GUY ANGIER Guitar And Bananas 1970 UK private pressing psych pop demo LP
£
250
$
331
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Description
Extremely rare UK private pressing pop-psych demo album recorded January 1970, only 99 copies apparently made.
Angier gives himself a full band sound by overdubbing electric, 12-string and acoustic guitars, bass, drums, piano and organ. Has obvious similarities to turn-of-the-decade studio whizzkids/one-man-bands like McCartney, Emitt Rhodes and Todd Rundgren, but the most striking similarity is with the Rockin’ Horse album ‘Yes It Is’ – Angier sounds a dead ringer for Jimmy Campbell, while the Beatles-inspired, three-minute popsike nuggets approach is similar to the likes of Rockin’ Horse, Octopus, Badfinger and all those other late 60s Beatles wannabes. Recorded in January 1970 at the Hertfordshire demo studio responsible for the Rainbow Ffolly album, highlights include the 'Revolver'-esque ‘Leaf In The Wind’, the equally excellent ‘The Days Are Long’ and ‘Stanley Chapter’, which sounds like Deram-era Timebox crossed with Idle Race – it has a great fairground organ sound and some clever popsike-style lyrics about an Uncle Arthur-type figure who, despite his advancing years, still lives at home with his domineering mother. Perhaps the best track, though, is ‘Baker Man’, a fabulous Teenage Opera-type psych-pop vignette about the local baker attempting to entice the village kids to sample his wares (“I am the Baker Man, hot cross buns, come on everyone, come buy your bread from me, two penny rolls, hello little children, hot crusty rolls…”). When British psych ezine Sweet Floral Albion stumbled across this a few years ago, they described it as “a delicious album…crammed with whimsical material and shot through with popsike affections…a near-perfect collection of pop songs”. All twelve songs on the album are originals, great song titles are a bonus, and only 99 copies were apparently made of this little gem in an effort to land Angier a recording contract (he later signed to Decca). It looks the part too, housed in a homemade silkscreen cover with paste-on back sleeve, hand-typed white labels and a thick, mustard-yellow fold-over lyric insert.
Both disc and sleeve are in strong condition – front cover has minor ring wear and a couple of small creases to bottom right corner, and the back cover is slightly uneven, but only because Angier seems to have used too much glue when he pasted it down! Disc is beautiful, looks like it’s only been played a couple of times. First time this has been offered on eBay for six or seven years.
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