-in LP issued in the Netherlands- 'Beat Scene: Color In Pop- Vol 17' (Palette MPB 53204), 1968. The only interesting volume we've discovered in this series, thus far, in case you were wonderin'...
ANAN - Madena [sic] (Pye 7N 17642) 1968. Misprinted on the label- it should read "Medina", don't you know. It beats us why some folk (R.C., 117) seem to think that this is a trifle "ordinary". It is in reality, a fragile beauty. OK, it ain't as mental as 'I Wonder...'. But what it lacks in contrived self-conscious silliness, is more than compensated by wobbly psych pop perfection. Understated, under-appreciated and under consideration for comping, we believe- let's hope so.

MANFRED MANN - She's My Girl.
Delicious bendy pop, with a great creamy dollop of proto-psych. On the otherwise just OK 'As Was' LP (HMV 7EG 8962) 1966. (See our review of the JTL series in SFA 2)

THE STRAWBS - Queen Of Dreams.
An ode to opium. And, man this is a forgotten PSYCH CLASSIC if ever there was one. It's on the lovely (but, on the whole not this lovely) 'Grave new World' LP (A&M AMLS 68078) 1972. 'Queen Of Dreams' has got THE LOT- very creepy sound effects, backwards guitar, tons of mellotron...It truly is a mind blower and although ti's obviously displays 70s multitrack production values, it's five years behind the times. Look out for a Strawbs appreciation in a future issue of SFA. Let's bring 'em in from the cold, cold world of folkdom and sit 'em by the psych hearth, to bathe in the warming glow of our adoration.

+STOP PRESS+STOP PRESS+STOP PRESS+STOP PRESS+

Extra items for Discography:Here are some quality albums, all containing Lysergic treasures-

LOVE SCULPTURE - Forms And Feelings (Parlophone PCS 7090) 1969.
THE GODS - To Samuel A Son (Columbia SCX 6372) 1970.
FAT MATTRESS - Fat Mattresss (Polydor 583 056) 1969.
All three LPs were criminally ignored by Record Collector's 'British Psychedelic Trip'. Tracks by the latter two acts were also treated in a shamefully derogatory manner by a now defunct "Mr Angry" psych-zine. Why??? Surely, one must wonder- Do these self-appointed psych "experts" ever actually listen to music??? See future issues of SFA for less discouraging reviews of these three (and other) great LPs.

FOOTNOTE:- Love Sculpture's 'Blues Helping' which, ironically, WAS included in R.C.'s 'Trip', has not even a modicom of psychedelia within its grooves! It is,as the name of the LP doth clearly state, simply a blues LP, and none too inspiring at that...

'Or, Am I Dreaming' - THE STRAWBS

The fragile gentle butterfly with multicoloured wings
Settles on the toadstools in the midst of fairy rings
Midsummer sound of tinkle bells as Sweet Titania sings
Or, am I dreaming?
Or, am I dreaming?
And I will have a castle with a draw-bridge and a moat
And light my open fires with a brand new five pound note
And go off on a winter cruise in a bright red sailing boat
Or, am I dreaming?
Or, am I dreaming?
Pick the golden casket and you'll get what you deserve
Guard the pure white chiffon falling in a graceful curve
Crystal clear-cut chandeliers orchids in a bowl
Mulled wine by the fire and the finest ermine stole

The watermelon moon makes gentle progress in the sky
Upside down it's floating as the satellites go by
And you can hold a conversation if you're not too high
Or, am I dreaming?
Or, am I dreaming?
The magic mountain music man is really rather shy
Or, am I dreaming?

'Imagine' - ARGOSY

Imagine all the colours of the rainbow in wine
Eleven foot wide and black inside
Imagine that the sound of someone calling your name
is like a tuneless song that breaks the communal whirl
where there are flowers growing
on the ceiling in thousands
And colours you taste, oh my God what a waste
And your mind will find that the flowers won't wait
They will disintegrate and the rainbow is bad "hello rainbow!"
Well, have you ever sat upon a rainbow's end
Admiring the view and tasting it too
And ever read the diary of a fairie Queen
Its summers nights she felt alright in her world
With corduroy toadstools growing on the ceiling
With Pixies who sing all day long
The same sad song Which man's ear cannot hear
And the children, they feel that the fairies are real
But the children must grow
Oh No! But this is where I am happy and nothing is wrong
People call it fairy land
It's a one way ticket and you've got to believe
And I'll take you away to a place where the sun shines
On whistling waves of sand
And we'll dance and we'll sing for a year and a day
To a sergeant pepper band
To a sergeant pepper band
To a sergeant pepper band...

From The Bumper Book Of Psych Quotations, by Roger St John
Entry No 3-

DAEVID ALLEN, original member of Soft Machine and leader of the legendary, stoned Gong collective, gives a few words on his smoking habits (vide SFA3 for a review of the first Gong LP):- "Je ne fume pas des Bananes".

