I skimmed through the whole of the year 1970’s issues of Melody Maker a couple of days ago, scanning a few Quintessence concert ads (as you do), and I was struck by one name – among the many before-they-were-famous listings and had-their-moment names and fleeting ‘who they?’ names: Writing On The Wall.
The name was utterly unknown to me and yet they were working solidly throughout that year, supporting some big acts, headlining shows of their own, and obviously doing well enough for promoters to take out ads with the name in large font.
As I’ve been typing this Maha Dev from Quintessence happened to phone and I asked him, ‘Have YOU heard of Writing On The Wall?’ Answer: No! Even their contemporaries seem to have had no idea of this hiding-in-plain-sight Scottish progressive behemoth.
After a year’s worth of MMs I leafed through a Nov 7 1970 ‘Sounds’ that I’d just acquired, for its two-thirds of a page feature on Quintessence, and there, as if by magic, on the other third of the same page is a short feature on WOTW.
It’s 18 months since their debut LP ‘Power Of The Picts’, and they’re talking about a ‘more commercial’ new direction. Ray Telford, the writer of the piece, says: ‘During past performances the image that WOTW have presented to their audiences has been one of great profundity in both their music and stage appearances. The very nature of their songs gave them the reputation of being violent to frightening extremes.’
Their two big numbers, ‘Shadow Of A Man’ and ‘Lucifer Corpus’, have become – says organist/songwriter Bill Scott – as totemic for them as ‘Rondo’ has been for the Nice.
Their next album is due ‘around February’ and their manager, Harry Simmonds, has a German tour lined up and there’s talk of America.
As for their first album, Bill says: ‘At the time we were pleased with it but looking back we think it was pretty terrible… WOTW aren’t really a recording groupbecause we are at our best on live gigs.’
However, it would seem that the second LP never appeared at the time and then the band imploded after recording a prospective third at Rockfield Studios in 1973.
A glance at Discogs.com and at the reformed (oh yes…) band’s website suggests that there have been no less than four postumous albums of material from their 1967-73 existence.
So… the question is: has ANYONE around here previouwsly heard of these people? And did anyone ever see them back in the day? (Yes, I’m thinking of Johnny Conchmeister here…)
The next question has to be this: Writing On The Wall – time for a reappraisal?
A complete blank for me Colin. I have absolutely no memory of them at all. Terrible name for a band. Maybe that’s contributing to their disappearance from people’s minds.
Well, I can’t speak for JC, even though he and I seem to have been dogging each other’s footsteps at the time, but no, never saw them, never even heard of them.
Never saw them live as.far as I remember but I’m aware of their records. In fact I sold a re-issue of The Power of the Picts just last week.
The originals sell for ridiculous amounts today (2 or 3 hundred quid) and even the re-issues will bring 20 or 30. Musically they were a little like the ISB without the quality songwriting.
But poor sales 40+ years ago equals big bucks today for those original pressings
Maybe heavier and rockier than the ISB now I think about it
I was aware of them, and a friend had the album, which I later found second hand (there’s another band of similar obscurity and crapitude around that time – Second Hand). Pretty horrible heaviosity as I remember it. Never saw them live, I don’t think.
Saw them at,I think, Imperial College (or was it LSE?) 1971-ish supporting , I think, Principal Edwards Magic Theatre. They were pish.
I wonder is it time for a Principal Edwards MT reappraisal? I have their two albums under the full name (I believe there was a later version that was simplified to PE). An acquired taste, certainly…
Good grief let’s hope not, Colin! Let’s stick with our initial assessment that they were rubbish. Rubbish records, and even worse live (I did see this bunch).
Rubbish is what they were. Vivienne McAuliffe, one of their many chanteuses, was one of a loose assembly of stoned hippies pretending to be students, or the other way round, I was part of in Paris, summer ’67. I yearned for her tragically, but no dice sadly. I bought their first LP on the strength of it. Pshaw.
Are there still such things as “students”?
I’d say everyone here is a ‘student of early 70s progressive rock’.
Can we have a sit-in?
I recall reading an article on them in Record Collector once. When exactly, I can’t say, but I bought the magazine roughly between 1988 and 2000.
Whither Heavy Jelly?
Aha! Which one?
