The band first came together in the mid-'70s as a rehearsal band, with an original lineup featuring guitarist John Goodsall, über-bassist Percy Jones, keyboardist Robin Lumley, included drummer John Dillon, vocalist/percussionist Phil Spinelli and Pete Bonas on second guitar.
After a stylistically different album was submitted to and rejected by Island Records, Spinelli and Bonas left, as did Dillon, replaced by drummer Phil Collins, who used the open-ended, improv-heavy Brand X as a separate creative outlet to the stricter confines of his by-then main gig with Genesis, the ascending progressive rock group whose diametrically opposed objective was to reproduce its studio material as faithfully and consistently as possible in performance.
This was the lineup that recorded Unorthodox Behaviour (Charisma, 1976), which also featured saxophonist Jack Lancaster guesting on one track.
Following a number of other percussionists fleshing the group to a quintet (including ex-Yes/King Crimson's Bill Bruford, Camel's Andy Ward, Jeff Seopardie and Preston Heyman), the quartet of Unorthodox Behaviour was ultimately augmented, for Moroccan Roll (Charisma, 1977), by percussionist Morris Pert, a busy session percussionist (tuned and untuned) who'd garnered attention for his work with Japanese percussionist Stomu Yamashta, Canterbury mainstays Caravan, fusion compadres Isotope and, most notably, Marscape (RSO, 1976), an all-too-often overlooked progressive masterpiece led by Lumley and Lancaster, but also featuring fellow Brand Xers Collins, Goodsall and Jones.
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