01	Place Of My Own						04:06
	02	Ride						03:46
	03	Policeman						02:48
	04	Love Song With Flute						04:14
	05	Cecil Rons						04:10
	06	Magic Man						04:05
	07	Grandma's Lawn						03:28
	08	Where But For Caravan Would I Be						09:02

Richard Coughlan - drums
Pye Hastings - guitar, bass guitar, singing
David Sinclair - organ, singing
Richard Sinclair - bass guitar, guitar, singing

Flute solo on "Love Song With A Flute" - Johnny Hastings




When was Caravan formed ? When did it split up ? When did it reform ?

Caravan was formed in January 1968. It split in the Summer of 1978, and has since re-formed several times, in 1979-83, 1990-92 and since 1995.

What was Caravan's original line-up ? What is the current line-up ?

The founder members of Caravan were Pye Hastings on guitar and vocals, Richard Coughlan on drums, David Sinclair on keyboards and Richard Sinclair on bass and vocals. The bass player was going to be Dave Lawrence, formerly of the Wilde Flowers with the first three, but Richard Sinclair was chosen instead. Other major members in later years were Geoffrey Richardson, John G. Perry, Mike Wedgwood and Jan Schelhaas.

The current line-up includes original members Pye Hastings, Richard Coughlan and David Sinclair, longtime member Geoffrey Richardson, and more recent recruits Jim Leverton (since 1995), Doug Boyle and Simon Bentall (the latter two since 1996). Saxophonist/flautist Jimmy Hastings, brother of Pye, still plays with the band from time to time.

How did the original members of Caravan meet ? Had they worked together previously ?

The roots of Caravan were in the seminal Canterbury group The Wilde Flowers, of which all founding members has been members at one point or another. Richard Sinclair, a guitarist at the time, was an original member in 1964-65. Pye Hastings and Richard Coughlan both joined in 1965. David Sinclair (Richard's cousin) joined in 1966, originally on bass then on organ. When the Wilde Flowers folded in 1967, the latter three decided to carry on as Caravan and were joined by the returning Richard Sinclair.

Why did they choose the name Caravan ?

The "Caravan" monicker was forced on the other members of the band by Pye Hastings - it was meant to be representative of the concept of a "caravan of musical ideas", a continuous process of musicians with similar aims but with a diversity of tastes and influences.

How many albums did Caravan release ?

Caravan released 11 studio albums of previously unreleased material : Caravan (1968), If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You (1970), In The Land Of Grey And Pink (1971), Waterloo Lily (1972), For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night (1973), Cunning Stunts (1975), Blind Dog At St. Dunstans (1976), Better By Far (1977), The Album (1980), Back To Front (1982) and The Battle Of Hastings (1995).

A live album, Caravan Live With The New Symphonia (1974), includes three compositions unavailable on any studio album. The CD Cool Water (1994) consists of previously unreleased demos recorded in 1977 for the planned follow-up to Better By Far, as well as demos recorded in 1978 by Pye Hastings for an unfinished solo project. All Over You (1996) consists of new recordings of re-arranged classics (no new compositions) from the 1968-73 period. And Hux Records recently released a series of two CD's compiling Caravan's performances for BBC radio shows in the 1970's. The first volume, Songs For Oblivion Fisherman, is to be followed by a second one in the Summer of 1998.

Additionally, several live albums have officially been released : The Best Of Caravan Live (1980), a French-only double album consisting of an August 1974 performance in Croydon; BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert (1991) which offers Caravan's performance at London's Paris Theatre in March 1975; Live 1990 (1993), a CD containing most of Caravan's one-off gig for Central TV's "Bedrock" concert series; Canterbury Comes To London - Live From The Astoria (1997), recorded at Caravan's London gig of September 19th, 1997; and Back On The Tracks (1998), a limited edition double CD issued by the Dutch fanclub CoCaCamp*, recorded in Utrecht a few days later, but offering the band's complete performance.

Have Caravan's albums been reissued on CD ? On which labels ?

