"Did you ever dream about a place you never really recall being to before? A place that maybe only exists in your imagination? Some place far away, half remembered when you wake up. When you were there, though, you knew the language. You knew your way around. That was the sixties....
No. It wasn't that either. It was just '66 and early '67. That's all there was....."
Showing posts with label The Soft Machine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Soft Machine. Show all posts
Co-managers of Speakeasy Roy Flynn and Mike Carey with female friends, 1967
Recently, I found this NME article from May 1967 about Swinging London club Speakeasy. It was a regular hangout for the musicians of the era. The club, located at 48 Margaret Street, opened in the late 1966, and soon became what Tony Bacon describes in his book London Live as Handy new watering hole, a prime early hours jamming post, and altogether useful hanging-out kind of place (p 101). The decor of the club was inspired by prohibition-era American speakeasies - it even had a fake 'front' - an undertaker's parlour. Another prominent feature of the venue was a portrait of Al Capone painted by Barry Fantoni.
NME article by Norrie Drummond (click to enlarge)
Managers Roy Flynn said in the NME interview:We want The Speakeasy to be a club which people really like to go to rather than the one which people go to, because it's the done thing. Soon, however Speakeasy would become absolutely out of bounds for ordinary people. As Tony Bacon writes: It became legendary as the club to which entrance was easy only for those with at least one hit record that week. 'Hard to get into? No , nearly impossible if you're not a member' wrote Penny Valentine in Disc, "and even harder because it's so full. Therefore try to latch on to a happy-hippie scene goer who belongs" (p 103).
Apart from being a rock stars' hangout, The Speakeasy was also, an uber-exclusive gig venue. In the article, The Soft Machine are described as 'resident group' and are pictured jamming with Jimi Hendrix. A stream of good bands performed at the Speak - wrote Tony Bacon - Hendrix's Experience was among the first in January 1967. Marianne Faithfull said that when she went there to see the great guitarist with Mick Jagger, Mr. Jimi tried to seduce her, whispering: 'What are you doing with this jerk, anyway?'. Cream appeared in August, just before jetting off for their first US tour with compere Frank Zappa introducing them as 'dandy little combo' (...)
Interior of the Speakeasy
The Speakeasy was also the key place to go if you fancied a jam.'There was a lot of blowing at the Speak', Charlie Whitney of Family agrees.'People like Ritchie Blackmore would just get up. Hendrix was always blowing there. Couldn't get him off! He didn't care what he played, either: guitar, bass, anything he'd be there. And with anybody. It was definitely the after-hours musician's place. Chris Welch from Melody Maker had another theory for the Speakeasy's popularity.'(It was) because of the tireless patience of the head waiter and the staff, who didn't seem to mind too much when Mr. Moon appeared naked letting off fire extinguishers, or Ginger Baker hurled the odd dinner at some rival who displeased him'. For some, however, it was all a bit too much. Soft Machine's Robert Wyatt, for example:'Rock groups meeting in expensive clubs that are difficult to get into? What's all that crap? (p 104).
Hendrix and entourage at the Speakeasy, 1967
Speakeasy aside, on the same page of NME as the Speakeasy article, there are two ads - one for cool clothing outlet Harry Fenton, and one for Lambretta.
Although it's hard to find any information about Harry Fenton, the ad is certainly impressive - it pictures a hip young man in double-breasted jacket - a dedicated follower of fashion, whom you'd expect to see on the streets of London in 1967.
The Lambretta ad looks, by comparison, pretty dated. Yes, the font at the top hints at 'flower-power', but the drawing of a mod and his female companions belongs more to 1965 rather than 1967 (apparently, in 1967 scooter sales in Britain had fallen dramatically, forcing Vespa and Lambretta to do aggressive ad campaigns. Vespa even tried to launch a trend for 'flower-power scooters' with psychedelic patters. Luckily, it didn't catch on).
