They might not be a household name, but July is a band you ought to know. The U.K. psych-rockers have garnered a cult following since the release of their self-titled 1968 record. Original mono copies sell for more than three grand online, but its not just the scarcity and desirability of the album that raises eyebrows; it's the high quality of the music. Though their singles may not have charted back in the day, the five-piece Ealing-based group is still considered by psych-rock enthusiasts to be one of the unsung heroes of the genre.
Well, listeners no longer have to shell out big bucks to hear this or any other July album. The Grapefruit label recently released a career-spanning box set - July: The Complete Recordings - that tells the whole story of the band, from 1968 to the present.
July formed from the ashes of The Dreamers, one of many smaller groups that emerged during the British Invasion. After another British band, Freddie and The Dreamers, made it big, they rechristened themselves The Tomcats. The original Tomcats featured vocalist-guitarist Tom Newman, lead guitarist Peter Cook, bassist Alan James, and drummer Chris Jackson. A lineup change found them joining forces with members of another rock group, Second Thoughts. That group featured Jon Field on flute, keyboards, and percussion, Tony Duhig on guitar, Patrick Cambell-Lyons on vocals, and others. When Second Thoughts split, Duhig and Field joined up with Newman, James, and Jackson to form a new iteration of The Tomcats. This would later become the first lineup of July.
The Tomcats enjoyed some success in Spain with a blend of R&B and rock, but Newman and Cook eventually made their way back to London and wrote new material that embraced the psych-rock sound. They recorded demos and found a new label in Major-Minor and a new manager in Spencer Davis. July was recorded with the label's staff producer Tommy Scott and engineer Mike Ross overseeing. The 12-song effort was released in 1968 and the rest, as they say, was history.
The 6-CD box set July: The Complete Recordings tracks the band's entire six-decade history, bringing together all their releases in one package for the first time ever, newly remastered and presented in a deluxe clamshell package with an impressive 36-page booklet. The historic photos and new liner notes by David Wells, including new interviews with band members, provide unprecedented insight into the history of July. And that's before we get to the impressive selection of music!
CD 1 features that cult classic in its original mono mix along with single edits of album cuts "My Clown," "Dandelion Seeds," plus the non-album A-side "Hello, Who's There" and its B-side, a longer, looser re-recording of the album cut "The Way." CD 2 features the 12-track album in stereo. This mix is a bit of an anomaly as it was originally only available in the U.S. on the Epic label. Epic had re-EQ'd the mono mix to build a faux-stereo version that to this day sparks controversy among fans. It's been enhanced for this set to a much better result. The songs are often heavier than most psych-pop that made it to the charts, Indian-inspired, and full of reverb and tape trickery that would make more well-known bands jealous.
As Tom Newman remembers in the liner notes, "We used two four-track machines and bounced tracks from one to another, the same way that Sgt. Pepper was made. I was already making tape loops by then fifty-foot long going right 'round the room, so I got very interested in multi-track facilities. Tommy and the engineer [Mike Ross] were also into making their own Sgt. Pepper with freaky recordings techniques." Alan James recalled one such incident during the recording of "You Missed It All": "Mike Ross was...trying to show us how to get white noise by hanging a microphone out of the window. It was fairly early in the morning on a Sunday, and so the back streets were fairly quiet. Suddenly, though, someone got out of his car and slammed the door very loudly. Mike told us we'd have to take it out, but we just said, "No, leave it in." It's this sense of adventure - not to mention the quality of the songwriting - that makes it an enduring album that's worthy of all the accolades it's received in the decades since.
Many sets would stop there with the first album but, typical of the label, Grapefruit has gone several steps further to present proves there's more to the story than their eponymous effort. The third CD presents all the tracks from a 1995 compilation called The Second of July. The fourteen tracks are made up of those historic demos by Newman and Cook which have been augmented slightly, mainly with drums. Here, we witness the duo trying out wild psychedelic ideas from inside various flats in Ealing. Though it's obviously a do-it-yourself affair, these songs display a certain confidence in their material which is all the more intriguing considering the era in which they were created.
