La Historia De La Musica Rock

June 17:

On the 17th of June, 1997, Neil Young & Crazy Horse laid upon us Year Of The Horse, their live album.

12:45 AM EDT June 17, 2026:

Maserati - "Inventions" From the album Inventions for the New Season (2007)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

12:34 AM EDT June 17, 2026:

Henry Cow With Robert Wyatt -   "Living In The Heart Of The Beast" From the bootleg Live In London on May 21, 1975 (Recorded May 21, 1975)

12:24 AM EDT June 17, 2026:

Wilde Flowers - "Parchman Farm" From the album The Wilde Flowers (1994)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

So The Wilde Flowers were sort of the Canterbury ur-Group. Before making it big in Caravan or The Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, Pye Hastings, Kevin Ayers, Richard Sinclair and others all played with The Wilde Flowers.

But their music remaineed unreleased until 1994, when Brian Hopper curated this compilation, which has since been reissued.

So encyclopedists and completists rejoiced. But here's the thing: the music's not that good. Far from being anything Canterbury, or prog, or psychedelic or even somewhat jazzy, this is primitive, even tribal, garage rock. One song sort of has a Bolton Iron Maiden feel, so a little heavy and OK, and another tune is Robert Wyatt solo at the piano, but even Jet Propelled Photographs, the early Gomelsky stuff, is light years beyond this.

This stuff will work when slipped in among my shuffled music as a curiosity and a topic of conversation, like, wow, look how much better these people got in just four years, but I really can't imagine listening to the album straight through again.

File under: Roots Canterbury

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