'Och Doctor, have we landed yet?' 'Yes, Jamie' 'Where has the THYME MACHINE taken us, Doctor?' 'Why, I do believe we're back in the present, dear boy. The monitor tells me it's...
JUNE 1968

It's almost a year after the 'Summer of Love'. In the meantime we've had the Tet Offensive, the Paris uprising, and the Grosvenor Square anti-US demo. The dream was meant well & truly to be over, and it must be said, things were not promising for the ivory-towered, head-in-the-clouds world of Brisith Psychedelia. Storm clouds were on the horizon. In fact things were pretty grim all round. Still, it was a vintage month for UK music, as some idealistic souls still tended the sacred flame whilst the wider world became bogged down in heavy politics and even heavier violence, and the Beatles got stuck into the difficult work of recording the "White Album", these releases leaked out onto the market and (mostly) instantly fell into the depths of oblivion...

ANAN - I Wonder Where My Sister's Gone
THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN - Fire / Rest Cure, and the LP (s/t)
DEEP PURPLE - Hush / One More Rainy Night
THE EPICS - Henry Long (pop sike with a perv-tastic "flasher" theme!)
FREEDOM - Trying To Get A Glimpse Of You (beautiful man, really beautiful)
THE HUSH - Elephant Rider / Grey
JULY - My Clown / Dandelion Seeds
JUNIORS EYES - Black Snake
THE MOODY BLUES - Voices In The Sky / Dr Livingstone, I presume
THE MOVE - Something Else (EP)
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY - Gotta Get Away (excellent)
THE NICE - Diamond Hard Blue Apples Of The Moon (wowzer!)
ORANGE MACHINE - Three Jolly Little Dwarfs / Real Life Permanent Dream (two super-duper covers of Tomorrow)
THE PASTORAL SYMPHONY - Love Machine (mental Aussie prefab psych)
PENNY PEEPS - I See The Morning
PURPLE GANG - Kiss Me Goodnight Sally Green (oddball Jug band class)
RIFKIN - Continental Hesitation (a mickey take? genuine stuff?who cares?it's superb)
SCRUGG - Lavender Popcorn
SPOOKY TOOTH - Love Really Changed Me
STATUS QUO - Picturesque Matchstickable Messages (LP)
SWEETSHOP - Barefoot And Tiptoe (Mr & Mrs Wirtz silliness)
THE SYMBOLS - The Best Part Of ... (LP)
TAGES - Like A Woman (see elsewhere in this issue)
THE WHO - Dogs (altogether now - "There was nothing in my life bigger than beer...")
THE ZOMBIES - I Love you
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

TAGES - Sweden's First !

First things first. That name. I ain't no linguist but I have got a Swedish buddy who put me straight- It's not "Tay-jez" or "Taygs". It's pronouned "Tar-ges" (with a hard 'g' as in 'Gary', 'Go', 'Get' and 'Gravy'). Right that's settled, onto the music.
They started out as a five-piece and were very much a product of the beat era amongst the self penned gear you get covers such as 'Got My Mojo Working', 'Dimples', 'Hitch Hike', 'I'll be Doggone' (ie formulaic beat fare- white boys copying black R&B/soul), and other songs that most bands did then, especially as part of a live set. By '66 their profile in their native land was rising fast and with EMI Sweden's desire, to encourage experimentation, they rapidly became psych-pioneers and, contemporaneous with the Beatles' 'Revolver' - era psych voyages for EMI (UK), dived into the deep end. The first evidence of their newly found technicolor mind set was found on tracks such as 'Secret Room' and 'In my Dreams' and .. anyway a band history and a full discorgraphy would be rather tedious and unnecessary and rather pointless for most of all UK readers - you won't find many of the Swedish releases anyway. Even in Stockholm's best 'Collectors Shop' (Hi Kenneth!) copies are drying up. What we've done is list, in chronological order, our choice of the best, most "psychedelic" tracks with some pertinent details/descriptions. All are recommended to fans of UK psychedelia. And hopefully you can check these out on the 32 track vinyl comp and Dutch 3-volume EMI CD package (all quite hard to find now...)

