THE COLLECTORS

Back in the second half of the seventies I was trying to find my way musically being in my mid to late teens and one album I picked up was "Dreams, Dreams, Dreams" by a band called CHILLIWACK which is a city in British Columbia. One of my all time favourite songs "Fly By Night(In The Morning We Land)" is on that album and still played up here on Classic Rock radio stations to this day. Bill was the lead guitarist and vocalist for CHILLIWACK while on THE COLLECTORS he's lead guitar and backing vocals. The main singer here is very good, sounding like those male 60's vocals but man this guy can get theatrical to the point of yelling.

We get sax, flute and recorder from this 5 piece band plus three guests all on the shortest song "Lydia Purple" where they add piano, harpsichord, cello and vibes. Under 3 minutes but this is a catchy one that I like a lot. Uplifting and the harpsichord is a nice touch. "One Act Play" is overly dramatic and so sixties sounding. "Howard Christman's Older" is another track that recalls that 60's story telling to great affect. The opener "What Is Love" actually brought POPOL VUH to mind at one point before it all turns more passionate. Back to the more mellow sound to end it.

"She(Will Of The Wisp)" is a vocal track with some brief flute when the vocals step aside a couple of times. An urgent piece with bass and guitar, harmonies too. Then we get the side long suite to end it called "What Love" and man put on your seat belts people this is a ride and check out what the other reviewers say about this one. It's so impressive especially the theatrical vocals, and shouting "hell" back in '68 to emphasize the emotion was bold and done more than once.

A 4 star album on a number of fronts for me, this is a significant recording for a Canadian like myself.

Formed in 1966 in Vancouver, British Columbia by drummer Ross Turney, THE COLLECTIBLES released four psychedelic pop singles, two of which cracked the Canadian top 40 before releasing its outrageously experimental and early example of progressive rock long before that term was en vogue. Perhaps one of the most sophisticated and mysterious examples of the psychedelic 60s, THE COLLECTIBLES were well ahead of their time in both lyrical delivery and technical songwriting skills.

This first self-titled release featured Howie Vickers delivering a uniquely passionate vocal style, Bill Henderson on guitar and recorder, Claire Lawrence on tenor sax, flute, recorder and organ, Glenn Miller on bass and Turney on drums. Three guest musicians provided piano, cello and vibes. While clearly inspired by albums such as The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club" and The Doors early albums amongst many othrers, THE COLLECTORS managed to maintain several degrees of separation and crafted an interesting array of stylistic approaches teased out into their own idiosyncratic delivery system. 
Musically speaking the band generated the same kind of guitar fuzz fueled psychedelic rock that many other bands were cranking out but offered an advanced dramatic effect of the organs which earned the band a spot as sessions musicians on The Electric Prunes album "Mass In F Minor." The band also incorporated Gregorian chants as well as jazz and folk into their style and the addition of the myriad wind instruments prognosticated many of the progressive rock soundscapes that would emerge in the 70s.

The band was in the thick of the psychedelic scene of the era having worked with Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and even the Doors, the latter of which played a significant role in the influencing of the many musical motifs on the side long "What Love (Suite)" which is credited as being the longest piece of rock music released at the time at a running time of over 19 minutes. Despite all this schmoozing with the big names of the day, Canadian bands of the 1960s have remained unfairly obfuscated by their US neighbors to the south.

Despite the influences on board, THE COLLECTORS were quite adventurous in how they crafted this debut. Sure some parts do bring various aspects of The Doors to mind but most of the album sounds nothing like anything else that i've heard. Much of the album is on the mellow side with Vickers delivering soft tender vocals along with influences from not only psychedelic bands of the day but also Indian ragas, Christian liturgies, spiritual jazz and catchy pop.

