The Rotter's Club- First Listen

[Sean]

Tell us about the first time you heard this seminal Canterbury classic. I've loved it for years. My friend Vaylor loves it now. It might be his fave of the batch of albums we are checking out so far. I knew it would be up his alley...

"This week is The Rotters' Club by Hatfield and the North. Vaylor is feeling this one, then has his mind blown. Sean details why this album might be the peak of Canterbury goodness. Traffic signs are discussed."

[Quantum Cat]

For me, it was going into a university co-op record store and seeing the National Health album being promoted. I bought it based on their recommendation and then went back, found the Hatfield albums as the precursor, bought the Rotter's Club and it was love at first listen. I still love it. It's now like a loved pair of old worn-in shoes that feel perfect the minute I pop 'em on (if that makes any sense).

[Paulrus]

I had a friend back in the 90's who kept trying to get me into the jazzier side of Canterbury. This is the one that made the proverbial light bulb go off. It really hits the sweet spot between the playing and the writing.

[zombywoof]

Hey Sean - ever since you wrote me and sent me my first Vaylor Trucks video (Amon Duul II / Yeti) I've been hooked and haven't missed an episode. I can't believe this series isn't getting more views or traction, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for on youtube. I love how he goes deeper than just a surface level 'reaction' - and now he's even got me wanting to pick up a book !!

[Zeuhlmate]

In a prog record shop in a dark basement in the provins of Denmark in the early seventies, age 15.

I was there for Soft Machine Six, and the owner recommended this, and I didn't like it much mainly because of the 'whiny vocal'. I bought Soft Machine Six (and still love it).

Rotters Club is a fantastic album and there is nothing like it except perhaps their first.

[pb2015]

The Hatfield s/t was a daunting listen at first but kicked open a lot of doors. (I found it on CD in the early 90's after reading a review in the Rolling Stone Record Guide that only gave it two stars, but still made it sound interesting.) By the time I heard Rotters Club I was familiar with their style so it was more of a case of getting a predictably great record.

[calyx]

I remember coming across the first album on vinyl in a Paris record store in 1990, being familiar with the names of Dave Stewart (from Bruford) and Richard Sinclair (from Rock Bottom) and bought it on the basis on having these two guys on it (I think I'd recently bought Grey & Pink second hand, so I did know that Richard was a good singer, too - I was actually a bit disappointed that he didn't sing more in Hatfield, especially on s/t). The following year I got both albums on CD at the Virgin Megastore in London. They soon became, and still are, my favourite band of all time.

[Sunlight Caller]

I was very much into the famous names of prog whilst a teenager in the 70’s, but I don’t really remember Hatfield getting a huge amount of attention from my peers. I certainly hadn’t heard the first album when I chanced upon a cassette copy of The Rotters Club in a bargain bin in the record and tape section of a local department store. My interest was piqued and so I bought it. This is pre-Walkman days, and I would carry my portable tape player around, it was the size of a chunky hardback book, and I would play this tape. I never really had any other pre-recorded cassette tapes, only those I dutifully recorded from friends albums (we were poor back then!). Anyway, cut to the chase, I bloody loved it then and it sent my spiralling off into other Canterbury directions. I still have that cassettes tape, for reasons of pure nostalgia. It’s still a top ten album of all time for me.

[Steve F.]

I heard about Robert Wyatt’s fall and accident in 1973, and myself and my good pal Barney Jones wrote him a postcard, c/o CBS UK (I was in high school and it was 1973; how did I get an address???).

It was actually forwarded to him somehow and he wrote back to us, telling us that since he had gotten ‘out of hospital’, he had recorded with a band called Hatfield and the North.

Within the month I was at the major cool store in DC and THERE IT WAS! For what seemed like a FORTUNE (probably something like $10.99). I bought it immediately.

Very few High School students who were High School students while the band existed can say ‘Hatfield and the North were my FAVORITE band when I was in High School.” But I can!!!!!

[chalkpie]

Bought a vinyl copy when I was in college (probably 1991 or so) and it has since become an absolute FAV album (and band). Desert island doesn't even begin do it justice. A miraculous achievement.

[aith01]

I heard about Robert Wyatt’s fall and accident in 1973, and myself and my good pal Barney Jones wrote him a postcard, c/o CBS UK (I was in high school and it was 1975; how did I get an address???).

It was actually forwarded to him somehow and he wrote back to us, telling us that since he had gotten ‘out of hospital’, he had recorded with a band called Hatfield and the North.

Within the month I was at the major cool store in DC and THERE IT WAS! For what seemed like a FORTUNE (probably something like $10.99). I bought it immediately.

Very few High School students who were High School students while the band existed can say ‘Hatfield and the North were my FAVORITE band when I was in High School.” But I can!!!!!

That's a really nice story, Steve. Thank you for sharing!

When I was high school age, sadly, I wasn't aware of Hatfield (or any Canterbury bands). My favorite band would have been R.E.M. at the time.

Both of those Hatfield and the North records are monumental.

Bought a vinyl copy when I was in college (probably 1991 or so) and it has since become an absolute FAV album (and band). Desert island doesn't even begin do it justice. A miraculous achievement.

[Sean]

Hey Sean - ever since you wrote me and sent me my first Vaylor Trucks video (Amon Duul II / Yeti) I've been hooked and haven't missed an episode. I can't believe this series isn't getting more views or traction, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for on youtube. I love how he goes deeper than just a surface level 'reaction' - and now he's even got me wanting to pick up a book !!

