01	Renaissance Dance Medley						03:38
	02	Midnight Mushrumps						16:39
	03	Ethelion						06:02
	04	Wallbanger						03:01
	05	The Last Flash Of Gaberdine Tailor						03:41
	06	Le Cambrioleur Est Dans Le Mouchoir						02:47
	07	Ein Klein Heldenleben						16:10
	08	Jigs						02:19

Gryphon:
About as Curious as It Can Be
1. Renaissance Dance Medley [3:38]
(trad. arr. Gulland, Harvey, Oberle, Taylor)
2. Midnight Mushrumps [16:39]
(Harvey)
3. Ethelion [6:02]
(Gulland, Harvey, Oberle, Taylor)
4. Wallbanger [3:01]
(Harvey)
5. The Last Flash Of Gaberdine Tailor
(Taylor)
6. Le Cambrioleur Est Dans Le Mouchoir
(Taylor, Markovich)
7. Ein Klein Heldenleben
(Harvey)
8. Jigs
(trad. arr. Gulland, Harvey, Oberle, Taylor,
Markovich)

Musicians: Richard Harvey - keyboards, recorders,
crumhorn, harmonium
Brian Gulland - bassoon, bass krumhorn
David Oberle - drums, glockenspiel
Graeme Taylor - guitar, mandolin
Philip Nestor - bass guitar (tracks 1-3)
Malcolm Bennett (Markovich) - bass guitar, flute (tracks 4-8)
Other credits: Produced by Jeff Griffin (BBC)
Tracks 1-3 recorded for 'Radio 1 In Concert'
3.5.1974 Hippodrome, Golders Green.
Tracks 4-8 recorded for 'Radio 1 In Concert'
13.11.1975 Paris Theatre, London.
(c) 2002 Hux Records Ltd


Booklet Notes

ONE blissful Thursday afternoon, sometime in the late summer of 1971, there was a rare personal call for me, then the 17-year old junior costing clerk at Decca Navigator at New Malden in Surrey. It was my old school pal and musical rival Richard Harvey, to tell me that guitarist Chris Wilson had just pulled out of Richard's restaurant trio to pursue what turned out to be a very successful solo career as a lutenist, and would I be interested in filling his shoes three evenings a week parading around, entertaining customers in Kensington's tourist trap, Escalade, and trendy vegetarian restaurant, Teddy Bear's Picnic, in Fulham Road. Considering my options I instantaneously realised, despite my recent performance-related pay rise from _8.50 to _9.50 for a forty hour week, I would not only have a lot more time on my hands, but also, at _5.00 per head, per gig three times a week, be taking a significant 50% gain in income. I failed to appear at Decca Navigator on Friday, nor in fact did I ever tap on their adding machine again.

Thus, through a reunion with Richard and a meeting with his mate from the Royal College of Music, the self-styled, hippiecum- tree, Brian Gulland, were the seeds of the strange hybrid musical creature, Gryphon sewn.

Sixties beat and pop had turned multicoloured. The Beatles had gone. We were all looking for a new direction. Softer acoustic sounds had become popular through Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, The Pentangle etc. We'd become fascinated with the jangly sounds of harpsichords and the strident honeyed glue of massed crumhorns, and John Renbourn's amalgamation of Elizabethan styles with jazzy blues. We devoured all these new influences with insatiable appetite, and out of it all, youthful arrogance on our side, evolved the multifaceted, highly original, clever, and good humoured Gryphon music.

We augmented the trio with a rock drummer somebody met at a party, but limited him to a small percussion kit. At first we drew on folk songs and genuine medieval estampies, our irreverent readings of which endeared us neither to the folk nor the medieval purists.

Before long, more original material emerged, we were playing small college and folk club gigs, and soon the band got spotted and signed up by Transatlantic records and so we entered the new and exciting world of recording. Everything was happening so quickly, we were very young and ignorant of the business and it was hard to keep up. The diary was filled with photo sessions - see the memorably glam pin-up from The Sun - in the column written by "The journalist who knows where it's at"! Or posing in front of famous London landmarks wearing silly clothes with very long flowing hair and equally long bent horns (by the way "Krumm" is German for bent), and countless interviews. We were played on all four BBC radio stations in the same week - mass appeal or what? Jim'll Fix It and Magpie were among the TV shows; we were the first and last band to appear at the Old Vic - we literally rocked the rafters - structural damage to the building was observed subsequent to our performance. Another first was playing to a school outing of 16 year old girls at the Victoria and Albert Museum: our first teenage mobbing. Great indeed was the number of fronts upon which our extremely enthusiastic publicist, Martin Lewis, would expose us. I now gather that Martin does PR for the Labour party: in fact I noticed just yesterday pictures of Tony Blair splashed all over the papers strumming a Telecaster:

Two years later saw us yearning for a bigger sound, more rocky. We were influenced by progressive band, Yes, and their long symphonic forms. Electrically-blown harmonium and keyboard glockenspiel gave way to banks of keyboards, Moog Synthesiser and flowing Rick Wakemanesque robes; electric guitars and a full kit of drums appeared. We were now doing major venues supporting the likes of Steeleye Span and Yes themselves, with whom at the high spot of the band's career we toured across the States for six weeks playing even larger halls like Madison Square Garden and massive Sports arenas including the 68,000 seater Houston Astrodome, a memorable gig with The Mahavishnu Orchestra also on the bill. It took twenty-five minutes to be wheeled around the perimeter on a trolley from the dressing room to back stage - Rock and Roll!

