Kaleidoscope's fine second album, A Beacon From Mars, was released in November 1967. On its back cover, in tiny print, appear the following words:
Quite what this means has puzzled psychedelic scholars for decades. As far back as 1976, David Lindley was asked to explain by ZigZag magazine, and came up with the following: "Oh, we were all very concerned because we weren’t given enough money or time to produce the album we wanted to make – and we wanted to make it evident that relationships with the record company weren’t as wonderful as they might have been. I guess it was basically that we were being pushed to become more commercial, whereas we wanted to go our own way." But what did people who actually wrote off to the address get in return? Well, I am now pleased to publish, for the first time since its very limited circulation way back at the time of the LP's release, the following:
So... no LSD, no groupies, no payola, no scandal of any sort - just five frustrated musicians belly-aching about the amount of studio time they were allowed. Tchoh!
This group moaned on like no other, before or since.
ReplyDelete'My favourite group', so said Jimmy Page, and then saw how you could record Smokestack Lightning or Killing Floor and not credit the original writers.
Lesson learned.
The group always maintained that they were the originators of everything, but teaching Led Zeppelin to rip people off is about the only thing they contributed.