If there was ever an act better known for the work of its alumni than its own recorded output then Spooky Tooth would be up there with Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Alexis Korner, Graham Bond and all the other mentors-come-godfathers of the British blues boom.

Humble Pie, Foreigner, The Only Ones, Mott The Hoople all got decent mileage out of some Spooky Tooth graduates. Gary Wright moved on to be a one-hit FM staple with “Dream Weaver”. Only three members of the Grease Band came the other way to stem the tide of Spooky evacuees but that was a long way down the road. I am getting ahead of myself.

At the fag end of the 60s Spooky Tooth were in some ways the epitome of the almost famous British rock act of the era. They even sounded more than a bit like Stillwater, Cameron Crowe’s Bad Co meet the Allmans knock-off mime act.

Back in 1969 the band’s second record, “Spooky Two” was comprised of eight tunes of brooding, piano & organ driven blues rock with Luther Grosvenor / Aeriel Bender going completely mental on guitar but no shortage of tunes and decent singing to soften the assault. This was a record from which Humble Pie copped more than a bass player for their boozy charge on the US market. S2 was everything Steve Marriott wanted to be in terms of making whole albums of whitey-sings-the-blues-with-loud-guitar shouty (but sensitive on a good day) stompers. If you have a soft spot for Free, Traffic and the first two Zeppelin records then this is indispensable. 

Which all goes to make what came the following year all the more bizarre.

“Spooky Two” carried the band to an early peak of popularity, they even had a hit with it on both sides of the Atlantic and although they contrived not to split up with the kind of acrimonious blood-letting so common amongst their peers they couldn’t avoid the other classic pitfall of a band on the rise — the unholy sin of taking themselves seriously on the follow-up to a smash hit. Very seriously indeed as it turned out. Deliriously so.

Gary Wright clearly fancied himself as more than a simple minded be-looned rock and roller so when a French avant garde composer called Pierre Henry suggested a collaboration the band found themselves launched into a loopy orbit of twisted space rock and a ponderous religious psych-pop opera that only Spinal Tap could think to match. All this and some of the strangest production techniques this side of “Easter Everywhere”. 

“Ceremony” begins with a Kingdom Come style organ vamp and some Galactic Zoo wailing as Mike Harrison begs for mercy from a vengeful deity that has its cosmic plaform boot planted firmly on the singer’s windpipe. Three parts “Jesus Christ Superstar” to two parts “Valis” it all quickly goes to pot as the guitars run wild alongside the kind of extraneous avant-Prog noises that even Roky Erikson and Arthur Brown would have arched an eyebrow at. 

As the guitars reach a climax of melodically challenged soloing the track cuts short and the record switches into another “Child In Time” styled God bothering ballad which stalls not once but twice for interludes of a‑melodic gulping, treated speaker hum and some plinking and a plonking of an Anton Webern bent. Harrison then dissolves into a puddle of admirably rhythmic gibbering idiocy while he duets with himself on the theme of universal harmony and Luther once again finds that his top string will bend a long long way in the service of Jesus the Hippie King. Ridley and Kellie wisely find a riff and stick to it. A riff so gloriously silly that the Sabs would have stolen the whole thing if they hadn’t been laughing so hard. It’s the most demented recording you’ll have heard since “666” or Magma’s “MDK”.

The record continues in this broad vein through 45 minutes of addled pomposity though to their credit the band manage to puncture their own Prog balloon at every stage with some performances of epic nuttiness. By track five they are in full-on Elevators territory but an Elevators built on “Sweet Leaf” as its template rather than “Out Of Our Heads”. Fans of Agitation Free and Cosmic Jokes will love this. For a while at any rate. Collectors of BBC Radiophonic recordings will have found that very small window of space and time that the likes of Wendy Carlos share with Ronnie James Dio. 

Needless to say the band never recovered their cock rockin’ stride and neither will you.