What made Gryphon so special were the people. A colourful bunch of very differing characters, quite extreme and tangential and all extremely and tangentially creative. Which of course in the end, set against the backdrop of an increasingly disillusioned decade, resulted in our dissolution.

These recordings emerged totally out of the blue - hardly any live material from our hundreds of gigs exists. It was with trepidation, delight and some frustration that I reviewed them. The sense ofoccasion is fantastic - you can feel the excitement, the astoundment. The "WHAT are they doing?" and the "What DO they look like?" factors are tangible. I don't want to sound arsey - we didn't know what we were doing - there was no preconception of category or style: we just did what we pleased. "It's all about as curious as it can be", said the Gryphon in Alice in Wonderland. The dear old Beeb engineer (like teachers, they all wore leather elbow patches on their jackets) did his best bouncing it all down to stereo on the spot. Sometimes the mix is just dreadful - that's the only frustration, but one thing it reminded me was that, unlike some of our contemporaries, we were never up our arses, we never took ourselves too seriously; lurking very close to the surface there was always a giant guffaw - it was quite acceptable, indeed expected, in the middle of a 14th Century estampie, startlingly performed by Mr Harvey on his magic pipes, for the bassoon to launch into a quote from the Doctor Finlay's Casebook theme tune, after which we'd have been mortified had Brian not soared into the familiar strains of the Fry's Turkish Delight commercial.

Graeme Taylor
London, 2001

CD - Hux Records, HUX 027
(UK, 2002)







Gryphon [UK]
Updated 5/15/02
Discography
Gryphon (73)
Midnight Mushrumps (74)
Red Queen To Gryphon Three (74)
Raindance (75)
Treason (77)
The Collection (92)
The Collection II (93)
About as Curious as It Can Be (01, Live recordings from 1974-75)


Reviews
Gryphon in 1972 - Graeme Taylor (guitar), David Oberle (percussion, vocals), Brian Gulland (crumhorn, bassoon) and Richard Harvey (recorder, keyboards)

Super and very overlooked British prog band that were well into the classical realms. Remind me a lot of Gentle Giant on the Red Queen To Gryphon 3 which is often quoted as their very best. If you like prog rock with a very classical and jazz sensibility, with a sense of Gentle Giant, you got the right band.

I've never been more impressed with such a (at least to me) undernoticed band. All I have is The Collection and this group captures the beauty of medieval/folk type music better than Dead Can Dance and even Gentle Giant. Highly recommended, I haven't heard more symphonic oriented later stuff yet. If you like medieval music this is the best prog band that I've heard do this style. The music is simply great.
Gryphon started out as a medieval folk band, and ended up as progressive rock band several years later. The basic lineup was: Richard Harvey (recorder, krumhorns,keyboards,etc), Brian Gulland (Bassoon,Krumhorns,keyboards,vocals), Dave Oberle (drums and vocals), and Graeme Taylor (guitars, recorder, vocals). Beginning with the second album various bass players came and went, and the last album features an expanded six-piece lineup with a new drummer, Oberle being a full time vocalist by this time. The first album is strictly a folk album, featuring mostly covers of anonymous traditional english folk tunes, although their unusual baroque instrumentation makes them more interesting than you might expect. Midnight Mushrumps began to move more into a progressive musical direction, although their folk roots are still the strongest element. With their third album, the folk element diminished and they became more influenced by the likes of Gentle Giant and Yes (who they toured the US with in 74): Red Queen To Gryphon Three is truly their masterpiece, a 35 minute four-part progressive instrumental opus without one dull moment. Raindance reintroduced vocals on about half the album's tracks, and offered more variety of style than any of their previous outings. Treason, the final album in their first incarnation, retained the general musical style of its predecessor, maybe a bit more acessible, all with vocals, and a more polished production. It's an album that would've broken the band beyond their cult status had it been released a couple years earlier, but by 77 it was no longer fashionable for big record companies to have fledgling progressive bands on their roster, so they were dropped and at that point it seemed like as good a time as any for the band to call it a day. The Collection is a retrospective containing mostly material from their first second and fourth albums, the longer tracks being edited. Collection II is similar, offering the balance of material from the first two, some selections from three and four, plus some unreleased material from the vaults. The place to start is RQTG3, most will agree this was their finest moment, it stands as a landmark of originality.

An amazing collection of Musicians (capital M). Gryphon started out by performing 13th century dances, jigs and reels and later moved into a more progressive vein. Their music is very complex, yet *very* listenable. The Collection is a good introduction.

