FEATURING THE HUMAN HOST AND THE HEAVY METAL KIDS

Strange team that managed to release this very whacked out debut album that was quite ahead of its time, musically speaking. This group was a trio, and by hearing the album and its out-of-this-world psych, you'd guess they'd be at least a quintet. These guys were first and foremost counterculture multi-talented artistes, creating clothes and poster and album artworks in the heydays of the counter culture. Of the three "musicians", only one had any prior experience before recording this record, Guy Stevens, an Island record producer; the other two being just shop owners, returning to their shop activities after this freak out. Self-produced (by Guy Stevens) and "self-artworked" (meaning the decorated their sleeves themselves), this album is one of the stranger psychedelic albums of the British Isles, and given the un-experience of two of its members, this album is worthy of inclusion for that fact alone.

If you can picture Captain Beefheart's long musical delirium and add some of Can's lengthy groovy lunacy, you got a good idea of what this band's like. There is an acoustic side to the band that may induce into thinking of folk, but I tend to think of blues or even slightly country music (Dylan had released his John Wesley Harding album). The idea was to create an LSD trip opera (well it was certainly not higher culture results) including female orgasmic jolts on the 16-mins Empire Of The Sun.

Some claim the album has not aged well, as it seems like it was only hippy-dippy mumbo-jumbo, but inn regards with future albums to come this album has some prophetic qualities, announcing Can. While not exactly essential, this is the type of album that was extremely constructive to the scene, even if most music critics discarded it as junk, back then as they still do nowadays. I beg to differ, but it still won't make this album essential.

If nothing else one can at least get a sense of how far music has progressed in the forty years since a couple of psychedelically-bent poster artists decided to pretend they could play music and put together this weird thing. Needless to say this isn’t what you’d consider very high-brow music, but at least the ‘high’ part applies. Fortunately the studio backing band (referred to on the album as “The Heavy Metal Kids”) were a fledging band of journeymen who for the most part were the same guys who would end up becoming the more legitimate rock band known as Spooky Tooth. One of them (Luther Grosvenor) would also end up for a time in Mott the Hoople while Greg Ridley would land a gig with Humble Pie. One of the fun things about proto-prog bands is playing the ‘Six Degrees’ game with the various musicians. The connections are just remarkable sometimes.

As for the music here, like I said it’s not exactly memorable stuff, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t kind of a fun album in a novelty kind of way. Neither Michael English nor Nigel Waymouth had a musical background before they decided to undertake this project, and as far as I know neither of them did much musically after Hapshash. This is basically a forty-minute freak-out of the psych variety that is supposedly vaguely centered on a concept of an acid-trip operetta. That’s not what it ended up sounding like, but the players clearly had some fun in the process regardless.

Most of the rhythms are repetitive and fairly basic, particularly on the opening track and the way-too- long and rather catatonic “Empire of the Sun”. “Aoum” on the other hand is a weird Spock’s Beard’s “June”-meets-Gregorian chanting a capella only with some wraith-like female chanting in the background. Totally self-amusing indulgence, and completely sixties. I’m not panning it, but you should know what you’re getting in to if you pick this one up.

The Nostradamus-like prophecy in “The New Messiah Coming 1985” clearly missed the mark, unless it turns out Corey Hart was the messiah. More ad nausea chanting and tribal-like rhythms on this one too, by the way.

Probably the most creative and interesting track here is the two-minute “A Mind Blown is a Mind Shown”, a brief bongo-driven ditty that gets points more for a cool title than anything else.

So this isn’t a classic for sure, and not even particularly good. But if you’re reading this review and got this far then it’s safe to assume you’re the kind of person who’s a bit of a musical anthropologist, and if so then you may actually find this record mildly interesting. I’ve also had the privilege of hearing the second and final recording under the ‘Hapshash’ name and it isn’t as amusing as this one, so if you have to pick go with this one. Just don’t expect to be blown away – take it for what it is and you’ll have some fun. Three stars, although only recommended if you get off on old bands whose biography has outlived their music.

peace

Spooky

Possibly the earliest use of the term Heavy Metal in reference to rock music, predating Steppenwolf by a good year, this album contains little that resembles Metal music - although it does contain musicians who went on to form Spooky Tooth, one of the earliest Heavy bands, and a notable influence on bands such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest - so there is a link.

Musically, the most interesting thing about this album, apart from the name, the so-called band (who were (in)famous poster designers by trade that corrobrated with one of the best heavy underground bands of the time, namely Art) and the Heavy Metal reference is the somewhat naive and enticing vibe they manage to create.