With the notable exception of Better By Far, all Caravan studio albums have been reissued on CD. French label Mantra reissued If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You, In The Land Of Grey And Pink, Waterloo Lily and For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night in 1988.
These were later reissued (with liner notes by John Tracy) by their original label Deram, as well as Cunning Stunts, between 1989 and 1992 (note that Deram's reissue of In The Land Of Grey And Pink is to be avoided due to a mastering default which results in the first chord of "Nine Feet Underground" being truncated).
The latter and Blind Dog At St. Dunstans were reissued by German label Repertoire in 1994.
The albums The Album and Back To Front have also been reissued by Kingdom Records in 1991.
Caravan's debut album was finally reissued on CD by HTD Records, the current label of Caravan which released The Battle Of Hastings, All Over You and Canterbury Comes To London, and also reissued Cunning Stunts and Blind Dog At St. Dunstans.

Why were particular titles chosen for albums and compositions ?

"Place Of My Own" - "I'd just managed to get a flat of my own; up until then I'd been sharing other people's houses and rooms. At last I was standing on my own two feet and this song was a reflection on that" (P.Hastings)
"Cecil Rons" - "This was a play on words. I knew this girl Cathy Ross who hung around the Beehive Club. She came from Folkestone. We got on really well and I used to spend hours talking to her. She was involved in organising gigs at Folkestone Town Hall and she wrote to Hugh Hopper offering the Wilde Flowers a date there. The signature on the letter looked exactly like 'Cecil Rons' rather than Cathy Ross. For some reason we all found the name Cecil Rons rather amusing and it inspired me to write this nonsense song for the first Caravan album a short time later. I ended up marrying Cathy of course !" (P.Hastings)
"Where But For Caravan Would I" - "The point of the title was that I had an active band that seemed to be going places. Without this band, where would I be ?" (P.Hastings)
"If I Could Do It All Over Again..." - "The title came from a chance remark by our road manager at the time. I spotted the innuendo which appealed to me and decided that it was a great title for a song I had just completed. By the way, the 'over you' actually means 'because of you' and not the obvious..." (P.Hastings)
"Martinian" - a play on words based on the names of Martin Wyatt and Ian Ralfini who signed Caravan to Robbins Music/MGM
"Only Cox" - an allusion to Tony Cox, the producer of the first album.
"Asforteri 25" - "a little dig at Terry King our manager - the original title was "Asforteri's 25%" ["as for Terry's 25%"] but naturally he took exception to this being written down for the world to see... and quite amusingly took the '%' off the title as he said he was entitled to it anyway !" (P.Hastings)
"Nine Feet Underground" - allegedly composed by David Sinclair when he was living in an apartment nine feet under ground level... Pye Hastings : "Dave wrote it as separate tunes and fitted them together as one long piece. We rehearsed it as one and then recorded it as one".
"Nigel Blows A Tune" - a pun on the name of Nigel Blow, a cousin of David Sinclair's.
"Waterloo Lily" -
"L'Auberge Du Sanglier" - the name of an inn in Albi, South of France, where the band used to stay when touring in that region in the 70's.
"Cunning Stunts" - well... a pun !
"Back To Front" - means "with the back placed where the front should be", obviously a pun with both "front" in the military sense (foremost line of an army) and the location of the studio where the album was recorded (Herne Bay Front).
"The Battle Of Hastings" - "The title relates to the 'battle' between me and record companies down the years in my quest to do my own album : I never made it ! The relationship between Julian, brother Jimmy and me comes into it somewhere...".
Who were the band's main composers ?

Vocalist/guitarist Pye Hastings has written most of Caravan's material with the notable exceptions of the albums In The Land Of Grey And Pink, most of which was composed by either David or Richard Sinclair, and Cunning Stunts, half of which was written by David Sinclair and the rest split between Hastings and Mike Wedgwood. David Sinclair also provided the lengthy "For Richard" suite on If I Could.... On Better By Far, The Album and Back To Front, the writing is split equally between band members.

How much, and where, did the band tour ?

A chronology of Caravan's tours is available on this site.

Caravan toured Europe extensively throughout the 1970's, especially in France and the Netherlands.

