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The year was 1967. I read the music weekly newspapers New Musical Express, Record Mirror, sometimes Melody Maker and Disc and Music Echo. Especially Record Mirror had an extensive coverage of new releases. My friend Erik and I read the reviews carefully. We sought for new artists, unknown at the time, but making interesting records. The record industry flourished. The record companies allowed new groups to step forward. This was in fact well before we got special labels like Harvest, Vertigo, Deram, Dandelion, etc., which made discovery a bit easier. We bought Pink Floyd when they released Arnold Layne. We bought Skip Bifferty, Rainbow Ffolly, Blossom Toes, Syn, Tomorrow, you name them. Some well-known bands even jumped on the psychedelic bandwagon. The Hollies made “King Midas in reverse,” and had their second near-miss single since 1963. Psychedelia was a bit “underground” at the time, and this kind of music did not strike big until Pink Floyd developed the style further.
One week I read the review in Record Mirror of a single called “Flight from Ashiya” by a group that called themselves Kaleidoscope. The record was recommended, if I remember well, in any case I luckily bought it, and was not disappointed. The record came in a psychedelic picture sleeve, and picture sleeves were quite uncommon in the UK at the time. Both sides were written by Daltrey/Pumer. Peter Daltrey was the singer, the lyrics writer and keyboard man. I wrote to him, and complimented on the quality of the music, and especially the lyrics. And he answered! That was to be the start of a contact, taking us up all the way to the present day. Later the same year their first album, also on Fontana, “Tangerine dream” appeared. A wonderful album. But the way it is now, in 2006, available on an officially released CD. So you don’t have to buy the original vinyl album for GBP 300 or later bootleg releases on CD. I recently wrote a review for Amazon UK:
Thanks to Repertoire for doing a wonderful job with the final documentation of England's most underrated psychedelic band. This is the first official release on CD of the group's first album, originally on Fontana, from 1967. Beautifully packaged, fully illustrated, with newly written liner notes by Chris Welch. The sound is probably as good as the master tapes allow. My personal favourite in the long The sky children - a real classic! And you get 6 bonus tracks taken from single releases. Three of them alternate versions of the album tracks (Flight from Ashiya, Holiday maker - A and B-sides of their first single, plus Please excuse my face, the B side of A dream for Julie)and the other three single releases (A dream for Julie (A-side), and Jenny Artichoke (A-side) plus Just how much you are (B-side). My only objection is that the Dutch single B mix of (Further reflections) In the room of percussion was not included. But then there is still room for future releases. The latter track (in its original album version) was included on Mojo's recent Psych out! compilation CD.
Although the quality of the next single , ”A dream for Julie” improved on the first, chart success did not happen. So for the third single a more catchy song was chosen, “Jenny Artichoke,” but it did not help. Nevertheless they were allowed by Fontana to make a second album, “Faintly blowing,” which was even better than the first one. Peter sent me a preprint of the wonderful double sleeve before the release. Oh, these large vinyl album covers, how I miss you. These days I can barely read the CD liner notes in bright light, taking off my glasses.
“Faintly blowing” is by many regarded as the best album, although some prefer “From home to home,” which came out after the band changed their name to Fairfield Parlour, probably because of the the US band of the same name. (To be continued… Watch this place!)
Top quality English psychedelia finally getting a deserved recognition
News 11. July 2008
Peter Daltrey DVD is available! Highly recommendable. Beautiful pictures to go with his best solo work.
News 30. January 2007
The Morning Set released! The group features Peter Daltrey, Damien Youth, Joe Pesci, Dave Carver and Oli Daltrey. For more info and sound clips see
http://www.myspace.com/themorningset
News 12. September 2006
Two new live tracks finally recovered and released on excellent compilation CD: Shapes & sounds - featuring Jenny Artichoke and Music, omitted from the "Please listen to the pictures" album. See
