14 January : Progressive, yeah.

“Progressive” is an adjective, or adjectival noun, that crops up repeatedly in Melody Maker from at least January 1969 onwards. For all I know it predates then too, but I haven’t looked that far back. Interestingly, as far as I can tell from a cursory look, ‘progressive’ doesn’t appear at all in New Musical Express until November 1969, and only then in inverted commas as “Progressive/Underground”, quoting a press release.

The word is left largely undefined as one of those adjectives everyone is supposed to just know and understand without any need for further explication. It emphatically is not what later generations of wordslingers called ‘Prog’; it is much broader than that.

To the extent it is defined, it means music that seeks to go beyond the confines of commercial chart music and to have some value beyond a few weeks on the charts before consignment to oblivion.

I’m collecting material for a later, more detailed post on ‘progressive’, but for today I’m going to note that record companies had picked up on the word and look at the two albums said to be progressive in the RCA advert above. Both albums were released in 1969, but the advert is from the first week in January 1970, so it’s in play.

Creepy John Thomas’s debut album (there’s a claim on YouTube that it’s his second, but this is the one the ad refers to) will set you back £100 on Discogs at present; luckily for us it is on YouTube. Despite the YouTube caption below, it was definitely a late 1969 release.

The first thing that strikes you is that the lead-off track is heavy blues-rock, not a million miles from what Led Zeppelin and Johnny Winter were doing at the time, except they did it better (and I don’t particularly like Led Zeppelin). The lead guitar is limited, playing in the same box all the time with no melodic variation or development. The second track sounds like an attempt at a single, and the album continues with some heavy pop, a bit like a rocked-up Manfred Mann, then some heavy boogie featuring the same technically limited lead guitar. They sound like a good club band, and a decent support act, and I suspect you’d really dig them in a club after hours if you were stoned, but if you’re attracted by the ‘progressive’ tag and expect King Crimson, you’re going to be disappointed.

The second album, the self-titled debut by Andromeda, is a much different beast, and a lot better, though dated. It’s hard rock with residual psychedelia (they started as a Psychedelic band in 1966). John Cann’s lead guitar is varied and Mick Hawksworth’s mobile bass grabs the attention. The original drummer in the band was Jack McCulloch, the same Jack McCulloch who was briefly in Thunderclap Newman and was out with Keith Moon when Neil Bolland was killed. By the time of this album the drummer was Ian McLane. Lyrically it is ‘of it’s time’ but, with it’s cracking original sleeve, it’s a decent slab of 69/70 British rock, and reminded me in a strange way of The Groundhogs. As a bonus, the album was engineered by Eddie Offord.

Plus, you can play ‘spot the classical reference.’

The album was well reviewed (see above). If you like what you hear, and fancy a copy of the original vinyl, it will currently set you back £599 on Discogs.