Halcyon Days – Various Artists (Strawberry)

This three-disc set tracks that progression of largely UK acts from recording covers – often in a style a mile away from the original – through what has become known as freakbeat and proto-psyche, while still maintaining that Mod ethic of coolness. Hammond-driven wigouts rub shoulders with R&B scorchers, big bands of the time display lesserknown tracks from their repertoire, while acts that are almost unknown outside of the cognoscenti give us some of the highlights of the compilation. It wasn't just the Sixties Mod scene that benefited from these tunes though. The Mod scene that grew out of the early Eighties revival took many of these artists on board and gave them much more due credence than they sadly got originally. Bands like the Bo Street Runners, Trinity and The Graham Bond Organisation were received with much more enthusiasm than they were originally by collectors of the cool, and the echoes of many can be heard in acts as diverse as those that came out of the Medway area in the Eighties, and those that fuelled the Britpop and ‘Second Summer Of Love' eras which followed. The Kinks, Animals, Spencer Davis and more have earned their spots on this set, largely by the classic sounds that we all know and love, but represented here with obscure B-sides and failed singles. Artists who were destined for greater things, such as David Bowie, Jimmy Page and Marc Bolan, rub shoulders with lesser, but still recognised names. Geno Washington and Laurel Aitken make appearances under their own names, but the bands who may be less familiar are full of musicians who would one day go on to make their own mark on the music world. Yes, there are a couple of predictable tracks – surely we've all got Biff Bam Pow by now? But overall the emphasis is largely on the obscure and in-demand. Although not a ‘Mod' album in the strictest terms of the word, it certainly gives greater depth to our knowledge of the sounds that would have been played in the coolest of clubs the length of the nation, both back in the early days and on the scene that developed out of the reemergence of the scene in the Eighties and beyond.

Nik