Don’t Believe The Hype Or Do You?

The thing about being a 70’s rock fan is that you are spoilt for choice, there are a large amount of artists and back catalogue to explore and you are inundated with information, and every so often you stumble across references to legendary “lost” albums. These are musical equivalents to the City of Atlantis and the Unicorn, etc. Classic works of art unleashed on an unsuspecting public that sank with out trace despite their alleged high quality. 

In the age before everyone owned a CD player and there was a plethora of quality reissue labels trawling the deep back catalogues of the majors these, previously bargain bin bound, releases were discussed in revered tones in the pages of publications like Record Collector although few people had actually heard them. They also began to escalate in value to a point where vinyl originals of albums such as Growers of Mushroom by Leafhound were valued at £900 (now who was it that said CD’s were overpriced?)

Quatermass fell into this category, as rare as a snowfall on Christmas Day or even a Newcastle clean sheet away from St James Park, nevertheless in record collecting circles the one and only album release by Quatermass gained mythical status. However as I previously stated these “legendary lost” albums had actually been heard by very few people and in some cases completely fail to justify the hype. So what of the Quatermass album Hit or Miss? Does it deserve the almost mythical status afforded to it over the last 33 years or was it a justifiable failure. Well to these ears it’s a Hit, it does indeed live up to the hype.

So who and what are Quatermass?

Well Quatermass arose from the ashes of the 1960’s beat group Episode 6. When Deep Purple headhunted Ian Gillan and Roger Glover from Episode 6 in 1969, they recruited Merseybeat veteran John Gustafson on bass and keyboard player Peter Robinson to augment their line up that already included drummer Mick Underwood formerly of The Herd. However it was apparent that Episode 6 were getting past their sell by date and the post Gillan/Glover line up struggled on gamely for a few months before calling it quits in September 1969. Underwood Robinson and Gustafson decided to stick together and new musical venture was born – Quatermass. 

In a similar vein to Atomic Rooster and ELP the new band adopted the power trio format, no additional musicians were enlisted, although the band were augmented by an external songwriter Steve Hammond. 

Quatermass were signed by EMI’s progressive imprint Harvest and their sole full length release appeared in May 1970 housed in a magnificent Hipgnosis gatefold sleeve reminiscent of The Who’ s Tommy.

The album is a solid, confident, cocksure debut release by anybody’s standard and way ahead of some, in the strength and quality of song writing and production work. Just compare this album to Shades of Deep Purple, for example and its Quatermass by a first round stoppage. What is perhaps more remarkable is considering that just a few months earlier Messer’s Robinson, Underwood and Gustafson had been plying their trade in what was essentially a Third Division pop group. And Episode 6’s own creative leanings never gave any hint of what was to follow either in Quatermass or indeed the Mark 2 line up of Deep Purple.

The original LP boasted 9 tracks including 3 largely instrumental workouts by Robinson, 3 by Hammond, 2 by Gustafson and 1 Gustafson, Robinson and Ross collaboration. To misappropriate an old football cliché its an album of two halves being split between an array of very powerful hard rock tracks and a couple of lengthy often self indulgent instrumentals. The music itself has strong parallels with other bands of the day notably Atomic Rooster and label mates Deep Purple. In fact an apt description of the sound of the band would be to imagine if Deep Purple had been a 4 piece without a guitarist and with Jon Lord has the only lead instrumentalist. The similarities don’t end there Gustafson is an immensely talented and powerful vocalist and bears an uncanny resemblance to Ian Gillan and also Glenn Hughes. In Gillan’s autobiography Child in Time he tells of late night sessions when he and Gustafson would lie facing each other on the floor having a screaming contest.

