Midnight Love Cycle (CD)

MIDNIGHT LOVE CYCLE (CD)

In 2003 and/or 2004, Phantom Import Distribution and then Wooden Hill Records put out a CD also called Midnight Love Cycle that included the tracks from the Midnight Love Cycle LP plus five songs from the 2000 concert by the Klubs at the Cavern Club; two of these live songs – “Train to Nowhere” and “A Simple Song” – were not among the 12 songs on the original LP. Rounding out the bonus tracks are four very nice post-Klubs songs: “Unknown” by Strife from 1972 (featuring John Reid), two songs called “We Will Always be Together” and “One Last Time” by the Lettermen (not the American band called the Lettermen, needless to say) that included Trevor Griffiths (also from 1972), and a 1999 demo of “I Wonder” by John Reid that featured Norris Easterbrook on bass.

The first single by the Klubs was a demo made in March 1967 for Chart Records called “Livin’ Today” that oddly featured the horn section from the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. They appeared the following month on a television show called First Timers with a performance of another original song called “Only John Tring”; an acoustical treatment of the song that was recorded in Paddy Breen’s bedroom survives and appears on the compilation LP (Midnight Love Cycle) and CD (Midnight Love Cycle) shown earlier, Scratchy and muddy though it might be, this recording proves beyond doubt that the Klubs were wild men from the beginning.

After auditioning the Klubs at a nightclub called the Pink Flamingo, Vic Smith signed them to a management deal with Don Arden’s company Aquarius. As a result, in early 1968, the Klubs again sort of followed in the Beatles’ footsteps and arrived at Decca Records – actually, Decca had famously decided against signing the Fab Four – where four tracks were laid down according to company records. Two were covers of the Beatles’ “Drive My Car” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire” – the latter song (apparently recorded at a later time) is the only cover song on the Midnight Love Cycle CD – plus their own songs “Midnight Love Cycle” and “Ever Needed Someone”. “Midnight Love Cycle” also became the title of their retrospective albums.

Other songs that were recorded the Klubs in that session are another psych killer “Indian Dreams” – three very different versions of this song are also included on the Midnight Love Cycle CD – and an R&B song called “Oh Baby”. The “A” side of the first single, “I Found the Sun” is a bit tamer but has the same wyld guitar work, soaring harmony vocals and fine songwriting that mark all of the band’s work. This song is backed on the 45 with “Ever Needed Someone”, a re-recording of one of their earlier Decca tracks, which has more of an old-school Merseybeat feel. Despite the aforementioned ad in New Musical Express, the fledgling Cam Records label could only place the single at local record stores in Liverpool, where sales were minimal.

The Klubs’ popularity had begun to decline by 1969, and the band eventually trimmed down to a power trio: John Reid (vocals, guitar), Paddy Breen (vocals, bass) and Peter Sinclair-Tidy (drums). They recorded two songs that year, a stripped-down version of “Can’t Ebenezer See My Mind?” plus “The Stripper”; neither was released, however. Both are also included on the Midnight Love Cycle CD and are quite good, though they suffer from production issues. Briefly called the Klubbs, they later performed as Warhog; Norris Easterbrook now calls the latter group “a heavy metal dirge band”.

(July 2013)