The Beatles – Page 4 – { feuilleton }

Spare things

Cthulhu Cultus: The Sun is Sick (no date) by Austin Osman Spare.

I’ve been telling people about this drawing for years but I’ve not posted it here before. Spare produced this piece after Kenneth Grant gave him some of HP Lovecraft’s stories to read. I’ve never seen it dated but it’s probably from the mid-50s when Kenneth and Steffi Grant were corresponding with Spare and commissioning new artworks. What’s notable for me is that this is probably the first Lovecraft-derived drawing that wasn’t either a magazine or book illustration, or something done for one of the horror fanzines.

The Call of Cthulhu (1987) by John Coulthart.

Lovecraft aficionados have never seemed aware of Spare’s drawing since Lovecraft studies tended until very recently to remain fixed on popular media and the often parochial world of genre fandom. When I came to draw the swamp scene for The Call of Cthulhu in 1987 I borrowed the faces from Spare’s pillar for the column in the centre of the picture.

Bulldog Breed.

While we’re on the subject, and in the spirit of showing how all the obsessions here connect in one way or another, Phil Baker’s excellent biography of Austin Spare notes a surprising reference to the artist that predates Man, Myth and Magic via the psychedelic music scene. Bulldog Breed were a short-lived London group, one of many being promoted by the Deram label in the late 1960s. The group’s one-and-only album, Made In England, was released in 1969. The cover art is dreadful but the final song is a number entitled Austin Osmanspare [sic], a paean to the artist that turns AOS into a typical character from British psychedelia: an eccentric, oddly named, Victorian type with a sinister and mysterious glamour. According to Baker one of the band members had an aunt who knew Spare. It’s not a bad song, and the choice of magus gave them an edge over the Beatles who went for the more obvious Aleister Crowley. “They said he was before his time…”

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Dreaming Out of Space: Kenneth Grant on HP Lovecraft
• MMM in IT
• Intertextuality
• Abrahadabra
• The Occult Explosion
• Murmur Become Ceaseless and Myriad
• Kenneth Grant, 1924–2011
• New Austin Spare grimoires
• Austin Spare absinthe
• Austin Spare’s Behind the Veil
• Austin Osman Spare

Listen to the Colour of Your Dreams: Part Two

Carnaby Street circa 1967.

Continuing the psychedelic mega-mix based on Jon Savage’s list of “100 mind-expanding masterpieces” (see this post). The second of the six mixes is where British psychedelia is in full swing after shedding its R&B/Mod/Freakbeat origins: what was black-and-white a year before is now blazing colour. There’s much I enjoy about US psychedelic music but I’ve always favoured the British variety. The sound of US psychedelia is less adulterated than its British equivalent, and even the later examples are often little more than country or folks songs with suitably dreamy lyrics. The gravitational mass of The Beatles so overwhelmed the UK scene that the experimentation at Abbey Road was endlessly copied and refined by the younger groups, some of whom—like Pink Floyd and The Pretty Things—were working in the same studio with the same engineers.

It’s the adulteration of the sound that I enjoy, the audacity of recording an orchestra at great expense then feeding the result through a phaser, as Nirvana (UK) did on Rainbow Chaser. (See next week’s mix). The Who’s Armenia In The Sky is an excellent example of studio pyrotechnics. Pete Townshend had complained that some of The Beatles’ arrangements were slight so this song can be regarded as his riposte. At the end of the mix the Fab Four fire back with I Am The Walrus.

Everything here dates from 1967, and as before the listing is roughly chronological bold type indicating the selections from the Savage 100. Given the choice I’d take See Emily Play over Mathilda Mother—the former being a particular favourite—but Savage’s choice works very well as a melodic come-down after the cosmic racket of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. David McWilliams’ one-hit-wonder is an odd choice and not especially psychedelic but once again I defer to Savage’s selection. The Kinks are also notable by their absence although they never adopted any of the studio trickery that might have spoiled their exceptional songwriting.

