Simon, Plug & Grimes - Way In Way Out/ Long, Long Summer

Label: President

Year of Release: 1970

Simon, Plug & Grimes sounds like the name of an industrial drainage company from an industrial estate in Tottenham, not a band, and indeed in all my years of ploughing dusty boxes for odd singles, this is one of the worst band names I've ever stumbled across. "Presumably the band are a trio and those are their surnames, just look at the writing credits", I hear you reason, but let's face it,  it's a poor excuse. If my surname was Simon and I found myself in a group with two men with the surnames Plug and Grimes, I'd surely try a bit harder than falling back on the old "firm of solicitors" moniker.

Still, what's done is done. SP&G emerged on the music scene in 1970 with the single "Is This A Dream" on the highly collectible Deram label, then moved to President for their next three singles, "Way In Way Out", "Pull Together" and "Don't Push Me". The flip side to the latter single, "Is There Anyone Left", has since picked up a bit of appreciation from glam rock collectors for its slightly scuzzy Velvet-Underground-with-a-dash-of-tinsel feel. By that point, though, the goose was cooked (and the goose fat was probably blocking the drains) and Simon Plug & Grimes disappeared off the radar.

"Way In Way Out", on the other hand, is the kind of breezy, smiley pop single many acts were pulling off with aplomb in 1970, slightly too sugary for my tastes but certainly not without its fans on the internet. Indeed, the fact a YouTube user was begging somebody to upload a clear version of this recently, and the fact that I have a pristine copy in my collection, is really what lead to this blog entry being created. If I can make one person happy this week, that's probably one more person than usual.

The B-side "Long Long Summer" is understated, gentler and more contemplative and worth a spin. 

As for who SP&G were, search me. I've tried to find out, even consulting the fantastically weighty latest edition of "Tapestry of Delights", and nobody seems to know who they were or what they did next. If you know, or if you are one of the three men in question, do please enlighten us.

The Adventures Of Mr Bloe (71-75 New Oxford and the Avenue Cash-in Conspiracy)

Label: DJM

Year of Release: 1971

"Groovin' With Mr Bloe" is one of the seventies more unlikely UK hits (a cover version sourced from the B-side to Wind's "Make Believe") . Consisting of a thudding great dancefloor beat acting as the backdrop to some mournful harmonica playing, it's one part unsubtle groover, another part "Last of the Summer Wine" incidental music. 

And maybe that's not particularly surprising. Some sources list Harry Pitch as the harmonica player on the number two smash, others Ian Duck (who definitely did appear on "Top of the Pops" to promote the record). If Pitch was indeed the man honking and wailing away in the studio for this disc, then he also did numerous other pieces of top-flight harmonica session work, including the theme and soundtrack to everyone's barely tolerated piece of Sunday early evening situation comedy. 

After "Groovin'…" fell out of the charts, DJM did what most record companies opt to do in such circumstances and tried to keep the b(r)and name alive. A follow-up "Curried Soul" was issued, but failed to chart, and "71-75 New Oxford" (named after the London 71-75 New Oxford Street base of DJM, now home to a hairdressers and a sandwich shop) was the last 45rpm hurrah. Elton John penned it and performed on both sides, and it's actually a beauty - more strident and Stevie Wonder inspired than "Groovin'" was and horrendously catchy to boot. Shoot me if you must, but I actually think this is the best single to come out under the Mr Bloe moniker, and it deserved to be a hit. The fact remains, though, that it always was going to be tough to sustain a band based largely on harmonica instrumentals, and the project had "probable one hit wonder" stamped all over it from the get-go.

Still, of all the Elton John obscurities there are in the world, this is the one I would argue is the most surprisingly under-referenced and also the most highly enjoyable.

But the Mr Bloe cash cow didn't stop there, as you'll see if you scroll down past the sound files…

Label: Avenue

Year of Release: 1971

Budget sound-a-like label Avenue were quick to cash in on Mr Bloe mania with a six-track EP of harmonica based ditties, including "Groovin'". But here's the interesting part - whereas Avenue generally employed session men to replicate the noises as closely as possible, here they appeared to have taken on Harry Pitch, the gentlemen often credited as the 'original' Mr Bloe.

If this is actually correct, it must surely be the only example of a session performer fronting both the original record and the budget sound-a-like version. Pitch has his cake and eats it too, with five extra original new tracks to add to the tally. None are especially notable and some are even slow and sad atmosphere pieces, though some, such as "Blowin' With Mr Pitch", almost capture the in-studio zest of the original. 

One thing's for sure - we'll probably never see harmonica instrumentals nearly top the British charts again, and Mr. Bloe seems like a very peculiar anomaly these days, albeit one it's cheering to remember  actually happened.

