The series of British progressive rock in the year 1970 continues with three more fine bands who, although quite active and making great music, did not garner the same level of accolades and recognition as some of the genre’s well-known artists. They all released their sophomore albums in 1970.
East of Eden – Snafu
The first group in our review is one who liked literary references. East of Eden, taking their name after the title of John Steinbeck’s novel, started as Picture of Dorian Gray, another reference to a literary masterpiece by Oscar Wilde. Its members came from a multitude of music styles: rock, blues, jazz and classical music. It had a unique frontline with violin and saxophone players. Violinist and flutist Dave Arbus listed his favorite musicians as Brahms, Debussy, Ravel, Bartok and John Coltrane. In a 1970 interview he also said, “The only important group in the world is the Mothers of Invention. They have breadth and they are multi-dimensional.”
In 1969 East of Eden signed with the Deram label and released their debut album Mercator Projected. Lacking promotion, the album did not make a dent in the charts, and after a few lineup changes the band was ready to record their second album. They told Zigzag magazine: “The first album was badly played, produced, promoted and presented, although the material on it was basically good. The new one will be heavier, more instrumental and freakier – nearer to what we do live – in the spirit of Beefheart and the Mothers in terms of production.”
Their second album Snafu was released in February 1970, yet one more reference to literature. Reeds player Ron Caines: “I saw the word Snafu in a William Burroughs novel. It also had another meaning, being U.S. Army slang for ‘Situation Normal All F***ed Up’. We wanted to include more improvisational Jazz based material, as opposed to structured songs which we did on the first album.”
The band was quite active on the live scene in the UK and Europe, playing over 200 gigs a year. Guitarist Geoff Nicholson remembers: “We played the legendary Actuel Festival in Belgium in 1969, which was filmed and released in French cinemas under the title ‘Music Power’. On the bill were Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Pink Floyd and Soft Machine, amongst others.” In 1970 they shared the stage with many of the era’s most ambitious and progressive bands. Nicholson continues: “We supported Free several times, plus Pink Floyd, Pentangle, The Move, King Crimson, Howlin’ Wolf, Soft Machine, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Fairport Convention, Family, The Nice and Arthur Brown amongst others.”
Ron Caines talked about the band’s theatrical performance style back in the day: “Dave Arbus really looked the part with the long black jacket, knee-high boots, hat and scarf. He really was an actor. Looking back on it we looked like French impressionists – I looked like Gaugin, he looked like Pissarro. It was like something out of a spaghetti western. We were quite theatrical really, running into the audience playing our instruments up and down the aisles. On one occasion I dragged someone on stage who blew into my sax whilst I pressed the notes and then we would pick it up and fall back into our routine. The critics of the time said we were like Dada. We were free from a pop group context- not supported by Arts Council grants. We were seen as avant-garde with the likes of Archie Shepp on the free jazz scene in Paris.”
One of their gigs was notable for introducing them to a celebrity fan of theirs. Ron Caines: “We supported The Bonzo Dog Band on one of their final London gigs at The Lyceum. During our set Keith Moon jumped up with us and started playing congas.” Moon became a friend of the group, and when they recorded the album Snafu, The Who were in the same studio recording their classic album Who’s Next. Dave Arbus was invited by Moon to play on one of The Who’s songs and was immortalized with a fantastic violin solo at the end of Baba O’Riley.
This was not the only time Arbus played in the style of traditional music. Caines recalls: “We were playing at Hull University one night, when a guy came into the dressing room, and started playing some Irish Jigs on a violin. Dave was so impressed, he bought some sheet music the next day, and we started using it as an ironic throwaway at the end of the set. When we heard Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats, we decided to incorporate this feel with Jigs and reels.” The result was the song ‘Jig-a-Jig’, which was released as single in 1970.
Bass Guitar – Andy Sneddon
Drums – Geoff Britton
Guitar – Geoff Nicholson
Saxophone – Ron Caines
Violin – Dave Arbus
High Tide – High Tide
We remain with violin as a main instrument in a rock group and come to one of my favorite 1970 records, High Tide’s self-titled album. The band started with guitarist Tony Hill, who in 1967 found himself without a band when The Misunderstood lost its American members, who were deported from the UK. After a stint with the trio Turquoise that also included David Bowie and his girlfriend Hermione Farthingale, Hill was ready to start a new chapter. With an aspiration to form an eclectic group that combined folk, psychedelia and rock, High Tide consisted of very fine musicians who could play complex arrangements and a good measure of instrumental music: In addition to Tony Hill, it included Roger Hadden on drums, Simon House on electric violin, and Peter Pavli on bass.
Peter Pavli talked about the band’s influences and the musicianship of its members: “We listened to a lot of contemporary bands like The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Jethro Tull, Spirit, Family, Beefheart, Zappa, etc. But I think the band’s sound was pretty unique because of the combination of Simon’s violin and Tony’s guitar, playing fast Bach-like runs and progressions and hard rock rhythms, each of them soloing, with the drums and bass keeping the whole massive edifice grounded and thundering along.” Joining a group of high-level musicians motivated him to improve his technical abilities on the bass: “I had to up my game when I joined High Tide. I was a pretty good bass player at that point, but I had never played music as complicated as that before, and in-between rehearsals I spent several hours each day practicing my bass playing, working on my technique. I think that was the point when I became a serious player.”
