When, where and by whom was Clouds started ? Did any of you, past and present Clouds members, play in any other bands before joining up in Clouds ? Why did you choose that name ?

A http://www.cloudsmusic.com/" rel="nofollow - has now been launched and a compilation CD called Up Above Our Heads [Clouds 1966-71] with your three albums has been released (available from Amazon etc etc). Please tell us more about this double CD album and the new website.

Their PA profile is http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=4512" rel="nofollow - and homepage's http://www.cloudsmusic.com/" rel="nofollow -

 

I had contact with the band a while back - through James Alexander. 

 

It's great to see they've finally released the product they were talking about back then.

 

If that compilation contains the cover they did of Simon and Garfunkel's "America" at the Marquee, that'll be a wake-up call to Yes fans!

Thanks for the interview. The origins of progressive rock are complex and don't revolve around a single album.

 

It is the work that went on before any records were recorded, especially when the band were known as 1-2-3 in their pre Clouds days, that indicated that an iconoclastic musical form was emerging.

 

I believe that only one track, hastily recorded on a tape machine by an audience member even exists of 1-2-3 in action. They did not record and even when they later recorded as 'Clouds', they were best known as a live band.

 

I saw a few performances of the band in their 1-2-3 and later Clouds identities, and believe me that the audiences who were musically quite well informed in those days were split in their opinions. Some were amazed, while others puzzled. It was indeed a new and emerging form of music.

 

Of course, it is ridiculous to suggest that any one band 'invented' progressive rock music, and again I am not sure that this is what is being claimed. The music of 1-2-3 was unique in style at the time, but there were other Hammond players, like Mike Ratledge for example who were taking the sound of the instrument beyond the Jimmy Smith thing, albeit in a different direction. What 1-2-3 introduced was an organ fronted blend of musical styles which was just not being played anywhere else by anyone else.

 

What helped was the superb musicianship of this trio. Harry Hughes for example who has to be one of the most acomplished drummers in the genre and is one of the few drummers I have seen who can do the 'Buddy Rich' one hand drum roll.

 

My six cents worth.

 

M.

 

 

 

 

I just found a nice cover of a Clouds' song on YouTube - check it;

 

This was a long time ago and I probably couldn't find the thread at this point, but I remember.

There was also an mp3 of the 1-2-3 version of Simon and Garfunkel's "America" - which I believe is the same version that's included on the recent CD package - which clearly has overdubbed audience reactions. The sound of the crowd is a completely different sound at the start to that at the end - it's a different crowd. 

 

The quality is also rather good for a late 1960s live recording - and the fact that The Marquee (1-2-3's regular haunt) opened a recording studio back then makes me think that the band could have recorded it in there then dubbed crowd. Again, not a problem - this is very common.

 

PS - it also has to be said that it was the fine contribution by yourself that has brought this band to the forefront of Prog Archives. Without that vital input there wouldn't even be an argument.

 

Great post, and all true. Just a shame 1-2-3 couldn't adapt to the new age.

That's the nature of the business (of any business) - take Kaleidoscope (UK) for example - prominent in the UK pop-pscyhe scene in the late 60s, played (and composed the theme song) for the Isle of Wight Festival and were in the process of producing their Prog rock opus when it all went spectacularily wrong and the album get shelved for 20 years, or The Enid who had a massive cult following in the UK and played two Reading festivals just as Punk Rock exploded across the broadsheet rock press, sending them spiralling into obscurity. It happens, all we can do is support them now and sing their praises to any who would listen, there is little to be gained from regretting the failures of the past or dwelling upon them.

 

 

 

 

 

You can go now.

 

The way 1-2-3 have been written into the history of Prog over the past 3 or 5 years by a cadre of three or four hard-core fans who do little else but edit Wikipedia and spam various Prog websites is highly suspicious, couple that with the very dubious "live" recording of America that was allegedly recorded at the Marquee club to an audience of hysterically screaming teenage fans, apparently played live before "Bookends" was even released, during a headline residency at the Marquee that doesn't seem to be documented anywhere, and that the provenance for most of the citations and other corroborating evidence does seem to be rather self-referential, then it doesn't present itself as an immediatly compelling case.

 

Natural scepticism is not a result of not accepting that our "heroes ideas weren't as original as they thought" - heaven forfend we should think that they were given the wealth of talent and influence that was around in the mid-60s - but that the case for 1-2-3 being so pivotal looks to be very revisionist.

 

Sl*g off Prog Archives all you like it doesn't bother me any, we have as many differing opinions here as we have members - we are a review site, not a Prog rock encyclopedia or historical reference.

