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Formed Salisbury, Wiltshire, Wessex, England in 1988 from the usual garage beginnings, knocking out Black Sabbath, Doors, Pebbles/Nuggets type covers for fun, we soon went on to forge a more psychedelic punk sound of our own, with a bit of sub-pop grunge thrown in for good measure.
In 1988 or 89 we released a joint flexi with Salisbury indie band mates of ours The Mayfields, learnt how real bands went about things by supporting the likes of The Wolfhounds and The Shrubs, and spent a year on Glass Records not releasing anything!
Dave Barker took us with with him to Paperhouse Records (Fire subsiduary) at the end of 1989 where we had the very great pleasure of sharing a label, and sometimes a stage, with Teenage Fanclub, The Walkingseeds, Don Fleming, Phil Schoenfelt, etc. We released our first single, "Crystals", and LP "Kings of the Desert" to a fair bit of critical acclaim - I really hate that album, but quite a few people liked it and bought it.
At the end of 1990 we recorded the much better "Curse of The Badgeman" EP, and then, in 1992 we relaesed our second album "Ritual Landscape" - much darker and proggier than before, with some of our Joy Division, Neu!, Pere Ubu, Hawkwind, and jazz rock inluences showing through the punk rock fog. No one bought it! Only the wonderful Ptolemaic Terrascope had anything good to say about it at the time - thank you Phil!
Somewhere in between all that we were asked by the very sound people at Imaginary Records to contribute something to their ambitious 3 volume set "Heaven and Hell: A Tribute to The Velvet Underground" - I cannot apologise enough to all concerned for the lamest version of Sister Ray ever to see the light of day! But it's still great that we were asked.
It all fizzled out, typically for us, with an excellent live review and a big row on stage and off at the Cavern in Exeter. We limped on to one more gig (booked to headline in Bath during the festival, we went on first so we wouldn't have to spend any more time on a dead horse) and called it a day.
It's hard to stay away though, and some of us have kept busy with other stuff: "Big Bird", "The Original Howling Gods", "Marlboro County Fair", and the mighty "Pyeshoppe" to name a few.
Anyway, we enjoyed it, but we wouldn't want you to have to pay for it, so here it is, have it!
P.S. In a strange twist of fate I recently recieved a string of messages congratulating me on a great review ..... turns out that none other than Julian Cope, a big influence for us, had made Ritual Landscape his "Unsung Album of the Month" for December 2007 on his most excellent "Head Heritage" website ( a real cornucopia of gnostic rock and roll, radical politics, and "out there" stuff about stone circles and the holy landscape of our ancestors) just 15 years after its release! So maybe we were onto something after all. Any way, I recommend that you go and take a look at the review and all the other good stuff that's there.Love to you all, and I hope you enjoy our music. Enough said.
