The Mojo Collection. Various Mojo Magazine
relaxed control and the group chose its own producer, Turtles bassist Chip Douglas. As the group-penned liner notes to Headquarters explained: ‘We aren’t the only musicians on this album, but the occasional extra bass or horn player played under our direction, so that this is all ours.’
Headquarters is indeed the work of a self-contained group, sounding closer to a garage band than the polished combos that cut The Monkees’ previous records. The group’s exhilaration at being let loose is obvious. The prevailing influence is folk-rock – it was rumoured for years that The Byrds played on the sparkling You Just May Be The One. Yet the album’s most notorious track is, stylistically, all but uncategorisable.
The Monkees’ US label, Colgems, didn’t deem any of Headquarters worthy of single release, but UK label RCA heard a song it thought perfect for the British market: Dolenz’s absurdist rant Randy Scouse Git. (Dolenz had picked up the title watching ’Til Death Do Us Part while romancing British wife Samantha.) There was, however, the small problem of the title. An RCA rep wrote to The Monkees’ US office, ‘You are no doubt aware that many English expressions have a totally different meaning in America and vice versa, and in this case it is a question of the versa being vice. To give you a perfectly straightforward translation of the title, you are referring to someone as being an “oversexed illegitimate son of a prostitute from Liverpool”.’ Hence The Monkees’ second-biggest UK hit was known as Alternate Title.
Pearls Before Swine
One Nation Underground
Ukulele protégé beats Dylan, signs to eccentric New York jazz label and records classic psychedelic-folk debut.
Record label: ESP
Produced: Richard Alderson
Recorded: Impact Sound Studios, New York; May 6–9, 1967
Released: June 1967
Chart Peaks: None (UK) None (US)
Personnel: Tom Rapp (v, g); Wayne Harley (b, v, autoharp, banjo, mandolin, vibraphone, audio oscillator); Lane Lederer (v, b, g, English horn, swine-horn, sarangi, celeste, finger cymbals); Roger Crissinger (o, harpsichord, clavioline); Warren Smith (d, pc); Richard Alderson (ar); Elmer J Gordon (production aide)
Track listing: Another Time; Playmate; Ballad To An Amber Lady; (Oh Dear) Miss Morse; Drop Out! (S); Morning Song (S); Regions Of May; Uncle John; I Shall Not Care; The Surrealist Waltz
Running time: 36.25
Current CD: ESP ESPD40032 The Complete ESP Disk Recordings adds album Balaklava.
Further listening: Constructive Melancholy (1999) is an excellent compilation of the Reprise years.
Further reading: www.pbswine.com
Download: emusic
As a child Tom Rapp entered a Minnesota talent contest with his ukulele and came third ahead of a certain Bobby Zimmerman; years later it was hearing Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind that inspired him to take up folk guitar. In 1965 Rapp was still at high school in Florida when he put together a band under the somewhat provocative name of Pearls Before Swine. After sending a demo to the avantgarde ESP label (chosen because they had signed The Fugs), the group were summoned to New York where they cut their debut in just four days in a cramped but well-equipped 4-track studio.
The result is a timeless collage of evocative poetry and haunting melodies, performed with an eccentric array of mostly acoustic instruments. Another Time – Rapp’s first serious venture into songwriting and a blueprint for much of his later work – was inspired by his miraculous survival of a car crash, its meditative lyrics brooding upon the struggle of the individual within a wondrous yet capricious universe. Morning Song, with its striking recorder solo, and the aptly named Surrealistic Waltz venture into darker territory reminiscent of JRR Tolkien, while the spirit of the times is perfectly captured by songs like Drop Out! and Uncle John (the latter a scathing assault on the hypocritical alliance between religion, patriotism and politics). Yet there are also moments of delightful irreverence: (Oh Dear) Miss Morse apparently got a New York DJ into hot water after several boy scouts managed to crack its coded chorus – the dots and dashes spelt out F.U.C.K.!
According to Rapp the band’s influences were diverse – ‘everything from Peter, Paul & Mary to The Velvet Underground’ – but perhaps the Pearls’ most intriguing quality was their ability to borrow from the distant past without losing sight of the present. I Shall Not Care quotes inscriptions from Roman tombs while the eastern modal patterns which trickle through Ballad Of An Amber Lady are a perfect evocation of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. The sleeve art featured a detail from Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden Of Earthly Delights, the LP including a free poster of the painting.
Despite the album selling in excess of 100,000 copies, ESP’s liberal attitude toward its artists sadly failed when it came to paying royalties. After one more record for the label Rapp moved to Reprise and later Blue Thumb, for whom he continued to record into the early ’70s. Eventually he called it a day and qualified as a human rights lawyer, but after a revival of interest in his work he was persuaded to return to music and in 1999 released his first album in over 25 years.
Small Faces
Small Faces
The Small Faces’ second album proper took a subtle, organic approach to psychedelia.
Record label: Immediate
Produced: Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane
Recorded: Olympic Studios, London; 1967
Released: June 1967
Chart peaks: 12 (UK) None (US)
Personnel: Steve Marriott (g, v); Ronnie Lane (b, v); Ian McLagan (k, v); Kenny Jones (d); Glyn Johns (e)
Track listing: (Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me; Something I Want To Tell You; Feeling Lonely; Happy Boys Happy; Things Are Going To Get Better; My Way Of Giving; Green Circles; Become Like You; Get Yourself Together; All Our Yesterdays; Talk To You; Show Me The Way; Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire; Eddie’s Dreaming
Running time: 28.26
Current CD: Castle CMETD is a 3-disc boxed set of the albums from the Immediate years
Further listening: Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake (1968); posthumous compilation, The Autumn Stone (1969)
Further reading: All The Rage: A Riotous Romp Through Rock’N’Roll History (Ian McLagan, 1998); All Too beautiful – The Life And Times Of Steve Marriott (Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier, 2004); www.thesmallfaces.com (official); www.wappingwharf.com (fan site)
Download: Not currently legally available
Following their split with Decca and manager Don Arden at the end of 1966, the Small Faces signed to Immediate, an independent label run in a libertine spirit wholly in keeping with proprietor Andrew Oldham’s day job as The Rolling Stones’ manager. With virtually unlimited access to Olympic’s new 8-track facility, the Small Faces – under the auspices of virtuoso engineer Glyn Johns – began to experience a creative awakening akin to The Beatles’ in ’65, experimenting with multi-tracking and other studio trickery while expanding their minds with copious acid and ‘gear’.
The outcome was a rich, inventive and wonderfully cheery brew of folk, psychedelia, music hall, swing, soul and psychedelia, with a strong English baroque twist – McLagan often swapping his trademark Hammond for harpsichord. Congas, celeste and Mellotrons also enriched the sound, with brass (on the calypso-flavoured Eddie’s Dreaming)