Sources: NME magazine, issue from (week ending) 20 May, 1967 Tony Bacon, London Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999
I finally got round to reading Groupie by Jenny Fabian and Johnny Byrne. This book, first published in 1969 quickly achieved cult status for more than one reason. Not only it was the first detailed insight into the groupie phenomenon and the world of sex, drugs and Rock n' Roll, but it was also the first time the quintessential sixties slang was used in English literature. As Jonathon Green wrote in the preface to the 1997 edition: "Groupie" gets 22 citations in the Oxford English Dictionary from "downer" to "trippy" and "spliff" to "uptight", a mini-lexicon of Sixties-speak (p. iv).
The book itself is a fictionalised account of London's sixties underground music scene by real-life groupie Jenny Fabian. I say 'fictionalised', but there's very little actual fiction in the novel - the names of bands, members, places,etc. are probably the only departure from reality. And everybody knew who the musicians in the novel were, anyway...Here's a list of the names in the book and their real life equivalents...
Satin Odyssey = Pink Floyd (Ben = Syd Barrett)
Big Sound Bank = Zoot Money's Big Roll Band
The Transfer Project = Dantalian's Chariot (Davey = Andy Summers)
The Savage = Eric Burdon & The Animals
The Dream Battery = The Soft Machine
Jubal Early Blowback = Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation
Relation = Family (Joe = Ric Grech, Grant = Family's manager Tony Gourvish)
The Elevation = The Nice (Andy = David O'List)
The Shadow Cabinet = The Spooky Tooth
The New York Sound And Touch = The Fugs
The Jacklin H. Event = The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Sam = Mitch Mitchell)
Unlike Pamela Des Barres's I'm With The Band, which was written from a perspective of a few decades, Groupie was written and published within few months in 1969. It can be seen as an advantage - all the events were still fresh in author's memory. But it can also be a disadvantage. The book is almost like a diary - there is not much of a story developing here, and the plot does not progress towards any sort of conclusion. It is strictly an account of what Katie (Jenny Fabian, obviously) does, without much of an introduction or ending. The book does not end - it cuts off, more like. Still, it provides a great insight into psychedelic underground of Swinging London. Most of the events in the book take place in 1968. It starts off with a graphic description of Katie's one night-stand with Ben of Satin Odyssey - Syd Barrett, literally days before his departure from Pink Floyd, who was already in a very bad mental state. Throughout the book, Katie has many one night-stands with various musicians, but she also has three 'regular' boyfriends - first it's Davey (Andy Summers), and then, when she moves in with Relation (Family) she has a love triangle with Joe (Ric Gretch) and Grant (family's manager Tony Gourvish). Some of the musicians are portrayed by Fabian in a quite a positive light, others less so. She was clearly infatuated with Andy Summers (Davey in the novel) - and she describes their affair as happy and harmonious.
Andy Summers circa 1968
1968 was a busy year for Andy Summers. He played guitar for Zoot Money's Big Roll Band and their psychedelic side project, Dantalian's Chariot, with whom he scored a small underground hit, 'Madman Running Through The Fields'.
Dantalian's Chariot, 1968
Around the summer 1968, Andy Summers joined The Soft Machine as a touring guitarist, and went with them to America, which put an end to his relationship with Jenny Fabian (although he was writing her passionate love letters). After the tour ended, he stayed in America,where he briefly joined late incarnation of The Animals. He reappears at the end of the book - him (Davey) and Jenny (Katie) decide to stay friends and he contemplates quitting music and going to acting school (which didn't happen - he stuck to music, eventually achieving stardom in the late 1970's as the guitarist of The Police).
After Davey's departure to America, Katie starts a relationship with Joe from Relation (Family's Ric Gretch). Now, if there's a villain in the book, it's Joe. Fabian portrays him as misogynistic, manipulative and generally rather nasty (and at the same time weak-willed and rather insecure).
