Virgin Records! Losing Their Virginity 1973-74

Virgin Label 1973

I used to collect records just based on the record label.  It's true, if a label put out an album I would buy it.  I did it for ECM Records why could I not do it for another label.  Other labels that interest me would be Island Records, Harvest, and Vertigo. The only problem was that the record label I wanted to collect was pretty pricey at the local record shops.  The label I speak of is Virgin Records who was founded by Richard Branson.  The record label started in 1972, but a lot of the music that I was turned on to and other people too was from 1973.  It's odd early glimpse of experimental and unusual music is what turned me on to this label.  It was bands and artists like Gong, Faust, Tangerine Dream, Robert Wyatt, Henry Cow, Kevin Coyne, Link Ray, Tangerine Dream and it's first artist on the label Mike Oldfield.

It was Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells that started the label rolling into the unknown and unusual.  It was that hindsight that made the label very unique to a style and genre of music that we call Progressive.  If it was not for Virgin the artists I listed above they would have not got the promotion or exposure to be who and their influence on who they are.  Virgin opened the doors to creativity and music that attracted me to so much and their music pointed me into another direction.  This post is just to point out that there are a few bands and artists that I love and enjoy listening to that got their start on Virgin.  This post will briefly mention the artist and an album that embodies or made an impact on the Virgin roster.

Richard Branson at his Manor Virgin Studios in 1972

This music is not top forty friendly, but it is music that if you have the right ears for. You should start to explore this period.  One last thing a few of these artists will be featured in another post in the future.  An great example is Gong.  They put out three distinct records for Virgin in 1973/74 and They will be featured in a future post called "Radio Gnome Invisible" trilogy and to me this trio of albums are some of the coolest Progressive Rock I have ever listened to.  It's daring musical segue ways and twists make it quite unique in music and also gives Virgin Records it's identity.

Virgin took a big gamble when it came to putting out it's first album called Tubular Bells.  It was the music for the movie The Exorcist.  The music from the film spread by word of mouth and the music also gave Virgin's first single.  The theme from the movie was a top ten hear in the states and in Europe the album Tubular Bells sold 2.6+ million copies and put not only Virgin on the map to success but also it did so to Mike Oldfield.

Mike Oldfield performing Tubular Bells Live 

The next group that got signed to the Virgin roster was Gong.  Gong was already making waves before their first album came out.  With a few solo albums out including a David Bowie favorite Banana Moon, and the monumental Camembert Electrique Daevid Allen and company were making were making spacey, trippy music for us to hear.  They boarded between Psychedelic and Avant-Garde and their first of the Radio Gnome Trilogy was the second release for Virgin.  It's as a late teenager I heard this at the local Borders Music and was quickly in love.  It might be also the young women sales associate who put it on and grooved to it that had something to do with it as well.

Gong changed how I listen to music.  At the time of the listen I had a soundtrack to a motorcycle film called Continental Circus and this was nothing like that.  This music was humorous and also just plan odd. It was something I needed to get.  It took about a month and half to get the whole trilogy on CD and even harder to find on vinyl, but it was well worth the find. The Flying Teapot (Radio Gnome Invisible, Pt. 1) was darling for Virgin or any label for that matter.  They even issued a sing called "Pot Head Pixies" with the beginning credo "I am, You Are, We Are Crazy!" They made six albums for Gong, although Daevid only stayed for the Radio Gnome trilogy and the live album titled Live Etc.  it is by far their finest work as a whole. Be aware when you find the trilogy, buy them in the new re-issue deluxe editions and not the Trilogy Box Set that came out in 2015.  I have it, just to have a copy, but the music was not approved or mastered by the band.  I saw them live twice in reunion ensembles and they were just as great live as they were when they did all this chaos in the studio in 1973.  I'll save my Gong stories for a later posts.

