Fresh Maggots - Fresh Maggots... Hatched (1971/2006 Remastered Expanded Edition)
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Album: Fresh Maggots - Fresh Maggots... Hatched (Remastered Expanded Edition)
Released: 1971 (2006)
Genre: Folk-Psych/Prog
Sunbeam Records SBRCD5002
At last an expanded re-issue of this long lost UK folk rock album from 1971. Fresh Maggots were just two people, Mick Burgoyne and Leigh Dolphin and they played melodic acid folk-rock with electric (heavy on the fuzz side) and acoustic guitar mixed with glockenspiel, tambourine, violin, tin whistles and harmony vocals. The results are stunning particularly on the evergreen "Rosemary Hill" which features some beautiful harmonies. The electric fuzz guitar kicks in at various points on the record to startling effect, particularly evident on "Everyone's gone to War". If there was such a genre as garage folk then this it.This expanded version contains seven bonus tracks including live material from a Kid Jenson radio broadcast. - Freak Emporium
New repackaged 2006 edition, with 7 new bonus tracks. Long established as a cult classic and collector's grail, Mick Burgoyne and Leigh Dolphin's sole album is presented here with their full cooperation. Recorded in 1971 when they were just 19 years old and fresh to the studio, Fresh Maggots... Hatched is one of the best distillations of UK folk and psychedelia ever recorded. Combining gentle, pastoral songs with violent fuzz guitar, it's a highly unusual and powerful record that enjoyed extravagant acclaim on release. Despite selling poorly, it has gone on to acquire a major reputation amongst acid folk fans, who will be especially eager to hear the seven bonus tracks included here (including the duo's rare non-album single and a previously unheard live radio session from 1971). The package is rounded off with rare photographs and detailed sleevenotes, making this is the most comprehensive collection of their music ever assembled. - Forced Exposure
We listed a different reissue of this great rare acid-folk album about a year ago... well guess what, now it's been retitled "Hatched" and reissued -again-, this time with seven bonus tracks instead of just two. And it looks better too. The bonus tracks include two non-album cuts from the band's lone single (which were on the previous edition) and five more live tracks from a newly-unearthed 1971 radio session! So, if you already have this on cd you can determine if you need this new version or not, but if you don't already have it, this is the one to get, obviously! Here's what we had to say about it before:
For those of you into acid folk from the early '70, we have another terrific find with FRESH MAGGOTS. This teenage British duo's only record, not surprisingly deemed a failure upon its release with such an unappealling name (though of course we think it's cool), came out in 1971. Which, as you may know, some here say could be one of the BEST years for this -or any- genre. Influenced by the likes of Deep Purple, Zeppelin, and Pentangle, Fresh Maggots really don't sound as rock as the above outfits (partly due to lacking drums) but bring more to mind Forest, Tractor, or Tyrannosaurus Rex. There's lots of acoustic guitar folkiness here blended with fuzzed out fits of electric guitar. And there's a little tin whistle playing and triangle chiming going on, too! Melodic, pastoral, hearty, and highly recommended. This reissue, which the Fresh Maggots themselves had a hand in, includes extensive liner notes, and two [no, make that seven, now!] bonus tracks - Aquarius Records
Mick Burgoyne (electric guitar, violin) and Leigh Dolphin (acoustic guitar, vocals) were a pair of 19-year old Nuneaton lads who dealt in extremes on their only album, originally released on RCA in 1971. Dolphin’s soft, pastoral, acoustic folk guitar (“Rosemary Hill”) lives alongside Burgoyne’s harsher, fuzz-drenched guitar solos (“Dole Song”), with stereotypical early 70’s hippie musical acoutrements like flutes, tin whistles, glockenspiels wafting lazily into the mix throughout. Burgoyn’s violin adds a classical, baroque elegance to the proceedings, which are all wrapped up inside a band named after parasitic worms living on death and decay. It all fits - like a soft, chewy surprise housed inside a crunchy outer shell - and also compliments their lyrics, which read like an anti-war concept album, with tracks like “Everyone’s Gone To War” and “Who’s To Die,” and “Frustration.”
