Inscrutable Oriental by Appointment to the Peel Foundation, Vincent Tseng, and a certain Joan Ferguson who makes Robin Hood jackets for the uncrowned heads have just told me that they like the name VELVETT FOGG
It is a goodly notion perhaps – recollection of very foggy evenings spent wandering through Everton, around Great Homer Street, listening to the sounds of the unseen in small, cramped, friendly homes since torn down to make way for crumbling blocks of impersonal flats.
Not very velvetty foggs those perhaps but with a great strength and a rough beauty. Perhaps not as irrelevant then to this LP.
Actually producer Jack Dorsey of Pye Records and his secretary brought me this record as I huddled in my mean bed wracked with jaundice with the unoccasional, long-suppressed flicker of pain crossing my boyish features. They left the record, saying they needed the notes that I’m typing by Monday. It’s now Saturday night, tomorrow’s “Top Gear” and I’ve listened five or six times to the Velvett Fogg, likink them more with each hearing. However I forgot to ask anyone for details about the members of the group – in fact I don’t even know how many there are within it. Perhaps that information will be elsewhere on this sleeve. I don’t know their names, what they play, when they were born, the colour or not of their eyes, hair, teeth. I have never heard even the faintest rumour about their taste in breakfast foods, furniture, musicians or girls.
So would you care to stroll with me through this LP if I promise to keep my hands to myself. Forward.
Side One. (1) Yellow Cave Woman (7:00) It takes courage to start a first LP with a seven minute track. This gives all the members of the group an opportunity to flex their musical muscles (a spot of clever alliteration for the literary) and reminds me slightly of the sort of things the Velvet Underground do which seem at first hearing repetitous but later reveal endless, shifting variations of emphasis and shading.
(2) New York Mining Disaster 1941 (2:55) You may disagree but I think the best things the Bee-Gees have written are those on and around their first LP and this was one of the best of those songs. Many people have recorded these too but seldom better than this.
(3) Wizard of Gobsolod (2:57) has some really beautiful little bell-like noises, explains that beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or that’s what I heard there). Generally speaking a number of almost hamsterian delicacy and refinement. One of my favourite tracks and I hope one of yours too.
(4) Once Among the Trees (5:39) is the story of a chase with strong sexual overtones. Stand by for sensational revelations in the Sunday horror-comics. I spend a lot of time listening to new groups because I think that is what disc-jockeys should be doing and it’s rather embarrassing that a group as fine as this has evaded my notice and that of the people who write and tell me about good things.
(5) Lady Caroline (2:23) I hoped this might be a tribute to the lamented Radio Caroline but it’s not. Actually it’s a sort of modern equivalent of the ancient murder ballads that travelled from Britain and became a part of the folk-traditions of the Appalachian region of the United States. A story of seduction, jealousy, murder, pillage and dry-cleaning set in medieval Fulham – or something.
Side Two. ( 1) Come Away, Melinda ( 5:55 ) As listeners to “Top Gear” and such may know Tim Rose is a good friend and one of my favourite singers. He is well-known for “Hey Joe” and the harrowing “Morning Dew”. However this song “Come Away, Melinda” is perhaps the song that is most important to him. Please listen to the lyrics which are self-explanatory and ponder them before it’s too late. This version by Velvett Fogg would please Tim too – it’s as strong as his version with underlying electronic sounds which, for once, blend with the music as effectively as those used by the United States of America or the Beatles in the “Yellow Submarine” tracks. He’s full of lively information and penetrating analysis this O’Peel.
(2) Owed to the Dip 1968 ( 6:07 ) seems to have been a year in which the organ, in the hands of people like Brian Auger, Keith Emerson, Gary Wright, Rick Wright and others, seems to have come somewhat more into it’s own. The organ is featured prominently and excitingly on this 6:07 instrumental. One of those jazz-tinged things that are appearing on LPs now.
(3) Within the Night (4:47) which catalogues the achievements of what would appear to be a rather splendid evening. Sitting in bed typing, with “The Hot Vampire from the Cenapod Planet” blaring out from a flickering, hired television envy bubbles in the recesses of the heart. Medical advice should be sought if it bubbles elsewhere. It is gratifying that record companies in the alledgedly United Kingdom should be prepared to launch unknown groups with LPs because groups like Velvett Fogg have more to give listeners than can be imparted by a single 45.
Finally there is (4) Plastic Man (4:47) which seems to sum up everything that can be said about politicians and their revolting parasites.
There are no ways left for us to escape them now.
There is a lot of good music on this record, remember Velvett Fogg you will hear the name again.
Love and Peace Johnn Peell January 1969.
"It was in February 1969, that I met John Peel, at 'Mothers' a club in Birmingham's, Erdington High Street.
John, who had written the sleeve notes for the 1969 Album, had been playing tracks off the album constantly on his radio shows. He was in Birmingham, visiting the club, which was renowned for its Progressive music acts.
I was there the same evening as John, and I introduced myself. We had a couple of pints, and discussed both his sleeve notes, and my participation in the album. It is a night, I will of course, remember."
In memory of the late John Peel Keith Law September 2012