Jenny Fabian (left) and Ric Gretch (centre), circa 1968
She dumps him for Relation's manager, Grant - probably the most complex of all the characters. Very masculine, dominating and also quite misogynistic, yet at the same time with a surprising soft side. Him and Katie have a pretty complicated relationship (which doesn't stop Katie from her pastime as a groupie).
Although she gets mistreated by a lot of men, surprisingly, you never hear Katie moaning about how rubbish men are - in fact, she enjoys mind games, which clearly shows in her relationship with Grant. Still, a lot of things written in the book indicated that sexual liberation and free love did not work as well as young people wished.
Katie is also quick to mention that she is not just a groupie - throughout all the time she works - first as a journalist, and then as booking agent/door girl for the hip club The Other Kingdom - Middle Earth, in real life.
Logo and poster for a gig at Middle Earth, 1968
Middle Earth was a club in Covent Garden, famous for the psychedelic light projections. Anybody who was anybody played/was seen there between 1967 and 1968. In Groupie, Jenny Fabian provided some interesting insight into how the club operated.
In 1968, Middle Earth moved from Covent Garden to a bigger venue - Roundhouse in Camden. There, it hosted even more high profile gigs - here's a poster for Doors/Jefferson Airplane concert, which Jenny Fabian mentions in the book - exceptionally using real band names.
Poster by Alan Aldridge for Led Zeppelin's gig at Middle Earth
Poster by Michael English for an event at Middle Earth, 1968
Jenny Fabian was also involved in organising the ill-fated International Pop Festival in Rome, about which she talks extensively in Groupie.
Poster for International Pop Festival in Rome by Michael English, 1968.
Jenny Fabian in 1968
All in all, Groupie makes an enjoyable reading, especially to those who are into 1960's. It gives a fascinating insight into the scene, the music and the language of 1960's Swinging London. What struck me most about it was how clear the divisions between 'us' and 'them' were. You could tell (as Katie in the book often does) almost instantly by somebody's clothes, language which category a newly met person was falling into. It was a kind of generational unity which does not seem to exist today. What a shame...
Dutch edition of Groupie, that's what I call a cool cover..
Some time ago I bought this book (from 1979) about the art of Michael English, titled 3D Eye. It is the collection of posters, prints and paintings of Michael English from the period 1966-1979. Large part of the book is devoted to the years 1966-1968, when English was a part of a design collective Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, which specialised in making psychedelic posters for London's counter-cultural underground.
Michael English was born in Bicester, Oxfordshire in 1940. After quitting his first job at the BBC animation studios (reason: boredom), he enrolled at the Ealing College of Art. After completing his course in 1962, he went on to work in an advertising agency. Then, in 1965, he met Tom Salter, owner of Gear boutique. English started designing various items for Gear: screen-printed carrier bags with slogans like 'Sex' or 'Kiss Me', sunglasses covered with Union Jacks (possibly the first appropriation of it as a Pop Art aesthetic) and T-shirts with a slogan 'Jesus Saves' printed in 3-D. His work got him a lot of attention, especially from various figures from bourgeoing psychedelic underground scene, like John 'Hoppy' Hopkins, who would soon comission English to design the poster for 'Love Fesival'.
Around that time, Michael English painted facades for 'hip' new boutiques - Granny Takes A Trip (below, left) and first Hung On You on Cale Street.
One of the owners of Granny's - Nigel Waymouth (also a graphic designer) became good friends with English, and soon the two started design group Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, who would go on to design some of the most memorable posters of British psychedelic movement.
