Move First

Remember that box set of Sixties music I got one day at the record store I have told you about a few times where I found music on their that I should listen to? Well that box set introduced me to another great lost treasure, The Move. Yes, this band is maybe on of the most underrated bands of it's era. The Move were distinctly British, but they were one of the best bands to come out of the 60's. It's too band that they never made it here. Like the band Pretty Things these two bands are some of the reason I love British Psychedelia. The music of The Move has me scratching my head every time I listen to them. The music sounds like a opus of three bands playing on a mix of everything from late 60's music to well crafted pop songs to whatever they could do and they did it very well.

Such ever-changing leads can lend excitement but it can also lend confusion, especially when the group enthusiastically mixes up Who-inspired art pop with three-chord rock & roll oldies and more than a hint of British eccentricity. Add to that, the album had a long, convoluted birth of 14 months, a long span of time in pop music, but it was an eternity in the mid-'60s, when styles and sounds were changing monthly. The Move were releasing singles during this time so they weren't absent from the scene, but they did happen to be set upon a course of cutting singles when their peers were crafting album-length epics, something that separated them from the pack, making them seem eccentric...and The Move needed no help in seeming eccentric. (AM)

The Move sounded so new that their 1968 debut still sounds unusual, ping-ponging between restless, kaleidoscopic pop and almost campy salutes to early rock & roll, punctuated by the occasional foray into the English countryside and, with the closing "Cherry Blossom Clinic," psychic nightmare. When I heard them on my box set I asked my friend about them and he handed me a 100 minute cassette tape full of curios and wonderful songs that I never knew about. Their music to me was and still is very fresh. They even covered the Moby Grape song "Hey Grandma" and even that sounded very like their own. Each song on the first Move have a unique quality about them that I have never heard in other bands. The music has a sound that would be like if you took all the bands of the Psych era and put them in a blender and you got The Move.

I even think their singles were something of a work of art. Songs like "Flowers in the Rain" and "I Can Hear The Grass Grow" are works of art. "Flowers in the Rain" was the first song I heard and that is what got me hooked. Even songs like "(Here We Go Around) The Lemon Tree" is totally a work of pop magic. Look at this brief lyrics for "I Can Hear The Grass Grow"

My heads attracted to
Magnetic wave of sound
With streams of coloured circles
Makin' their way around

I can hear the grass grow
I can hear the grass grow
I see rainbows in the evening

The music that goes with this is quite addicting to listen to. This is vivid, imaginative music -- almost too vivid. It to me works really well.

Unique? Yes! This music is fun and one of my favorites. I suggest you try this music too. It might be a band to tell your friends. While your friends point out The Kinks, Spencer Davis, The Animals and maybe The Who, you should say with authority The Move. Give them a listen and you will be glad you did. The Move is one band that is one of the great unsung bands of it's era. Try them and I know you will love them. Enjoy!