LOCOMOTIVE – We Are Everything You See (LP-1970)

Label: Parlophone – PCS 7093

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 01 Feb 1970

Style: Psychedelic Rock, Prog Rock

Recorded at E.M.I Studios - Abbey Road, 1969.

Design [Sleeve Design] – Rainbow Studios

Engineer [Sound] – Jeff Jarratt

Executive Producer – Tony Hall

Producer – Gus Dudgeon

A1 - Overture ..................................................................................... 2:05

A2 - Mr. Armageddon ........................................................................ 4:25

A3 - Now Is The End - The End Is When .......................................... 3:17

A4 - Lay Me Down Gently ................................................................. 4:01

A5 - Nobody Asked You To Come .................................................... 3:17

A6 - You Must Be Joking ................................................................... 4:03

B1 - A Day In Shining Armour ........................................................... 3:32

B2 - The Loves Of Augustus Abbey - Part One ................................. 1:08

B3 - Rain ............................................................................................ 3:26

B4 - The Loves Of Augustus Abbey - Part Two ................................ 1:29

B5 - a) Coming Down /

        b) Love Song For The Dead Che ............................................... 4:32

B6 - The Loves Of Augustus Abbey - Part Three .............................. 1:23

B7 - Times Of Light And Darkness .................................................... 4:36

Norman Haines – lead vocals organ, piano,  mellotron, harpsichord

Mick Hincks – bass, backing vocals

Bob Lamb – drums, percussion

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Bill Madge – tenor saxophone

Chris Mercer – tenor saxophone

Dick Heckstall-Smith  – tenor saxophone

Lyn Dobson – tenor saxophone

Henry Lowther – trumpet

Mick Taylor – trumpet

Norman Haines is responsible for two of the most sought-after albums of British progressive rock. Like many other brilliant artists, it took the world decades to recognize the brilliance of Haines’ work. He took soul, jazz, psych, and classical music to a place it had not been before, with lyrics based in reality during a time of social and political unrest.

Norman mixed all these influences into several brilliant singles and two lyrically and musically powerful albums. His career began in Birmingham in 1963 with the beat group The Van Dels, who changed their name a year later to The Brumbeats. By day he ran a small record shop taking in all the latest musical crazes and at night he put his knowledge to use in his band as they played clubs around Birmingham. The Brumbeats often played support for local heroes The Locomotive. By the end of ’66 Haines was asked to join the group on keys.

Before Haines joined the group, The Locomotive played mostly popular Tamla, and Motown soul. Haines brought in ska music to their set. They gigged all over and in 1967 they got a deal with the label Direction to record their first single, Haines’ original “Broken Heart” and the B-side “Rudy – A Message To You.” The single was not a hit but it got them a deal with Parlophone to record another Haines ska original “Rudi’s In Love,” which became a top 25 hit in 1968.

The band had done what most groups had hoped to achieve: they got a hit. They were now known as a ska group but this would end up to be their downfall as the group was starting to get into more ‘progressive’ styles of music. Around this time, founding member Jim Simpson leaves the band to become full time manager of The Locomotive and his other project, local band, Earth. Norman takes over as band leader and writes new material for their debut full length. In late 1968 they begin recording at Abbey Road Studios.

We Are Everything You See is an amazing piece of work from start to finish. Heavily influenced by classical music, the album begins with an overture, a short summary of the album’s main themes through beautiful strings, and a little interplay with clarinet before the strings raise the pressure and fade into one of the crowning achievements of British progressive rock. “Mr. Armageddon” has been included in countless compilations and for good reason. This song is a monster. Pounding drums, wah guitar, piercing organ and Norman’s unsympathetic lyrical delivery. Picture him as ‘the man,’ ten feet tall: “I am everything you see / and what is more / I am father of a thousand children / Mother… / Of a thousand million more!” The main horn riff is what makes this song. The ending takes it even higher as it drives to the end of the song and the drums and even the vocals just trying to keep up. This ending pretty much made me a believer in progressive rock music.

The next track, “Now Is The End – The End Is When,” solidifies the doomed mood of the album; the jazzy bassline and phased-out drums are brilliant. Then comes “Lay Me Down Gently,” another killer with back and forth time signatures, and the harmonizing is a nice touch. There is not a bad track on this album. The pounding drums on “You Must Be Joking,” and the screeching organ get along like a cat and dog. I love it. “Rain” is the perfect title for the ninth track, a mellow slow burner that the horns help to pick up during the end. The final song starts off simply enough, then it gets jazzy and the pace quickly picks up and pounds into the dizzying finale. The album also features reworked versions of two songs from the band United States of America.

Before the album was even completed the band had already fallen apart. Some members complained that the album was getting too progressive. Haines disagreed and quit the band before mixing was completed in mid 1969. With no band to support it the album was quietly released six months later in February 1970. The album went completely unnoticed and was soon deleted. Some of the members formed a new group called The Dog That Bit People. Haines started his own group called Sacrifice.

(Review by David Morales)

If you find it, buy this album!

THE NORMAN HAINES BAND – Den Of Iniquity (LP-1971)

Label: Odeon – 2 C062 04818

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: France / Released: Aug. 1971

Style: Progressive Rock, Improvisation

Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, Spring 1971.

