The Ganglians - Monster Head Room (Souterrain Transmissions)
Kath Jones’ Record Shop, Sandbach, Cheshire, May 1967:
Steady now, heavy on the back brake, a well-rehearsed slide, sideways to a skidding dusty stop. Nip up the wooden steps, lift the door-latch and enter the T&G boarded palace, the shrine to all things 78, 45 and 33 and a 1/3. Ah, the smell of vinyl and a faint background odour of, well, music.

“Hi has my new Ganglians LP come in yet?”

“Hang on a minute and I’ll pop in the back and ask Kath”.

Wilf trundled off to the sanctuary of the back room, leaving me with 50 years of history in this small, cosy, wooden emporium.

“Yes you’re in luck,” he wheezed.

“Great stuff!”. I handed over the 29 shillings and eleven pence, and he handed me twelve black vinyl inches of future memories.

So there I was on my green Dawes 5 speed bike, freewheeling down the hill. One hand on the handlebars, the other clutching Monster Head Room, and I didn’t know it at the time but life would never be this simple and carefree again. Just me, my bike and an album by a band from Sacramento - wherever that is. 

My little house, Nantwich, Cheshire, May 2010
Wow, for a minute there I was really, really gone. I was back where things were so much simpler, when you had but one choice of format, and the number of bands you could listen to in a week was counted on one hand. This new album by Ganglians sounds as if it was made straight after they attended a rolling concert by the Chocolate Watch Band, Steve Miller, Buffalo Springfield, Love and the Beach Boys; in between sets the DJ’s had played stuff by the likes of Box Tops, Left Banke, Chambers Brothers and Jefferson Airplane.

They didn’t even pause for breath, just hitting that studio running, while the music they’d heard was still fresh in their minds, and their ideas were bursting with rainbow colours and 60’s optimism.

I doubt the band know it, but after making this 57 minutes of heavenly psyche life may never be this simple and carefree for them again. I just cannot see them staying a band from Sacramento - wherever that is...
www.myspace.com/ganglian
Kev A.

GANGLIANS – TO JUNE

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