“We wiped some of Hendrix’s guitar!” McGough and McGear’s 1968 classic is desperately ripe for reissue says RICHARD ALLEN.
Issued in 1968 on Parlophone after Paul McCartney gave some free studio time to his brother Mike McGear and his mate from Scaffold - future people’s poet and advert voice over Roger McGough - it’s a classic slice of swinging ’60s ephemera.
McGough & McGear is one of those great albums that many people don’t even know exists.
Essentially a poetry album with rock music on it, it’s been passed on by the heaving throngs rushing headlong for the pop psych section. As a result it’s really only become widely known by collectors of The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix due to its connection with both artists.
houses and all that it was nothing to do with what we originally set out to do which had been far more interesting. We’d been sidetracked so nowadays the majority of the public only know us through ‘Lily The Pink’, ‘Thank U Very Much’ and ‘Liverpool Lou’ (number seven in the summer of ’74). Personally I’d prefer to be remembered for the sketches.”
Wistfully he notes that unlike their friends in Monty Python, Scaffold’s TV appearances were not recorded: “We were part of that satire boom and were also very visual.
Mersey Sound poetry jumbled up with of-its-time studio jamming, the album features a number of “Musicians By Kind Permission Of Themselves”. This dazzling array of players includes Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell (the whole Experience!), Graham Nash of The Hollies, Dave Mason and Chris Wood of Traffic, John Mayall, Gary Leeds of The Walker Brothers, Barry Fantoni (presenter of BBC TV’s A Whole Scene Going and budding pop star), Any Roberts, Jane Asher and her mum (!) and probably numerous others, their presence lost in the mists of time. And dope smoke.
Noel Redding recalled in 2002, “I think I did some 'oohs and ahhs'. Perhaps Jimi played guitar? As far as I remember it was a fun session. Can't remember which
Gorman performing either ‘Éclairs’ or ‘Father John’ had to be seen as well as heard. Sadly most of what we did on TV was wiped and so what made us different has been lost. To be able to see us in performance would seriously alter the public’s perception of Scaffold. DVD and video would have been the perfect showcase for us.”
Inevitably Scaffold’s raison d’etre was subsumed into pop’s insatiable vortex and things were never quite the same again. Beyond ‘Lily The Pink’ Scaffold enjoyed many other career highs: including playing the London Palladium, The Bitter End in New York and a last hurrah when a brief reunion produced ‘Liverpool Lou’, a UK Top Ten hit in ’74 – but by the ’70s they had entered the lucrative but – as McGear describes it, “ultimately boring Cabaret circuit”.
Above, Mike in 1972, around the time of his first solo album. Below, reunited for the Liverpool Number One project in 2008.
Boring, like singing had been something Scaffold didn’t do and so with friends and escapees from The Liverpool Scene and the Bonzos, they morphed into Grimms. Experimental and sharply satirical this short-lived ensemble briefly reconnected Gorman, McGough and McGear with their original muse… but that’s another story…
For this writer, Scaffold remain a cherished memory of what made Liverpool great in the ’60s, a definite case of – ‘you should have been there!’
Many thanks to Mike McGear for his time, good humour and great generosity of spirit in sharing what are clearly treasured memories.
studio. Perhaps De Lane Lea near Shaftesbury Avenue. It was a good one!”
McGough & McGear’s most musical moments are the lengthy, sitar-drenched ‘Ex-Art Student’ and opening ‘So Much In Love’, also lifted as a single in an alternate version featuring some amazing phased guitar sounds. McGough’s bucolic ‘Summer With Monika’ dominates side one and is a truly lovely piece of poetry.
The combination of beat poetry and pop still stands up remarkably well today and is an essential listen for anyone who digs the sound of the late ’60s UK.
Original copies now change hands for large sums and a briefly-available ’80s vinyl/CD reissue is long gone and starting to command similar prices.
Andy Roberts holds acetates including some previously unheard material so if Mike, Paul or anyone at EMI is reading this, let’s have this overlooked gem placed back on the top of the pile where it belongs.
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