The opening track, H.O.P.P.Why seems to predict the more minimal Kosmiche acts - Can spring to mind immediately, and it's not just because this is a simple jam around one chord, as there are lost of little bits floating around in here above the solid, growly bass.

A Mind Blown is a Mind Shown seems to predict Amon Duul in its many incarnations - it may be a jam, but it's organised chaos with a distincly lysergic overtone or three.

This really builds the picture for the rest of the album - a cosmic freakout session that's actually more cohesive than some of the more meandering Kosmiche releases available, and also has a friendly Englishness all of its own - most of this, presumably, due to the distinctive musicianship of the band Art, who more than keep control of the proceedings.

The New Messiah Coming 1985 features enthusiastic shouts of Higher!!!, as bongos are beaten and various other deep percussion instruments make for a quite heavy freakout session with plenty of banged gongs, chiming xylophones and general chaos threatening to overtake and crumble the whole edifice - but never quite managing it. An enjoyable sonic soundscape, even if it doesn't quite warrant the full 7 minutes.

Aoum was the buzzword of many of the hippy communities getting into transcendental meditation - and it's probably Alan Watts fault, among others. This, again, is not the complete chaos it could have been, and puts me in mind of some Gong moments - while, of course, predating that illustrious band. This is a really fun and sensual track.

To round things off, we have the 16-minute superjam, Empires of the Sun, which begins a bit of a rocker (with gongs and soft chanting, naturally!). A wonderful groove emerges before a minute is even up - but due to the freeform nature of the album, this soon gives way to meandering and general acidic silliness - as you would hope, really. Maybe 16 minutes is pushing it a bit - depends on your state of mind, I guess...

As a stepping stone from the underground scene to truly progressive music, this is an intriguing document that proves that not all hippy music is boring meandering nonsense - this is actually very enjoyable (and silly) meandering nonsense, and all good because of it.

Unlike many of the obscure albums from this time (and some of the less obscure albums in following years), this one really is a true gem - when taken for what it is.

Because of the time of its release and the vital link it provides, I'm going to say that this is an Excellent addition to any Prog Music collection - not quite essential, as it'll hardly have you excercising the intellectual muscles - but it does predate and form the foundation of an entire Teutonic genre of Progressive Rock, and you'd be well advised to follow up a listen of this by checking out Supernatural Fairytales by Art, and Spooky Tooth's first 4 or 5 LPs to see how this all ties into heavy metal music.

Hence 3.5 stars, erring on 4.

Very nice album cover of course

This is without doubt the most bizarre entry in our ever growing database. Hapshad and the Coloured Coat are not in fact a band, but a couple of talented artists/designers called Michael English (sadly no longer with us) and Nigel Waymouth. Their posters and album covers are now collectors items, with examples of the former being displayed in the Victoria and Albert museum in London and the latter including Cream's "Disraeli Gears".

When they turned their attention to recording an album, they brought in Guy Stevens (Procol Harum) and several members of Island records band Art (credited in the album title as the Heavy Metal Kids, but not the later glam band of that name) who would later mutate into Spooky Tooth (also listed on this site). The album was released in 1967, hence its proto prog categorisation, during the evolution of the psychedelic era but well before the arrival of prog. The original LP release is now a highly prized rarity, but Repertoire records have re-released the album on CD and LP for the 21st century masses.

Given the background to the album, it should be obvious that we should not come to it expecting a masterpiece of compositional excellent, and such an approach is fully justified. This is too all intents and purposes a collection of 5 improvisations which are not intended to be taken too seriously.

The opening "H-O-P-P-Why?" has an eastern style repeating rhythm with occasional harmonica bursts, lead guitar intrusions and an incessant chanting of the title. It conjures up a picture of a party which has lasted over long, with people sitting around in a semi-conscious state while one long haired freak suddenly finds a last burst of energy and dances around in a mad frenzy. And so it goes on on subsequent tracks for the full 36 minutes or so of the album.

Very much of the 60's then, this is one of those albums to listen to and wonder how it ever saw the light of day. It's not that it is bad, with the performers clearly having so much fun who could deny them their 40 minutes or so on vinyl. This is though one of those projects all us non-musicians have indulged in at some stage, when we found it was so easy to lay down a basic rhythm and lay random instruments on top of it. In fairness, some of the material here is well up to the standard of some of the avant-garde artists who took themselves far more seriously in the 1970's, but whose output was equally devoid of genuine music.