They also ventured a few times to more distant shores : in Australia and New Zealand in early 1973 (with Slade, Lindisfarne and Status Quo), and in the United States in the autumn of 1974 (50 gigs in 9 weeks) and again in the autumn of 1975.

The first gigs outside England since 1980 (the last European tour) took place in September 1997 : two gigs in the Netherlands, in Utrecht and Groningen.

What were the reasons for members departing ?

David Sinclair, on his departure in 1971 (from a 1975 interview) : "I felt the whole thing was going a bit stagnant and that I needed inspiration from different people...". He went on to join Robert Wyatt's new band Matching Mole, while at the same time developing a songwriting partnership with John Murphy. He rejoined Caravan in February 1973, before leaving again two and a half years later.
Richard Sinclair, on his departure in 1972 : "I decided I wasn't playing enough music in Caravan and I wanted to leave. I'd do something else if the band weren't playing enough music - it was quite hard for us all to survive. I thought I'd move to London and see if I could carry on with music and really go for it up there and develop my musical thing rather than whatever it was in Canterbury I was doing. So I moved up and formed a band with Pip [Pyle] and Phil [Miller], and called it Hatfield and the North, in the end".
John G. Perry, on his departure in 1974 : "Around the Springtime of 1974, some of the other guys in Caravan who were there before me were looking on moving the direction slightly. There were fundamental changes of management and producer... And also at the same time, I'd started doing a lot of sessions in London with Rupert Hine as producer, and working for some extremely good artists, being produced by Rupert and various other people. So one of the reasons I left Caravan in actual fact was, we created Quantum Jump, that whole gang of us who were doing sessions together. Before that we'd been doing a lot of jamming together, and then we decided - what, as well as playing on other people's music, why don't we do some of our own, why don't we take it a little bit further ? And out of that came Quantum Jump".
David Sinclair, on his departure in 1975 (from a 1997 interview with Ralph Cross) : "There were legal problems with the band. We were being ripped off right, left and centre. The typical thing of naive musicians who just want to play their music. I was concerned that the new manager Miles Copeland was trying to get royalties which were due to me from Terry King. My sollicitor advised me to get out for a year until contracts had expired. It was a bad time for me and the band".
Geoffrey Richardson, on his departure in 1978 (in a 1996 interview with Ralph Cross) : "I'd begun to find time to play with other musicians and was earning proper session money. John Perry and Rupert Hine had put work my way. I decided to leave Caravan and on April 14th 1978 I told Pye that I was going. There was nothing personal and I hadn't fallen out with the band : the time seemed right".
What have the band members been doing since Caravan ceased to exist as a permanent band ?

Richard Coughlan is the landlord of the 'Walnut Tree', a pub in Adlington. He is also involved in his own soul outfit, Moving Target.
Jimmy Hastings is a professional musician. He is currently playing with the Humphrey Lyttelton Jazz Band and doing some live work in London and a few sessions.
Pye Hastings works as a plant hire managing director for an engineering firm, Molequip (that deals with road equipment and makes pipe work on the roads) and lives in Canterbury. He is currently at work on his first solo album.
Dek Messecar is living in London and runs his own carpentry business.
Steve Miller reformed his band Delivery after leaving Caravan, then mainly worked in duo with Lol Coxhill, before and after an eight-year hiatus to unlearn old playing habits and facilitate totally free expression. In 1998 he was diagnosed ill with pancreas cancer, and a benefit concert took place on June 28th where he played with many of his former bandmates. Sadly, his medical treatment was unsuccessful and he died on December 9th, 1998.
Geoffrey Richardson is a professional musician. In the last few years he has recorded and toured with artists such as Rupert Hine, Murray Head, Renaud, Rachid Taha, Elsa and (until Simon Jeffes' untimely death in December 1997) the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Apart from Caravan, he also gigs with fellow caravaner Jim Leverton as the 'Jim & Geoff' duo. He has also released a solo album, Viola Mon Amour.
David Sinclair once owned a restaurant in Canterbury, but now runs a piano workshop/showroom (Avenue Pianos) in Herne Bay. He has been at work on a Christmas single (provisionally titled "Christmas Tune"). Performing on it are Pye Hastings, John Murphy, Julian Hastings, as well as friends and children from the Hampton Primary School doing the vocals.
Richard Sinclair is living between Harlingen (Holland) and Canterbury, working as carpenter and interior designer (doing kitchen fitting and making speaker cabinets among other things), as he has frequently done over the the years. He is not musically active at the moment. Between 1991 and 1994 he led his own band, Caravan Of Dreams, releasing an eponymous album with that line-up in 1992, and in 1994 he released the album R.S.V.P. on his own Sinclair Songs label. His last public appearance was in late 1996. Rumour has it that a new album may see the light of day before the end of 1999.
John G. Perry writes and performs library and advertisement music in London. He runs his own company, Prop.agenda. He has plans for another solo project in the future.
Jan Schelhaas is an instructor (or examiner) for the British School of Motoring, and is reportedly not playing music anymore.
Mike Wedgwood released his first solo album, Places Like These, in 1993. Since leaving Caravan in 1976, he had been living in the United States and Alaska. Since returning to England, he has gigged with ex-King Crimson vocalist Gordon Haskell and recorded with Todd Dillingham. Recently he has built his own home studio and is currently working on a new solo project.
Last updated : July 2nd 1999