Reupload - Double Feature - Baby Get Your Head Screwed On/ Come On Baby

Label: Deram
Year of Release: 1967

Whilst the Madchester/ Baggy revolution of the late eighties and early nineties is widely regarded to be the moment where psychedelia, guitar pop, soul and dance collided, in truth such dabbling around with the audio palette was occurring long before the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays.  There are tons of examples of singles released throughout the late sixties alone which tried to tick as many genre boxes as possible.

Cat Stevens's track "Baby Get Your Head Screwed On", for example, is given a particularly soulful psychedelic rendition here (or should that be psychedelic soulful rendition?) complete with parping horns, proto-Electric Light Orchestra styled string solos, and a gritty, gnashing vocal.  Whilst there's very little doubt that the track is actually quite ahead of its time, it falls just short of being brilliant by dint of the fact that the tune gets rather repetitive once they've set out their stall within the first minute.  There are very few fuzzy, psychedelic records of this era which will tempt you on to the dancefloor in a similar way, however, and for that reason alone it deserves the share of attention it has since had from aficionados.

The flip "Come On Baby" has an insistent groove which isn't dis-similar to The Equals, but again ploughs a similar furrow and fails to progress as much as it perhaps could do across its full two-and-a-half minutes.

Double Feature were a duo consisting of Bill Hall and Brian Lake who hailed from Birmingham, and following the failure of this and the follow-up "Handbags and Gladrags" to make a commercial impression they seemed to fade from view.  If anyone knows what happened after that or if they're up to anything now, please do pass the information on.

(This blog entry was originally uploaded in March 2011. Bill Hall's nephew and brother both got in touch to talk a bit about them - apparently Hall now owns a business and lives with his family, but he and Lake are now both a tiny bit embarrassed about their naiveté during their sixties pop heyday. I was left comments hinting at a "TV disaster" and sharing a mic with Hendrix, but nothing else. Come on, the pair of you, fess up. You've left two nifty records for everyone to remember you by. The version of "Handbags and Gladrags" - the first and best - was also covered here not long ago, and is a fine piece of work). 

Mark Loyd - When I'm Gonna Find Her/ When Evening Falls

Label: Parlophone

Year of Release: 1966

Nish. Nowt. Zero. That's all the information I have available to me on this sixties artist, who released three flop singles during the middle part of the decade - "I Keep Thinking About You" and "Everybody Tries" in 1965, and this one in 1966. 

And that's a shame, because the B-side I'm presenting here, "When I'm Gonna Find Her" has since become a choice Northern Soul spin among those in the know, so favoured in fact that this bootleg reissue leaked out on to the marketplace a number of years ago. It's no surprise to see the track being admired by that crowd - "Find Her" is filled to the brim with all the yearning that great Northern Soul tracks have, but behind that is a minimalist arrangement and creeping bassline which gives the song a haunted feel, as if a stalking and faded phantom has buried itself away in the grooves. 

The A-side "When Evening Falls" isn't bad either, being a much more uptempo number and showing that Loyd, whoever he was, could pack a punch vocally.

I doubt we'll get to the bottom of his identity, but if anyone knows who he is, please leave a comment.

Merlin - Sweet Dream Woman/ No Full Moon

Label: MAM

Year of Release: 1972

Once every so often I stumble across a single by a band I know nothing about - and can find absolutely nothing about online or offline - which is nonetheless a curiosity purely due to its total obscurity. Sometimes this obscurity makes it valuable to label completists (a recent copy of a scarce Fontana single I own went for £160 on ebay purely due to the fact that there are so few copies left "in the wild", and despite the fact that the music in the grooves was at best merely 'above average') but more often than not its just like finding an old till receipt from 1975 down the back of a cupboard; interesting and slightly nostalgia inducing, but not anything to get the Antiques Roadshow crew having panic attacks. The "collectibility" of a thing is determined by many factors besides rarity, and you're more likely to be unlucky than striking it rich. 

And here we are. There were two Merlins doing the rounds during the seventies. One were a glam rock outfit with progressive leanings signed to the CBS label. The other were this mysterious lot, about whom all I can glean is that they once toured with Leapy Lee (who also produced this single).

"Sweet Dream Woman" is the kind of easy-going, laid-back, feel good, gum chewing, jew's harp twanging country rock which temporarily had a spurt of popularity in the early seventies, and which I must admit isn't really my bag, even at its absolute best. I wouldn't know a great single of this ilk from a dud. However, this is bound to find appreciation from someone fascinated by curios of that nature, and for that reason it's today's blog entry. Sometimes it's nice to share even if you don't have anything productive to say and the artist in question is operating in an area you don't feel as if you're an authority on. 

A slightly grittier version of "Sweet Dream Woman" was a success for Waylon Jennings in the USA during June 1972, and the "Taylor" in the songwriting credits is none other than Chip Taylor, previously responsible for "Wild Thing". He also recorded the track as part of the trio Gorgoni, Martin & Taylor earlier in 1971 but it met with less success in that guise. 

Apologies for the crackles near the start, but if you can find a better copy out there, feel free to share it!