UK Psychedelia, Part Two by Feuilleton on Mixcloud

The Fairytale — Guess I Was Dreaming (An obscure single that can be taken as being about dreams, drugs or both.)
The Rolling Stones — We Love You
The Small Faces — Itchycoo Park
The Jimi Hendrix Experience — Radio One
The Jimi Hendrix Experience — The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice
Pink Floyd — Mathilda Mother
Traffic — Hole In My Shoe (Their other great psychedelic single.)
The Who — Armenia In The Sky (The Savage 100 has Relax but this is much more tripped out with surreal lyrics flying through squalls of backwards guitar.)
The Herd — From The Underworld
Svensk — Dream Magazine
Dantalian’s Chariot — Madman Running Through The Fields
Kaleidoscope (UK) — Flight From Ashiya
The 23rd Turnoff — Michaelangelo
The Hollies — King Midas In Reverse
David McWilliams — The Days Of Pearly Spencer
The Idle Race — Imposters Of Life’s Magazine
Eric Burdon & The Animals — San Franciscan Nights
The Troggs — Love Is All Around
Family — Scene Through The Eye Of A Lens (Savage has Me My Friend from their first album. This substitute is a mini-epic that was their first single.)
The Accent — Red Sky At Night (Their only release, and a song that turns up on many compilations.)
Simon Dupree & The Big Sound — Kites
The Pretty Things — Defecting Grey
Tintern Abbey — Vacuum Cleaner
The Beatles — I Am The Walrus

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Listen to the Colour of Your Dreams: Part One
• What Is A Happening?
• My White Bicycle
• Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake
• Tomorrow Never Knows
• The Dukes declare it’s 25 O’Clock!
• A splendid time is guaranteed for all

Listen to the Colour of Your Dreams: Part One

Blame these things: the Jon Savage booklet, and Mojo Presents Acid Drops, Spacedust & Flying Saucers (design by Phillip Savill).

One of the commissions for the New Year is psychedelia-related so to get in the mood I’ve been listening to the six CD compilations of psychedelic songs I made some years ago. I must have spent about five years gathering everything on these discs which comprise 132 selections in all, three for UK music and three for the USA, covering the years 1966–1969. The impetus was an annotated booklet listing “100 mind-expanding masterpieces” that Jon Savage had compiled for Mojo magazine in 1994; a revised list was published in 1997 along with some debatable contemporary additions. Things came to a head (so to speak) in 2001 when Savage and fellow Mojo journalists put together a four-CD collection of prime UK psychedelia for EMI, Acid Drops, Spacedust & Flying Saucers, which included many of the songs from Savage’s list. That collection and the Rhino Records Nuggets box began the mania to accumulate everything on Savage’s list. Once I’d started burning my own compilations the Savage 100 quickly expanded when I realised that I ought to include more favourites of my own.

To start the year, then, I’m uploading all six compilations to Mixcloud beginning with the UK selection. Despite all the effort and the number of songs this still isn’t a definitive collection. As Savage observes in his notes, the late 1960s was a time of massive over-production by record companies with hundreds of singles released, especially in the UK. Many one-off releases by obscure bands are as good as those that topped the charts which is why psychedelic compilations are so numerous, and why omissions are unavoidable.

With that proviso here’s the first part of the UK collection covering the years 1966 to 1967. The tracklist below indicates in bold the songs from the Savage 100 with notes about my additions. The listing is by order of release although this isn’t strictly accurate throughout. I’ll be uploading the rest of the compilations over the next few weeks.