The blink-and-you-missed-it, aptly titled, 75-second “Quickie” deftly captures the soft, folky acoustic groove of Jethro Tull’s “Mother Goose,” released a mere six months earlier. Like “Dole Song,” “Everyone’s Gone To War” also plays with the harsh/soft duality by injecting Burgoyne’s blistering solos into the Dolphin’s passive, acoustic backing - perhaps suggesting a musical battle between the hawkish, aggressive electric scene and the free-flowing, laid back peace, love and harmony of the more traditional folkie scene. This battle royale is also featured on the lengthy closer “Frustration,” which features Burgoyne’s fuzz-drenched solos bookending Dolphin’s contemplative, anti-war ruminations. “And When She Laughs” is a delicate whiper of a love ballad, while “Spring”’s strings again adding a melancholic air. I even detected a whiff of Love’s “Alone Again Or” sneaking into Dolphin’s guitar lines on the lovely acoustic instrumental, “Elizabeth R.”
Long out of print and frequently bootlegged over the years, this official release is another feather in Sunbeam’s impressive bonnet that promises to be one of the year’s biggest discoveries on the reissue market and a label we will keep firmly in our crosshairs as their catalogue continues to grow.- - Jeff Penczak
This duo from Warwickshire that had a meteoric career, but their sole album is ultra-sought after especially so that both vinyl pressings had major fabrication flaws. They developed an acid-folk-prog that was particularly personal but their style was wide-ranging including fuzz guitars. Even before their debut album, this multi-instrumental duo was hyped by the music press, but there was an unusual delay (including an artwork change) between the recording and the release of the album, and when it did finally arrive on the market, all interest had waned. Which is a real shame, because the duo had much talent and they were switching from guitars to violin to glockenspiel to guitars again. Sadly they became one of the many casualty from the era’s overcrowded scene. - ProgArchives.com
The last few years, as you may have noticed, have offered a seemingly endless bounty of reissues, particularly when it comes to psychedelia and "acid folk" or whatever moniker such sounds are bearing at the moment. Press releases unceasingly note the "astronomical prices" the latest reissue fetches in its original LP form. Thus, when yet another one comes along, a healthy skepticism must be forgiven, particularly when it's the reissue of an essentially unknown band's sole album.
As a reviewer, having one's expectations dashed can be either a very sad affair or a pleasant surprise. Fresh Maggots - a pair of young lads from Nuneaton, England - can be placed firmly in the latter camp. Hatched was many, many years ahead of its time with its combination of folk and fuzz-driven psych rock. Mick Burgoyne and Leigh Dolphin met as teenagers during the late '60s, both already gigging - Dolphin as an accomplished acoustic guitarist, Burgoyne on electric guitar, glockenspiel, and more - and teamed up to combine the rock and folk sounds they enjoyed. After only their second show as Fresh Maggots, they were signed to a management contract and proceeded to record their one and only album at the end of 1970. It took a year for the album to be released, and then, despite critical praise, it failed to sell primarily due to RCA's poor support and lack of promotion. And there ends the story, aside from the ever-escalating collector prices fetched by copies of the album and ongoing interest from fans who discover the band.
What makes the album stand out from the crowd is difficult to summarize. Dolphin's aptitude on the acoustic guitar, and Burgoyne's smooth vocals, are a good part of it, but clearly they were not alone in those departments at that time and place. Burgoyne's interjections of unexpectedly searing fuzz guitar could have felt gimmicky, but instead add a much-appreciated edge and energy to the songs, and his playing fits in tightly rather than feeling out of place. A song like "Balloon Song" could have been a light-hearted throw-away; instead, it's that most unusual of things, a rocking folk song.
"Rosemary Hill" is the album's strongest song: clear, chiming acoustic guitar and gorgeous vocals with carefully orchestrated strings and glockenspiel that will lead you to sing along. It's odd that this is one of the cleaner songs, no electric guitar to be found, but it's also one that doesn't need anything more. "Dole Song" opens the album with strummed acoustic and a thick electric lead, a protest song of sorts - it even has a flute-led chorus - but it's no flower-power lament. "Frustration," as suits its name, contains some of the most memorable guitar interplay, with Dolphin's frenzied acoustic strumming interlocking with fast fuzzed leads by Burgoyne.