1966:

In My Dreams (folky, melodic, hippie flute thing)
Miss Mac Baron (Revolver style pop nice guitar sound & ending)
Secret Room (Great early psych pop voyeuristic subject, backwards drums. In 1966 Sweden leads the way with psychedelic musical exploration! weird eh?)
One red, One yellow, One blue (pop ballad with a lyrical hint of psych)
Extra (sped up vocal; strange, bendy and mad)

1967:

Every Raindrop Means A Lot (pop/psych with mad effects quite commercial)
Look What You Get (Bendy pop)
Fuzzy Patterns (Great pop/psych)
Hear My Lamentation (Bendy pop/psych)
You're Too Incomprehensible (fantastic! OTT psych pop)
Prisoner 763 (nice, fairly unusual ballad)
Treat Her Like a Lady (camp pop, embellished with psychy passages)
Have You Seen Your Brother Lately (pop-psych)
It's My Life (excellent. Tougher "Hey Bulldog" style recorded at Abbey Road)
Like A Woman (god pop/sike nie wobbly guitar sound)
She Is A Man (Amazing. Lola-esque theme which was very risque for 1967, check out the lyrics) Top class psychedelia with backwards tapes and loads of effects
Seeing With Love (what can you say? simply one of their best- very "UK-psych" in style)
It's In a Dream (Again, recorded at Abbey Road very classy, nice middle-eight with a lyric nicked from The Smoke's "Sydney Gill"!)
The Old Man Wafwer (Off-kilter orchestral bendiness, kind of 'Walrus' like)

1968:
There's An Old Man Playin' Fiddle In the Street (Bee Gees - style pop/sike)
Fantasy Island (Wowzer! Another of their premier league psych masterpieces)
To Be Free (Great! especially the ending)
I Read You Like An Open Book (Very catchy pop with sike leanings included on the Nugget II package)
Halcyon Days (A Mike Hurst production. Recorded at Olympic. A cover version of "Fairy Tale" by The Herd. Superb)

Also of note are the following: Hey Grandma (Swedish T.V., live cover of Moby Grape) Most Likely You'll Go Your Way I'll go Mine (Demo. Cover verison of the Dylan song) I See The Rain (heavily phased demo verison of Marmalade great guitar work) America (nice demo of the Paul Simon song) Love Loves To Love (superb demo version of Lulu that is sooooo much better than the original)
UK Release Info:-
A side : Treat Her Like A Lady
B side : Wanting
Label : Parlophone
Year : 1967

A side : Theres a Blind man...
B side : Like a woman
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1968

A side : Halcyon Days
B side : I read you
Label: MGM
Year : 1968

Later in '68 Tommy Blom (lead singer) left and the rest of the band became BLOND who recorded in the UK a mega rare LP ('The Lilac Years') for Swedish Fontana. Overall, it's high-class 1968 pop (that should have given The Herd a run for their money), with some baroque/hippie moments, although it does at times skip rather too gailly into expansive, lush Bee-Gees-pastiched, orchestrated pop-ballad territory. However, the opening track, 'Six White Horses' (not to be confused with the Sundragon's 'Five White Horses'), has some punch to it. And 'Sailing Across The Ocean', could weirdly enough, be a Sundragon out-take. Both tracks, and others on the LP, have Ritchie Blackmore-style guitar work... Pleasant enough, but not as good as their earlier work issued as Tages.

"come on ladies, I got a dozen of yer Turnsyle demos for two and thrupence, and I'll chuck in a nice fresh Purple Barrier 45 'an all, for nuffink. Jus'ta make yer 'usband 'appy, come on ladies...

***TECHNICOLORED SWAPSHOP***

If you've got anything to sell, or anything you want to buy, let us know we'll give you an ad number and pass on your replies (confidentiality will be respected)
1.01 FOR SALE: original LPs- July, End, Piper (mono), Magna Carta (Mercury). Trades considered
1.02 WANTED: Flower Scene mags wanted, or p/copies thereof, STC
1.03 FOR SALE - limited edn pressing (500 copies) 'Berts' Balsam' by The Clinch. Previously unreleased '6 psych-pop acetate. £8 inc. P&P
1.04 TAPES TO SWAP: BBC sessons - Your list gets mine, 100s of tracks
1.05 FOR SALE: US psych 45/LPS (1000 items +). All reasonable prices/good condition

'TIL WE MEET AGAIN

Dear reader,
We hope you've enjoyed our psychedelic test flight, and don't think our mag is a pile of soggy old chip wrappings.

Next issue we'll have more of the same, including articles on The Executive, Czar and anything else we can cobble together within the next 4 weeks.
Do come again, Mr Watson, for some more tea and toast.

Love & beauty Dave T & his lowly minions xxx

Would Edward Woodward've taken wood-work? Yes, Edward Woodward would've taken wood-work. Why, 'cos Edward Woodward was good with wood.

And, afore ye go, spare a thought for those poor folks who, smitten by the Human Instinct's wonderful Deram 45s, happily forked out their hard-earned for the same band's later New Zealand recordings. Only to find that they bore no relation to the band's earlier incarnation...in fact bore no relation at all to decent psychedelia. BE CAREFUL OUT THERE.

Sweet FA is published monthly. All contents copyright (c) Sweet Floral Albion 2001. Mess with us, and by Jove, we'll mess with you.