Original copies of We Are Ever So Clean are pretty hard to come by. I’ve seen a couple in the past year (mono and stereo UK), but that is because I’m usually lucky. It’s hard to believe that a record like this came out during the same year as The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That album was (obviously) a critical success and expanded on the musical themes of the band’s earlier works, while incorporating more “psychedelic” elements like reversed tape loops and echo. Meanwhile, the Blossom Toes were taking those same elements to even further extremes. The reserved, repeated loops utilized in “Look At Me I’m You” make even the most mind-expanding moments of the Beatles’ record look pale in comparison.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not insane — I’m not calling We Are Ever So Clean a better record than Sgt. Pepper’s. I will just say that it’s a criminally underrated ’60s relic and a fantastic early psych record.
Aquarius Records, those purveyors of far-out and marginalized music, makes further comparisons to “the Zombies, Kinks, very early Bowie, with dashes of surreal Pythonesque zaniness. Indeed, they even played Captain Beefheart covers live! Produced by Swinging Sixties London scenester Giorgio Gomelski (their manager, who also managed the Yardbirds among other claims to fame).”
The band recorded a second album, If Only For A Moment. It was released in ’69, and a year later the band dissolved. Guitarist/vocalist Brian Godding went on to play with Magma, Centipede and the Mike Westbrook Orchestra. Jim Cregan went on to perform with Cat Stevens, Stud, Family and Rod Stewart.
Blossom Toes
We Are Ever So Clean
Marmalade 1967
MediaFire DL Link
01. Look At Me I’m You
02. I’ll Be Late For Tea
03. The Remarkable Saga Of The Frozen Dog
04. Telegram Tuesday
05. Love Is
06. What’s It For
07. People Of The Royal Parks
08. What On Earth
09. Mrs. Murphy’s Budgerigar
10. I Will Bring You This And That
11. Mister Watchmaker
12. When The Alarm Clock Rings
13. The Intrepid Balloonist’s Handbook, Volume One
14. You
15. Track For Speedy Freaks (Or Instant LP Digest)
