#sam gopal

Ian Fraser "Lemmy" Kilmister

Sam Gopal – Escalator (1969)

Sam Gopal: Escalator (1969)

Some artists are bound to be forgotten, even if unfairly, while others maintain a tenuous grip on historical relevance for the minutest reasons ...

Artists like Sam Gopal, whose lone, eponymous long-player, Escalator, featured a band member named Ian Willis, later to find fame as the one-and-only Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister! (*)

And yet, though it was released 55 years ago, and almost a decade before Motörhead's debut album, this wasn't Lemmy's first appearance on wax, as he'd already recorded a trio of 7-inch singles with The Rockin' Vickers.

Now, regarding Sam Gopal: he was a tabla-playing Malaysian ex-pat studying in England when he formed Sam Gopal's Dream in 1967, performing alongside Pink Floyd, The Pretty Things, and other underground hopefuls at hip London clubs like The Electric Garden, Middle Earth, and UFO.

Their original line-up splintered in '68, but Gopal promptly recruited bassist Phil Duke, lead guitarist Roger D'Elia, and, on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Lemmy, who recalled in his autobiography, White Line Fever: "Sam was determined to be a star; he was a real fucking poseur."

Sure seems like it, since it was Lemmy who wrote most of Escalator's fuzz-distorted psychedelic ditties (allegedly in a single, wild-eyed night of methedrine abuse), which were rife with Eastern-sounding melodies and tablas that were "impossible to amplify on stage."

Maybe that's why this vintage black-and-white clip of the quartet performing "The Sky is Burning" for French TV was captured on a boat, floating gently down the River Thames ... makes my stomach queasy just looking at it!

Anyway, as different as this sounds from Motörhead, attentive fans will recognize Lemmy's signature riffing attack in the title track and hear the seeds of Hawkwind's "The Watcher" in the creepy "You're Alone Now" -- proving no experience is wasted.

Also, despite his game attempt at peace-and-love lyrics on tracks like "It's Only Love" and "Yesterlove," Lemmy's fascination with nefarious subjects reveals itself on nightmare "trips" like "Cold Embrace" and "The Dark Lord."

And while I wouldn't presume such an obscure LP to be influential, I hear further sonic parallels, near and far, in stoned ballads like "Angry Faces" (Black Sabbath's "Planet Caravan") and "Grass" (Monster Magnet's "Black Balloon").

Finally, there's a surprisingly compelling cover of Donovan's "Season of the Witch," complete with soulful lady singers, and a stripped-down version of Willie Dixon's "Back Door Man," slated for release as a single that never was, but included in this deluxe vinyl reissue.

Alas, upon its original release in January of '69 through independent Stable Records (which Lemmy wrote was "run by these two Indian geezers who had no idea whatsoever how to run a record label"), this Escalator took Sam Gopal nowhere but DOWN!

The group broke up with little fanfare and Gopal's self-proclaimed bid for stardom was obviously never manifested; but at least our dear Mr. Kilmister fulfilled that destiny in due time with Motörhead, after a short detour through the cosmos with Space Lords, Hawkwind.

* Lemmy briefly adopted the surname of his stepfather, George Willis.

More Heavy Psych: Ainigma’s Diluvium, Andromeda’s Andromeda, Art’s Supernatural Fairy Tales, B.F. Trike’s B.F. Trike, Blue Cheer’s Outsideinside, Bubble Puppy’s A Gathering of Promises, Cradle's The History, The Damnation of Adam Blessing’s The Damnation of Adam Blessing, Dark’s Dark Round the Edges, A Euphonious Wail’s A Euphonious Wail, Fanny Adams’ Fanny Adams, Fields’ Fields, Fraction’s Moon Blood, Frantic’s Conception, Fuzzy Duck’s Fuzzy Duck, Goldenrod’s Goldenrod, Gun’s Gun, Gypsy’s Gypsy, Hamilton Streetcar's Hamilton Streetcar, Head Machine’s Orgasm, The Head Shop’s The Head Shop, High Tide’s Sea Shanties, Randy Holden’s Population II, The Hook’s Will Grab You, Horse’s Horse ...

9:38 AM EDT June 19, 2024:

Sam Gopal - "Grass" From the compilation   Mojo Presents Heavy Nuggets Vol. V (November 2019)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Song written and bass played by Lemmy Kilmister, as "Ian Willis"; from the album Escalator, released in January 1969

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Sam Gopal - Escalator Album UK 1969

Sam Gopal was fronted by the young tabla player of the same name as Sam Gopal Dream, an acoustic raga-without-sitar group that had previously performed at UFO and other hippy London venues. But by the time they recorded this, their first album, he had added not only electric guitar, but also former Jimi Hendrix’s roadie, Ian “Lemmy” Willis to the lineup on further fuzz guitar and vocals. I imagine it was in all certainty against Gopal’s will he started knocking them into a fiercely lumpen rock outfit whose only missing ingredient was a drummer, the loping basslines often operating as a rhythmic substitute. The album is weirdly mixed and a super crude production, completely tipped in the favour of Lemmy’s vocals and fuzz guitar, making it sound even more imbalanced.

The sum total of percussion on this album is tabla, finger cymbals (on one track) and either a session drummer or Gopal forsaking his ancestral instrument for a rented drum kit on the “You Really Got Me” hijack, “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” A squeezed and barely reigned-in fuzz guitar rebounds all over the place uncontrollably as a youthful Lemmy sings “The face in the mirror is screaming insanely” over the blistering rave up. And all the remaining tracks sound as rough, down at the heels and hunkered down as the band members themselves. In fact, all the tracks are about as drugged and unglamourous as the members of Sam Gopal themselves: which, from one look at the cover shot, is an achievement as they all look ‘street’, stoned and pissed off as hell.This album pre-dates Lemmy’s induction into Hawkwind’s ragged ranks by several years, but the germ of Hawkwind’s (and in time, Motörhead) “The Watcher” is in the horribly fuzzed and equally-strung out “You’re Alone Now.”

Sam Gopal (circa 1968)

Bad trip evil hippie music day here at House on Massive Hill in San Francisco.

Today I read a patheos article about how The Satanic Temple is a solid "Satanic" religious organization and I am filled with such rage and loathing that I'll be listening to only evil hippie music today to cleanse my palate.