Thanks to Sunbeam, the Fresh Maggots should now reach another new audience, and the label's done a very nice job with the reissue. Liner notes discuss the band's history and the songs, and the booklet also includes scanned press clippings, photos, and the original press release from 1971. As if that weren't enough (it's certainly more than most reissue labels manage), the CD includes seven bonus tracks that are anything but filler. The single B-sides are obvious choices, but it's the five live recordings that shine, demonstrating that the duo was more than able to do the songs justice at their shows - * Dusted Reviews - Fresh Maggots *
The sole album by Fresh Maggots came and went very quickly at the tail-end of 1971, but in another sense it has never really gone away.
Collectors have nudged the price of originals ever upwards, it has been bootlegged repeatedly and is now established as an 'acid folk' classic - facts that amaze its co-creators, Mick Burgoyne and Leigh Dolphin. They'd known each other "since we were babies in pushchairs on the same housing estate in Nuneaton," as Leigh puts it today, but only really became friends when they met again as teenagers on the town's small live circuit in the late 60s. By then Mick was playing electric guitar, glockenspiel, violin and tin whistle, while Leigh had become a superb acoustic guitarist. They promptly teamed up and started to write songs that combined their love of both rock and folk. "We were into Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Taste as well as Pentangle and so on," Leigh explains, and as a result they decided to beef up their sound with heavy doses of fuzz guitar. "A fuller sound was important in clubs, and the fuzz gave us sustain. Without a band behind us, we needed that boost."
Their unusual and not entirely serious name was gleaned from an ad on the front of the local paper, for 'Riley's Sports Shop -fresh maggots always available'. "We never thought we'd get anywhere, so it didn't matter what we were called," Mick says. "Maybe Always Available should have been the album title!" But an unexpected break came their way in September 1970, when Mike Berry -a music publishing hotshot who'd handled the Beatles' catalogue at Apple -came to watch another act playing in a local Church Hall. Mick and Leigh were the support, and though it was only their second gig, it was them that Berry promptly signed to a management contract. "After that, things started to happen very quickly," continues Mick. "He got us straight down to London to make a live studio demo, which he hawked around various record companies. We then did a gig in his office in Oxford Street for anyone who was interested and, on the strength of that, RCA sent some people to a gig in Coventry. Halfway through there was a powercut, but we just carried on. They were so impressed that they signed us on the spot."
In their original press release, Mick described the extent of their ambitions as being "just to walk on stage with our gear, say hello and try to make as many people as possible a little more cheerful," so the swiftness with which they found themselves in Radio Luxembourg's studio at the end of 1970 was a little overwhelming. "We had no autonomy or real input into the album," Leigh reflects. "We were still teenagers - just a pair of naive kids, really." Despite that, the record they made was varied and powerful - and certainly belies their youth.
Dole Song, for example, is one of the most intense songs of the entire period. A sardonic celebration of unemployment, its blend of violent acoustic and fiery fuzz guitars makes for a stunning opening gambit.
Leigh describes it as "a bit of a piss-take, really. I was signing on at the time and had to explain to the officials that just because I was making an album didn't mean I had a penny to my name." Rosemary
Hill, by contrast, is delicate and melodic. "We used to take Mick's old van down to Devon to visit friends and write songs. We'd drive past this hill in Kenilworth, and agreed it would make a lovely name for a song, though the song's not actually about the hill." Quickie is a brief romantic tune, followed by Everyone's Gone To War, a fuzz-laden anti-war polemic. "That subject was close to a lot of hearts at the time," he says. By contrast And When She Laughs is a cheery pastoral, led by Mick's tin whistle and showcasing the duo's more carefree side. Spring, a complex, carefully-structured number featuring powerful Eastern-style strings, precedes Balloon Song, a spirited piece of whimsy that is perhaps the most redolent of its era, albeit propelled by fuzz guitar. The gentle Guzz Up owes its odd title to "a parody of the Nuneaton accent, as in 'what goes up must come down'," explains Leigh, while Who's To Die? is a meditation on mortality, inspired by an unsettling accident the duo witnessed. "We were on our way to a Magna Carta gig in Coventry," he says, "and we saw a little boy run out in front of a car and get knocked over. We never knew whether or not he was killed, but it was shocking and got us thinking." The instrumental Elizabeth R is light relief by comparison - "we meant it to sound Elizabethan, but I'm not sure we succeeded. Its name was taken from a TV series on at the time." An immediate contrast is provided by Frustration, which closes proceedings in epic style, alternating mellow passages with further storms of guitar.