However I digress so lets talk about the music itself. Quite simply it rocks. The original LP was bookended by two fairly short Robinson instrumentals both entitled Entropy. Track two however is Quatermass’s best known song – the Steve Hammond penned Black Sheep of the Family. It achieved a certain amount of notoriety as it was Deep Purple’s refusal to agree to Ritchie Blackmore’s suggestion that they cover this track on their 1975 LP Stormbringer that was the final straw in driving the Man in Black out of the band. Actually I have to say having heard the wimped out bastardised interpretation of this track on the first Rainbow LP that I am with Lord, Paice et al on this one – awful doesn’t even begin to cover it. The original Quatermass version however was a completely different kettle of fish it is a solid, powerful, driving slab of hard rock as you could hope to find. It stomps along propelled by thrusting bass and drum playing from Gustafson and Underwood and some crunching keyboard work from Robinson. Gustafson also delivers a powerful vocal performance. This track is worth the admission money on its own. It also doubled as the bands first single and made a further appearance on the rapidly withdrawn Harvest label sampler – Picnic A Breath of Fresh Air.

A powerful, chunky classically influenced keyboard riff (trademark 1970) introduces Post War Saturday Echo before it settles down to be a slow paced song which lyrically decries the ills of modern living. Musically it’s a forerunner to You Keep On Moving from Deep Purple’s Come Taste the Band with a slow padding bass line coupled with some brooding, smouldering keyboard work. Robinson also delivers a tasteful jazzy piano solo and Gustafson once more supplies a powerful, plaintive vocal performance.

Good Lord Knows is a relatively short quite mellow song and it is stylistically out of keeping with the rest of the album as it sees the band hit ballad mode with Robinson switching to the harpsichord. The pseudo classical influences are in further evidence as the track also features some fairly lush orchestral backing arranged by Peter Robinson. In my mind Robinson displays, consistently, throughout the album that he is up there with the other leading rock keyboard players of the day Jon Lord, Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman. 

Side one ends on a high note — Up On The Ground ups the ante in terms of tempo and is the fastest paced track on the album to date. Its built around a solid twisting and turning keyboard riff and proceedings become quite funky in places. Gustafson’s vocals are a little deeper in the mix on this one but that is not to the detriment of the song. Robinson takes the honours throughout and as well as driving the song forward he is able to indulge in some fine soloing as well which is in a similar vein to the funked out middle sections that the Floyd inserted into both Atom Heart Mother and Echoes.

Side Two bows with Gemini, and is the last of the hard rocking tracks on the original vinyl release and its another joyous, powerful stomping song. Gustafson’s bass drives it along and his bass playing and vocals enjoy a higher profile within the mix with Robinson sitting a little deeper. Underwood thunders around the kit busily in able support of Gustafson and then with the rhythm section driving the track to a thunderous crescendo almost without warning Robinson steps to the fore to reclaim the day. Initially he does this with a superb driving piano solo, which is underpinned and eventually overtaken by some stunning Hammond organ work. It really doesn’t get much better than this.

Make Up Your Mind is a slightly schizoid track which kind of summarises the album within little under 9 minutes – it begins with a superb progressive rock /ballad type song which gives way part of the way through to some rather self indulgent instrumental jamming. And that’s really how the original LP finishes the bulk of Make Up Your Mind and the penultimate track Laughing Tackle are both lengthy instrumentals they flirt with pseudo classical flourishes and occasional jazz rock ideas, they display some great playing and throw up some good musical ideas. On the downside they do lose their way a bit in places and to me the album seems to lose some of its momentum at this point. Out of the two Make Up Your Mind stands as the better track.

And that was that. The album was subject to a CD issue in 1996 on the excellent German Repertoire label and was bolstered by the inclusion of 2 extra cuts both Gustafson compositions One Blind Mice and Punting. These formed the a and b side of the second Quatermass single. One Blind Mice is another fast paced rocker whilst Punting has some similarities to the material Traffic were producing around that time it sounds like a distant and heavier cousin of Glad/Freedom Rider or Who Knows What Tomorrow Will Bring.

Whether it was lack of record company promotion, public indifference or the fact that their services were sought elsewhere Quatermass broke up in 1971. The players found relative success elsewhere Gustafson as a member of Roxy Music and the early jazz-rock line up of the Ian Gillan Band. Underwood too linked up with Gillan but the late 70’s/early 80’s heavy rock version, whilst Robinson found himself in demand as a session player and soundtrack writer.

Quatermass should have achieved more than they did. If you have an interest in Deep Purple or early 70’s rock in general then you may well like this.

Joolio