The Action/Mighty Baby

[Count Machuki]

if they'd sorted themselves out properly then a place at the top UK table would be guaranteed - Beatles, Who, Action/Mighty Baby.

AND OF COURSE THE PHARAOH'S CROWN JEWEL





aNY TAKERS? wHERE DID THEY GO WRONG? cOULD gEORGE mARTIN HAVE HELPED?
wHAT ABOUT THE brown sound?!?!

THAT MESS HIT THEM BUT hard

[pcqgod]

It's been too long since I've given 'Rolled Gold' a listen.

[Moleskin]

Don't forget The Habibiyya, If Man But Knew, their 1972 world music album. It's robust.

[Moleskin]

What about the Creation?

[Count Machuki]

Don't forget The Habibiyya, If Man But Knew, their 1972 world music album. It's robust.

What wait who?

[Moleskin]

They were kind of scene-chasers, weren't they? Mod band playing hyped up soul covers -> freakbeat/psychedelic outfit when the singer went solo -> the British Grateful Dead -> Sufi mystics; and only the third of those had any kind of traction. They were kind of a band-for-hire about that time as well, playing on a variety of other artists albums. They are on Robin Scott's solo record Woman From The Warm Grass and made a record with Shelagh McDonald too.

[Moleskin]

Don't forget The Habibiyya, If Man But Knew, their 1972 world music album. It's robust.

What wait who?

I have this on Sunbeam records, a UK outfit who specialise in reissuing early 70s stuff. This one came out in 2007.

Briefly, after Mighty Baby 'hit the buffers' in 71, Ian Whiteman, Roger Powell and Martin Stone got into sufism, visiting Morocco and Fez. Michael Evans (also of MB) joined the few sessions that created this devotional record alongside Conrad and Susan Archaletta. It feature guitar, organ, drums along with shakuhachi and mandola, vocals by Conrad and Susan, with lyrics drawn from the writings of Ibn al-Habib.

Here's a taste


Drop me a pm if you'd like to hear more.

[bobzilla77]

I really dig Rolled Gold, though in a way it seems like a missed opportunity.

Some of those tracks seem to have been taught to the drummer minutes before rolling tape, as if they were trying to get some kind of record of the song laid to tape without worrying about whether it was right or not. So it's an imperfect document of a really promising band. I throw at least a song or two on most of my psych-flavored mix tapes.

Haven't heard Mighty Baby or tha Habbiyah but will investigate further.

[clive gash]

They were kind of scene-chasers, weren't they? Mod band playing hyped up soul covers -> freakbeat/psychedelic outfit when the singer went solo -> the British Grateful Dead -> Sufi mystics

There's some truth in that but the quality of their work compensates for "who was first" (not that there's any kudos is being a pioneer, do something interesting with what others have uncovered I say).

They were simply better than what else was around. There is no UK equal for those Rolled Gold demos, the songs are there but the performances, although fucking great, could've used a studio-honing. None of the other Ladbroke Dwellers made a record as good as the first Mighty Baby. The second one is so-so but the live performances/jams that are out there show what might have been.

[clive gash]

Wow.

Sidewalk Society
Strange Roads
(Fruits de Mer – LP)
It would seem that Fruits de Mer have declared open season on classic albums of an age gone by, at least if recent releases are anything to go by. First there was Kris Gietkowski’s recreation of debuts by Egg, Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster; now comes Sidewalk Society’s re-envisioning of Rolled Gold, the deeply posthumous collection of Action demos and doodahs that appeared back in the mid-1990s, and caught that band at the end of its days.

The Action are no strangers to the Society, of course; they revisited them last year as well, for a couple of tracks on an EP. But some background will not go amiss – the Action were a London R&B band, big with the Mods on the mid-sixties club scene, and big enough with George Martin for him to sign them to Parlophone and produce them too. But five singles between 1965-67 did little, and by the time the Action came to record the demos that made up Rolled Gold, they were faltering. Vocalist Reg King left during the sessions; the tapes were shelved, the band broke up, already forgotten.

But the subsequent rediscovery of both has embedded the band firmly in the firmament of Invasion-era Brit-rockers, and if they never got around to completing what could have been their answer to any of the era’s bigger hitters, then Sidewalk Society have done it for them. With room to spare, as well.

All fourteen of the “album”’s tracks are included, melded to the Action’s own prototypes but in such a way that it’s unquestionably the Society’s own album too. Ideas and possibilities that the demos toyed with are brought to brilliant fruition, and while the band would deny that they ever wanted to “complete” the ghost of Rolled Gold, it’s not hard to reach that conclusion.

The original album is valued for the strength of the songs, and the sense of what might have been. Strange Roads amplifies the first point, and gives a good idea of the second, to emerge a collection that feels as much a part of 1967 (the Who meet the Move on the Small Faces’ allotment) as its parent LP would have.

In a perfect world, Rolled Gold would be up there alongside Smile, the second Barrett-led Floyd LP and a sensible follow-up to Revolver among its era’s most legendary unreleased albums. In this world, Strange Roads eclipses them all.

[Quaco]

I haven't given it a serious listen, but Sidewalk Society are a fine L.A. group in their own right, one of the only ones I consistently will go out to see. It's a shame they have been holed up remaking/expanding this Action album for two years!

[Count Machuki]

In a perfect world, Rolled Gold would be up there alongside Smile, the second Barrett-led Floyd LP and a sensible follow-up to Revolver among its era’s most legendary unreleased albums. In this world, Strange Roads eclipses them all.

[echolalia]

This thread interested me and I got A Jug of Love. It’s really surprised me – it’s almost country rock and I’d expected a whole other aural texture– instruments you play when you’re stitting cross-legged on a Persian rug, I dunno. It’s very good though. Messages (bonus track) is my favourite just now.