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Friday, June 22, 2012

Focal Point - First Bite Of The Apple (1967-68 uk, fantastic psychedelic rock with folk and baroque traces, 2005 Kissing Spell release)



Keen Followers of the 1960s Rock scene have become used to tales of long lost tapes and unissued recordings that have seemingly disappeared forever. Every so often, however, a cache of "lost" recordings does surface.

In subsequent years, the finally crafted pop-psych of "Sycamore Sid" helped earn the group a reputation for being one of the more intriguing- and most elusive- UK bands of the sixties. Yet nothing more was heard from Focal Point until 2002, when two previously unreleased tracks recorded at the same session as their Deram single appeared on the compilation CD 94 BAKER STREET which features artists who were signed to The Beatles' Apple Music Publishing company. Both, "Never Never" and "Girl on the corner" confirmed that "Sycamore Sid" was no fluke and that FOcal Point were perharps one of the great lost English pop groups of the 60's.

Since then, Paul Tennant, Dave Slater and Tim Wells of Focal Point have scoured lofts and basements across England in an effort to uncover tracks that were recorded during Focal Point's 1967-1968 heyday but were misplaced during ensuing decades. FIRST BITE OR THE APPLE represents the fruit of their labours. In addition to the four songs recorded for Deram in early 1968, FIRST BITE OF THE APPLE includes a number of tracks that were recorded independently at an 8-track studio in Manchester in late 1968.
by Stefan Granados


Tracks
1. Miss Sinclair - 2:29
2. Sycamore Sid  - 2:39
3. Hassle Castle  - 3:39
4. Never Never  - 3:27
5. Lonely Woman  - 3:31
6. Far Away From Forever - 3:42
7. Love You Forever - 2:56
8. Tales From The GPO Files - 2:19
9. McKinnley Morgan The Deep Sea Diver - 3:10
10.Falling Out Of Friends (Paul Tennant, Dave Slater, Tim Wells) - 3:29
11.Girl On The Corner - 2:22
12.Goodbye Forever  (Dave Slater, Paul Tennant, Tim Wells) - 2:29
13.This Time She's Leaving   (Dave Slater, Paul Tennant, Tim Wells) - 3:22
14.'Cept Me - 2:28
15.Miss Sinclair (Demo) - 2:38
16.Miss Sinclair (Alternate Version) - 2:57
17.Hassle Castle (Demo) - 3:02
18.Never Never (Alternate Version) - 3:04
19.Reflections (Demo) - 2:54
20.Reflections - 2:59
All songs by   Paul Tennant and Dave Rhodes except where noted.

Focal Point
*Paul Tennant - Vocals, Guitar
*Dave Rhodes - Guitar, Vocals
*Neil MacDonald - Guitar, Backing Vocals
*Dave Slater - Bass
*Ray Gobin - Drums
*Dave Hardbattle - Drums, Backing Vocals
*Tim Wells - Keyboards
*Lionel Morton - Vocals
*Cosmo - Guitar
*Ted Hesketh - Drums

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13 comments:

  1. How did Deram find all of these cool groups that went on to achieve almost no fame. Shame in this case. Thanks for the great esoteric post.

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  2. Hum. It sounds interesting so I'll give it a try. Love the psych pop from the late 60s.

    Thanks Marios !!

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  3. This sounds great. It's hard to believe that so many fantastic 'sixties bands sank without trace - so fierce was the competition. I wonder if, in fifty years time, people will be unearthing "unknown" bands of such high quality from today's music scene. Only time will tell.

    Many thanks, Marios, for a real gem.

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  4. In fifty years' time, people will still be unearthing "unknown" bands of high quality from the 1960's!
    :)

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  5. The sound of this cd is muffled.
    I can ear the voice only in background.
    Is this right?
    ptolemaic

    PS: Thanks Mario!(for all)

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  6. In some songs yes, but I presume that's because they're demos and home recordings.

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  7. OK.
    Again thanks for your time

    ptolemaic

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  8. Hi Marios! Once more many, many thanks!

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  9. Dreamy stuff of the highest order almost as good as the Beatles.
    Marios Rulez, OldrockerBr sucks!

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  10. Can you repost this great cd,the links are down,Thanks Marios.

    ReplyDelete