FEATURING THE HUMAN HOST AND THE HEAVY METAL KIDS

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!