Valvulado: I'm A Freak Baby - A Further Journey Through The British Heavy Psych And Hard Rock Underground Scene

Subtitled “A Further Journey Through The British Heavy Psych And Hard Rock Underground Scene 1968-73”, this is the follow-up to 2016’s well received collection, I’m A Freak Baby, featuring contributions this time round from better known acts like Love Sculpture, the Move and Jeff Beck rubbing shoulders with genuine obscurities from Sardonicus, Lightyears Away and Iron Claw. LTW’s Ian Canty keeps the freak flag flying.

With the positive reception given to the original I’m A Freak Baby boxset a couple of years back (reviewed here), it was inevitable that there would be a second collection, and here it is. Zeroing in on the years bookended by the psychedelia boom and the dawning of glam, to my ears this follow up veers slightly more towards out-and-out proto-metal than the first. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing and the people at Grapefruit have managed to winkle out many previously-forgotten gems of hirsute mayhem from the vaults. For those who may have missed the first box, we’re in the area where psych and hard rock co-existed, sometimes as part of the same song. Progressive was the key word, perhaps not quite as in a prog rock sense though, more developing away from psych roots into something else a little rougher.

Led Zep and Black Sabbath were prime inspirations for a lot of groups on here, but rather than being straight copies of Plant/Page or Ozzy’s gang (leaving aside Thor’s standard but ok take of Paranoid on disc 3) most put their own particular and often peculiar stamp on things. The “Underground” thrived in this era too and the various free festivals, benefit gigs and alternative publications offered a support network for these acts. Many of the participants had been playing in bands since the beat days and the long sets that were required for mod all-nighters sharpened their chops and instilled a soul/R&B itch that would prove hard for them to fully shake off, even when at their very heaviest. As a result, there’s a surprising amount of tracks here that get the feet wanting to move, which may not have been the original intention, but adds to the fun immeasurably.

Setting the general template for what follows on disc 1 are Cardiff’s own power trio, Budgie, who start this compilation in fine style with their track Guts. Anyone still labouring under the impression that they were some sort of middling boogie band will be knocked for six by the brutal, beautiful thuggery of their mighty riffage here. They, among many others here, may have provided the building blocks for heavy metal, but at this stage the genre was not fully formed and still playful, including elements not generally seen in head-banging music a few years later on. Jeff Beck, with Rod Stewart providing vocals, pre-empts Zeppelin with a tough treatment of the Yardbirds’ oldie Shape Of Things, demonstrating the general changeover that was occurring in 60s rock in the later part of the decade towards something much heavier.

Wicked Lady add garage fuzz to Run The Night and Slowload provide a crunching proto-metal background for what is actually a bewitching pop song in Rosie. It works a like a dream. Iron Claw might sound like an archetypal heavy metal name, but actually their Clawstrophobia is more like teak-tough psychedelia and I rather like the punning title into the bargain too. The Move weigh in with a stellar horns-embellished shouter in Turkish Tram Conductor Blues, showing they were a long way ahead of being mere a psych-pop cash-in.

Three CD collection. Although vintage British psychedelia is viewed by many these days as an Alice In Wonderland-style enchanted garden full of beatific flower children innocently gathering flowers or chasing butterflies, there was always a more visceral element to the scene. Pointedly free of such fripperies as scarlet tunic-wearing gnomes, phenomenal cats and talismanic bicycles, the power trio format that was popularized by the likes of Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience spawned a host of imitators. As the 60s drew to a close and pop evolved slowly but inexorably into rock, psychedelia gave way to a sound that was harder, leaner, heavier, louder. Across three discs and four hours of music, I'm A Freak, Baby: A Journey Through The British Heavy Psych And Hard Rock Underground Scene 1968-72 investigates that largely under-documented period, incorporating everything from some of the biggest names in the burgeoning hard rock/proto-metal firmament (Deep Purple, Uriah Heep) all the way down to a significant number of provincial semi-pro bands who gigged extensively but were unable to land a recording contract during their lifetime. We feature some of British rock's pioneering acts (The Yardbirds, The Move), a handful of bands who travelled far beyond their blues boom roots (Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack, The Groundhogs), the infamous Ladbroke Grove scene (The Deviants, The Pink Fairies, Hawkwind, The Edgar Broughton Band), a smattering of inspired, where-the-hell-did-that-come-from one-shots like The Velvet Frogs and the mighty Egor, and a clutch of previously-unreleased recordings (The Kult, Hellmet, The Phoenix) that have even eluded the specialist reissue companies and bootleggers. Housed in a clambox featuring a lavishly illustrated and annotated 36-page booklet, I'm A Freak, Baby is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging anthology to appear thus far of an underground scene that, in addition to being responsible for some magnificent music, also acted as a signpost to the subsequent emergence of British punk and heavy metal.

I'm A Freak Baby (2016)