FANTASY ISLAND Tages On EMI: The Essentials


EVERY RAINDROP MEANS A LOT (Single A-side, Feb ’67) Their debut for EMI immediately showed a maturity in both songwriting and production values.


FUZZY PATTERNS (Single B-side, April ’67) This psyched-out flip of the Lesley Gore cover ‘I’m Going Out’ smacks of thrilling period sides from The Who and The Move.


SHE’S HAVING A BABY NOW (Single A-side, June ’67) The lyrics of this single (their third in four months) proved too controversial for both Swedish radio and the beeb, who banned it just as the band arrived in the UK.


TREAT HER LIKE A LADY (Single A-side, Sept ’67) Ace standalone 45 sandwiched between the Contrast and Studio albums sees the band up the blue-eyed soul quota.


HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR BROTHER LATELY? (Studio LP, Nov ’67) More socially conscious lyrics married to a sophisticated arrangement. But are they really kazoos?


IT’S MY LIFEMY LIFE


(Studio LP, Nov ’67) Tages’ highly appealing tough side made many welcome appearances towards the end of the decade, rarely tougher than on this Studio highlight.


SEEING WITH LOVE (Studio LP, Nov ’67)


WITH LOVE


More lysergic intervention (and kazoos?) help place this stunner in the upper echelons of the Tages canon.


LIKE A WOMAN (Studio LP, Nov ’67) Less than a minute in and this one’s already into its instrumental middle-eight. The perfect example of Tages’ inscrutable pop economy.


FANTASY ISLAND (Single A-side, May ’68) Brooding, Eastern-tinged psych-rocker that wipes the floor with most of the opposition, Swedish or otherwise.


I READ YOU LIKE AN


OPEN BOOK (Single A-side, Nov ’68) And with this near-perfect slab of struttingly magnificent soul- rock Tages bow out. Blond would be good… but never this good.


34


stalled at a modest #10. They didn’t know it yet but it was to be their last hit in the Swedish charts. Tages still had their sights set upon success abroad and secured an international three-year contract with MGM in May. British producer Mike Hurst told the Swedish press he had new a song, ‘Halcyon Days’, written especially for Tages by Peter Frampton from The Herd.


Henriksson: “‘Halcyon Days’ was the only song I was not involved in.” Svensson: “A bloody shame you didn’t stop us. I don’t like that song one bit! It was not our style at all.” Actually, it wasn’t a new song at all – it had already been released by The Herd whose version, titled ‘Our Fairytale’, appeared on the B-side of their recent smash ‘I Don’t Want Our Loving To Die’. Blom: “We did a decent job with our version but it was forced upon us by Mike Hurst”. Svensson: “Yeah, and he wanted it to be as close to theirs as possible”. Blom: “Hurst thought he could wrangle more money out of the song and needed somewhere to place it. I remember he had a really big house with this absolutely enormous snooker table.”


However, the planned summer release of ‘Halcyon Days’ never happened. It was to remain in the can for several months. Instead, they tried to achieve a summer smash with ‘Fantasy Island’. Although hailed by many as the finest Tages single, it wasn’t a hit. Then the band was dealt another, much bigger blow when focal point Tommy Blom decided to leave. He had tired of life as one of the biggest teen idols in Sweden. “I’d simply had enough and wanted out. Just fed up with it, you know,” explains Blom. “I was still friends with the boys in the band and agreed to stay on until the Swedish summer tour was over at the end of August.”


Mikael Rickfors, the lead singer of the much hyped Stockholm band Bamboo, was the top contender as Blom’s replacement. In the end, Tages decided to carry on as a four-piece – Göran Lagerberg had lately done most of the vocals anyway. Rickfors went on to replace Allan Clarke in The Hollies instead. In ’90, both Lagerberg and Rickfors found themselves in the supergroup Grymlings – a sort of Swedish answer to The Travelling Wilburys.


Lagerberg: “When Tommy left we rented a scout hut to rehearse new material. We also wanted to improve our vocal harmonies.” The group’s new live set contained even less original material than before, usually opening with a cover of Moby Grape’s ‘Hey Grandma’. “We were going on a European tour and those audiences didn’t really know our material anyway. We also played Marmalade’s ‘I See The Rain’, where we used two basses for a heavier sound. Danne Larsson put his guitar down and switched to a Hagström 8-string bass on that one. Another live staple was ‘Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)’ from Blonde On Blonde. I’ve always been a huge Dylan fan. I listened to him a lot during those years.”


In October, ‘Halcyon Days’ was finally


released and the band appeared on the British TV show Time Out For Blackburn to promote it, alongside Marmalade, The Tremeloes and, ironically, The Herd. Svensson: “We wore these white suits inspired by the Swedish folk tradition. I still have the trousers. Man, they’re small! I can’t get them past my thighs these days [laughs].” The show generated quite an interest in Tages on the British Isles but there were no records to be found in the shops. The reason was that MGM’s record division suddenly found itself in serious financial trouble. In Sweden, the dreaded ‘Halcyon Days’ was relegated to the B-side of the group’s last Parlophone single, the superb ‘I Read You Like An Open Book’.


In early ’69, fast talking young Brit Richard Reese-Edwards found his way into the band’s inner circle. He’d done peripheral work for them for some time and had previously been involved with future ABBA star Benny Andersson’s band The Hep Stars, with disastrous results. This obviously didn’t deter Tages. Svensson: “Richard was young and brash, dressed sharply and, above all, was one hell of a talker. He managed to negotiate a huge advance from Philips in Holland for a new album to be recorded in London.” Henriksson explains, “Richard had the right tie: Gordonstoun, where the British Royal Family was educated. This was very important in those days.”


Lagerberg and Henriksson now found a new writing partner in Englishman Adrian Moar. Henriksson: “I met Adrian through his Swedish wife. She worked at EMI.” Lagerberg continues, “I often had only a title or maybe the lyrics for one verse, then Adrian would finish them off. We also met this American singer, Kathe Green. She had a part in the Peter Sellers vehicle The Party, which was a current hit movie. Me and Henkan shared an apartment in Stockholm at this point and she lived with us there for a while, writing a few songs together for the upcoming album. Groovy girl.” Henriksson: “Adrian’s lyrics were somewhat on the dopey side, whereas Kathe was more of a classic songwriter.”


Work on what was to become The Lilac Years started at Advision Studios in London in the spring. The album was geared towards the international pop market with huge orchestrations courtesy of Henriksson and Bee Gees arranger Bill Shepherd. Svensson remembers, “We used the London Symphony Orchestra and those guys really impressed the hell out of me.” Henriksson: “There were 16 or 17 strings, woodwinds – flute, oboe and clarinet – trumpets, trombones, two percussionists and even a harp”.


Lagerberg: “I wasn’t there when those overdubs were made. When I heard the result I was seriously pissed off. It became a whole different band with all those strings. I fully understand why Henkan did it, though. Here he had his big break producing a big budget album in London and was pulling out all the stops to make an impression. And it was certainly cool to have the LSO on it. Still, I was very disappointed, but there you go”.


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