Hapshash And The Coloured Coat - Featuring The Human Host And The Heavy Metal Kids 1967

 

Hapshash And The Coloured Coat was the name adopted by graphic artists Michael English and Nigel Weymouth. They met in London, England, in 1966, collaborating on the Love Festival poster that showed the joint influence of Man Ray and US pop artist Tom Wesselman. Their work defined the romanticism of the English Underground movement and included posters promoting the Soft Machine, Tomorrow, Jimi Hendrix, and Arthur Brown, as well as concerts held at the UFO Club and Brian Epstein’s Saville Theatre, both located in London. Having become acquainted with producer/svengali Guy Stevens, English and Weymouth recorded their debut album. Hapshash And The Coloured Coat featured lengthy, semi-improvised pieces fused to hard, repetitive riffs and chanted vocals. The accompaniment was supplied by Stevens’ protégés Art. Housed in a de rigueur psychedelic sleeve and pressed on red vinyl, the album became a lynchpin release of the English ‘underground’ movement. However, with Stevens now in absentia and English preferring art to music, it was largely left to Weymouth to record Western Flyer. Groundhogs’ guitarist Tony McPhee and future Wombles producer/songwriter Mike Batt assisted on a set encompassing pop, progressive, and Cajun styles, all delivered in a suitably quirky manner. English and Weymouth sundered their partnership soon afterward. AMG.

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