This is how English remembers his time as he member of Hapshash: Before the posters I was involved in my own kind of Pop Art. Done on my own, the first two paintings were mainly a development of that, but 'Love Festival' was greatly influenced by the work of two artists: Man Ray's painting of lips in the sky - I forget the title - and the lips of women in the work of American Pop artist Tom Wesselman (...).At the same time I was fascinated by the sinuous yet romantic shapes found in Mucha's posters and the work of Beardsley and Rackham. Meeting Nigel brought this to life; I responded to his romanticism. All the Underground posters are packed with secret signs, prehistoric forms and flying saucers.We believed and adopted anything that contradicted the rational world: our science was rooted in alchemy and black magic. Sexuality too was a strong force and there is a lot of happening in the posters. Dragons and pubic hair! (Michael English, 3D Eye, Paper Tiger, Limpsfield, 1979 , p 12).
Poster for 'My White Bicycle' - single by Tomorrow, 1967
Poster for The Jimi Hendrix Experience gig at Fllmore Auditorum, 1967
Love Me - poster by Hapshash and Coloured Coat, 1967
Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, The Soft Machine and Liverpool Love Festival at UFO, 1967
Pink Floyd at UFO, 1967
Julie Felix in Royal Albert Hall, 1967
Poster for Crazy World Of Arthur Brown gig, 1967
Save Earth Now - poster by Hapshash and The Coloured Coat, 1967
Poster advertising 'I Can See For Miles' by The Who
Michael English: Nigel Waymouth worked with me on each poster. Nigel would do a bit and i would add to his work and he to mine until the poster was complete. The posters were silk-screened. the artwork for each colour was transferred to its own individual screen and the elements of the image were married together in the actual process of printing. We developed our own technique of putting two or three colours onto the screen, merging them together as the squeegee was pulled across. that was our most successful innovation. We used metallic and fluorescent inks - day glo! (English, p 12).
Poster for Incredible String Band tour, 1967
Poster for 5th Dimension club in Leicester, 1967
Poster for Middle Earth club in Covent Garden, 1967
Poster for International Pop Fesival in Rome, 1968
Artwork for Albion magazine, 1968
Poster for Granny Takes A Trip boutique, 1967
Welcome Cosmic Visions, poster by Hapshash and the Coloured Coat from 1968
Posters designed by English and Weymouth for OZ magazine, 1968
Michael English: After Hapshash and the Coloured Coat produced a record (featuring The Heavy Metal Kids) on not a black but a red semi-transparent disc, Nigel remained infatuated with music at the expense of graphics, and the Hapshash partnership died (English, p 12).
Hapshash and The Coloured Coat featuring The Human Lost and The Heavy Metal Kids. Album cover, 1968
Michael English photographed by David Bailey in 1978.
All the images and quotations taken from "3D Eye" by Michael English (1979)
(I love finding people's names in second hand books. There's something thrilling in the fact that somebody was flicking through the same pages years before I was even born...)
Perhaps it's because of Easter - a family holiday - but I feel it
may be the right time to do a post devoted to a country in which I was born - Poland.
Or maybe I'm getting temporarily bored with the stuff I usually write about.
Either way, I think a little change may be refreshing.
Music, fashion and
culture of Swinging Sixties Britain has been my biggest passion since my
mid-teens.But I often wondered what did that decade look like in Poland.
My parents couldn't be of much help there - in 1970 they were both still in
their early teens, too young to remember anything significant (and by that I
mean what they were wearing or what music were they into). What they do
remember, is that the reality generally was rather dull and gray.
Anyway, in the last year or so, thanks to the miracle of
Internet, I have discovered - much to my surprise - that Poland
actually had a pretty vibrant Rock n' roll/Beat/Garage/Psych scene, especially
from 1965 onwards (not that I've ever heard of any of those bands when I actually lived in Poland). In the recent issue of Shindig! magazine, there was a great article on the subject, although I did not entirely agree with the choice of bands covered. So here I gonna do it my own way. Of course, I have advantage in the fact that I can actuallyl understand Polish language (I am not so confident about speaking, though. I haven't had conversation in Polish for several years) which allows me the full appreciation of this stuff. But, to those who are regular readers of this blog, I can guarantee that once you get past unpronounceable band names and strangely sounding lyrics, there is a great music there to be enjoyed. So let me take a break from my usual ramblings about Swinging Sixties London, to see what the sixties were like on the wrong side of the iron curtain.
