(Psychedelic, Beat) Mike Stuart Span - Children Of Tomorrow - 2011, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Personnel:
STUART HOBDAY vcls A B C D
NIGEL LANGHAM gtr A B
ROGER McCABE bs A B C D
GARY 'ROSCOE' MURPHY drms A B C D
ASHLEY POTTER organ A B C
GARY PARSLEY trumpet B C
DAVE PLUMB sax B C
JON POULTER keyb'ds B C
BRIAN BENNETT gtr D

ALBUM:
1 TIMESPAN (Tenth Planet TP 014) 1995
2 CHILDREN OF TOMORROW (Grapefruit CRSEG 021) 2011
NB: (1) Limited numbered edition of 1,000, also released on CD (Wooden Hill WHCD03) 1996 with four bonus tracks, taken from a BBC Top Gear session from 26th May '68:- Through The Looking Glass, Time, Children Of Tomorrow and My White Bicycle.
EP:
1 EXPANSIONS (CPAT 1171) 1993
45s:
1 Come On Over To Our Place/Still Nights (Columbia DB 8066) 1966
2 Dear/Invitation (Columbia DB 8206) 1967
3 Children Of Tomorrow/Concerto Of Thoughts (Jewel JL 1) 1968
4 You Can Understand Me/Baubles And Bangles (Fontana TF 959) 1968

The band were formed in Brighton in the mid-sixties and centred around Stuart Hobday. They played a soul/show band repertoire in these early days and soon came to the attention of Mike Clayton, a local manager/promoter. On his advice the initial quartet was expanded by three additional players into a seven-piece (line-up B). Sadly, soon after this Langham was killed after jumping out an upstairs window whilst on a LSD trip and this reduced them to a six-piece.
Early in 1966 they recorded an acetate for EMI comprising a cover of The Drifters' Follow Me and Hobday's own composition Work Out. It was good enough to get them a recording contract although EMI never actually released the acetate. Instead they sent the band into the studio to record a cover of another Drifters' song, Come Over To Our Place and put another Hobday original Still Nights on the flip. It didn't sell though and neither did their second 45, a cover of an unadventurous Cat Stevens song Dear backed by a version of Mike D'Abo's soulful Invitation. When this flopped too the band found themselves dropped by EMI. This led them to drop the additional horns and keyboards and advertise in 'Melody Maker' for a guitarist. They recruited a Tunbridge Wells lad called Brian Bennett who'd earlier recorded a couple of solo 45s with Tony's Defenders. His aggressive guitar playing gave the band more options and musically they veered towards psychedelia. A demo version for Decca led to an Oak acetate which coupled the superb Second Production with an extended cover of Fontella Bass's Rescue Me. Decca thought it too weird to release as a 45 and the band ended up funding the recording of Children Of Tomorrow, a punchy and powerful single with some great guitar riffs as an Oak acetate. They set up their own Jewel label to release it and just 500 copies were pressed making it an ultra-rarity. They also made a cameo appearance in the film 'Better A Widow', though only played for about 30 seconds and played a 20-minute composition Cycle a sort of sci-fi fantasy composed for Brighton Arts festval.
Their big break could have come when they were approached by the BBC to take part in a documentary which was meant to focus on the life of a pop group on the way up. Meanwhile one final 45, You Can Understand Me, a sugary Howard-Blaikley pop song was put by Fontana. Hardly an appropriate follow-up for a band that had recently recorded a song like Children Of Tomorrow. It flopped and by the start of 1969 the band had changed names to Leviathan, at the insistence of Elektra.
In 1993 250 copies of an EP Expansions were released. Co-ordinated by Gary 'Roscoe' Murphy and '117' fanzine, this coupled two previously unreleased Oak acetates (Second Production/Rescue Me/Remember The Times/World In My Head). The group recorded five acetates in all and obviously these are all very expensive to obtain now.
The recent compilation on Tenth Planet is a good starting point for anyone wanting to investigate the band, although it's basically pre-Leviathan recordings rather than earlier material. The 10-track set comprises two studio outtakes recorded by Leviathan in 1969, the lengthy Evil Woman which is notable for some extended guitar jams and Through The Looking Glass, which also features the guitar ramblings which characterised the progressive era. The remaining eight tracks have been taken from Oak acetates and include versions of Children Of Tomorrow, Concerto Of Thoughts, Second Production and Rescue Me. The retrospective is also available on CD with four extra tracks - taken from a BBC Top Gear session: Through The Looking Glass, My White Bicycle, Time and Children Of Tomorrow.
(Vernon Joynson “The Tapestry Of Delights”)