This is the companion volume to Volume Five, featuring more music from 1970. One thing you might notice as you look over the tracklisting is that there are a lot of songs from self-titled LPs here. Bands were coming on the scene at a furious pace in 1970, from the high profile to the no-profile, and this volume captures a lot of that new talent.
Download the mix here.
1. King Crimson: Cirkus 6:29
From the Island/E’G LP Lizard
King Crimson’s debut hit the British rock scene like the shockwave from a supernova, instantly changing the progressive rock game, but the band itself couldn’t stay together as the music it helped invent rose to prominence. Their second album was pieced together by a patchwork group of musicians, some held over from In the Court of the Crimson King, some new, and it didn’t really carry the band forward so much as keep its foot in the door. By late 1970, guitarist Robert Fripp and lyricist Peter Sinfield had managed to construct a new version of band with a sound just as distinctive, if not quite as mind-rending, as the first version. Fripp’s school friend Gordon Haskell, who would later have a decent career as a solo pop act, took over bass and vocals, and his bizarre baritone is part of what gives “Cirkus” its freaky carnival atmosphere. That and the wildly stabbing mellotron, odd lyrics and Fripp’s manic acoustic guitar runs.
I think Lizard is a generally overlooked album by the band, especially side one—Yes’ Jon Anderson was the guest vocalist on the side-long track that covered the flip, a guest spot that throws into relief just how much less accessible Crimson was than Anderson’s band. Crimson fractured again after this album and didn’t find relative stability again until 1972, when Fripp brought together the classic Bruford/Muir/Wetton/Cross version of the group. That band was a different animal entirely, one we’ll hear from on a future volume. I think this version was no less interesting.
2. Czar: Cecelia 8:21
From the Fontana LP Czar
King Crimson (or perhaps more correctly, the idea of King Crimson) was a mainstay of 70s progressive rock in Britain; Czar was one of the many bands that gave us a single album and flew to pieces. They’d been together for about four years by that point, relentlessly touring under name Tuesday’s Children (they released six singles under that name, including the 1967 psych gem “Strange Light from the East,” plus another as Czar). The constant touring schedule didn’t let up when their name changed, and Czar was recorded in a hurry between gigs. Among the many groups they played shows with were King Crimson and the Moody Blues, and Bob Hodges’ Mellotron work certainly owes something to them, but he also gave his own voice to their music—the way he pairs his Mellotron parts with Hammond organ is fairly unique. The huge main theme of “Cecelia” uses the Mellotron very assertively on a faux-eastern melody to achieve the perfect kind of overload the band was striving for. It’s basic stuff, but sometimes basic is all you need.
3. The Ghost: In Heaven 3:23
From the Gemini LP When You’re Dead - One Second
The Ghost was practically two bands on its only album, one a tame folk-pop group led by singer Shirley Kent, and the other a weird prog-psych band led by Paul Eastmont, a former member of Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Fogg. “In Heaven” has elements of prog, hard rock, and psych, all jumbled together, and when it hits its chorus, it has a character not dissimilar to a less polished Uriah Heep. The organ sounds left over from 1968, but I always loved that organ sound and kind of love that Terry Guy didn’t drop it in favor of the heavier Hammond sounds that dominated the early 70s—the song wouldn’t move nearly as well without such a light organ tone. Eastmont’s guitar solo is simple and direct, too—prog’s pop side can be just as enjoyable as its most difficult and ambitious sides.
4. Aardvark: Very Nice of You to Call 3:40
From the Deram LP Aardvark
Aardvark only made one album, but it was a good one, covering a lot of ground. Its best highlight, “Very Nice of You to Call,” calls to mind a compact, complex version of Brian Auger’s jazz-rock. This was partly aided by the band’s lack of a guitar player—keyboardist Steve Milliner was the guiding force of the band musically, and though he certainly used it, he wasn’t entirely addicted to heavy organ sounds. His piano here is excellent, flecked with jazz phrasing but also comfortable with the occasional classically-inspired run. Aardvark originally did have a guitarist—Paul Kossoff was in the band for several months, as was drummer Simon Kirke, but both of them would leave before the band hit the studio to form Free with Paul Rodgers and Andy Fraser. From then on, the group wasn’t much of a touring concern, which left them ill-positioned to follow up on this album. Our loss.