As David Wells points out in his liner notes, in 1967 many British bands were exploring improvisational forms. July, meanwhile, had tighter sets with constructed songs. "We played at The Roundhouse...with another up-and-coming band," reflected bassist Alan James. When they were packing up to leave, the MC implored them to return to the stage for another set. "He said, 'The audience don't like the band that's out there at the moment.' That happened to be Pink Floyd."
While their live sets alongside Jethro Tull, Spooky Tooth, and Roy Harper were well-received, some of the band members grew tired of the requirements of studio recording. "The whole recording session [for July] was an absolute nightmare," Jon Field said, quoted in the notes. "Nobody was relaxed, and the whole thing was done in such a rush. The producer, Tommy Scott, couldn't contribute to the music because he didn't understand it - there was no empathy at all." "We weren't allowed into the control room to listen to the takes," Newman stated. "It was the old Peter Sellers thing: 'Where the carpet starts, you stop.'"
Differences in artistic direction between the band and producer Scott came to a head during the recording of the Small Faces-esque "Hello, Who's There?" "They turned it into a joke recording," offered songwriter Peter Cook, recalling the put-on accents and production choices that certainly date the song. Worse, Tommy Scott's send-up that he'd so hoped would bring the band surefire chart action ended up stalling completely. July called it quits, with Field and Duhig forming Jade Warrior, as Newman, Jackson, and Cook reformed The Tomcats. Cook would go on to become a top luthier, while Newman would eventually convince his friend Richard Branson to start up the Virgin record label and also produce a number of Mike Oldfield albums.
It wasn't until decades later, as crate-digging psych fans rediscovered the album that they would begin to re-evaluate their legacy as July. Newman, James, Jackson, and Cook reconvened in 2009. After four decades, Cook professed that "the chemistry was still there, and everything kind of gelled... At that time I thought, well, I wasn't actually in July, so I've got to bring something to the party." He penned new tracks and recorded the material with Newman for an album that would be called Temporal Anomaly. Those previously unreleased 10 tracks mark the first inkling of July's return - though they were recorded under the Tomcats moniker - and are included on CD 4.
The whole band would eventually revisit the Temporal Anomaly material on a new fully-fledged July project aptly called Resurrection, which also featured material prepared by all four members. Finally released in 2013, and featured on this set on CD 5, the album was hailed as a triumphant return that blends classic psychedelic traits with a contemporary feel. A new version of the album's tongue-in-cheek, Beatles lyric-inspired "Can I Go Back Again" was released in 2016 as a non-album single. It's presented as a bonus track alongside Cook's original demo.
But while that track looks back, July has continued to move forward and their latest studio effort, The Wight Album, comprises the sixth and final disc of this career-spanning box set. Here, Newman and Cook pay tribute to their past, featuring songs by Jackson and James along with a clever use of guitar parts from 1968. Once again, July combines heavy guitars and familiar psych-rockisms with a decidedly contemporary production style. The world of recording has changed dramatically since 1968; for one, the band can be their own auteurs, and phasing and looping can be done in a click. July makes full use of a range of recording techniques, and they include one song that brings the effort full-circle.
In Cook's words: "Just when we thought [the album] was done and dusted...[Tom] called to ask if I remembered writing a song in 1967 called 'The Game'...It kind of rang a bell, but it was only when he sang it to me that it slowly came back. Tom couldn't remember the last verse or the tune for the middle-eight, but he thought we had to include it on the album in the spirit of '67. So, one new last verse and middle-eight later, we laid it down." It's a poetic way to tie the bow around July's history so far, bringing together songs and sounds from across their 50-year history.