Generally speaking the album's two sides were quite distinct with the first side providing gussied up psychedelic pop rock songs and the second the sprawling prog behemoth. As for the shorter tracks, the most notable is the outstandingly creative "Howard Christman's Older" which narrates the tale of a talented alchemist. The band was quite gifted in poetic prose and although the comparisons to The Doors are valid, showcased an equal but different approach in its stylistic delivery even if a few moments do indicate a bit of hero worship. The other notable track is "Lydia Purple" which features an intricate display of Baroque pop and one of the most instantly catchy pop hooks. Excellent story as well.

While the first side grounds the album into the more "normal" aspects of the 60s psychedelic scene, side two's "What Love (Suite)" offers one of the earliest completely matured progressive rock compositions. This track is one of dramatic extremes offering both the mellow controlled aspects as presented on the first half of the album along with unhinged expressions of energetic outbursts which find Vickers screaming. Starting with a sitar and a hypnotizing atmosphere, the track features jittery time signature rich guitar chords in tandem with Gregorian chants, classical music and bluesy jazz guitar licks. Sounding as if the band had gone down the rabbit hole in Jefferson's Airplane's "White Rabbit" song and then got lost once the special tea came on.

The suite flows smoothly with effortless transitions from various styles with ominous organ assaults and equally pacifying bass grooves laced with floating flute runs. Certain vocal outbursts do stray a bit too much into Jim Morrison styled rants but luckily Vickers' vocals don't delve into clone territory. The suite is also laced with sudden hairpin turns such as cacophonous uproars of all the instruments crafting a startling din in unison and then back to slow sensual motifs. This 19-minute in many ways encapsulates the zeitgeist of the lysergic 60s in all its moodiness, uncertainty and escapist attempts gone awry. This was easily the most outrageous and adventurous piece of rock based music that had ever been attempted at this stage in history.

THE COLLECTORS was absolutely brilliant in how the group crafted this woefully under the radar gem of the 1960s. The album walks a tightrope act between many of the elements on board and never summons a bad trip by piling on too much at once or sustaining anything too freaky beyond its appropriate effect. Both Vickers and the musicians show an extraordinary command of the music at hand and its easy to hear how this album must've been influential for many of the prog acts that were birthed out of the psychedelic 60s. This is what true innovation was all about and although The Beatles and other popular bands are often credited for inspiring artists who followed, albums like this debut from THE COLLECTORS demonstrates that there were bands who were equally talented and took the concepts even further into the misty haze of psychedelic dreams. Perhaps not perfect due to the few moments The Doors influences are worn to loosely on their sleeves but honestly not far from it.

While an attempt to be more mainstream was the idea at least, GRASS AND WILD STRAWBERRIES was still a bit strange and distinct from the average 60s rock album but was also a lot more generic in many ways. This collection of twelve songs were written in conjunct with Canadian playwright George Ryga who wrote all the lyrics to provide a soundtrack to his 1969 play of the same title. This strange hybrid of psychedelic rock and theatrical music wasn't quite as revolutionary or successful as the over-the-top debut which also didn't attain the status of top band names of the era.

The band kept all of its band members for this second album and retrained at least some of its attributes that made the debut so unique. THE COLLECTORS still mined harmonies from Gregorian chants, still mixed rock with classical and jazz sounds and had a propensity to take you somewhere on the music spectrum that you didn't think possible but that's pretty much where the similarities end. GRASS AND WILD STRAWBERRIES is a much more energetic set of songs compared to the laid back debut. Drummer Ross Turney really turns up his firepower several notches on this one.

This is also a more uniform sounding album unlike the eternally drifting debut. The basis of the tracks are a steady beat rock groove with Baroque pop melodic hooks. The guitar, bass and drum interplay is more in the line of contemporary bands like The Moody Blues rather than The Doors or Pink Floyd. The vocal harmonies are more like Crosby, Stills and Nash and lead vocalist Howie Vickers delivers a more enthusiast singing style on this album sounding indeed as if he was singing a Broadway play. In fact the entire think sounds like a rock opera the way the sections are emphasized to narrate a tale.

