Julian's Treatment: 'a mental stimulative'

Here's the only article I recall having seen about this obscure London-based band, whose sole (double) album, A Time Before This, appeared on the Youngblood label in June 1970. It's a pretty good (if repetitive) set of doomy, Hammond-heavy jams that the sleeve describes as 'a fantasy story set in part of our galaxy'. The quintet's Dominican-born leader, Julian Jay Savarin, was also a science fiction novelist, while Australian vocalist Cathy Pruden had one of the most powerful voices of the era. Beware the US issue, incidentally - it has a better cover design, but truncates the songs to squeeze them onto a single disc. In March 1973 Savarin put out a second album, Waiters On The Dance, under his own name on the Birth label.

Melody Maker, April 17th 1970

For good measure, here's an ad touting their services, from much the same time:

Jerusalem: ‘aggressive music with a lot of rhythm’

Over the years several people have warned me off the sole album by British hard rockers Jerusalem, saying it was amateurish, derivative and trashy – but as I tend to think those things can be virtues in this genre, I recently picked up a copy. Reader, I like it a lot. Yes, it’s crude, dumb and heavy, and shamelessly cops licks from Hendrix and others - but its relentless riffing, tasteless guitar leads, caveman drums and over-the-top vocals / lyrics combine well with its garagey production sound, making it a definite keeper for me. 

Jerusalem were discovered in their hometown of Salisbury by Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan, who signed them to his so-macho Pussy Enterprises company. Shortly after the nascent band had supported Led Zeppelin in Salisbury's City Hall (in December 1971), Gillan produced their LP in four days flat in De Lane Lea in Holborn, central London. It was released in a gatefold sleeve (with front cover artwork by lead guitarist Bob Cooke) on March 24th 1972:

This is what Gillan had to say about them on the back cover (note that he acknowledges that they are 'raw', 'crude' and 'in their formative stages'):

Here's a test pressing label:

And here are the finished articles:

In January 1972, after the album had been recorded, the quintet posed for some promo photos in the grounds of Hurdcott House, a pile outside Salisbury (the shot on the back cover was taken in the orangery there). Here are some more pictures taken that day:

The disc appeared in the UK and Germany, but no one took much notice. I have only encountered one review, which appeared in Gramophone in May, commenting that 'Jerusalem are young and very heavy, and their album should suit anyone who wants to give a sympathetic ear to the underprivileged side of the latest musical generation gap, between today's riff-sodden teenagers and their sedate, Dylan-loving elders. I find this band distinctly better than Black Sabbath, but who am I to judge?’ Sales were minuscule, despite the appearance of a couple of press ads in early April:

Nonetheless, Deram persevered long enough for them to issue a 45 a month later, coupling the excellent non-LP Kamakazi Moth with the lead-off number from the album, Frustration. The new song has a slicker, more polished and tight sound than the album, and suggests they could have gone on to great things had they had the chance. Here's the press release for the single:

And here's an ad for the 45:

 Here are demo and stock labels for the A-side, and an acetate of the B-side:

The single also appeared in a picture sleeve in Germany (reproducing the LP artwork), and - somewhat bizarrely - had an Italian release too, in this rare sleeve:

In June Beat Instrumental ran a piece offering the quintet's history:

By the summer of 1972, however, the dream was over. The band mutated into hard-rockers Pussy, but sadly rhythm guitarist Bill Hines died in a car accident soon afterwards. The other members are (I believe) still with us. The Jerusalem album is no masterpiece, but still a lot better than most early 70s hard rock obscurities, and I recommend it to fans of Black Sabbath, The Pink Fairies and so on.

