Edgar Broughton Band

The then trio of Rob ‘Edgar’ Broughton, Steve Broughton and Arthur Grant – who had built up a following in their hometown of Warwick (just down the road from the HFoS hub) with a fourth member, Victor Unitt, under the name the Edgar Broughton Blues Band – had signed to EMI’s prog rock label Harvest in December of 1968, following a move to the Notting Hill Gate area of London. It was here that they became a part of the Ladbroke Grove scene, a frantic haze of underground rock, left-wing and anarchist politics, illicit substances, and incredible hairiness. In July of 1969, Wasa Wasa was unleashed.

The silence that exists just prior to placing this CD in the stereo, is well and truly obliterated by the opening track, ‘Death of an Electric Citizen’. With a throbbing blues riff and Rob Broughton’s unconventional vocal – sounding as though he’s been liberated from a home for rabid preachers for the express purpose of raining fire and brimstone down upon you – it takes a hold, turns you upside down and proceeds to shake the loose change from your pockets.

Wasa Wasa continues the trend set by the opener throughout, representing the Edgar Broughton Band in their rawest, most dishevelled form. It crawls from the deepest, darkest, filthiest ditch, reeking of cheap booze, and sets about you without so much as a by-your-leave or the courtesy of an introduction. The eight tracks on the original release mix psychedelic rock, blues and progressive elements into one foul, frantically bubbling cauldron; creating a uniquely out of this world fug that’s dense enough to bring down small aircraft.

‘Death of an Electric Citizen’ gives way to the biting satirical attack on American foreign policy, specifically Vietnam, ‘American Boy Soldier’ – an extended, even more acerbic version of which can be found on the excellent live album Keep Them Freaks a Rollin’ – Live at Abbey Road – which sowed the seeds for the full-on approach the Edgar Broughton Band would take towards social commentary within their songs. In fact they, along with partners-in-crime such as Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies, have often been labelled the proto-punk, not only because of their rough and ready style and healthy distrust of authority, but also their fervour to get behind radical causes and highlight injustices in their lyrics. This would manifest more overtly in future songs such as ‘Up Yours’, ‘Side by Side’, ‘I Got Mad’, ‘Homes Fit for Heroes’, and ‘Eviction’, to a name a few.

The hard-edged intensity of Wasa Wasa is no better demonstrated than on ‘Evil’, a psychedelic meat market of driving guitar and bass, ferocious drumming and hallucinatory lyrics, whose demonic presence might’ve lead to the band’s rallying cry and show-closer ‘Out Demons Out’. Elsewhere the likes of ‘Neptune’, with its heavy phasing, retain the otherworldly ambience and songs like ‘Crying’ and ‘Love in the Rain‘ ensure the pace never lets up. The only minor blemish on an otherwise spotless hymsheet is the fourteen minute closer ‘Dawn Crept Away’, which perhaps could’ve benefited from being a bit shorter, although it works if taken strictly as a studio representation of one of their live freakouts.

The Harvest reissue features five bonus tracks. Four are demos of blistering blues numbers recorded as the Edgar Broughton Blues Band in 1965/1966 and the fifth is a ten minute instrumental jam called ‘Untitled Freak Out’, simply because it has no actual title.

Less tribal sounding than the excellent follow-up, Sing Brother Sing, and considerably less polished than the remaining Harvest albums, The Edgar Broughton Band, Inside Out, and Oora, Wasa Wasa is nevertheless a remarkably confident and bruising debut.-- head full of snow