While GRASS AND WILD STRAWBERRIES is a decent and even pleasant album to experience, it pales in comparison to the outrageously creative debut. This one comes across as a rather forgettable blip of 60s sounds and although THE COLLECTORS were well ahead of the pack on their debut, they seem to have gotten cold feet here and backpedaled to the point where the album sounds rather generic. Sure the occasional jazzy sax squawks and awkwardness of the mixed styles still stands out but as far as the momentum of the songs themselves, not so much. This was the end of the road for THE COLLECTORS. Vickers would leave soon after this release and the rest of the band rebranded as the band Chilliwack.

1. "What Is love" (3:45) sparsely-backed organ and picked electric guitar over which vocalist Howie Vickie and church choir-like supporters ponder the definition of love. Such sensitivity; such a powerful vocal presence--and with David Clayton-Thomas-like passion! (9/10)

2. "She (Will Of The Wisp)" (3:45) simple folk-rock weave with more multi-voice vocals in the realm of church angels over bass, snare, acoustic guitars, and flute. Pretty. (8.75/10)

3. "Howard Christman's Older" (5:10) a fascinating story with a supernatural sci-fi theme and music that builds from sparsity to heavy psychedelia over and over. Reminds me of the sound of many of today's Psychedelic/Space Rock bands. (10/10)

4. "Lydia Purple" (2:45) the Baroque pop psychedelia that was so popular in this era from bands like The Mamas and Papas, The Association, and The Buckinghams, and which informs so much of early YES and GENESIS. (9.5/10)

5. "One Act Play" (3:40) a gem of a song, perfection in sound, composition, performance, and engineering. Almost a Paul Anka or Andy Williams vocal. (10/10)

6. "What Love" (19:15) mostly slow and vocal-centric, the Indian-influenced and Jefferson Airplane-reminiscent musical palette does occasionally vary and build dynamically (for example, the excellent jazz-guitar-centered passage in the fourth and fifth minutes which is then followed by a kind of RAVEL "Bolero"-like section, and then the aggressive WHO/STONES/DOORS-like passage in the 11th minute--which is then contrasted by the following Gregorian chant-like passage). But, once again, it is the passionate vocal and timeless, issue-piercing lyrics that keeps the listener on edge, enrapt. (That is, the predominance of masculine perspectives in our intellectual and cultural interpretations of "love".) I find myself quite often reminded of Tim Buckley during this performance. Also Aphrodite Child's classic 666 album. (35/40)

Total Time: 38:20

A-/five stars; in my opinion, this is one of the earliest masterpiece representations of all that is meant by the term "progressive rock music." Brilliant! and so brave!

'Claire (Lawrence), I guess he had a life experience and came up with these themes and some lyrics,' explains (Bill) Henderson. 'He came over to my unit in this motel where we were staying, and we took it from there to a full arrangement basically overnight. We wrote everything out on manuscript paper 'cause we were literate musicians ' where the breakdowns were, where the riffs were, what the riffs were, the dynamics. No one wrote dynamics in rock, but we did ' where we wanted crescendos and diminuendos to happen, where things would slow down, where they'd speed up, and everybody's parts.

'So many people were doing long things, but they were jams. This was not a jam. This was a structured, written piece, really in a tradition that comes out of classical music.'

This is how Bill Henderson describes the creation of the 19:05 side two piece of The Collectors' debut album, a song called simply 'What Love (Suite)'. I was pretty excited to be reading those words because this was a Canadian band from Vancouver ' my home territory ' who was creating this monumental piece of music in 1968. I brought the CD home a few weeks ago as a used copy ordered from Europe. How I came to find out about The Collectors is rather a roundabout way. I had come out of a proto-metal phase and entered a 70's Canadian hand rock phase, and as I was checking out Canadian bands from the seventies and trying to remember some I probably knew, I recalled a band called Chilliwack who had some pop hits in the early 80's. But they'd also had some rock hits in the seventies, and among three albums I ordered there was their second album as Chilliwack, a double album with some very experimental music on three of the four sides. Most was a bit too bizarre for me, but I looked up Chilliwack on Wikipedia and learned that the band had formed out of The Collectors after there had been a line-up change. Interested in hearing some Canadian music from the sixties (I only had music by The Guess Who and an obscure psychedelic band called Bent Wind) I tried to find the album somewhere for a reasonable price.