Allmusic:
The complexities surrounding this intriguing UK progressive band belie its brief lifespan. The name ‘Heavy Jelly’ first appeared in a fictitious review, run late in 1968 in the London listings magazine, Time Out. Interest was such that two labels, Island Records and Head, released singles bearing the name. Island’s Heavy Jelly was the rock band Skip Bifferty in disguise, although their lone single, ‘I Keep Singing The Same Old Song’, achieved a higher profile when it was placed on a popular budget-priced sampler, Nice Enough To Eat. The Head release, in the spring of 1969, ‘Time Out (The Long Wait)’, featured John Morshead (guitar/vocals), Alex Dmochowski (bass) – both from the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation – drummer Carlo Little and an individual dubbed Rocky. When this single proved popular, the label’s managing director, John Curd, registered the Heavy Jelly, name and Morshead and Dmochowski instigated a full-time line-up. Initial album sessions featured Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi from Traffic, but they were latter replaced by ex-Animals drummer Barry Jenkins and vocalist Jackie Lomax. Further upheavals followed, the projected album was shelved and the final blow came when Lomax accepted a solo recording deal.
The only Heavy Jelly I’m interested in were the IKSTSOSH. Bloody fine waxing.
Yes, there were two different bands trading under the name Heavy Jelly. And that’s the second time Alex Dmochowski has been mentioned on the blog in recent days, the first time in connection with my riveting Zappa anecdote.
Yes, that was me drawing an arc from Grand Wazoo to Peter Green’s End Of The Game.
How about The Way We Live on Peel’s Dandelion label? Another forgotten prog outfit
Not at all JC – The Way We Live and Tractor (same people, I think) were constantly repackaging/unearthing stuff via a label called Ozit in the 90s, with numerous full page Record Collector ads. Mind you, I still haven’t heard a note of their music, nor feel that I should!
I was tempted by WOTW, though – just out of curiosity. Ordered a 2CD version of ‘Power Of The Picts’ from amazon marketplace for under a tenner, including postage. But hats off to those above who knew the name and/or saw them stutting their stuff!
Well someone in Port Talbot must of seen them, or maybe everyone was so freaked out by Bloody Welsh (anybody ???) that their memories have been erased.
http://i363.photobucket.com/albums/oo78/clampdown59/afterwordy/E35C30C6-4D6C-45CE-86E9-CA37E2649456.jpg
From Disc & Music Echo 9/5/70
Know all those except Bloody Welsh. I suspect they may be a local Taffy band getting the gig on vote of parochialism
Skin Alley were surprisingly good live. Ents committees stalwarts.
Gypsy are presumably the UK country rock outfit who recoded two LPs for United Artists in 1969/70 and not the US band of the same name who spawned Bill Lordan, later drummer for Robin Trower and Sly & Family Stone
UK Gypsy were bloody good. Saw them live several times, and their first LP was a blinder.
No Stray?
You couldn’t go out at the weekend without tripping over Stray. They’d come round your house.
I think Del Bromham lived in the University attic for a while, or maybe the basement. Every time I went to the Student Union building there he was, rockin’ out.
Gypsy were from Leicester and I think played at the IoW Dylan festival.
I’ve got their 2nd album “Brenda and the Rattlesnake” from 1972. Guitarist Ray Martinez became a recording engineer at Rockfield and was involved with albums by The Teardrop Explodes, Barry Melton and others. He later sang backing vocals on Robert Plant’s “The Principle of Moments” album, had a song recorded by Cliff Richard and eventually joined Showaddywaddy! An interesting career I suspect.
Gypsy’s drummer David “Moth” Smith joined The Filberts who became Diesel Park West. He plays on their magnificent “Shakespeare Alabama” album.
That’s the stuff, Peanuts!
That flyer which links Gypsy to Quintessence has reminded me of another @colin-h related bit of trivia. When Ray Martinez left Showaddywaddy he was replaced by another Leicester guitarist Danny Willson, brother of Rick Willson from Diesel Park West. A few years later Danny left Showaddywaddy to join Martin Turner’s Wishbone Ash!
That’s really stretching those six-degrees, Peanuts! I’ve honestly never heard of the fellow.
However, it raises the question: ‘Showaddywaddy – time for a reappraisal?’
This 33 CD boxed set for 90 quid should help someone provide an informed answer:
Holy shit, @colin-h, I thought you were joking!
What with Gypsy, Diesel Park West and of course Family, looks like Leicester is a Premier League rock town! (See what I did there?)
Mahadev, eh? Credited on their 1970 album with rhythm guitar. Always wondered about that. See it was a lost world, post ’69, a relic of the beat era. What does it tell us about Quintessence then? That they were a group, not a band? That Allan was a monster alpha asserting his status as the better of the two guitarists? That they had simply forgotten that rhythm guitarists no longer existed, after a heavy day on the Red Leb?
Theses are the things you need to ask him, Colin.