For the young music fans in 1960's Poland, the biggest problem was a limited availability of Western records. Although The Beatles, Stones, etc. were as popular in Poland as anywhere else in Europe, their records were not being sold in record shops. The singles were largely available on so-called 'music-postards' (a sort of floppy rectangular picture disc), but it took a lot of effort to find albums. Usually black market was your best bet. It also helped if you, or somebody you knew had family or friends abroad.
Live performances of Western artists were also limited. I am not sure whether it was a case of needing a permission from authorities, or a case of bands not being that bothered about playing Poland, or a little bit of both. The fact is, some of the big English bands of the 1960's did make it to Poland - In 1965 and 1966 The Hollies, The Animals and even London Mod/Psych heroes The Artwoods all successfully toured there.
Article (NME? Melody Maker?) about The Artwoods' communication problems in Poland, 1966 (via Punks In Parkas)
Then, in 1967, a miracle happened. On 13th of April The Rolling Stones came to play one-off gig in Warsaw. It was their only ever gig behind iron curtain (although they did returned to Poland twice after the curtain fell down). In Poland, this gig has a legend of its own. Anybody who lived in Warsaw at the time and was age between 12 - 30, claims to have been at that gig. Unfortunately, the capacity of the venue was only about 3000, so a lot of people did not manage to get a ticket. They showed up on the night anyway, just to be in the proximity of their idols, and caused a riot outside Warsaw's Kongresowa Hall.
A brief footage of that gig from Polish news report. The newsreader says something like: Thousands of fans gathered outside Kongresowa Hall to see band The Rolling Stones. There wasn't enough tickets for everybody. Those lucky enough to get a ticket couldn't hear anything anyway. But it doesn't matter, because this a kind of gig you experience, rather than listen to.
To a Polish audience The Stones - at the time in the middle of their psychedelic phase - seemed exotic, to say the least. The Stones themselves also experienced a little bit of cultural shock. This is how Bill Wyman remembers that gig: Warsaw was depressingly gray and dismal. On our drive to the best hotel in town, we noticed that the streets seemed strangely quiet with very little traffic and pedestrians.After checking in, I found my room to be triangular with a huge circular concrete pillar in the centre of the room.(...) Everybody was in and out of each other's rooms to see who had the best one - none of them were very good.(...) There were large crowds of kids in front of our hotel as we left, held back by the police. They were chanting: Long Live The Stones! (...) Once inside (the concert venue), we found that the tickets for our show had not been put on sale. They were given to loyal party members. This meant all the real fans were outside, unable to get tickets, but the audience seemed to get into it as we went along. Towards the end of our set they began chanting 'Icantgetno, Icantgetno'. It took a while for us to realise that they wanted 'Satisfaction'. (Bill Wyman, Rolling With The Stones, Dorling Kindersley, 2002, p 270).
Bill Wyman was wrong, though. Although some tickets were indeed given to party members, they were definitely put on general sale as well. They were expensive and got snapped up quickly, but quite a few 'true fans' did get to see The Stones (and the footage above seems to confirm it).
Interesting thing about that gig was that during the soundcheck, it turned out that Stones' instruments couldn't be connected to Polish electricity (something to do with a different voltage, apparently) So during the concert The Rolling Stones were using guitars and amps which belonged to a support act - a Polish beat group called Niebiesko-Czarni.
Brian Jones and members of Niebiesko-Czarni, 13.04.1967
Niebiesko-Czarni (The Black n' Blue's) were one of the first and most important Polish groups of the 1960's. They formed in 1962 around guitarist/lead singer Wojtek Korda and initially they played various forms of Twist and Rock n' Roll. In the mid-1960's they were joined by a femle lead singer Ada Rusowicz, and their career really took off.