UK Psychedelia, Part One by Feuilleton on Mixcloud

Dialogue — Alice In Wonderland (From Jonathan Miller’s BBC film, 1966.)
The Beatles — Tomorrow Never Knows
The Rolling Stones — Paint It Black
The Creation — Making Time
Craig — I Must Be Mad (A ferocious single by a band that only released one other 45 before splitting. Carl Palmer is on drums.)
Donovan — Season Of The Witch
The Yardbirds — Happenings Ten Years Time Ago
The Misunderstood — I Can Take You To The Sun (An American band who moved to London in 1966. This was their second and final single, and one of John Peel’s all-time favourites.)
Cream — I Feel Free
The Beatles — Strawberry Fields Forever
Pink Floyd — Interstellar Overdrive (Savage has the version from Tonite Let’s All Make Love In London which runs for almost 17 minutes. The version here is the shorter one from Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.)
The Smoke — My Friend Jack
The Poets — In Your Tower
The Move — I Can Hear The Grass Grow
The Troggs — Night Of The Long Grass
Traffic — Paper Sun
The Jimi Hendrix Experience — Are You Experienced?
Tomorrow — My White Bicycle (Savage has a later single, Revolution, but I much prefer this earlier 45.)
John’s Children — Midsummer Night’s Scene
Dialogue — Yellow Submarine
The Beatles — It’s All Too Much
The Attack — Colour Of My Mind
Small Faces — Green Circles

Previously on { feuilleton }
• What Is A Happening?
• My White Bicycle
• Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake
• Tomorrow Never Knows
• The Dukes declare it’s 25 O’Clock!
• Yellow Submarine comic books
• A splendid time is guaranteed for all

The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn

I probably should have posted this when the Monty Python reunion shows were in progress since the first time I saw it was as the support film for a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in 1974.

The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn (1956) is one of the few film outings for The Goons, the radio-comedy troupe who famously influenced the Pythons and The Beatles. Joseph Sterling was the director. The 27-minute film features a diminished Goons cast: regulars Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, with Dick Emery replacing Harry Secombe; all three have multiple roles, as they did in the Goons, and Emery did later in his TV shows. It’s a cheap production but packed with silly sight gags, some of which draw attention to the film medium: no wonder the Pythons liked it. Most surprising of all is seeing Michael Deeley listed as producer; Deeley started out producing lowly fare such as this but went on to produce some very notable British films including The Man Who Fell to Earth and Blade Runner.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film

Weekend links 217

Le Petit Journal, June 16, 1912. Via Beautiful Century.

• Occult art by Nicomi Nix Turner, Daniel Martin Diaz, Amy Earles and William Crisafi. Related: Illustrations by Ernest M. Jessop for The Witches Frolic by Thomas Ingoldsby.

• “Our definition of ‘Industrial’ then was a very broad one, it’s definitely not so much now.” Chris Carter & Cosi Fanni Tutti on 20 Jazz Funk Greats by Throbbing Gristle.

• At Dangerous Minds: the Amok Assault Video (1988), an hour of the bizarre, the extreme and the outré which will probably get yanked from YouTube before too long.

I’ve always thought the exchange of words for money is no more and no less problematic than any other kind of prostitution—and it’s important that we prostitutes control a certain amount of our production (and reproduction, for that matter). If I’m writing a book and I’m warned, “Oh, this is unsaleable, you need to make it shorter,” or, “It has to be this, or that,” I’m proud to say I don’t pay attention.

Though this is becoming more difficult. As large publishers turn into monopolies, and the MBAs who are running them—maybe editors used to run them before—are steadily tightening the screws, they feel more and more that they get to call the shots.

Writers can do anything, says William T. Vollmann

• Mixes of the week: Over two hours of Coil and other artists sequenced by Surgeon, and Secret Thirteen Mix 122 by DJ Skirt.

• Alan Moore calls for a boycott of the “wretched” new Hercules film on behalf of his friend Steve Moore.

• Joe Orton‘s first play, Fred and Madge, will receive its world premier in September.

Ned Raggett found the drawing of mine that’s part of the Tentacles exhibition currently showing at the Monterey Aquarium, California. Thanks, Ned! There’s a sepia-toned version of the drawing in my Cthulhu calendar.

• “Weird is a wayward word,” says Erik Davis in an exploration of weirdness old and new.

• More details about the forthcoming Scott Walker + Sunn O))) collaboration.

• A trailer for a reissue of Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).

• A history of sex toys in pictures.

• Books on Book Covers

• Octopus’s Garden (1969) by The Beatles | The River (1970) by Octopus | Octopus (1970) by Syd Barrett