 

I actually have no hard opinion either way - if Yes copied 1-2-3 on a cover song then so be it, bands in a "scene" feed off each other all the time and nothing forms in isolation. I'm not a fan of Yes, Emerson or King Crimson so knocking them off their plinth does not bother me. But the picture being painted, (mainly across Wikipedia by one or two editors all indirectly referencing a single source), is that 1-2-3 influenced everyone of "importance" who may or may not have frequented the Marquee in 1967/8, including Yes, Wakeman, Emerson and Crimson. Yet this "influence" remained an obscure and unknown secret for over twenty years, then went silent for another twenty years until this "lost recording" resurfaced recently. That I find hard to believe (and a just little too convenient). I'm not at all certain that Wakeman even heard 1-2-3, even with his well documented Bowie connection (which should be far stronger case than any claim that he may or may not have heard them at the Marquee as the wiki-page implies), but the Yes arrangement of America was by Kaye, not Wakeman.

 

 

I miss no point about the recording - "where" the recording of America was made is important as it has absolutely no provenance other than the claim it was recorded at the Marquee in1968. That point is key and just by listening you have no way of telling when it was recorded: it could have been recorded 45 years ago or 45 minutes ago, but what I can say is it does not sound like any other Marquee recording of that time - the resonance/ambiance is wrong for a venue of that size, the mix and balance is wrong for a live mix and the audience reaction is completely wrong. There is no way on this earth that it is a recording of an audience at the Marquee, nor does it sound like were they recorded at the same location as the music - it sounds like it is from a much larger venue reacting to a completely different type of Pop music that was tacked on to the 1-2-3 recording after the event. Further more, given the reaction of the audience to that one song (if it really is the pukka 1-2-3/Marquee audience) then it is incredibly odd that there are not other recorded tracks from that gig - anyone setting-up the recording equipment to record each instrument so perfectly that garnered such an ecstatic audience reaction would have recorded more than one song - it is inconceivable that other songs weren't also recorded. This isn't a bootleg recording made by an audience member using a portable ¼" tape-recorder and a hand-held dynamic microphone (that's the best the technology of 1968 could offer) - it's a professional recording which would have had to been made using (expensive and bulky) professional mobile recording set-up.

 

Once there is doubt about the location of the recording you instantly raise doubt about when it was recorded. If it seems like the audience is fake and the music recording quality does not match the venue or the time-period then any confidence in the whole of the recording being "real" rapidly evaporates.

 

It may very well be a replication of what 1-2-3 used to perform in the Marquee in 1968, but I am not convinced at all that it is an actual recording from that place or time. 

 

That is extremely unsatisfactory no matter how you look at it.

 

 

 

DiamondDog wrote: PS I would never 'sl*g off Prog Archives. I enjoy the site and it has many fine qualities and contributions to make. The site itself cannot be held responsible for every aspect of deficiencies in reporting or commenting by members.

The only person here questioning any of this is me, yet you have managed to construe this as everyone:

• "That's one in the eye for some of the Prog audience who seem to find it hard to accept that their heroes ideas weren't as original as they thought"
• "the rest of us accepted this stuff long ago."
• "Your comment may well be true about Prog archives itself, every band has fans who do that stuff! "
• "but there is a definite tendency in prog circles to want to deny the sequence of events"
• "From what I know of Prog archives ... I don't see any change in this attitude no matter what evidence emerges, the Proggies and the Cloudites are coming from opposite directions and never the twain shall meet."
• "Unsatisfactory, but there we have it."
• "...every aspect of deficiencies in reporting or commenting by members"

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What?

Here am I trying to be magnanimous and hoping to leave the argument to both extremes (in both senses of the word) yet probably through my own fault in sticking my nose in, I find I'm having to defend myself from the centre. The only thing I know for sure is that 1-2-3 were playing that style of music in 1967. [For one interesting strand, I suggest you read the earlier comments in this thread by Malreaux, who was obviously there at the time]. 

I tried to walk away from this 'discussion', for it's tiresome to have to go through it all, and to no good purpose, for as I said, I doubt that the two extremes, you representing one side, and the Cloudites (I don't include myself as one of them), representing the other, can be brought together. I thought my last comment would close the subject from my point of view, but I seem to have touched a raw nerve, which would tend to confirm the points I made. 

Perhaps as prog archives is your baby, you take it all personally, as if everything said is directed somehow against you. My comments were certainly not directed at you alone or at all - I've seen plenty of those comments, which seemed to me  ironic, considering that if the influence of 1-2-3 was so crucial (as most historians agree - check it out!), then prog archives itself owes the band a lot. Now there's a thought, probably not one you like. 