by Sam Stone, September 14, 2020
Tracks
Disc 1 July (Mono) 1968
1. My Clown - 3:27
2. Dandelion Seeds - 4:32
3. Jolly Mary - 2:22
4. Hallo To Me - 3:01
5. You Missed It All - 2:53
6. The Way - 3:30
7. To Be Free - 2:51
8. Move On Sweet Flower - 3:28
9. Crying Is For Writers - 2:37
10.I See - 2:43
11.Friendly Man - 3:12
12.A Bird Lived - 2:40
13.My Clown - 3:17
14.Dandelion Seeds - 3:21
15.Hello, Who's There? - 3:12
16.The Way - 4:14
Tracks 1,3,7,10,11,12,13,15 written by Peter Cook
Tracks 2,4,5,6,8,14,16 written by Tom Newman
Track 9 written by Chris Jackson
Disc 2 July 1968 (Stereo)
1. My Clown - 3:28
2. Dandelion Seeds - 4:32
3. Jolly Mary - 2:23
4. Hallo To Me - 3:00
5. You Missed It All - 2:51
6. The Way - 3:21
7. To Be Free - 2:50
8. Move On Sweet Flower - 3:26
9. Crying Is For Writers - 2:36
10.I See - 2:43
11.Friendly Man - 3:12
12.A Bird Lived - 2:38
Tracks 1,3,7,10,11,12 written by Peter Cook
Tracks 2,4,5,6,8 written by Tom Newman
Track 9 written by Chris Jackson
Disc 3 The Second Of July 1969
1. You Missed It All - 1:57
2. My Clown - 2:30
3. Dandelion Seeds - 2:41
4. The Stamping Machine - 1:41
5. A Bird Lived - 1:52
6. Look At Her - 2:18
7. The Way - 2:02
8. Friendly Man - 2:02
9. I See - 2:24
10.The Girl In The Café - 1:57
11.You See Me I See You - 2:12
12.Man Outside - 3:29
13.Move On Sweet Flower - 2:11
14.Hallo To Me - 1:55
Tracks 1,3,4,6,7,10,11,12,13,14 written by Tom Newman
Tracks 2,5,8,9 written by Peter Cook
Disc 4 Temporal Anomaly 2010
1. I Like It - 4:38
2. If - 5:08
3. A Day To Remember - 4:28
4. All The Hours There Are - 3:07
5. Don't Let Me Down - 5:07
6. Magical Days - 3:02
7. Regeneration - 5:01
8. Dreams - 3:14
9. I'm Talking To You - 3:34
10.Lights - 5:27
All songs by Peter Cook except tracks 4,6 by Tom Newman
Disc 5 Resurrection 2013
1. Dreams - 5:02
2. I Like It - 4:35
3. Can I Go Back Again - 5:30
4. Counting The Minutes - 4:20
5. A Day To Remember - 3:44
6. King Bee - 4:24
7. All The Hours There Are - 3:08
8. I'm Talkin' To You - 3:42
9. Linear Thinking - 2:52
10.Heaven Or Hell - 4:06
11.Magical Days - 3:59
12.Regeneration - 4:20
13.Can I Go Back Again - 6:18
14.Can I Go Back Again - 5:42
All songs by Peter Cook except tracks 7,11 by Tom Newman
Disc 6 The Wight Album 2020
1. The Devil Inside - 3:11
2. Special Guy - 3:13
3. Sophie - 6:28
4. Animals - 4:16
5. We Are The Masters - 3:26
6. Love 'N' Love - 1:39
7. Protest Song - 4:03
8. Henry's Squirrel - 3:39
9. It's Up To Me - 3:11
10.Seeking The Hacksaw Blades - 4:40
11.Let Me - 5:01
12.Catchin' Up - 3:03
13.Mods Of Ryde - 2:26
14.The Game - 1:54
15.What's Gonna Be - 3:46
16.Disco Klingon - 3:00
17.It's A Fine Line - 2:05
18.Dancing - 0:26
19.Truth - 4:35
20.The Traveller - 3:29
21.Home - 5:58
22.Once When We Was Free - 3:37
23.Right Place, Wrong Time - 2:43
Tracks 1,2,4,5,9,11,14,15,18,19,21,23 written by Peter Cook
Tracks 6,7,8,12,16,17,22 written by Tom Newman
Track 3 written by Chris Jackson
Track 10 written by Jim Newman, Tom Newman
Track 13 written by Peter Cook, Tom Newman
Track 20 written by Alan James
July
*Peter Cook - Vocals, Guitar
*Tony Duhig - Lead Guitar, Organ
*Jon Field - Flute, Keyboards
*Chris Jackson - Drums, Organ
*Alan James - Bass
*Tom Newman - Vocals, Guitars