"Caravan" (1968)
This debut album is a big step forward from the music of the Wilde Flowers, of which all four founders of Caravan had been members over the years. While most of the songs have psychedelic flavour that may sound dated now, all the elements that would later typify the classic Caravan sounds are present : the contrasted voices of Pye Hastings and Richard Sinclair, the predominating sound of David Sinclair's organ, the jazzy chords and distinctively British melodies. Highlights include "A Place Of My Own", Hastings' first-ever composition, "Love Song With Flute", which for the first time features Pye's brother Jimmy on flute, and most of all "Where But For Caravan Would I", an epic composition co-written by ex-Wilde Flowers leader Brian Hopper. This song predates the progressive direction of the next two albums, with a rhythmic sophistication and a band interplay absent from the rest of the album.

"If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You" (1970)
The first classic Caravan album ! Most of the material is organised in suites, the most notable of which is surely the classic "For Richard", largely written by David Sinclair and dedicated to his cousin (who himself contributed the famous riff). Jimmy Hastings makes major contributions on both saxophone and flute, as he would on most of Caravan's subsequent efforts, though he never was a permanent member of the band. The material is a very original mixture of styles, a very successful amalgam of pop, jazz and classic music, close in many ways to what other 'progressive' bands were doing at the time, but surely the most typically 'British' of all.

"In The Land Of Grey And Pink" (1971)
This is for many the best-ever Caravan opus ! The previous album's recipe is used to even greater success, whether in Richard Sinclair's witty and wonderfully British pop songs "Golf Girl" and "In The Land Of Grey And Pink", or David Sinclair's sidelong epic "Nine Feet Underground". The extended instrumental sections again showcase the extraordinary talents of the latter on fuzz organ (his solo on "Winter Wine" is maybe his best ever), and Jimmy Hastings on saxophone and flute. The writing is complex and varied, with a soft jazzy flavour and a perfect balance between vocal (equally shared between Pye Hastings and Richard Sinclair) and instrumental sections. In The Land Of Grey And Pink is quite simply one of the best albums of its time.

"Waterloo Lily" (1972)
The first of many line-up changes occurred in August 1971 with the unexpected departure of David Sinclair. He was quickly replaced by Steve Miller, former leader of the blues-rock band Delivery, which also included his brother Phil on guitar and Pip Pyle on drums. Miller was a blues and jazz pianist rather than an organist, and his arrival caused a dramatic change of style in Caravan's music. The musical direction of Waterloo Lily was ambivalent, with a very jazzy first side (that had guest appearances by Delivery's Lol Coxhill and Phil Miller), mainly written by Richard Sinclair and Phil Miller, and a poppier second side that was more the work of Pye Hastings, and was notable for the long suite "The Love In Your Eye", which featured a string orchestra as well as a delightful flute solo courtesy of Jimmy Hastings. Overall, Waterloo Lily is less inspired and focussed than its predecessors, and it's no surprise that the band broke soon after, with Sinclair and Miller departing to the reformed Delivery (which soon evolved into Hatfield and the North), and Hastings and Coughlan recruiting new members.

