Do What Thou Wilt - The satanic rites of British rock delivered from acetates and rare pressings 1970-1974

Now there's a surprise a-coming! We've been able to lay our grubby mitts on this super limited edition comp.

A run of 200, gone in a few days, with hand-painted covers and hand-made liner notes. What's more the bulk of the songs covered come from acetates… unlikely to ever come to light again.

While I am not too sold on late UK Psych, as it is often veers too much towards the prog-hey-let's-have-a-Middle-Age-jam-complete-with flutes-and-harpsichord, this compilation is much more on the Heavy and Proto Punk side of things. Much more to my liking.

When I say Heavy, think of early Black Sabbath style, although the bands showcased here are no copycats at all. They have the same disturbing qualities as Ozzie's early band mates but often without the almighty crunch. A primitive taster of things to come.

As for the Proto-Punk bands in here, they are much of the anarchic psych variety with a few very disturbing occurance… the last song "Fuck You" being the perfect resumé for the whole LP. I think some of them resurfaced a couple years later as bona-fide punk bands.

Here's the track list and liner notes (lucky you):

CAMELOT - Time Around Me
PONY - I'm a Mover
SHADO - Evil City
HEATWAVE - 9-9-9
GRIND - Rip Off
SIOUX - Warlove
SARDONICUS - Nymph
YELLOW - The Hobo Song
SARDONICUS - Evaporated Brain
TONGE - Looking at the World
WOODEN LION - Rise of the Moon
GRIND - Earth Song
BARE SOUL - Flash
UNICORN - Another World
LUCIFER - Fuck You

Liners:

CAMELOT: Nothing has been left to devour over in a literary sense with CAMELOT, but their single-sided emidisc acetate offering should suffice to satisfy's anyone's hunger for primitive heavy rock!!

PONY: "I'm a mover" maybe more familiar to die-hard fans of blues rockers FREE, but here's a more raucous and battered version from PONY's surviving acetate recorded circa 1970. Backed with "Better by you, better than me" as more famously recorded by Spooky Tooth.

SHADO: Another incredible bunch of unknowns who were fortunate enough to be handled by local promoter, John Hessenthaler who is still in the business over 35 years later!! "Evil city" is the A-side of their 1974 single for Montrose records.

HEATWAVE: Led by guitarist Mervyn Selby Read in the early 70s, this Welsh band were making plenty of carnivorous noises in the valleys with their single for Harp records ("One-eyed man" c/w "9-9-9")

GRIND: One of the clearest and BEST examples of British proto punk along with Crushed Butler, 3rd World War, Hawkind and Mick Farren's Deviants who all formed a fairly decent chunk of anarchic rock on the British heavy rock underground circa 1969-1974. Muir, Barber and Hastings laid down these two shit-faced punkers on 31st October, 1973. Unfortunatly, it's only been possible to locate one of their two acetates which leaves another 2 tracks missing, WHAT A FUCKING BAND!!!!!!

SIOUX: Messrs. Holcombe, Natori and pattenden arrived in 1973 with an EP pressed up by SRT. Hipping yarns ensued with the recording of "Prosmoe", "Warlove", "You're all I need" and "Happiness in the sky". Christ knows what happened to SIOUX, but let's hope they carried on rocking!!

SARDONICUS: A bunch of anonymous punk unknowns whose collective venom spews out and throws up two disturbed rockers. "Evaporate Brain" and "Nymph" were recorded at County Recording Services in Bracknell, Berkshire in 1973.

YELLOW: The only band on this compilation that had any real luck as they had a single out on CBS in the late 60s and went on to enjoy other releases. YELLOW regrouped after two splits and laid down some demos at Impulse studios inNewcastle and then at Multicord studios in Sunderland from where this demonic and twisted beast arose in 1971. A quickly formed Abreaction record label released "The Hobo song" alongside "Daylight Child" by LUCAS TYSON who went on to become CIRKUS. Also included on the EP were BRASS ALLEY and TRIOLOGY.

TONGE: A Brighton band featuring Alan Grinyer (vocals), Dave Barnard (bass), Eric Wright (guitar) and Nick Oldfield (drums). TONGUE recorded a session for their local radio station circa 1972. 2 tracks were loaded onto acetate "Old father time" and "Looking at the world".This song later became "When they take me away" on a Depression demo.

WOODEN LION: There were 2 bands calling themselves WOODEN LION in Britain in the early 70s. This WOODEN LION are an unidentified bunch of long hairs who recorded "Tales of evening" and "Rise of the moon" and walked away with a crumbling acetate.

BARE SOUL: BARE SOUL came from East Yorkshire circa '69 and recorded several tracks in a studio based in Hull which had recorded future stars like Mick Ronson and Def Leppard !! Flash reveals BARE SOUL's envious appetite for pure destruction perfectly!!

UNICORN: Another "never heard of 'em" act who were assembled for a short time in 1970, but managed to record "Another world" and "Going home" in Hollick and Taylor studios, Perry Barr, Birmingham, They probably carried on but under a different name when they realised that there was another act called UNICORN who were already signed and making records with the Big T label at the same time.

LUCIFER: "Fuck you" sums up this entire project suitably. LUCIFER was Peter Walker of late 60s psychedelic set THE PURPLE GANG. Having retired himself from this band as the lead singer and kazoo player in 1969, Walker turned to his old affair with witchcraft and joined a coven. Obviously the big wig labels wouldn't touch this shit with a lengthy bargepole so he decided to go it on his own. "Fuck you" was his first ventured and advertised it in underground mag OZ for 50p as "A love song - FUCKROCK" the lucky bleeders were also entitled to a Fuck You poster too (plus P+P)!!

His next single, "Prick" was advertized in the RECORD MIRROR and OZ and was sold to gather proceeds for an LP. The LP finally arrived in the same year (1972) after the release of a third 7'' called "Don't care "c/w "Hypnosis". "Big gun" LP was issued on Private Press. Eventually, Walker was busted by Scotland Yard for obscenity and all copies of "Fuck you" and "Prick" were confiscated (presumably skipped by the fuzz). Walker retaliated in the NME with "You will hear a lot of faggot slop this Christmas. Break it up with the sound of the antichrist". Another single "Mr. Jack" appeared in 1973 as a free single (free for 10p) and a second album also made it out in the same year, but this was a soundtrack-type LP called "Exit" which was to accompany a biker flick. At the same time a project called FROG was also making sinister sounds for a cult film.... "Psychomania"

Hall Hail Aleister and get your mind wasting bomb here