Sweet Slag: guerilla jazz rock

I've never seen anything on the web about this bizarre band, so thought I'd post what little I've gleaned about them here. Consisting of of Mick Kerensky (aka Mick Wright, guitar, violin), Paul Jolly (sax), Jack O'Neill (bass) and the late Al Chambers (drums), they formed in Luton in 1969. Their disquieting music set despondent lyrics ("every day is a drag" claims the frantic opener to their sole LP) to heavy, jazzy rock that Kerensky describes on the back cover as 'stock rock', owing to his admiration for Stockhausen. Their weird name, incidentally, was drawn from a term for a carbonate of magnesia that occurs in China. They were decent players, but their music contains lots of dissonance and bum notes, as well as aggressively tuneless singing. They clearly didn't much care about record sales, which is just as well.

The first reference I've found to them comes in the August 1969 issue of ZigZag (number four), which announces that the quartet are on the bill for a 'bread-raising dance' on the magazine's behalf:

A whole year passes before the next press reference that I've encountered - Tracking With Close-Ups was trailed for release on the ever-unpredictable President label in September 1970 (see small ad at the top of this post), but eventually appeared in January 1971, in an ugly sleeve that showed garbage piled high in a tenement's back alley. Here's the press release that accompanied it (which contains the surprising revelation that Kerensky had been a member of Joe Cocker's Grease Band):

Both the small ad and the press release mention a projected single, but that never happened. In my research for Galactic Ramble, I encountered only two reviews of Tracking With Close-Ups. On February 13th Melody Maker described it as ‘Harshly contemporary, jagged, raw and essentially joyless. The playing is solid and straight-ahead, there’s a lot of convoluted improvisation, and they’re obviously a worthy band who deserve to be taken seriously.’ A week later, Disc & Music Echo wrote that ‘This album is notable for an awe-inspiring sleevenote, but the music doesn’t stand the build-up – lyrics lost in the noise, and a general confusion of sound that means you have to take the group’s talent on trust. They’re heavy, of course.’

Sales were minuscule, but they kept gigging. Here are some dates they played:

This small ad appeared in Melody Maker of December 19th 1970:

and soon afterwards Music Now ran this review of a bizarre-sounding charity show they played with fellow underground rockers Ghost, supporting hitmakers The Equals:

Music Now, January 30th 1971

By October they'd become a quintet (with the replacement of O'Neill with John Catlin, and the arrival of Keith Arnold on second guitar), and - perhaps deciding Sweet Slag was too commercial a name - had become plain Slag:

Sadly, global superstardom continued to elude them, and they apparently split soon afterwards.I don't exactly like their album, but it's pretty weird and challenging. As the great Aaron Milenski puts it in Galactic Ramble: 'It's unlike anything else you have ever heard, and recommended to everyone out there who thinks the world is nothing but a piece of shit.'

Spirogyra: fairly loud without being ear-splitting

Spirogyra tend to be termed 'acid folk', but a better description of them would be an idiosyncratic acoustic rock group. Initially a quartet led by Martin Cockerham (an intermittently great songwriter but a lousy singer), assisted by Barbara Gaskin (not a songwriter at all, but a terrific singer), they formed at the University Of Kent in Canterbury at the tail-end of 1969, and lasted until the middle of 1974, by which time they'd issued three albums and two singles.


The first reference to them I've seen was in Melody Maker of February 20th 1971, explaining that they had been allowed a year off from their studies in order to focus on their musical ambitions:

Here's a flier for an early performance:

Their debut, St. Radigunds, was issued in September 1971 (as B&C CAS 1042, with a lyric inner). My copy came with a photo (at the top of this page) and promo leaflet:

The album got pretty solid reviews. ‘The words of Martin Cockerham’s songs (and one from Julian Cusack) show that within the confusion of the younger generation there can be a lot of insight into the real world', commented the NME. 'There are allegorical lines that, even without scholarly analysis, grip you with an instinctive meaning. As for the music, it slips into an occasional cliché, but on the whole it implies by the form chosen (aggressive treatments against insistent beats, with a lot of deliberate dissonance) the same rejection of trendy ideas’. Record Mirror suggested that ‘There’s a bit of Pentangle here, a bit of Curved Air, a little of the Incredibles and a few shaky harmonies among this avant-garde, medieval-ish approach to electric folk. The occasional quiet guitar melody is nice, but it’s yet immature vocally and will improve with time’, while Beat Instrumental felt ‘It is Julian Cusack’s violin that gives Spirogyra its distinctive sound. At times the effect goes into an almost electronic scream… Their sound is possibly an acquired taste, but could catch on in the way that Curved Air’s has’. Melody Maker were in favour too, stating that ‘The musical approach Spirogyra make is imaginative enough to leave a lasting impression… Barbara Gaskin’s silken vocals are not enough to hide the roughness contained in Martin Cockerham’s lyrics, though.’