The music offered on this disc here is quite remarkable and unique. In my collection, 1968 is the height of psychedelic rock and acid rock with a lot of experimentation and for some like Pink Floyd and The Moody Blues, a lot of effort to compose something out of the ordinary. There are also the beginnings of what would become heavy metal. On The Collectors' album, there might be some comparisons to The Moody Blues because of the background vocal harmonies in places and the approach to writing music for a rock band from a classical direction. Some reviews also liken Howie Vickers' lead vocals to Jim Morrison perhaps because of how he can sing softly in one part and then build his voice up to a shout and a yell in the next. 'Does anybody hear?' he whispers at first near the end of 'What Love (Suite)' and repeats the question gradually building up to a boldly stated question before breaking it into a desperate maniacal scream.

The first track, 'What Is Love' opens with some mysterious keyboard and soon establishes itself as a prelude to some anthemic piece which, as it turns out, is the suite on side two. 'What Is Love' is slow and lead by Vickers' vocals with the band singing background harmony. The lyric 'What love / what love' connects the song with the suite.

'She (Will-O-the-Wind)' is an upbeat piece with guitar and flute. The jaunty guitar playing reminds me more of something that could have come out of an early nineties band at the tail end of the shoe gaze sound or perhaps like something from Motorpsycho. Again the vocals are reminiscent of The Moody Blues. The flute playing will, of course, likely make you think of Jethro Tull. The percussion is sparse and simple.

My favourite track is the dramatic psychedelic piece 'Howard Christman's Older', which is a song about a young man with extraordinary abilities. 'At the age of thirteen he discovered a way / he could change the molecular structure of clay / he could change it from clay into silver or gold / don't forget he was yet only thirteen years old.' He also invents a process to revive the dead and works on a device that will eliminate hate. Ultimately, the lyrics have a cynical point of view, stating that despite his unique gift, 'Howard Christman's older / And lately I've noticed that / he's starting to slow down'. The music has a haunting and suspenseful feel to it that builds in places very effectively. At times it's possible to imagine a crowd of people slowly walking toward some objective and gaining strength and conviction as they walk together. The main instruments are fuzz tone guitar, clean electric guitar, and organ, with the percussion again being rather subtle. There is no aggressive battery of drums as of yet on the album.

'Lydia Purple' was not written by the band and they were asked to record it as a single to get them on the charts. 'We fought that one, we didn't want to record that,' says Henderson in the CD notes. 'But the recording company were going, 'You gotta have a hit, and this one sort of sounds like you guys, and we think it's a hit'. So finally we relented and worked on it; we really changed it a lot.' Not happy about performing a pop tune, The Collectors worked on adding vocal harmonies, harpsichord, cello, and recorder. It did well in Canada, and there's a video on YouTube for the song ' a monochrome video with scenes around Vancouver in 1968 and the band singing on a rooftop.

Side one closes with 'One Act Play', which takes us back to the slow and easy music and vocal harmonies that serve as a backdrop to Vickers' powerful vocal deliveries that to me sound closer to an attempt to sing like Tom Jones than Jim Morrison.

Side two's 'What Love (Suite)' is one of the first times in rock history that a song was composed in segments like a suite and covered over 18 minutes. Indeed, the music takes us through psychedelic guitar rock, Eastern- sounding flute solos, a saxophone solo, some dramatic and crazy wild electric guitar, and as always Vickers' dramatic vocals that could sound a bit like Jim Morrison or Tom Jones, or Mark Stein of Vanilla Fudge in 'The Season of the Witch' or some other people you care to mention. Or maybe he just sounds like Howie Vickers. As a long runner, great care has been taken in composing this song. It is a bit rough in places though and lacks the smoothness and grandiosity of the later prog epics, most notably those of Yes. It also sometimes seems to keep going on to the next segment and then the next, making you wonder just how many parts were written for this. Remember that this is still 1968 and that the notion of composing a rock song as a suite, employing classical thinking was still a fairly new concept. You might love it; you might hate it; or you might enjoy it for the effort and some parts but clearly have it marked in your head as an experimental proto-prog epic. That's how I think about it. I don't love it but I can listen to it willingly.

