Whoops, we forgot what day it was. Well, this is our Record Of The Week, not Record Of The Tuesday, anyway… So, this time, if y’all haven’t met before, we’d like to introduce you to Spiny Normen.
Named after a mythical giant hedgehog from a Monty Python sketch,* the band Spiny Normen were a bunch of long haired community college students from Houston, Texas in the mid-to-late ‘70s, who were deep into English prog rock and heavy psych, a la Van Der Graaf Generator, King Crimson, Black Sabbath, etc. Inspired by such bands, as well as copious pot and acid, these trippy teenagers came up with their very own progressive, heavy, experimental sounds.
The RidingEasy label dug up a track by 'em called “The Bell Park Loon” for their Brown Acid: The Second Trip compilation in 2016 (that excellent series of seventies acid rock rarities is already up to Vol. 6, btw!) and have now just put out an entire Spiny Normen album, with that song and lots more radness, recorded circa 1979 but unreleased until now.
Check out the video (above) that’s been made for that comp track with what looks like vintage Super 8 footage of the band, and then imagine a whole album along the same lines – it’s quite good! Also, did we mention, FLUTE! (Plus vintage Vox Jaguar electric organ, fuzzy guitars, Mellotron, timpani, lots of echo effects, etc.)
Or don’t imagine, listen below... and you’ll forget what day (and decade) it is, too...
RIYL: Van Der Graaf Generator, King Crimson, Black Sabbath, Sproton Layer, Gnidrolog, Los Dug Dugs...
*And they're not the only band to take their name from that particular Python sketch, see also Ethel The Frog.
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