I have Red Queen to Gryphon Three. This album combines medieval influences with progressive rock tendencies. That statement simply doesn't do justice to the magnificent music on the album. They blend krumhorn (in the oboe family), bassoon, and recorder with the traditional rock instruments of guitar, bass, synth, and drum. The conceptual album consists of four long songs, based on chess themes. The closest comparison would be to Gentle Giant in that there is incredible contrapuntal interplay between all instruments. Should you get the opportunity to snag the CD or LP, I strongly suggest you do so at that instant. You will not be disappointed.

Any band that features a krumhorn player is worth checking out! Oboes and bassoons as well, I think. In a similar vein to Gentle Giant, but Gryphon probably played more of the medieval flavoured stuff. More folky, I guess.

I've heard Red Queen To Gryphon Three. If you take away the neo-classical references from Gentle Giant and just leave in the mediaeval stuff, namely the recorders, you might come up with something very like this. They also use bassoon and krummhorn (!) to a great extent, giving them a style not likely to be confused with anyone else. All instrumental. -- Mike Ohman

I know this is old news to a lot of people, but with the re-issue of the first four Gryphon's on CD via Japanese import, many more people have a chance to hear this remarkable music. Unlike their first two, this, Gryphon's third album, does not take such a folk/medieval approach, but instead combines the listenability of progressive rock with their folksy roots. The result is a well-written, complex, light-hearted 40 minutes of music, consisting of only four tracks. There is counterpoint galore, enough to please a hard-core Gentle Giant fan, but no vocals to distract you from the brilliance of the music. When taken at once, it's hard to follow the mesh of interweaved harmony, but each instrument alone shows a restrained playing since their individual lines must fit into the pattern of the counterpoint. This is one of the most exciting recent releases. If you don't want to spend $25 on the CD, a taste of Gryphon can be found on their two Collection CDs, both of which are domestic in the US. Speaking of which... Collection is a compilation CD put out by Progressive International. Yes, those honest, uncorruptable businessmen who brought us Aragon are actually putting out some killer CDs these days. I bought this as a money saving attempt, rather than buying the first two Gryphon CDs on Jap import. Many of the tracks on Collection are from Gryphon and Midnight Mushrumps. If you like the folkier side of Gentle Giant, or if a progressive rock version of the Pogues or Steeleye Span interests you, this disc is worth checking out. Several of the tracks are arrangements of traditional and/or anonymous pieces of music from 200-500 years ago. Back then, your average bit of music was more complex than what passes for popular music today. It may have intricate polyrhythms and counterpoint, but still be accessible enough to dance to. But the rest of the tracks were composed by the band members, and - surprise! The originals are as wonderfully complex as the covers! Two members of Gryphon being graduates of the Royal Academy of Music may have something to do with this (isn't that where a certain Mr. Wakeman attended class?) There are few bands that combine the writing and performing talent of Gryphon. They surpass bands like Yes, King Crimson and Reniassance in pure virtuousity. This is a very worthwhile CD from a great band. Listen with an open mind an you'll be rewarded.

This British band is known for a music with folk themes and strong medieval influences. The five solid musicians, on Midnight Mushrumps, offer a varied instrumentation that includes keyboards, guitars, assorted flutes, bassoon, bass, drums, percussions, mandolin and krumhorn. The tracks usually feature lively melodies with delicate symphonic arrangements. The originality of the music lies in the successful presentation of traditional melodies and sounds in the usual rock context. This timeless production still sounds very fresh. -- Paul Charbonneau

I'm not going to lose words about their masterpiece Red Queen To Gryphon Three, which is an indispensable item for any prog adept. Raindance is slightly inferior comparing it to predecessor, though still very good. Treason is, what I'm going to write about here. This, their fifth album, would be qual. no.3 in Gryphon's discography or perhaps should share third position with their second, Midnight Mushrumps, though they're not that comparable either. Treason, released in 1977, is still quite good for times, when bands one after the other moved into the "yucky" areas of blatant commercialism. Album has seven tracks, the first one "Spring Song" being long exactly 10 minutes, is great musically. Few tracks have that pompous Yes-feel and are of lesser quality. This is obvious because Gryphon toured with Yes regularly, and after Raindance they also shared the manager. The medieval/folk element is barely present, with Gulland's bassoon playing prevalently rockier patterns. Concerning the versatility of the music, this album is perhaps closest to Gentle Giant, otherwise these two bands aren't even that comparable. More prominent is light and vital playing similar to Raindance's shorter tracks. Overall, pretty decent album, which defines Gryphon's opus as worth having. -- Nenad Kobal

Those absolutely obsessed with Gryphon might want to listen to Richard Harvey's "Concerto Antico for guitar and small orchestra," performed by classical guitarist John Williams with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Daniel. It seems a long way from progressive rock, but if you mentally add bass and drums, you're not far at all from Midnight Mushrumps. -- Don McClane