Niebiesko-Czarni performing on Polish TV in 1966
Onstage, Niebiesko-Czarni wore blue turtlenecks and black trousers - hence their name. They had a string of successful singles, and they recorded two albums between 1965 and 1967. Then, just like the groups in Western Europe, Niebiesko-Czarni 'went psychedelic'. Blue turtlenecks were replaced by beads and kaftans.
Niebiesko-Czarni, 1968
Ada Rusowicz
Cover of the album Twarze ('The Faces') by Niebiesko-Czarni, 1968.
Their sound, as well as their look became more interesting. They recorded two psychedelic-tinged albums - Twarze in 1968 and Mamy Dla Was Kwiaty ('We've Got Flowers For You' - with a great cover which you can see at the top of the post) in 1969.I haven't heard any of the those albums in their entirety, but if the title track of the second one is anything to go by, it must be pretty good. Very influenced by what was going on in England at the time, especially S.F. Sorrow by The Pretty Things.
The revolving-door line-up changes of Niebiesko-Czarni made them almost 'a school for future pop stars'. Quite a few ex-members of this band became went on to bigger things. One of them was guitarist/lead singer Krzysztof Klenczon who quit in 1965 and took over vocals in a band called Czerwone Gitary ('The Red Guitars' - and no, it was not a reference to a political situation of Poland). If there is any band that deserves a title of 'Polish Beatles', it's Czerwone Gitary. And it's not just a scale of their popularity. Musically they were very, very heavily influenced by the Fab Four. But even if they were copyists, they were good copyists.Some Poles like to claim that if The Red Guitars lived in England and sang the same songs in English, they would have been as big as The Beatles. That's a bit of a stretch - they weren't that good - but they certainly would have given The Hollies or The Zombies a run for their money.
Here's Czerwone Gitary doing one of their biggest hits - 'Nie Zadzieraj Nosa' (a Polish idiom meaning as much as 'don't be so stuck-up') - a song from 1968 with a very triumphant chorus in the style of 'She Loves You' or 'Twist and Shout'. They were clearly very uncomfortable having to mime to their song on the TV , which shows through their exaggerated dance movements...
Here's another one - a nice ballad titled 'Historia Jednej Znajomosci' ('A Story of a Brief Aquintanship'). There is something about that song that really catches both, teenage blues and gray Polish reality.
That's just two of their many successful singles. In the 1960's every country tried to produce 'their own Beatles'. Czerwone Gitary were one of the few European bands that for a brief period almost managed to match the efforts of the Fab Four. They remained popular throughout the 1970's although their leader Krzysztof Klenczon left in 1972. He moved to USA, where sadly, he died in a car accident in early 1980's.
Now, on to my favorite part - Freakbeat and Garage. I'll start with a band called Chocholy ('The Hollows') doing an aggressive Rhythm n' Blues number titled 'Amor A Kysz' (Stay Away, Cupid!) which wouldn't sound out of place in London's Marquee club. (song from 1965)
Chocholy were a popular R n'B group. When their lead singer Wojciech Gassowski quit in 1967, they changed name to Akwarele ('The Watercolours') and became a backing band for a popular Prog-rocker Czeslaw Niemen (a former member of Niebiesko-Czarni).
Here's another great track - Stale To Samo ('Always The Same') by appropriately named Dzikusy (The Wild-Ones). Their Farfisa-led Freakbeat wasn't million miles away from what teenagers across America were doing around the same time (1966).I couldn't paste it in here, so just click on the link.
Another great Polish band from that time that crossed into Freakbeat territory were Polanie ('The Polans' - named after medieval tribe - the fore-fathers of Poles). They were heavily inspired by aggresive, organ-led R n' B of The Animals. One of their best tracks was 'Nie Zawroce' (I Won't Turn Back') which combined R n'B with heavy soul.