Engineer – Peter Bown

Illustration – Heinrich Kley

Producer, Liner Notes By – Tony Hall

A1 - Den Of Iniquity ..................................................................... 4:32

A2 - Finding My Way Home ......................................................... 3:23

A3 - Everything You See (Mr. Armageddon) ............................... 4:34

A4 - When I Come Down ............................................................. 3:56

A5 - Bourgeois ............................................................................. 2:59

B1 - Rabbits ............................................................................... 13:03

        including:  a) Sonata (For Singing Pig)

                          b) Joint Effort

                          c) Skidpatch

                          d)  Miracle

B2 - Life Is So Unkind .................................................................. 8:03

        including:  a) Moonlight Mazurka

                          b) Echoes Of The Future

Norman Haines – organ, piano, vocals

Andy Hughes – bass guitar, acoustic guitar

Neil Clarke – electric guitar

Jimmy Skidmore – drums, percussion

Norman pushed on with his new sound, delving deeper into the darkness while a little more pop-friendly at the same time, almost completely ditching the horns and incorporating more prominent guitar work and adding folk influences. Haines got another contract with Parlophone and returned to Abbey Road Studios to record what would become Den of Iniquity.

A couple singles were released around the release of Den Of Iniquity which only solidified Norman’s ingeniousness. Released before the album, “Daffodil,” which Haines dedicated to his wife, is an extremely catchy, Latin-tinged pop song with lovely horns and percussion. Norman’s emotional vocals couldn’t be better. The way the song takes off at 1:20 is one of the greatest moments of Norman’s career. Pure genius.

As for the album itself, the opening track to Den Of Iniquity is a hard rock classic. Forgetting the classical intros previously used, this song bursts in with an organ riff and drums pounding in the background. The guitar comes in following the organ before taking over with some thick, wah riffing. The solo kills and I love the wah bends in the background. This song is the perfect sequel to Mr. Armageddon. This hard rocker kills.

The countrified “Finding my Way Home” is the perfect jam to play on a warm summer night while pounding brews with your pals. The vocals and twangy guitar are perfect. The following track, a reworked version of Mr. Armageddon, replaces horns with guitar. This version has a slow start but guitarist Neil Clarke totally redeems himself in the second half. He pretty much solos until the end and every second is great; the last 50 are astounding. I imagine Clarke jumping out of his chair and kicking it over before jumping into this amazing chord progression.

“When I Come Down” is another wah-laden hard rocker with some distorted organ noodling. This song was used as a demo by old manager Jim Simpsons’ other band, Earth, which by that time had changed its name to Black Sabbath.

The mood takes a mellow turn with the A-side closer “Bourgeois,” performed and sung by Clarke. It proudly displays his folk roots. The flip side of the record is made up of two songs. The thirteen-minute “Rabbits” is a solid extended jam. The final track eight-minute “Life Is So Unkind” is a moody instrumental led by organ, electric piano and some guitar, that brings the album to a menacing end.

When the band presented the finished product, including the grotesque album cover to the label, they outright refused to release it and most record shops even refused to carry it. The label delayed the release of the album for almost a year before finally releasing in August 1971 under The Norman Haines Band.

The original LP is now extremely rare and goes for upwards of $700. As with his previous album, it wasn’t successful and the band disbanded. At the time of release Norman was deep in debt and hit the road as Locomotive to pay some of it off. He even included the ska singles that brought him that brief moment of success just a few years prior. Disillusioned by the music business, he declined a chance to join Black Sabbath, disappearing from the music scene all together in 1971.

The last piece of music that Norman released is a single from 1972 called “Give It To You Girl,” a killer pop tune led by his brilliant voice and electric piano. It shows Norman’s growing fondness for Latin percussion, and gives us a taste of what could have come next.

Haines got into he construction business and put together a small band that played weddings and local dances, which he still does to this day. I doubt that most people he plays for these days realize what a brilliant musician Norman really is. It took decades for only a few to finally realize the genius of Norman Haines.

(Review by David Morales)

___________________ About the artist:

Heinrich Kley was born April 15, 1863, in Karlsruhe, Germany, and studied art with Ferdinand Keller at the Karlsruhe Akademy and with C. Frithjob Smith in Munich. He started out as an illustrator and a painter of murals, focussing on portraits, still lifes, animals, and landscapes.

Heinrich Kley is best remembered today for satirical, despairing, and often obscene images which evinced a maniacal distrust of the industrial revolution and its automatized society. In 1907, a series of remarkable pen & ink drawings appeared in the Munich German Expressionist literary art magazine Die Jugend that captured the growing disillusionment of fin-de-siecle German counter-culture. Kley's scathing and deftly rendered creations resonated with audiences and Kley became a leading interpreter of the follies and vices that beset mankind. Kley's art appeared in the United States in 1937 and caught the eye of Walt Disney & Sketch Artists at the Disney studio, including Albert Hurter, Joe Grant, and James Bodrero. Hurter introduced Kley's work to the Disney Studio and Walt Disney accumulated a collection of the artist's work. The images in Kley's art inspired a number of animated sequences and characters, including Night on Bald Mountain and the dancing animals of Dance of the Hours in Fantasia.

In 1947 the "Drawings of Heinrich Kley" was published with a forward by George Grosz. Of Kley, Grosz wrote:  "I am sure that the drawings of Heinrich Kley will be remembered and enjoyed as long as human beings retain the ability to laugh at themselves."

Conflicting sources have the date of Heinrich Kley's death as either 1945 or 1952. Whatever the truth is, his popularity is bigger than ever. Two volumes of his work were published by Dover Books; Bantam Books has used Kley drawings for some of their paperback book covers, and Atlas and Motive magazines have also used his work. His art even found its way onto a poster for the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, which probably would have amused the artist — a man who never shied from a chance to throw his India-ink-tipped barbs at the System.



If you find it, buy this album!