The End - Son Of Lightning (1970)

As I mentioned in the last post from The End, after their 'Introspection' album was finally released 18 months after it was finished, the band did make a start on recording a follow-up, but despite laying down a number of tracks, the band members realised that they were headed in different musical directions, and so they abandoned the recordings and split up, with three members going on to form Tucky Buzzard, who performed in a harder rock style than The End. Luckily the songs that they had recorded up to that point weren't scrapped, and have now surfaced on the extensive retrospective from the band, and so we can hear what a proposed second album from the band would have sounded like. It's definitely a heavier sound than the psyche/pop of 'Introspection', or even my 'Today Tomorrow' collection, and so it's debatable whether fans of the band would have appreciated this new direction, but we can now decide for ourselves if one more album would have saved the group.

Track listing

01 Son Of Lightning  
02 Second Glance  
03 Mistress Bean  
04 For Eleanor  
05 So Free  
06 North Thames Gas Board  
07 Do Right Woman Do Right Man  
08 Turn On Waterstone  
09 Smartypants 
10 My Friend 

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The End - Today Tomorrow (1968)

The End was a British pop band formed in 1965 by Dave Brown (bass, vocals) and Colin Giffin (guitar, lead vocals) following the demise of The Innocents, with Nick Graham (keyboards, vocals) and John Horton (saxophone) joining from Dickie Pride's backing group, The Original Topics, and Roger Groom (drums) of The Tuxedos completing the line-up. Dave and Colin recalled that Bill Wyman had mentioned that he would help them whenever needed and he was contacted, arranging for the band to open for The Rolling Stones who were headlining a September/October 1965 UK national tour with The Spencer Davis Group, Unit Four Plus Two, The Moody Blues, The Checkmates and Charles Dickens. Following the tour, Roger Groom quit to be replaced by drummer Hugh Atwooll, a former school friend of Nicky Graham, and shortly after this Wyman took them into the recording studio with engineer Glyn Johns, resulting in the release of 'I Can't Get Any Joy' on the Philips label in October 1965. The single failed to chart in the UK, but it did generate enough interest to allow extra live work for the group, and following the departure of John Horton, to be replaced by saxophonist Gordie Smith, the band traveled to Switzerland in 1966 for a gig in a hotel, appearing with the Ready Steady Go! dancers. While in Switzerland, a friend of Smith's contacted Sandra Le Brock, who was a chorographer on a Spanish TV pop music show, offering The End as a potential performing act. After the band returned to the UK, Le Brock came over to England scouting for bands to appear on the Spanish TV show, and she phoned Smith to see if the band would be interested in working in Spain, as well as recording for the Spanish Sonoplay label. After consulting with Wyman, material was recorded at IBC and Olympic Studios with Wyman producing, and the finished product was licensed to Sonoplay for release, resulting in a top 5 hit in 1967 for their single 'Why?'. 

While performing in Spain, the band were treated like stars, playing alongside acts such as Los Bravos, and they became part of the Madrid music scene. In was while in Spain that they met Terry Taylor, guitarist for British group The Mode, and he was invited to join as their lead guitarist. Soon afterwards, Smith left the group, taking his sax with him, and with the brass section removed the group focused on a more guitar based sound. During this time, Wyman suggested that the band begin recording material for an album, so in July 1967 sessions took place at Olympic studios and continued intermittently until the beginning of 1968, with the band fulfilling their commitments in Spain at the same time, and after nearly nine months of studio time, 'Shades Of Orange' was issued as a single on Decca in March 1968. During the final stages of production for the album, it was decided to add dialogue from Bill Wyman's gardener, George Kenset, who had worked with Wyman's father on building sites for many years, and he was taken to Decca Studios in West Hampstead for a one hour session to record his life story, with snippets being interspersed between some of the album tracks. However, it wasn't until eighteen months later that the 'Introspection' album finally saw a release on Decca in the UK and the London label in the US, and by this time the psychedelic aspects of the songs were somewhat passé and the album sold relatively few copies, which is why original copies change hands for vast sums today. Sessions began for a follow-up album, but the band members realised that they were headed in different musical directions, so they split up, with Graham, Taylor and Brown forming Tucky Buzzard with drummer Paul Francis and vocalist Jim Henderson. Although The End actually formed in 1965, some early groundwork was laid down beforehand, as early in their careers Colin Giffin and Dave Brown had become increasingly aware that song-writing had a future, and so they used their free time between The Innocents' touring schedule to start developing their own writing, often demoing their songs at the now-legendary R.G. Jones recording studio in Morden. With this impressive backlog of songs available for the 'Introspection' sessions, there were a number of recordings which didn't make the final cut for the album, but which are all well worth hearing, and so those demos and out-takes are collected here for what could be considered a companion album to 'Introspection'. 

Track listing

01 Bypass The By-Pass 
02 Building Up A Dream 
03 Sometimes I Wish I Were Dead
04 Tears Will Be The Only Answer 
05 Morning Dew
06 Little Annie 
07 Black Is Black
08 The Fly

09 Mirror
10 Today Tomorrow 
11 Lady Under The Lamp 
12 Mister Man 
13 Call Me 
14 Stones In My Banana

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