It's noticeable that your negative comments about the Marquee residency (in 1967!) have conveniently disappeared because simple checking would totally revoke what you said. Instead, you continue to focus on  the provenance of the tape, when the recording itself isn't the point, it's the fact that the band was playing that way prior to the existence of Yes, The Nice, King Crimson etc. It's always been said that other recordings of that concert did exist, but were lost over the years, hardly surprising given the time factor. Even studio recordings of much more famous bands have gone missing from record company archives, never mind myriad house moves etc. Even if the recording never existed, the fact that the band played that way when they did is the crucial factor. And whatever the recording is or isn't, it's definitely the three musicians who played in that band, and now you have Jon Anderson confirming the band was an important influence, as was that particular arrangement. 

For you, it doesn't sit right. Yet I am looking at the same information as you are, we are just both drawing different conclusions from it. 

The fact is, it's not a revision of Prog history - it is Prog history. 

Nope - the point I was making was not that your comments were directed at me, but at the whole Prog community (including artists), yet I am the only person who is currently questioning any of this here.

 

There is no raw nerver to touch - if I had such a thing it would be in regard to Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, VdGG, Kaleidoscope, The Move, The Moody Blues, Procol Harum and many of the other late 60s bands who were pivotal in the history/development of Progressive Rock.

 

I do not doubt that 1-2-3 have a place in that history, but it was not as influential as is being made out (certainly not "crucial").

 

DiamondDog wrote: It's noticeable that your negative comments about the Marquee residency (in 1967!) have conveniently disappeared because simple checking would totally revoke what you said. Instead, you continue to focus on  the provenance of the tape, when the recording itself isn't the point, it's the fact that the band was playing that way prior to the existence of Yes, The Nice, King Crimson etc. It's always been said that other recordings of that concert did exist, but were lost over the years, hardly surprising given the time factor. Even studio recordings of much more famous bands have gone missing from record company archives, never mind myriad house moves etc. Even if the recording never existed, the fact that the band played that way when they did is the crucial factor. And whatever the recording is or isn't, it's definitely the three musicians who played in that band, and now you have Jon Anderson confirming the band was an important influence, as was that particular arrangement. For you, it doesn't sit right. Yet I am looking at the same information as you are, we are just both drawing different conclusions from it. The fact is, it's not a revision of Prog history - it is Prog history.

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What?

From there, many clues exist as to what kind of music 1-2-3 played, and who was there to hear them playing it. The recording is just a glimpse of that music, and whatever the recording is or isn't, it has to be made during 1967. for the band appeared as Clouds at the Marquee on December 21st, and according to their Manager, they never played their version of "America" again. 

I agree with everything you've said Mark. All things are possible, that doesn't mean they happened that way, the world is full of "if's" "but's" and "maybe's".

 

 

 

Nice sig btw

Such an interesting and essentially precise post deserves as considered a response as I can manage.

Yet you get off on the wrong foot by saying that the essence of 1-2-3’s style  came from jazz. This isn’t entirely your fault – again, the records are setting the record wrong – just as the lack of recordings blurs 1-2-3’s importance, the Clouds records are giving the wrong clues to the style of 1-2-3.  Despite containing the same musicians, Clouds was not 1-2-3. It was a completely different band, pushed off direction by Terry Ellis, their manager, who was trying to more directly reach the mainstream.

Yes, jazz was an important component, as was blues, and classical, but so was pop and particularly, pop songs. As Rolling Stone said, 1-2-3 was many things (also read Malreaux’s earlier post). A rough guide might be thinking of a jazzy – classical Vanilla Fudge. Yes, “Sing-Sing-Sing” was a 1-2-3 arrangement and another good clue, but look at “America”, and imagine a repertoire of songs covering that spectrum and beyond. Perhaps it was misleading of me to say that they were ahead of the pack, that gives the impression that they were playing King Crimson, Yes, ELP before these bands existed, when in actual fact, 1-2-3 would still stand on their own as unique, even today. As has been noted, these bands took elements, Yes took the baroque arrangements, Crimson took the melodic grandeur mixed with frantic muso invention, ELP (The Nice) took the concept of a classic organ trio. What these bands produced from there was their own version of elements of 1-2-3. They were all “utterly different and fresher”, all that is said is that the concept largely came from 1-2-3.

At the very least, 1-2-3 was playing a form of progressive music long before these other bands were even formed. But the nature of things in Rock music is that the records are used to make these judgements rather than live performances, and that’s where it went wrong for 1-2-3, though beyond the shores of Prog itself (ironically!), their crucial contribution is more readily accepted. 

As I also mentioned, outside the shores of prog archives, there is plenty of critical acceptance of 1-2-3's influence, so it's not just my opinion as a humble punter that's being put forward here. Check outside these walls. You at least seem open-minded, which is as much as anyone can ask.