The Bevis Frond - Frondant Fancies (1990)

The Bevis Frond is basically Nick Saloman and whoever he can get at the time to help him out with his recording. He's been involved in music from the 60's, but really came into his own in 1997 when he started recording under the name of The Bevis Frond. Saloman was originally in a band known as the Bevis Frond Museum in the late 1960's, and in the 1970's, whilst at college, he played bass guitar, congas and electric piano for a duo called Oddsocks, who released one album, 'Men of the Moment', in 1975. In 1979 he formed The Von Trap Family, who released their one and only single on Saloman's own Woronzow Records label in 1980. The next release on Woronzow was a 12" single by Room 13 in 1982, featuring Saloman on guitar and future Bevis Frond member Martin Crowley on drums. After Room 13 reached the end of its natural life, Nick Saloman had a bad motorbike accident that left him with a constriction of movement in his left arm, but he had the arm set so that he could continue playing guitar. With the proceeds from a damages claim he bought a 4 track recorder and recorded some music which he decided to press as a limited release of 250 albums, more for the sake of just releasing an album than anything else, and he was very surprised when Funhouse records in Kent phoned him up and asked for a couple of hundred copies as they had been selling the album quite briskly. Subsequent albums were also recorded in a home studio and released on Woronzow until 1988, when he signed a deal with Reckless Records for the UK and USA. 
To date he has released 23 albums (the 22nd one was called 'Example 22' to help you keep track), and they are all first-rate psychedelic rock music full of scorching guitar solos. However, for this albums I'm going right back to the start of his career, and have compiled an album featuring songs by Oddsocks, The Von Trap Family, Room 13, The Bevis Frond Museum, and The Bevis Frond themselves. His first single as The Bevis Frond was a split flexi-disc with The Steppes which was given away with issue 4 of Freakbeat magazine, and subsequent singles followed suit, with 'Bad Time' being included with issue 36 of The Bob magazine, and 'High In A Flat' added to issue 27 of Bucketful Of Brains. A couple of years later he released a split single with The Walking Seeds on Clawfist Records, which I wanted to include as it's a cracking track and it's nigh on impossible to find online (so you'll have to excuse the sound quality of my vinyl rip), and pointing the way to the sound that we would hear on the albums that followed. There have been recent retrospectives for both The Von Trap Family and Room 13 made available on Bandcamp, so if you like what you hear then do check them out.   

Track listing

Oddsocks
01 Sphinx (1975)
02 Blind And Unknowing (1975)

The Von Trap Family
03 Brand New Thrill (1980)
04 Dreaming Again (1980)
05 No Reflexes (1980)

Room 13
06 Murder Mystery (1982)
07 Need Some Dub (1982)

The Bevis Frond Museum 
08 African Violet (1987, given away with issue 4 of Freakbeat magazine)

The Bevis Frond
09 Bad Time (1988, given away with issue 36 of The Bob magazine)
10 High In A Flat (1988, given away with issue 27 of Bucketful Of Brains magazine)
11 Sexorcist (1990, split single with The Walking Seeds covering each other's songs)