Polanie covered a lot of British Mod/Psych songs like 'Cool Jerk' by The Creation or 'Can You Hear Me?' by The Artwoods. Here's their absolutely insane version of Animals' 'I'm Crying'.
When The Animals toured Poland in 1966, Polanie were a support act. Reportedly, Eric Burdon was very impressed with the energy of their live performances, and he invited Polanie To Britain to tour with The Animals. These plans came to nothing when Polanie couldn't get UK visas. Still, they were one of the few Polish bands which toured Western Europe - France and West Germany (where they supported The Animals again).
In the last few years some few compilations of Polish Beat/Garage/Psyche were released in Britain - two volumes of Wrenchin' The Wires and Working Class Devils (rubbish title, if you ask me..). They contain some great gems from the Polish 60's beat scene.
Now I am gonna move into late-60's Hippie territory. In Poland, the undisputed leaders in that field was a band called Breakout.The band was led by Tadeusz Nalepa, who was thought to be the greatest blues/rock guitarist in Poland. They started in a mid-1960's as a beat combo called Blackout, changing their name to Breakout after they were joined by a female lead singer Mira Kubasinska. Their music was a mix of heavy blues and psyche with progressive undertones and pop sensibility. Think Hendrix jamming with Jefferson Airplane or a much heavier version of Shocking Blue..
Here's Breakout doing their 1969 hit 'Poszlabym Za Toba' (I Would Follow You)
Another good song by Breakout was called 'Gdybys Kochal, Hej!' ('If You Only Loved Me, Hey!'). I don't know whether Tadeusz Nalepa and Mira Kubasinska were a couple, but in this video they they seem like they have a Sonny Bono/Cher thing going on. Bassist clearly has a lot of fun hiding behind the tree. The main riff clearly owes a lot to Hendrix's version of 'Hey Joe'.
Breakout continued to record great music after the departure of Mira Kubasinska in 1971. That year, they released an album, unimaginatively titled Blues. It is a great heavy blues-rock album full of fiery guitar solos complemented by Hammond organ and soulful vocals of Tadeusz Nalepa. One of the best songs on the album was called 'Pomaluj Moje Sny' ('Paint My Dreams').
Since I crossed into early 1970's, I want to mention two other important Polish bands from that period. First one is a progressive rock band called Klan. Their 1971 album 'Mrowisko' ('The Hive') is a mix of psychedelic heavy rock and jazz. It resembles early stuff of The Soft Machine or Colosseum, but it's much less self-indulgent. I'm not sure wheter the band got much recognition for it, as they seem to be pretty obscure even in Poland, which is a shame, because 'Mrowisko' is one of the best Polish records of the time.
Cover of 'Mrowisko' by Klan, 1971 (listen to the album here)
Another Polish band from that time worth mentioning was Nurt ('The Stream'). Their only album, released in 1972, was also a mix of Heavy Psyche, Prog and Jazz, but with a lot of emphasis on 'Heavy'. I was pretty blown away by virtuoso musicianship of Nurt (especially their guitarist). Unlike a lot of Prog albums from early 1970's, this one avoids a trap of being overly self-indulgent or boring.
This is a song called 'Pisze Kreda Po Asfalcie' ('I Write On Asphalth With a Chalk') from Nurt's self-titled 1972 album..
I'll end with something from the mid-Sixties..
This charming lady is a pop singer Helena Majdaniec. She was sort of a Polish Cilla Black or Sandie Shaw. After having a string of incredibly twee pop hits in Poland, she emigrated to France, where she continued her musical career, apparently achieving considerable popularity in continental Europe. Here's a footage of her performing a song in English on German TV in 1966. The audio is pretty bad and the song is not particularly good, but she and her French backing band, as well as he audience look absolutely amazing..
Make no mistake, the life in Socialist Poland in the 1960's was far from perfect. But that didn't stop the youth of that country from producing their own interesting music or, as I intend to show in part two of my 'Polish Special' , films and fashion icons.