5. Fairport Convention: Sloth 12:18
From the Island LP House Full: Live at the Troubadour
This is cheating, a bit—House Full was recorded in 1970, and actually saw release in 1977, but it’s clearly representative of the music Fairport Convention was making in the wake of Sandy Denny’s departure. The song is simple enough, but it’s the long instrumental passage that follows that demanded inclusion here—this is one of Richard Thompson’s finest moments, and he doesn’t belabor the point, either, backing off just as his searing solo reaches its peak. What the band does next is nearly as interesting, playing through a very quiet breakdown that features tight interplay between Dave Pegg’s bass and Dave Swarbrick’s violin. “Sloth” was also featured in a similarly great but tamer and shorter version on the group’s 1970 studio album Full House, so I’m going with this one instead.
6. Atomic Rooster: Friday 13th 3:35
From the B&C LP Atomic Rooster
“Sloth” is slow and languid and erupts in measured bursts; Atomic Rooster’s “Friday the 13th” is essentially the polar opposite of that, blasting in with a rapid-fire B3 riff and Nick Graham’s gruff vocals. Atomic Rooster formed in 1969, when keyboardist Vincent Crane and drummer Carl Palmer left The Crazy World of Arthur Brown to pursue their own project. They may as well have called it The Crazy World of Vincent Crane, as he was the only member of the band to play in every lineup, and his occasional bouts with manic depression sometimes interrupted the band’s momentum. Crane’s Hammond style was hugely influential, though, and even though his band slid down to prog’s second tier when it failed to find stability or sustained popularity, he was one of the architects of the genre. Palmer, for his part, left almost immediately after recorded the band’s debut to join ELP and never looked back. Graham also left, leaving Crane to assemble a completely new band for the group’s second album, which we’ll hear from on the next volume.
7. Web: Love You 5:35
From the Polydor LP I Spider
Like plenty of prog bands, Web began in more of a blues mold, and actually had an African American singer, John Watson, for its first two LPs. They had hints of prog in their early sound, but it was after Watson and the band’s original bassist left that keyboardist Dave Lawson joined and they became a full-fledged prog act. “Love You” opens in a sort of prog-folk vein, but rather quickly turns in a doomy jazz-rock direction more along the lines of Colosseum. They’d take that direction further on their final album, for which they added a saxophonist and changed their name to Samurai. Lawson later wound up playing in Greenslade with Colosseum keyboardist Dave Greenslade.
8. Cressida: Depression 5:02
From the Vertigo LP Cressida
Cressida released two albums of accessible, pop-oriented prog around the turn of the 70s before splitting. They’re often compared to the Moody Blues, mostly because singer Angus Cullen sounds a lot like Justin Hayward, but I don’t think the comparison is all that strong beyond the vocal similarity. Cressida keyboardist Peter Jennings used the organ rather than the Mellotron, and you can hear how loud and overdriven John Heyworth’s solo is on “Depression,” a sound that rarely reared its head on Moodies albums. Nonetheless, Cressida were a Vertigo band, and Vertigo rarely gave adequate promotion to its releases, so they never made much in the way of commercial inroads, and by 1972, most of the members had been absorbed into other bands.
9. Gracious!: Heaven 8:08
From the Vertigo LP Gracious!
Sometimes the exclamation mark appears to be a part of this band’s name and other times it doesn’t. Either way, the two albums they made earn the mark; both are great examples of a minor prog band making inspired music. By the time they cut their debut, Gracious had a long history, having formed in 1964 at Catholic school under the name Satan’s Disciples. The recorded an unreleased concept album in 1968 about the four seasons, but it was after playing a show with King Crimson in 1969 that they found the sound we remember them by—keyboardist Martin Kitcat fell in love with Crimson’s Mellotron, and that was that. “Heaven” seems to recall the bands Catholic school roots, with majestic organ passages and choir-ish harmonies. One of the things I like most about this band is that they weren’t virtuosos and didn’t attempt to play as though they were. Alan Cowderoy’s sparing lead guitar parts are economical and melodic, without a hint that he’s getting beyond himself. If they’d found their way to a label that could have better promoted them, Gracious may have made a much bigger impact. As it was, they made one more album and were split up before it even came out.