"For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night" (1973)
Very long in the making (more than six months), this album was recorded during a period of line-up instability. In July 1972, viola player Geoffrey Richardson was recruited as well as Derek Austin on keyboards and Stuart Evans on bass and vocals. This quintet toured Europe that Autumn, then Australia and New Zealand in early 1973, and started recording a new album, which was stopped when Austin and Evans left. John G. Perry joined on bass and vocals in February, and the sessions were resumed. With no new keyboard player in sight, the band asked David Sinclair to guest on the album and subsequent tour. Eventually, that line-up stayed together for nearly a year and a half.
For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night is a fine return to form, although it is a further step away from Caravan's classic style. Almost all the material is written by Pye Hastings, and is song-based with the exception of the closing instrumental epic "A-Hunting We Shall Go". A few songs ("Headloss", "Hoedown", "Be All Right") are intended as heavy rock pastiches, influenced by touring 'down under' with Slade and Status Quo, while others ("The Dog, The Dog He's At It Again", "Chance Of A Lifetime") have the acoustic jazzy flavour of Hastings' contributions to Waterloo Lily. Overall, in spite of the more commercial direction, For Girls... remains among Caravan's best (and best-loved) albums.

"Cunning Stunts" (1975)
After spending most of 1974 on the road, and replacing the departing Perry with Mike Wedgwood, Caravan finally got around to recording a new studio album. With David Sinclair settling permanently in the line-up (or so it seemed), more than half of Cunning Stunts was penned by him and his songwriting partner John Murphy, notably the 18-minute epic "The Dabsong Conshirtoe", which has some superb instrumental sections as well as delightful vocals by Pye Hastings and Wedgwood, who himself contributes two, more commercial tunes, the romantic "Lover" and the more energetic and 'funky' "Welcome The Day". This leaves Pye Hastings with only two songwriting credits. The production is more polished than ever before, especially with regard to keyboards sounds (electric piano and Moog synthesizer in particular), on which Sinclair displays an amazing variety of talents, as does Geoffrey Richardson on guitar and flute as well as viola. This cleaner, poppier approach may not be to the taste of fans of Caravan's classic albums, but Cunning Stunts is one of the strongest efforts of the band's later years.

"Blind Dog At St. Dunstans" (1976)
With David Sinclair departing once more in July 1975, and his replacement with Jan Schelhaas, an excellent keyboard player but not very prolific writer, the compositional focus is once again on Pye Hastings and the material logically poppier and purely song-based. There are still instrumental sequences, but these are rather bridges within songs than proper developments. Solos are split among Geoffrey Richardson, on both guitar and viola, Jan Schelhaas on synthesizer, and Jimmy Hastings on saxophone and flute, and vocals are all by Hastings with the exception of Mike Wedgwood's "Chiefs And Indians" on which the bassist sings. Blind Dog... is excellent sophisticated pop music, not so much in the progressive style anymore but still a very nice album.

"Better By Far" (1977)
The tongue-in-cheek title is unfortunately no indication of this album's musical interest, as it is for the most part a collection of very catchy poppy tunes, with only a couple of longer tracks. Wedgwood has been replaced by ex-Darryl Way's Wolf bassist Dek Messecar, and the production work is handled by the prestigious Tony Visconti. There is little variation from the verse/chorus structures, all the listener is left with is the excellent musicianship and the melodic and reedy vocals of Pye Hastings. On the whole, Better By Far leaves one wondering whether this is still the same band which once released "In The Land Of Grey And Pink"...