All in all, I find this an interesting album with three songs I cue up for replays regularly these days, two songs I'll listen to when I want to hear the whole album, and the epic which I find an interesting journey to take when I have the time and I'm in the mood. The Collectors would go on to record one more album before Vickers would leave and Bill Henderson would take over lead vocals and the band would become Chilliwack. The debut would feature a collection of songs but the second album ' a double disc ' would revisit the experimental nature of The Collectors before the band would change direction and pursue a guitar rock format and then become more pop near the end of the seventies.

The best song may be an up-tempo bluegrass song called "My love delights me". It's an optimistic song with a catchy melody. Other highlights are "Gras and Wild Strawberries", "The seventeenth Summer", the spooky "Teletype Click", "Early Morning" and "Sheep on the hillside". The weakest track is IMO "Don't turn away", because of the weak lyrics.

The songs have a more conventional set-up and longer composition are absent. Sometimes there are bluesrock themes, but always accompanied with some good saxophone, flute or vocals. This album may be less magical then the Collectors's debut, but is equally convincing, because the enthousiastic aproach. In "early morning" the guitar has a free role and shows some really nice soloplay.

Fans of the Collectors's debut will also enjoy this record. The average quality of the songs is really good and the last song is a real outburst in vocals, which will last you with good feelings. Four stars.

-side 1- The songs are mostly folk-rooted and sometimes reach a garage sound. The first side is only slightly psychedelic, but sometimes they use some nice harmonies and the vocals are really great. The vocalist is capable of soft and harmonious voices and also of stronger vocals. There are lot's of spacy background vocals.

My favourite song of the first side surely is Howards Christian's Older. The lyrics are about a boy who on early age was a genious, but losts it's grip on mankind.

-side 2- As I've mentioned before, the second side is a compilation of the songs of the first side and adds something extra. The extra-part contains some really acid sounds - in fact they seemed to try to make as much noice at once as possible for a few times. Well, I thougth this side was a bit fragmentated - just a lot of themes were putted after each other. Still, it's a nice effort.

Because of the lengthy composition this could be seen as protoprog, but still it was just an example of the psychedelic scene.

As I do really like psychedelic music I can easily compare this record to other psychedelic records like Love's "Da Capo" which also contains a lenghty second side. I thougth that lot's of other psychedlic bands like Country Joe and the Fish, The 13th Floor Elevators, The United States of America, etc. were a bit better than the Collectors. For a psychedelic rock collector this is a nice addition to his/her collection, but I should not mention it as a masterpiece. So, four stars for the Canadians.

The Collectors came as a surprise for me, the record was given to me and it was said to be 'very good'. Now, there are many good very good records from '68, but there aren't many that can really be called progressive. This remarkable album has a full-blown progressive vision with many inventive ideas and breakthroughs. Of course, Zappa had already done crazy stuff, The United States of America would release there perhaps even better debut, The Doors had done some ground-braking work in '67 and King Crimson was almost ready to go in the studio, but still I find this album a very rewarding achievement for it's year of release.

So, what's so special about this record from Canadian soil?

It has superb song-writing with intelligent use of unusual chord progressions, it has an adventurious (as in the better sympho-prog) sound and it has an epic with of 19 minutes which shows the boundaries of what is possible (at the time). All this sounds very seventies-like, but the sound is clearly that from a sixties beat-band/psychedelic-band on fire. Perhaps a bit like the Beatles, some Doors, yet different. The vocals are amazing. Lead vocalist Howie Vickie has this huge voice, at times reminding me of Jim Morrison in his use. The back-up vocals are brilliant and harmonically challenging. For those who liked the Beach Boys, this is even better.