The following interview with Cockerham and Gaskin appeared in Disc & Music Echo on September 18th:

The band had soon embarked on a nationwide college tour to support the LP; here's an advert for it:

And here are a couple of pieces from the music weeklies:

Record Mirror, October 16th 1971

Melody Maker, October 16th 1971

The article below appeared in Beat Instrumental of November 1971:

Following the album's release, violinist Cusack departed to focus on his studies, and was replaced by guitarist / keyboardist Mark Francis (Cockerham's original partner under the Spirogyra name). Their second album, Old Boot Wine, appeared on Pegasus in June 1972, and contains some lovely ballads as well as the acoustic rock classic Dangerous Dave. Following its release the band condensed to the duo of Cockerham and Gaskin. Having relocated to a damp flat in Battersea, they concocted the third and final Spirogyra release, Bells, Boots & Shambles, released in March 1973 and now regarded as something of a classic.

I spoke to Martin Cockerham a few years back - here's what he told me:

How did the band get its name?

Mark Francis and I originally intended to call ourselves Amoeba, but then I thought that as that was a single-celled organism we should be Spirogyra, because that’s when two  join together.

How did you meet the other members?

We were all musicians in the same place, basically. Julian was a brilliant violinist and mathematician, very gifted. I had no musical training so he worked out all the strange chords I was writing. Barbara and Steve were also students and we all started living together in St. Radigund’s Street, next to Canterbury Cathedral. It was a fantastic environment and other musicians would sometimes drop in – Soft Machine, Caravan, Ian Dury, Steve Hillage and others.

How did you get signed?

Max Hole, the Student Union entertainment secretary, offered to manage us and got us a deal on B&C through Sandy Roberton. We were doing a BBC session before the first album, and met Robert Kirby there. We all liked his work arranging Nick Drake and others, and asked him to produce St. Radigund’s. It was perhaps a mistake as he didn’t know us well enough or have a clear enough idea of what he wanted from us. Max produced the next two with help from the rest of us.

What do you remember of making the albums?

The songs had a habit of evolving in the studio. For example, Dangerous Dave on Old Boot Wine was folky when I wrote it, but as soon as Dave Mattacks started playing around with it the rhythm totally changed and it became this driving rock song. Our rhythm tracks were always recorded pretty much live in the studio. Only the strings and vocals were added later. On Bells, Boots & Shambles I knew exactly what I wanted, and there was a great atmosphere.

What was the background to it?

Julian and Steve left after Old Boot Wine as things were moving too slowly. I moved to Battersea, though Barbara kept a room in the house in Canterbury. We’d got together romantically by then, and the album was made in that situation. By the time we made it I’d learnt a lot and was more in control of the band. The others came back to play on the record, but only as guests. I loved the arrangements and think it’s the best album we made. I’ve even read people saying it’s the best album ever recorded!

How were you received at the time?

The albums barely sold – we were a tax-loss, so the record company felt no incentive to push us. As a result there was no promotion at all. We were never played on the radio, even by John Peel, so had to tour endlessly. That did mean we were on the same bill as huge names like Traffic, The Who, Rod Stewart & The Faces etc, but it was the best we could do, which was frustrating at times. All the albums have sold better on CD in recent years than they ever did then.

What have you done since?

After Spirogyra I travelled around Ireland by horse and cart, then went on to India, Thailand, Bali and Hawaii, spending a long time living in each place. Now I’m back in England, writing, recording and gigging again.