CLEAN 1967 Orig THE BLOSSOM TOES "Ever So Clean" UK LONDON MOD POPSIKE PSYCH

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194

 UK POPSIKE/PSYCHEDELIC SWINGING LONDON "MONSTER"

• ORIGINAL 1967  FIRST PRESS ..|/\|...............................................|/\|..
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• The Blossom Toes
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• "WE Are Ever So Clean"
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• Germany - Polydor - 184 121
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  CLEAN FIRST PRESS
  

1. Original 1967 rarity highly sought and praised over the years for its well deserved status as one of the *best* ever Swinging London sixties psychedelic classics... the infectiously memorable melodies are rated Beatles qualities in from the same era. 
   
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3. Collectors the world over describe "We Are Ever So Clean" as “the finest popsike album ever recorded”, “a quirky look at British life in the late 60s with tea and cakes on the lawn, budgerigars and balloons wafting in the breeze” and “Georgio Gomelsky’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, you might conclude that this definitive whimsy-psych opus was a premeditated attempt to upstage the Beatles and the Kinks at their own game by a similarly professional outfit.
   
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5. In fact it was the more-or-less accidental result of a dissolute R’n’B covers band ingesting lots of pharmaceuticals, reluctantly writing their own material, being impelled by their uber-persuasive manager/producer to come up with potential hit singles, and witnessing their lyrically quirky but musically straightforward guitar-based acid-pop songs being swathed in florid paisley overdubs by their record company. All of which may sound like a recipe for a ragged, stylistic disaster of an album, and track titles like “The Remarkable Saga Of The Frozen Dog”, “I Will Bring You This And That” and “The Intrepid Balloonist’s Handbook, Volume 1” didn’t help to dispel that initial impression. Released a shade too late for the Summer Of Love and receiving a thoroughly polarized critical reception, it unbelievably collapsed commercially. However, it gradually established a reputation as one of the great “lost” psych artifacts, was repeatedly bootlegged over decades for the benefit of aficionados, and has continued to attract enthusiasm and opprobrium in equal measures to this day. We love it a lot; you make up your own mind.
   
   Brian Godding (vcl, gtr, keys), Jim Cregan (gtr, vcl), Brian Belshaw (bs, vcl) and Kevin Westlake (drs, vcl) had been the Ingoes, tramping the well-worn path from Hamburg beat band via freakbeat to R’n’B and soul covers. Picked up by former Stones/Yardbirds svengali Gomelsky and re-christened Blossom Toes, they signed to Polydor and worked up a clutch of self-written tunes with lysergic lyrics, spare, brittle backings and dense harmony vocals in the Ivy League vein. These were then subjected, against the band’s wishes, to various degrees of post-production orchestration, some tracks being left more or less unadorned while others were totally swaddled in brass bands, string quartets, plaintive woodwinds and what-have-you.
   
   The leadoff “Look At Me I’m You” is typically everything-but-the-kitchen-sink, featuring a Beatles “Taxman”-ish riff with dense harmonies, backwards guitars, scat singing, a full brass band on the bridge and a fake scratched-record-stick on the outro. The thoroughly excellent near-caricature of definitive Britsike, “I’ll Be Late For Tea”, is well-known and has been much anthologized. “Frozen Dog” is a piece of wigged-out craziness with a stomping beat overlaid with deliberately formless, tuneless backing vocals and barking noises – in fact “barking” in every sense. “Telegram Tuesday” comes nearest to the original concept, a fully-formed lilting pop song with Byrdsy guitars and trademark rich harmonies, and for once no orchestral interference. The joyful marching rhythm and hysterical ironic laughter of “People Of The Royal Parks” mask a vituperative attack on the Establishment in the form of a diatribe against po-faced park keepers, government ministers and other officious killjoys. “Mrs Murphy’s Budgerigar” is classic whimsy, chronicling the misadventures of the said bird with enormously over-egged decoration by harpsichord, strings and piccolo trumpet. “Balloonist’s Handbook” is a demented rumba with organ and accordion accompaniment, its rhythm and whacked-out theatrical vocal delivery more than slightly hinting at the Bonzos. For good measure, the closing “Track For Speedy Freaks” is a whirling eighty-second collage of snippets from all the preceding tracks, while between those tracks come brief sotto voce interludes: random speech, coughing, operatic singing and bits of dialogue that sound like cuts from The Goon Show.

1.   Look At Me I'm You ...4:58
   
   I'll Be Late For Tea ...3:45
   
   The Remarkable Saga Of The Frozen Dog ...4:17
   
   Telegram Tuesday ...3:25
   
   Love Is ...3:40
   
   What's It For ...3:03
   
   People Of The Royal Parks ...2:46
   
   What On Earth ...2:51
   
   Mrs Murphy's Budgerigar ...3:47
   
   I Will Bring You This & That ...5:40
   
   Mister Watchmaker ...6:30
   
   When The Alarm Clock Rings ...4:03
   
   You ...3:40
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3. Track For Speedy Freaks (or instant LP digest) ...1;18
   
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   CONDITION:
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7. The cover: rated: "EX" (excellent) very fragile laminated cover in great shape being all of 53+ years of age! There are no delete marks, no split seams, no bends, and no writing  ...

1. The vinyl: Rated: "EX" (excellent)  plays great, light signs of prior careful use is all, hard to find a better copy from the ages of 1967 ...both labels are clean

• The Blossom Toes
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