It was an unquestionably unusual collection, but - despite their initial enthusiasm - RCA had grown sluggish. "Throughout 1971, things moved pretty slowly," Mick says. "Everything was being done in London, but we were from the Midlands and had day jobs, so it all had to be recorded at weekends. Then there were delays with the string arrangements, and even the cover - they rejected the original artwork, which featured an old water mill." Fresh Maggots was originally scheduled for release on RCA's Neon subsidiary (with the working title Hatched), but finally emerged on the parent label in September 1971, fully a year after the sessions had commenced. It received extravagant praise in the music press ('an extraordinary duo, their range is incredible and their sound is incredibly full,' said Disc), but the label undertook no promotion and the launch party had to be cancelled due to lack of response.
This embarrassment prompted an enterprising RCA press officer to fabricate a tissue of lies about a poolside orgy involving the band, but it did no good. The LP resoundingly failed to sell, and - adding injury to insult - a pressing fault meant many copies had blisters on the playing surface.
The duo remained optimistic, however, and played gigs alongside Van Der Graaf Generator,
Medicine Head, Wild Turkey and others. They also undertook various radio sessions, and a surviving tape of one (made for Kid Jensen's show on Radio Luxembourg, and included as bonus tracks here) shows what a formidable act they were. RCA was fast losing interest, though. "They got a strop on, basically," states Mick. "Mike Berry was the sort of bloke who changed with the wind, and he'd soon switched his attention onto the next big thing. We were out playing the college circuit and it all just faded away." Before splitting, however, they released a single (also included here), the sing-along Car Song, backed with the laid-back What Would You Do?, which appeared in December 1971. "RCA didn't really want it out, so they didn't support it either," he says. "And when it didn't sell, that was the end of the road for us, as far as they were concerned."
They returned to Nuneaton and, though they continued to play locally, no more material ever appeared. "We were the young innocents in the big bad music business, and became disillusioned, really," he concludes. Certainly neither anticipated the following they've developed since. "As far as we were concerned, the album was deleted, dead and gone forever," says Leigh. "So we were surprised and delighted when we found out about all the interest around the world." Even more astonishing are the sums collectors are willing to pay for original copies. "I can't believe it," laughs Mick. "I can remember seeing it in Woolworth's bargain bins!" Leigh is also surprised that they are now categorised as 'acid folk'. "To us the album was just a collection of songs," he says. "We only heard of 'acid folk' very recently." In summary, he remarks that "not a lot of local bands like us ever get to make records on major labels, so it was a great opportunity. But deep down I think we both knew it was never going to be a huge seller." More than thirty years on, Mick has mixed feelings about the album. "Some of it makes me proud, some of it makes me cringe," he says. "I tend to hear all the bits we should have done better, and some of the words are a bit naive. But lots of people tell me they like it just the way it is." - Richard Morton Jack, CD Notes
1. Dole Song
2. Rosemary Hill
3. Quickie
4. Everyone's Gone To War
5. And When She Laughs
6. Spring
7. Balloon Song
8. Guzz Up
9. Who's To Die?
10. Elizabeth R
11. Frustration
Bonus Tracks:
12. Car Song (non-album A-side)
13. What Would You Do? (non-album B-side)
14. Frustration (live)
15. Rosemary Hill (live)
16. Quickie (live)
17. And When She Laughs (live)
18. Spring (live)
Mick Burgoyne - vocals, electric guitar, 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars, glockenspiel, violin, tin whistle
Leigh Dolphin - 6 string acoustic guitar
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