10. Van Der Graaf Generator: White Hammer 8:16
From the Charisma LP The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other
Back on Volume 4, we heard Peter Hammill’s unique approach to love songs; this time, it’s his singular way with political content. Between 1969 and 1970, VdGG’s flute player, Dave Peach, left and was replaced by David Jackson, who also played sax and adopted a heavy sound on the instrument that nicely complemented Hugh Banton’s organ. Jackson gets in a raving freakout during the intense, heavy coda of “White Hammer.” For Hammill’s part, his lyrics are gleefully esoteric, referencing the Malleus Maleficarum (literally, “Hammer of the Witches”), a 1487 German treatise that seeks to prove the existence of witches and witchcraft, holding it up as an example of how a charismatically conveyed idea can lead to ruin and the destruction of innocents. Witches, wizards, demons, gnomes, fairies, ogres, and a host of other fantasy archetypes all made appearances in prog songs, but not quite like this. On Volume 5, we heard Affinity tackle witches in a much more straightforward way, following along with their recipe; here Hammill is talking as much about the real people who were needlessly executed as witches under righteous pretenses as he is about the possibility of magic.
11. Hawkwind: Hurry On Sundown 5:01
From the Liberty LP Hawkwind
Hawkwind was an odd duck in the UK prog pond, sounding largely more of a piece with the German bands of the same era—they are in some ways the definitive UK space rock band. They also produced a handful of songs that helped define underground rock in the post-psych, pre-punk interim, and “Hurry On Sundown” is one of them. A lot of the band’s songs were built on hypnotic rhythms and a chord or two, but this one is unique for the way it doesn’t bother to dress up that dead simple structure with a lot of psychedelic guitar and electronic effects. There’s a little bit of guitar at the beginning that seems designed to mimic a sitar, and even some bluesy harmonica, but for the most part, Dave Brock’s lyrics about “looking into your mind’s eye” are left unadorned. These guys were far from your typical prog band, and you’ll hardly ever hear any kind of solo on their albums, but they captured the spirit of the age in their own way, and we’ll hear from them again later.
12. Rare Bird: Hammerhead 3:32
From the Charisma LP As Your Mind Flies By
We’ve already heard one example of Rare Bird’s particularly soulful take on early prog on Volume 3; “Hammerhead” is another example of the same, showcasing the band’s heavier side. This band was never subtle about the politics of its music, and “Hammerhead” is as bald an anti-war song as you’ll find, though they run their message through a heaping helping of flowery language to convey it. The band’s dual keyboard attack was still in effect at this point, and the way Graham Field and Dave Kaffinetti interact, setting buzzing organ against piano, or combining two distinct organ tones, is always interesting. This is borne out much more thoroughly on “Flight,” the twenty-minute track that occupies side two of the LP. Field left after this album, and the band’s sound changed significantly with the addition of guitars.
13. Quatermass: One Blind Mice 3:22
From Harvest 1C 006-92383
Where Rare Bird addressed its lack of guitar by having two keyboardists, Quatermass, named for a BBC science fiction franchise, made due with just one, building a power trio sound around Peter Robinson’s overdriven organ and John Gustafson’s proto-hard rock vocals. Drummer Mick Underwood had played in Episode Six with Deep Purple’s Roger Glover and Ian Gillan, and Gustafson played in a later version of that group after Quatermass quickly dissolved in the wake of its lone album. That album is one of the finest examples of the blurry intersection between early prog and early hard rock, and in that respect, it’s a great companion to Deep Purple In Rock, the album Underwood’s former bandmates released that year—play this back-to-back with “Speed King” and you’ve got most of the continuum of the two genres as it stood in 1970.
14. The Human Beast: Maybe Someday 6:24
From the Decca LP Volume One
The Human Beast were a trio from Edinburgh, and Volume One is a good album of late psych/early prog that’s unafraid to back off on the volume and let things breathe. This Incredible String Band cover lies at the heart of the album and is the album’s best track, in part because the songwriting is stronger than the group’s originals. It has a nicely desolate atmosphere, but the biggest treat is Gillies Buchan’s wah-soaked lead guitar playing—so many of these nth-tier prog bands features at least one guy who could play beautifully, and that’s one of the things that makes exploring the genre fun. The Human Beast broke up up after this album’s release and never made a Volume Two.
