The Gaspar Netscher Ensemble - Get Out Of Bed My Darling/ Until You're Here Beside Me

Highly obscure but light-hearted sixties music hall inspired pop 

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1968

If a cumbersomely named award for the "least documented sixties group with more than one single to their name" ever comes into existence, The Gaspar Netscher Ensemble would surely be in with a shot. This was their second single on Pye, the follow-up to the equally obscure "There Is Nothing In This Whole Wide World Like Love", but it did nothing to push them towards the charts or get them documented in "The Tapestry Of Delights", on YouTube or anywhere else.

It's an interesting piece of work which closely resembles a lot of the music hall inspired 45s that emerged in the late sixties, recalling in particular The Almond Lettuce (if readers want a recent example of a group who adopted a similar frivolous sound on this blog). "Get Out Of Bed" occupies itself with the tale of a frankly nightmarish sounding wedding, cataloguing inappropriate behaviour from the guests and a seemingly sleepy and inert bride. The whole track has a continual merry bounce and a trombone that continually wails "ha ha" like Nelson off The Simpsons, just in case you're in any doubt that it's all in the name of good fun (the track probably could have been improved with the removal of this element, to be honest).

The identity of the group is a bit of a mystery to me, but I'm going to put forward a theory that the "R. Netscher" credited as songwriter here is Robin Netscher who apparently served as one of the  members of The Londonairs who we discussed back in March. The style of this track is slightly more sophisticated, but nonetheless it's possible to hear similarities.

He went on to write a few other non-hit singles, as well as arranging Tony Blackburn's 1975 flop "Fairy Tales" which was backed with "Arnold", our Tone's tribute to his ever-present barking dog. Perhaps he'll get one of his records spun on "Sounds of the Sixties" at some point soon.