1. What Is love (3:45) The opening track is a peaceful introduction of what's to come. Some important elements of the epic on side two (with almost the same title) are played. Still this short track has a sympathetic nature.

2. She (Will Of The Wisp) (3:45) This is were the progginess begins. This is a very adventerious song with an up-tempo sound. The melodies are inventive and the vocals are amazing. The heavy acoustic guitars sound great and the rhythmical developments are refreshing and psychedelic.

3. Howard Christian's Older (5:10) This song has a folk-approach with a nice acoustic intro. The vocals tell a story about a very special boy with mysterious powers. The song develops in a rock-song with fierce vocals and a mystical sound. The melodies of the vocals are brilliant, unexpected notes over already special chords. Actually, this song is quite psychedelic and the ending is strange.

4. Lydia Purple (2:45) This song also has a folky intro (with a flute) and playful guitar/vocals theme. Extremely catchy, very nice psychedelics from the sixties. The second voice is magical on the second couplet. In the middle of the song there are some more folky moments with a string-section and some flutes. The third couplet also has a third voice which is utterly brilliant.

5. One Act Play (3:40) Perhaps my favorite. This graveyard type ballad with it's dark and serious mood is just amazing. The composition is among the best of every song written in the sixties. The many chord-progressions that all have an impact combined with these spooky vocals are very effective. So, ever wanted to listen to doom-psychedelics from the sixties?

6. What Love (19:15) One of the few full-blown epics of '68. More daring than Procol Harum's In Held was I, The Collectors explore a lot of moods and atmospheres. The opening section introduces the question 'What is this Love?'. No emphasis on romanticism, but an almost desperate question. After this the song develops into a church-like pastoral moment with nice combined vocal efforts. Later in the song moments of serious aggression, psychedelics and avant-garde are apparent. Though it's a strong epic, the ending section could have been a bit more substantial. A conclusive (and perhaps melodic) ending-section could have made it even better.

Conclusion. I love these early albums that are so expressive and ground-braking. This is an album that should have been far more influential then it was. This is a record that should have a place in all our collections, it's not just a collector's item. The song-writing is monumental and bombastic and the epic on side two is indeed very brave with it's moments of extreme aggression. Four and a halve stars would be appropriate, but since Sean Trane also came to this conclusion and gave four, I'll compensate by giving five stars. Ah, what the heck - this is a masterpiece! Recommended to every-one interested in psychedelic rock, early progressive rock and the development of the genre itself. Furthermore this is one of the most important Canadian releases of the sixties.

The first track, "What Is Love", a sneak preview of the epic track on side 2, gives a good impression of this album in a nutshell. "She (Will o' the Wind)" is my favourite of the short tracks. It reminds me somehow of "Paperback Writer", but the vocals make this track sound more psychedelic and it has a Jethro Tull-ish flute. "Howard Christman's Older" is the only track on side 1 that passes the 5-minute mark. The vocal melody is rather folky, but the song turns soon into a psychedelic piece. "Lydia Purple" is the only song here that is written by others. It has a more conventional song structure than the other songs on this album and it fits well in the period in which the album was recorded. Side one ends with the Moody Blues-like "One Act Play". Like in "Howard Christman's Older", the vocals are performed by lead singer Howie Vickers alone.

However good the shorter tracks may be, it is the 19 minute-epic "What Love (Suite)" that make this album deserve a prominent place into prog history. This is, as far as I know, the first side-long epic track in prog, dating from late 1967 or early 1968, and it is well worth the listen: not a follow-up of different melodic themes, but a coherent piece of music with both loud and quiet moments. The emotive vocals are great throughout the song. The supreme moment, however, is the saxophone solo at 13-15 minutes. "What Love (Suite)" is essential proto-prog and should be part of the canon of progressive rock. This album should finally find its proper place in the history of progressive rock, and no longer be an overlooked gem or a collector's item. I recommend it to anyone who likes truly progressive music from the 60's. It is worth at least 4.5 stars; I give five.

Does someone hear?