"The Album" (1980)
With commercial success waning, Caravan ground to a halt in the summer of 1978 following the successive departures of Richardson and Schelhaas (who joined Camel alongside David and Richard Sinclair). Following aborted attempts at a solo album (documented on the Cool Water CD), Hastings reformed the band in the autumn of 1979 with almost the same line-up except the (once more) returning David Sinclair. Caravan toured England and Europe and signed to their manager Terry King's new label Kingdom Records. The original idea of recording a live album was dropped when it appeared that a studio album could be made for the same amount of money, only with minimal overdubs. The result was The Album, a very inconsistent collection of songs lacking any general musical direction, but enhanced once more by the great instrumental prowess of Geoffrey Richardson and David Sinclair, and the vocals of Hastings (less so by those of Richardson and Dek Messecar).

"Back To Front" (1982)
With both Richardson and Messecar unavailable for the recording of the follow-up to The Album, Caravan reverted to its original line-up for what is arguably its best album since Cunning Stunts. While most of Back To Front remains faithful to the song format of previous efforts, some of Caravan's classic features are back, most notably on the instrumental sections of David Sinclair's closing epic "Proper Job/Back To Front", not forgetting the welcome return of Richard Sinclair's vocals on three songs (his own "Back To Herne Bay Front" and "A.A. Man", and his cousin's "Videos Of Hollywood"). Pye Hastings' contributions stick to his pastiche approach (of rock'n'roll and disco), with the exception of "All Aboard", a sweet song about past French tours. On the whole a rather pleasant album, although it obviously pales in comparison to the line-up's glory days.
Note : An additional track, "One More Time", composed by David Sinclair with lyrics and vocals by John Murphy, was recorded during these sessions but eventually left off the album.

"The Battle Of Hastings" (1995)
Apart from the odd reformation gig, Caravan was inactive for most of the eighties. The original line-up, with the permanent addition of Jimmy Hastings, got back together in 1990 to play at the annual Canterbury Festival and record a televised concert for Central TV's "Bedrock" series. This led to several London gigs over the following couple of years. But disagreements over musical direction between Pye Hastings and Richard Sinclair made it hard for the band to work on new compositions. Eventually, Hastings assembled a slightly different line-up in the spring of 1995 to record The Battle Of Hastings, with new bass player Jim Leverton and the returning Geoffrey Richardson. Written almost exclusively by Hastings (the exception being Dave Sinclair's yankee-flavoured "Travelling Ways"), this collection of songs carries on the vein of latter day Caravan albums, but brings back the classic sound of the band circa 1971-73, with a delightful sonic variety (flute, viola, organ, saxophone...), which makes for a very pleasant listen. In spite of its lack of 'progressiveness', this is certainly Caravan's most consistent effort since For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night.



CARAVAN
(released by: CARAVAN)

Year Of Release: 1968
Overall rating = 11

Stern and solemn, drenched in oceans of stately organ sound, and hardly any melodies in sight! Chic.
Best song: POLICEMAN or CECIL RONS