Thanks, Ian. When we picked this season's batch of albums I was thinking that is just not something you will get from anyone else on YouTube. I'd watch this for the album selection alone. Nobody reacts to stuff like this and never as thoroughly. We weren't trying to avoid really obvious prog albums, it was just a matter of what Vaylor already knew and heard. He knew that "top crust" quite well. Stuff like this though, no. You might never find some of these albums if you aren't a devout prog listener, explorer. So he already heard most of the obvious Yes, Genesis, ELP, etc.... Which is fine, that stuff is discussed ad nauseum. Great as it is, you can find lot of reaction vids when it comes to that stuff. Glad you're enjoying our alternate slant.

[Sean]

I really dug that story too, Steve! BTW

[Dave (in MA)]

I could be mistaken but I don't think Dave Sinclair appeared on any of the Hatfield records.

I don't know some of you guys found out about bands like this stateside contemporaneously to their release. I had a hard enough time finding things from, say, Genesis or Zappa.

I don't think I ever even heard about Hatfield until I started reading rec.music.progressive back in the late '80s. I had heard about National Health, but only managed to get my hands on a release once Complete came out, and I think I even had to order that as an import from a guy who used to do mail order by way of Usenet. Maybe if I got to the city record stores more often, I dunno.

[proggy_jazzer]

My contact with the Canterbury scene has been solely from listening "backwards" to Dave Stewart from the days of the Bruford band. How his badassery escaped me for nearly fifty years is a mystery. Anyway, I listened to RC front to back for the first time tonight for the first time. What an amazing album! I had a grin on my face throughout. And since I'm also these days immersing myself in all things Muffins, can anyone else back me up on hearing an uncanny echo from the "Prenut" section of "Mumps" in the ending section of "Amelia Earhart"?

[Sean]

"In mid-1972 the band grew out of a line-up of ex-members of blues/jazz/rock band Delivery, Pip Pyle (drums, who had since played with Gong), Phil Miller (guitar, who had joined Matching Mole), and Phil's brother Steve Miller (Wurlitzer electric piano, who had joined Caravan). Replacing Roy Babbington on bass was Richard Sinclair (who played with Steve Miller in Caravan).[1] This line-up moved away from the blues idiom of the early Delivery towards pieces based on riffs in odd time signatures and protracted melodies associated with the Canterbury style.

The band played a few live shows between July and September that year, and gained their first record contract with Virgin Records with the 'Sinclair cousins'...as Steve Miller was replaced by Dave Sinclair (Hammond organ, also from Matching Mole and Caravan), the band soon changed their name to Hatfield and the North."- Wiki

So, yeah, he was there early on.

[wilcox660]

I first bought it because I was destined to!

[Dave (in MA)]

So, yeah, he was there early on.

Prior to their making any records, sort of like Bruford with Brand X, I suppose.

[Dave (in MA)]

My contact with the Canterbury scene has been solely from listening "backwards" to Dave Stewart from the days of the Bruford band.

Moi aussi.

[rcarlberg]

Very few High School students who were High School students while the band existed can say ‘Hatfield and the North were my FAVORITE band when I was in High School.” But I can!!!!!

I'll do you one better -- I was a fan of Egg when they still existed! My entrée to Dave Stewart came via Egg, I was a sophomore in high school when I bought their first LP in late 1970. I think I'd heard about it from an advert in Melody Maker. I was already a HUGE fan of The Soft Machine and was chasing down everything I could find about them and their environs. I know by the time I went away to college in January 1972 I had a collection of a couple dozen Canterbury albums.

I introduced Jeff Sherman, of Glass, to the Canterbury scene around June of '72. They'd seen The Soft Machine in concert in Sept 1968, but had no idea there was a whole 'scene.'

By the time H&TN came out it was a supergroup for me, and I loved it from the first needledrop.

[chalkpie]

"Mumps" is one of my fav epics ever....maybe number one along with Greggery Peccary, Theusz Hamtaahk, and Thick/Brick for me. Stewart's pinnacle masterpiece imo.

[Mister Triscuits]

I cannot remember what prompted me to buy the Hatfield albums in particular back around '75, but in the wake of Tubular Bells I heard Gong, Tangerine Dream, and Henry Cow*, and got the idea that anything on Virgin was likely to be worth checking out. Which was true for a few years. Maybe I read about Hatfield in the Jem imports catalog, or maybe it was on the mimeographed flyer that Licorice Pizza provided to turn people onto their favorite imports.

* Now Henry Cow I can remember: I used to listen to a classical radio station that switched to jazz programming at night. I was not really into jazz yet but sometimes would keep listening for a bit after the changeover at 10:00 p.m., and somehow "Nirvana for Mice" got played, and got my attention. Gong and T. Dream I bought after reading reviews in the school newspaper.

[rcarlberg]

Hatfield ... Tubular Bells ... Gong ... Tangerine Dream ... Henry Cow

Music to my ears. Them were golden times them were.

I pity the fool just discovering them now. That's like stepping off the boat in Guanahani and saying you've discovered America.

[mkeneally]

Man, I ENVY anyone just discovering them now! Seeing above that proggy_jazzer has only just heard Rotters’ for the first time was thoroughly delightful - what a treasure to finally happen upon!

[Steve983]

I only discovered it about 10 years ago, really love it. Same for Caravan's In The Land of Grey and Pink; those albums seem like twins separated at birth.