The band recorded and released their debut album Sea Shanties in 1969, a great record that showcased the fantastic interplay between Tony Hill on guitar and Simon House on violin. Unfortunately, the album was a commercial failure and one idiotic review in Melody Maker made the pun ‘High Tide, low ebb.’ Still, the band marched on and kept playing live gigs in the UK. One concert in August 1969 remained memorable when they were joined by a virtually unknown group: “This band, Group X, turned up and said ‘Can we play? Can we use your gear man?’ We agreed to let them open the show.” Shortly afterwards Group X retitled themselves Hawkwind and the rest is history. High Tide’s Violin player Simon House would join Hawkwind later in the 1970s.
At the end of 1969 High Tide was ready to record their second album. Zigzag magazine was quite taken by the musical skills of the band during the recording of the album: “High Tide’s forthcoming album is worth buying to be numbed by Simon House’s violin and Tony Hill’s slicing guitar. They produce the most spaced-out sound I’ve ever heard.” When asked about the album, Peter Pavli said, “There was a more concentrated feel to the music, longer sections, more experiment with sound, and it was recorded in a more conventional manner, with all the instruments separately miked and recorded rather than the live gig technique of Sea Shanties.”
Unfortunately, the second album did not fare any better than the first when it came to sales. The band was dropped by its label and before the end of 1970 High Tide was no more. In the sleeve notes to the CD release of the album in 2006, Tony Hill wrote: “Personally, I was convinced that we would achieve musical success. Attracting an audience being an entirely different matter. Subsequently we found ourselves to be well received and appreciated. That was just as well, as I would have lost the will to live had we not moved the listener to some degree.”
The beautiful front cover was illustrated by Joanna Enderby-Smith.
Roger Hadden – drums, piano, pipe organ
Tony Hill – guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar, organ
Simon House – electric violin, organ, piano
Peter Pavli – bass guitar
Quintessence – Quintessence
We end this review with another fine artifact from the days when Eastern religions had a true impact on rock music. There was no shortage of sitar riffs on many pop and rock songs in the late 1960s, but this band took it more seriously. Quintessence was formed in 1969 when Australian-born flautist Ron Rothfield, adopting the name Raja Ram, placed an ad in Melody Maker together with bass player Sambhu Babaji, looking for like-minded musicians. He later recalled the results: “It was a gradual process of auditioning the 250 or so people who phoned up, for which we hired the All Saints Hall. One night we had 28 drummers down there to hear in two hours.” The selection process, like everything else about the band, was guided by spiritual principles: “I didn’t form the band on a musical premise, it was done on a vibrational thing where when a person walked into the room I could look into their eyes, get a buzz off them and realize that it could work. So everybody in the band is a very spiritual person.” At the end of this laborious selection process, Raja Ram found five musicians and formed the band Quintessence.
All band members adopted eastern names, bestowed by Swami Ambikananda. They played long improvisations, blending Indian-influenced jazz and rock, and performed at the Arts Lab in central London’s Drury Lane and the Roundhouse. Chris Blackwell, head of Island Records, got word of the band, signed them and wasted no time rushing them into a recording studio. They were joined by producer John Barham, a student of Ravi Shankar. Raja Ram was all compliments when he talked about the producer: “John came in just as we started the LP, and he seemed to have a terrific sensitivity to the music we were playing – he really helped us get it together, and showed us the way to do it. He has the most phenomenal ears in the business – we just consider him a genius.” Their debut album, In Blissful Company, was released in November 1969, full of psychedelic chants, drones, wah-wah guitar solos, bells, tambouras and sitar.
The band was quite active on the live circuit in 1970. They played the first Glastonbury Festival in September 1970, headlined by Tyrannosaurus Rex. They performed at prestigious London venues including the Lyceum and Royal Albert Hall, and made the lineup for the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Their performances were covered in music magazines who mostly found their music and spiritual chants sincere, with some calling it Eastern gobbledygook. Raja Ram commented on that: “You have to expect that sort of thing from the straight press – they can’t relate to it. That remark was made after our appearance with Creedence at the Albert Hall and the press just wanted to hear 12 bar rock’n’roll. When you come out and sing mantras in different time signatures, well, someone has to tell them that it’s good and they’ll like it.”
In 1970 the band recorded and released their second, self-titled album Quintessence. It became their highest charting album, peaking at no. 22 in the UK albums chart. Producer John Barham joined them again in the studio. He later recalled his experience of working with the group: “I felt from the beginning that Quintessence had their own sound and style and also that improvisation was an essential element of their style. In live performances they were very in tune with their audiences and would stretch out on songs when they could feel the audience’s enthusiasm. As their record producer-arranger I was concerned with compressing their performances so that the musically strongest elements would be the basis of the recorded song structure.”
The tracks on this album hop between rock jams, long instrumentals, drones and ethnic chants. If Jethro Tull and Cream were to go raga rock, this is what they would have sounded like. A favorite tune from that album is Sea of Immortality, featuring an excellent guitar solo by Allan Mostert. Years later Raja Ram would become the Godfather of Goa-trance.
Sambhu Babaji – bass guitar
Maha Dev – rhythm guitar
Shiva Shankar Jones – vocals, keyboards
Jake Milton – drums
Allan Mostert – lead guitar
Raja Ram – flute
Sources:
High Tide self titled album 2006 CD release sleeve notes
Ziggag magazines no. 6 and 17