Well, whaddaya know. Caravan's first album effectively dismantles the very essence of the term 'Canterbury scene' - now that it unites Soft Machine, Gong and Caravan, there's no meaning to the term but strictly geographical. Where the Soft Machine, from the very beginning, headed for avantgarde and jazzy/modernistic experimentation, and Gong went straight away for fairy-tale funny trippy psychedelia, Caravan took an entirely different way, even if most of the members of the band had actually played together with Soft Machine just a year before.
Simply put, Caravan's debut is a magnificent record if we speak in purely atmospheric terms. At this point, at least, the band members (most notably guitarist Pye Hastings, who wrote most of the stuff) didn't care much about distinctive melodies or hooks. Instead, they go for a most monotonous, slow, sludgy sound that never seems to proceed from point A to point B - it just flows on missing all the possible points. In other words, it's not the results that are interesting, master, it's the process. And certainly I could just dismiss the record as a bunch of useless stuff if all this wanking wasn't so hypnotic. It's a stately medievalistic/folksy groove that seems to borrow equally from Traffic and Procol Harum, and yet it's different. It's not as quirky or lightweight as the stuff by Traffic: all the instruments are so dang HEAVY on the move, with crashing drums, fat, thick rhythm chords, metallic bass, and, of course, layers of glossy organs that the guys really end up sounding like a caravan, and a caravan of elephants and mammoths, I dare say, rather than your normal camel thingie. On the other hand, it's denser and darker than the sound of Procol Harum - dunno why, but most psychologic associations I get out of this thing are real unhappy ones. Must be the leaden basslines.
And yeah, the organ, of course. There are simply no guitar solos on the whole thing; Hastings sticks strictly to rhythm. All the other work is done by organist David Sinclair, and oh does he pack a whallop. Overdubbed, double-tracked, in the background, in the foreground, these organ patterns are truly excellent, and David isn't even a speed technician a la Keith Emerson - he's more of a stately economic player like Matthew Fischer, but a bit more experimental in nature. You may not remember these actual songs, but sometimes it's just a bit of pure joy to take a listen to all this soloing stuff.
That's not to say that the record consists exclusively of organ wankery - there's only one lengthy track, the concluding 'Where But For Caravan Would I'. All the other songs are quite reasonable in length, and some are moderately catchy. There's no concept or general philosophy to the album, and Hastings' and others' lyrics aren't supposed to be tremendously meaningful, but they're okay, ranging from mildly nonsensic to mildly melancholic to optimistic ('Place Of My Own', for instance, according to Pye himself, deals with his finally finding a new flat). One thing I'm not pleased with is Pye's voice: there's a funny excerpt in the liner notes about how Caravan wanted to sign a contract with Island Records, and the guy out there listened to their demo tape and said something like 'I like the band but who is the crap singer'. Well, er, ahem, I can't say I agree with him completely, but I sure understand him. When Pye is slightly drowned out by other instruments, it's not a problem, but when he's mixed clearly upfront and moreover tries to achieve extra expressivity ('Ride'), the results can be totally disastrous.
Still, never mind all the problems, just concentrate on the grooves. Two songs stand out for me from all the pleasant, but monotonous atmosphere: 'Policeman' is a funny little pop ode to law enforcers which uses a wonderful Beatlesque vocal melody twist ('we can see you creeping Mr Poli-i-i-i-iceman'), and 'Cecil Rons', which begins as a particularly scary little nursery rhyme, develops into a glorious celebration of nonsense, replete with horrifying screams and a totally nutty organ part the likes of which you ain't never heard. 'Love Song With Flute' is definitely a highlight as well, not because it's particularly memorable, but mainly because it milks the 'stately' vibe to an even higher effect. There is a gentle, gentle, gentlest of the gentle of solo flutes on there indeed.
The rest of the songs I won't be discussing in particular - like I said, take a steady, easy-flowing fat-sounding rhythm track, throw on moody organ lines and funny vocals, and that's it. One thing's for certain: in 1968, at least, this was a unique sound, a sound that managed to be even more majestic and 'heavyweight' than the one developed by Procol Harum but equally unpretentious and adequate. Adequate, because these guys really knew their stuff - you can easily tell by listening to, say, the ominous jam on 'Where But For Caravan Would I' that these guys were no slouches and knew their bag of folksy and jazzy tricks quite well. The fact that they simply refuse to be flashy and show-off-ey (like Procol Harum) certainly adds to the general monotonousness, but on the other hand, guess what? It saves them possible accusations of flashiness and showoffiness. Unlike, say, ELP.
The bad news, then, is that this LP has been long out of print and as far as I know, was re-issued only recently; in fact, legend has it that the band itself has almost forgotten about its existence - Pye, at least, has been quoted as saying that "my copy, and we were allowed only one copy each, has long since vanished", so he couldn't even remember particular info about any of the tracks. Oh dear, oh dear, how can we be so negligible towards our own work? Just look at me - you can wake me up in the middle of the night and I'll be able to quote you everything I wrote two years ago about King Crimson's Live At Capetown, 1977.
Ha! Ha! I was kidding you! King Crimson NEVER had a Live At Capetown, 1977 album! That concert wasn't even bootlegged.
Ha! Ha! Kidding you again! King Crimson never even played Capetown in 1977! How could you be so stupid not to have known that?
HA! HA! Actually, King Crimson were DISBANDED in 1977! Betcha didn't even get your rock chronology straight!
Say, this used to be a Caravan review, didn't it? Guess all the organ noodling just requires some half-assed humour to relieve the tension...