I was talking the other day to someone about progressive rock (I know, boring old men aren’t we?) He asked what was the best band from the 70s that everyone had subsequently forgotten. He was looking to get some good music even if it was hard to find.
It sent me back down the vista of years because while we considered ourselves to be experts in the field, actually most people played the same things whether it was Floyd, Tull or Heep. It was a large enough selection of great music to satisfy most to the extent that my jazz-rock leanings were often mocked, like I was admitting liking log tables (remember them?) In my novels, Nick, the main character has a Jean Luc Ponty passion for which he’s constantly mocked by his Uriah Heep loving pal. They say write about what you know! That’s me.
Also, it was the 70s and bands were not old and obscure in quite the same way they are now. For example, one of my favourites in 1975 was Ash Ra Tempel’s debut record. A German band, I’d come across them while I was in a krautrock phase and picking up Kraan, Nektar and Tangerine Dream records. They were called ‘Space Rock’ at the time and it fitted my teenage brain very well. There are people selling that record for £600-£1000 now. But to me, it doesn’t feel obscure or even especially rare. Certainly it didn’t feel like that when I took it to school to play and it rested by my desk in history and was picked up by a teacher called Mr McDonough, ‘Listening to peculiar music again are we, John’? He was a good guy and probably only in his late 20s at the time, though that seemed ancient to me. He’d probably been a student in the late 60s and done his fair share of listening to ‘peculiar music.’
But I needed something more obscure than Ash Ra Tempel. I racked my brains for a great record that we played a lot but would now be thought rare and obscure. I mean Gentle Giant were very popular, especially Octopus, but that’s not left field enough. Nor is Stomu Yamashta’s Go or Vangelis’ Albedo 0.39 both of which were regular spins. No, for my selection, I had to dip back into my 15 year-old’s memory banks to the summer holidays in 1976, that long hot summer which I spent much of the time in Russell’s front room, with records strewn across the floor listening to everything from the Bonzo’s to PFM and John Martyn.
Much of the knowledge I still carry was learned that summer. And amongst them all were the two albums Gnidrolog released in the early 70s. ‘...In spite Of Harry’s Toenail and Lady Lake. Both now command high prices but were just another two records for us. Lady Lake has a great cover painting by Bruce Pennington of a giant hand and a swan. Hey, of course it does, its early 70s prog. It seemed all part of a serious fantasy world that I was jumping into with relish.
Gnidrolog never got anywhere, even though they were signed by RCA. And here’s your rock trivia fact, their bass player was Clog Cowling who later turned up in Pat Travers’ Band. The band was founded in 1969 by twin brothers Colin and Stewart Goldring who later formed punk band The Pork Dukes who you might recall. For a couple of years they supported the likes of David Bowie, Colosseum, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Wishbone Ash, Soft Machine, and Magma. The drummer Nigel Pegrum joined Steeleye Span and John "Irish" Earle on sax and flute went on to be a successful musician, playing with artists such as Thin Lizzy, Ian Dury and the Clash. He’s on Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous playing on Dancing In The Moonlight and announced by Phil Lynott.
But such developments lay ahead that hot summer’s day. We loved those records especially Lady Lake, we probably thought they were just another band and didn’t realise they’d already been defunct for three years. We took that album to school to play at lunchtime through May, June and July and next September in the new term through to November, as much to show off the fantasy cover as anything and everyone who cared, loved it but the coming of punk meant it was soon sidelined in favour of inferior music by the kids in Eater (remember the headline Schools Out; Eater Tour) or Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds, ironically their guitarist Vini Reilly would end up playing some lovely ambient music as the Durutti Column which would have been called prog 15 years earlier probably
It is really excellent music. A bit Argus-style Ash, a bit Camel, elements of ELP’s acoustic ballads with extra sax and brass which makes them sound at times like early Colosseum, it’s a winning mixture but largely lost in the mists of rock n roll’s annals. It’s all on Youtube if you haven’t got a few hundred quid to spare. So that was my recommendation to him and to you all.
My prog recommendation...