I’m a big fan of Dev’s rhythm playing on the Quin records, Dec – and you’re right about Allan’s alpha male thing, in a way, too. He was brilliant, he knew it, he only played in the solo section rather than throughout the whole song, if he so felt like it.
On the forthcoming Hux 2CD set of unreleased studio gems you will hear brilliant examples of both guitarists locking together in ebb and flow and crescendo, and you’ll alse hear a couple of Hendrix-esque trio (Allan, bass, drums) + vocalist (Phil) runs at songs – an astounding ‘Brahman’ and ‘Twilight Zones’. And… you will Maha Dev playing lead, at last.
Here he is on brilliant form on ‘Giants’, with Allan playing (also brilliantly) on lead. But it needs both of them to make the gold…
I first hear WOTW on a 1980s ‘Rubble’ psych-compilation LP from Bam Caruso Records, in which Brian Hogg ( I think) wrote a long, effusive sleeve note about them being one of the best Scottish bands of the period. I thought their album, when it later reemerged on a bootleg cd, was ok.
this is a VERY afterword conversation
Maybe we should call this a new law a la ‘Godwin’s law’: after 25 postings on any thread about a 4th division British progressive rock band someone will inevitable say “this is a VERY afterword conversation” 🙂
sounds reasonable
‘Junior’s Law’?
Thread of the year so far.
Bloody hell, has the year been that bad, Vulpes?
Incidentally, I was tickled by a particular advert in a mid ’70 MM that I’ve scanned for uploading here, to be accompanied by the question ‘which of these names is the odd one out?’ – but as I can’t post pictures and don’t have time right now to spend ages messing about with it, if someone who CAN do the picture thing wants to PM me with their e address, I’ll send the scan on…
Is the odd one out Jenny Hahn’s Lion, Colin?
No. It’s much worse than that.
Mogul Thrash?
Ooh! DADA!
If someone with uploading savvy emails me, I’ll pass the image on and we can put ourselves out of this almost intolerable misery!
Message sent
*sound of fingers tapping expectantly on desktops across the globe*
I think I know what it is. Is it Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts?
https://flic.kr/p/DKnPFC
You’re clearly not with photobucket, Beanster, ‘cos I can see that.
Is it The Tidybeards?
My friend Flickr. You will be too young to understand that.
Yes, HP is indeed correct – amid all the Toe Fat, Bacon Fat, Mattress Fat, Gravy Trains and greasy, angular prog, blues and soul, a man in a well-pressed Pringle sweater and bouffant do with high-maintenance beard stands out…
Stigwood: ‘People, people, have you seen our roster? We’ve only got these played-out deadbeats like Clapton, McLaughlin, Noddy and ELP on our books! We need some new cred, some new commercial oomph, someone to bring in the money!!!’
Flunkey: ‘Well, there’s Zoot, boss…’
Stigwood: ‘No, you dolt! The man’s a has-been! Is there NO outstanding era-defining sweeps-all-before-them talent around here?’
Flunkey: ‘Well, there’s a guy outstanding in the corridor, boss. Says he fills in for Dave Cash on Radio 2 occasionally, looking for management… Not sure about about his beard, though. Or the Pringle sweater. Or the huge big inflatable pink blobby thing standing behind him…’
Stigwood: ‘Nonsense, my boy! Bring him in!!!’
But, but Colin “our” Noel is a proper pop star. He was a member of Brown Sauce. He must have something in common with George Smith and Bacon Fat surely.
https://youtu.be/VXgsfv2smLc
As you say, Beanmeister. And let’s not forget Alan Pies, John Mayo, Greasiest Shoo Pastry On Earth, Ginger Baker’s Petit Fours, Staple Diet Singers and all the rest…
Writing On The Wall were regulars on Friday nights at Dundee Bell St Tech…….. I was always pished…….. and I liked them……..
To whom, roughly, would you compare them, Moje? Give us a feel for the WOTW live experience…
My memories of those nights are very hazy…… but imagine (if you can) a mix of the Groundhogs, Atomic Rooster, and a bit of Pink Fairies ! I certainly won’t knock them, they sounded just fine after a bottle of Famous Grouse mixed with (seriously) hot chocolate.
You’re saying that Errol Brown-Sauce joined them for jams in Dundee Tech?
The Groundhogs comparison sounds particularly close to my ears (going only from a couple of tracks on youtube), plus an Arthur Brown feel to the singer/his range…
haha…. I knew as soon as I uttered hot choc !
‘I believe in mellotrons / Ooh, you Pictish thing… (you Pictish thi-i-ing)…’