The Herd - "Lookin Thru You" Vinyl, Album, U.S., 1968 (Fontana)

The Herd is a very typical band of their era and unusual.   The truth is, the 1960s were an extraordinary decade when it came to many things, but for me, the music defined its eccentricity, and there is nothing ordinary about The Herd in that sense.   Peter Frampton, a pin-up rock god of the 1970s, was also the teen pop star of the late 1960s. Still, I was surprised to hear The Herd and hearing not only Frampton's voice but also The Walker Brothers, a touch of Procol Harum, very early David Bowie, and a pinch of ska concerning its rhythms. Baroque in style, but the closest thing I can also think of is Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich in its ridiculous manner of over-the-top pop.   They also shared using the songwriting talents of Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard, better known to us record label readers as "Howard Blaikley."  I first discovered the duo through Joe Meeks' 1964 band The Honeycombs, who had the enormous hit "Have I The Right."

I know very little about the history of The Herd, except that all of them were teenagers when they were in the band.   They had three hit songs in England and Europe and made one album in the U.K. This album, Lookin' Thru You, is their only American release—a bastard version of their British album Paradise Lost and a load of other singles.   When I was a young boy in the 1960s, I remember having a mass paperback of the upcoming bands from the U.K. among many; The Herd was in that pile.   They stood out because of their photo. Their perfect haircuts seduced me. It took almost 50 years until I purchased their album. Time waits for no one except hearing The Herd. It doesn't take me back to my youth or the love of their haircuts, but the fact that they made pop music that is insane and beautifully accurate for their time. Listening to it in 2018, I'm struck by the imaginative use of orchestration and horns. And the voices are entirely from the Scott Walker method of attacking and embracing a melody.  

Without a doubt, their masterpiece, From The Underworld, is mythical and a teenage pop narrative. It's fascinating that pop songwriters like Blaikley and Howard can slip in something magnificent in the lyrics and sell it as adolescent angst. That's the brilliance of pop in the hands of crafty and brilliant songwriters.   The other classic is Paradise Lost, which starts as a stripper's theme song and then goes into this dark classical mode, similar to From The Underworld. The transition from one place to another is breathtakingly beautiful.  

Besides the two veteran songwriters, Frampton and Andy Bown co-wrote many songs that sound much like The Small Faces. Ironically (or not) enough, Frampton went off with Steve Marriott to form Humble Pie. The secret weapon in The Herd is their bassist, Gary Taylor, who can sing like Scott Walker. His voice is bone-chilled to make one faint. The Herd has a lot of strength, and why they didn't make it hugely is a mystery to me. Sometimes the cards do not favor their players, and The Herd left us with some incredible music.