Gong's Flying Teapot  I would buy it on it's cover alone

Faust only made two records for the Virgin label and they are both some of the most unusual albums to be placed on your turntable at the time.  Even their covers were very minimal and don't give away their unique musical purpose. I put them in the Avant-Garde setting and also experimental area of music.  Some of their music is warm and inviting and other times the music is odd and makes you shake your head.  Faust IV is their most accessible of the two and has more song structure then the other one called Faust Tapes. I doubt that any label in America would let them do what they were doing.  I can hear the record executive now.  There is no top 40 here, why???  Their attempt at a single per say was a song called "It's A Bit of A Pain" was great, but then there is some odd feedback segments in it and a great odd solo guitar part but it will lose the average listener.  The Flaming Lips love what Faust did and mention them in their influences.

Faust 1973

The next band in sequence in the catalog was Henry Cow.  At first listen they sound a bit normal, but that they are not.  They got their name from a Modern Classical composer named Henry Cowell.  I have a funny feeling that they listened to them a bit more then the average listener did.  I love Henry Cow and saw their guitar player Fred Frith once and it was quite an engaging listen.  In 1973 they put an album that is called Legend or Leg End depending who you talk to.  It's odd time signatures and unique sound, that included xylophones, violin, recorder, guitar, toys, and whistle just to name a few. I stumbled by this album in the used CD section and heard Henry Cow on a college radio show that turned me on to so much music.  I had to get it and hear it for myself.  When I did my Progressive Rock type radio show I once in a while would put on a Henry Cow song to keep my listeners on their toes. The song "Nirvana for Mice" is their most interesting piece"... there's a whole section in the middle where it goes into 21/8 and stays there. [Henry Cow] keep messing around with the bottom measure. They keep flipping from 5/8 and 5/4. But, it doesn't sound like the fusion stuff that was starting to happen ... This music sounded terribly organic. And when you stripped it back that was when you'd realize how complicated it was." Jakko Jakszyk of King Crimson.

Henry Cow publicity shot, if you look close Atlantic distributed their music for a long time.

Link Ray's famous song "Rumble" is what put him on the map and in our minds when it was featured in the movie Pulp Fiction.  What Link Ray did for Virgin was broaden their musical landscape.  It's organic sound and mix of Country, Blues, Gospel, and Folk is what Virgin needed to keep the world thinking.  It is, in my opinion it has quite great mix of music that keeps me rocking and sounds great. The album is so organic you feel like your their in the studio with Link Ray and friends and fellow musicians.  His Leadbelly cover of "In The Pines" is pretty awesome.  If you want to hear the album it's long out of print, but worth picking up is 3-Track Shack that is two CD's from this classic era.  It still reverberates today with Mark Lanegan and Calexico covering music from this relative unknown period.

Link Wray kicking ass on guitar

The last band were the fathers of modern day New Age music and Krautrock.  The band when I first told my friends that I was listening to them I was made fun of because their music was corny and cheesy.  The band I speak of is Tangerine Dream.  They too kept Virgin on the radar for many years and also stayed with the label for more then eight years and had a total of eleven albums including two live albums.   They had an album come out in 1973, but it was not until 1974 is when they signed to Virgin they became very popular and their music got more notice. Check my September 2018 post about them for more information about this monumental band.  Fourteen albums in Virgin seemed to have gotten something right about the music they were issuing.

Tangerine Dream on Tour in 1973. I think I'll do the Royal Albert Hall show

In conclusion I just want to point out a skipped a few of the early albums that Virgin put out that I know very little about.  One by Manfred Mann's bass player Steve York it was Virgin records third release called Manor Live and one I just started listening by Chili Charles called Busy Corner.  There is a more to be said about Virgin Records, but this post is a bit long winded and I need to explore more.  These are just a few of my personal favorites. At some point there will be a Gong Trilogy post and a post on Tubular Bells.  What started this post was a three CD set I own called Losing Our Virginity: The First Four Years.  I think they could have done three CD's on the first year alone.  Later in Virgin early years Steve Hillage, CAN, Captain Beefheart, Robert Wyatt, and Hatfield and the North would continue to change what Virgin set out to do.  It all started here and when you hear this beginning you can really appreciate what bands and labels did back then.  Like ECM Records, Virgin was adventurous and was not in it to make the money, but to let musicians be creative and let them do what they wanted to put out.  No many labels could say they did that.  Enjoy!!