Call me old fashioned, but while this album may be fun and it may pre-date most of the music on this site, it is not by any means part of the foundations on which prog was built.

HAPSHASH AND THE COLOURED COAT was one of the quintessential players in the 1960s psychedelic scene in London as an innovator of graphic design and was most famous for its psychedelic posters that were instrumental in popularizing the commercial sale of posters as legitimate art expressions. Founded by Michael English and Nigel Waymouth, the collective continued to grow as they were the visual innovators for the entire psychedelic rock experience in London most famously producing most of the art work for the concert series at the legendary UFO Club for bands such as Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. Some of these original posters are now veritable collector's treasures commanding unthinkable wads of cash.

This multidiscipline collective went beyond the realms of visual art though and released two musical albums as well, the first being this debut FEATURING THE HUMAN HOST AND THE HEAVY METAL KIDS in 1967 followed by "Western Flier" in 1969. Well ahead of their time, HAPSHASH delivered an album in 1967 that mixed all the free spirit genres of the 1960s including psychedelic rock, free folk, experimental, acid rock and the avant-garde into a bizarre musical statement of five tracks that captured an entire album's worth of material culminating with one of the very first side long tracks in rock history, the near 16-minute "Empires Of The Sun." While English and Waymouth were overseeing all these projects including the musical albums, neither were musicians and therefore didn't play on this album. Despite the title, no there is no connection to the world of heavy metal music to come!

The actual musicians on FEATURING THE HUMAN HOST AND THE HEAVY METAL KIDS featured members of Art and Spooky Tooth: Mike Harrison (vocals), Luther Grosvenor (guitarist), Greg Ridley (bassist) and Mike Kellie (drums). Delivering the perfect goods for the Summer of Love, HUMAN HOST was a true psychedelic ensemble of freedom rock that took improvisational jamming techniques and crafted long repetitive party anthems from the simple grooves. The music is more on the meditative side and not at all compositionally challenging. More in line with what the NYC band Godz was cranking out with free form folk and rock songs turning into the equivalent of musical drum circles, HUMAN HOST features various styles including the bluesy opening rocker "H-O-P-P-Why?" to the harmonica rich avant-folk style of "A Mind Blown Is A Mind Shown."

"The New Messiah Is Coming" features an endless acoustic guitar strumming session on perpetual loops and sounds like the mantra of some isolated religious cult that is evoking the return of some messiah figure to lift humankind out of the chaos of its own making. Led somewhat by a lead chanter and an impromptu drum circle, the call and response includes backing singers responding to the evocations of the priest figure. "Aoum" takes a break from the freeform acid rock and jumps into a group chanting session Indian style with only vocalists providing droning, chants and other sounds such as breathing noises, moans and other utterances. The track makes you feel like you've suddenly been transported to some ashram temple in the middle of India.

The album's biggest claim to fame was by featuring one of the earliest side long tracks on an album during the rock era (arguable Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention were the first on their 1966 debut "Freak Out" but those suites were separated into individual tracks). While "Empires Of The Sun" prognosticated the longer playing times of progressive rock tracks to come with its near 16-minute playing time, the track doesn't deliver any musical challenges but is actually a very long receptive bass groove that finds a series of other sounds and instrumentation joining along for a very long hippie jam. While the bass groove bounces along, flutes and chanting and a sitar can be heard with a tribal drumming circle. Other vocalizations come and go which even includes a girl sounding like she's approaching orgasm! The track ratchets up the intensity with everyone totally freaking out by the end! A true 60s psychedelic track if there ever was one!

The reactions to this bizarre 1967 anomaly are as interesting as the music itself. While many immediately write this off as talentless crap and an exercise of futility crafted by drugged out hippies with no musical talent, others cite this as one of the most transcendental musical experiences of the entire flower power era. The truth is somewhere in between really. First of all this was an art collective primarily focused on poster art and graphics. The two albums were released as a side project therefore nobody participating was a classically trained musician. This album is basically a series of repetitive riffs and accompanying melodies that drift in and out. This album is more about the experience of psychedelic ecstasy with all the participants blissing out as they make noise. The lack of compositional fortitude allows the whole thing to explode into a weird frenzy of psychedelic bliss and that's certainly not something you can experience on many other albums. Whatever you call it, it was certainly unique for the day and still is really! What i like about this album is it really makes you feel like you have been transported to the authentic world of 1967 with no record company interference. This is as indie as it got back then. While clearly not an essential 60s release, it is definitely one to be experienced!