THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,795) The Brood/Turquoise — “Village Green”
No, not that “Village Green”! — but “an uncanny Kinks clone” (David Wells, liner notes to the CD comp Let’s Go Down and Blow Our Minds: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967) by friends and neighbors of Ray and Dave Davies, described by singer and main songwriter Jeff Peters as “a blatant rip-off of how Ray . . . would write songs at the time”. (liner notes to the CD comp Turquoise: The Further Adventures of Flossie Fillett: The Collected Recordings 1966-1969). Nevertheless, “fine, kinks-influenced pop . . . boosted by contemporary production frills such as backwards piano.” (Stefan Granados, liner notes to Turquoise: The Further Adventures of Flossie Fillett: The Collected Recordings 1966-1969) Oh, and produced by Keith Moon and John Entwistle!
David Wells writes:
Anyone famiar with Turquoise’s [see #37, 1,480, 1,616] brace of 1968 singles for Decca will know that the band were heavily influenced by their friends and fellow Muswell Hillbillies The Kinks. [see #100, 381, 417, 450, 508, 529, 606, 623, 753, 865, 978, 1,043, 1,108, 1,330, 1,451, 1,591, 1,697, 1,784] Indeed, their first visit to a recording studio had been in the company of Dave Davies in late 1966 when, as The Brood, they cut demos of three songs, including a Davies composition. By the following year they were managed by car dealer John Mason, who persuaded Keith Moon and John Entwistle to produce a session for the group in exchange for new Bentleys. The result was “Village Green” . . . .
liner notes to the CD comp Let’s Go Down and Blow Our Minds: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967
Stephen Thomas Erlewine tells us about Turquoise:
A quick listen to Turquoise with no knowledge of their background will surely bring two names immediately to mind: the Kinks and the Who. [see #548, 833, 976] So, it should be no surprise that Turquoise were not only influenced by their British peers but were close associates, friends of Ray and Dave Davies . . . . Turquoise released two singles for Decca in 1968 before disbanding . . . [which] earned them a cult of some size . . . . More than any other band from the late ’60s, Turquoise modeled themselves after mid-period Kinks, circa Something Else and Village Green Preservation Society. . . . [S]inger/songwriter Jeff Peters . . . wrote almost all of the band’s recorded work, usually in collaboration with Ewan Stephens . . . . Like the Kinks, Turquoise were distinctly, defiantly British in subject matter and approach . . . often sounding fey and campy yet managing to stay away from being overtly twee, and even if their melodies could sigh and swirl in psychedelic colors, they never were that trippy: they were grounded by acoustic guitars that jangled like Ray Davies’ on Something Else and they had ragged harmonies and a pop sense reminiscent of the brothers Davies.
Steve Leggett adds:
Turquoise was a British pop-psych group who only officially released two singles in their short existence as a band, but the four songs on those two releases became beloved by collectors of the genre . . . . The group, who initially called themselves the Brood, was formed in North London’s Muswell Hill area in 1966 by Jeff Peters, Ewan Stephens, and Vic Jansen (a fourth member, Barry Hart, was added later), who were all friends and neighbors of the Kinks’ Ray and Dave Davies. Dave Davies produced a batch of demos for the Brood in 1966, and a second batch was produced by the Who’s Keith Moon and John Entwistle a year later in 1967. Eventually the Brood was signed to Decca Records, and after a name change to Turquoise, released two wonderful double-sided singles, “’53 Summer Street”/”Tales of Flossie Fillett” and “Woodstock” /”Saynia”, but neither release really took off, and the band called it quits in 1969. Peters and Hart went on to form Slowbone, releasing an album, Tales of a Crooked Man, in 1974.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/turquoise-mn0001822755#biography
What about that Moon/Entwistle thing? Jeff Peters told Stefan Granados that:
[“]John Mason [car dealer to the stars] wanted to get into the music business so he said he’d manage us.” Mason’s first coup as manager of the Brood was to cajole John Entwistle and Keith Moon . . . into producing a demo of the group. Peters’ recollection is that “Polydor had apparently given each member of The Who studio time to go out and find bands to record. From what I understand, Keith Moon came down to John Mason’s showroom and John did him a deal like ‘do something for my band and I’ll get you a good price on the Bentley,’ which is basically what happened!” . . . The track recorded during the Moon/ Entistle session was “Village Green” (no relation to the Kinks song which had already been recorded but wouldn’t see the light of day until the following year) . . . . Despite the Who connection, no label interest developed and John also realized that managing a pop group was perhaps not as easy as it looked. In an effort to get things moving . . . Mason joined forcess with Tom Keylock, an associate of The Rolling Stones who was head of the Stones’ security and also worked in their London office. Keylock quite clearly was a man with extensive connections. “Everything changed when Tom Keylock came in,” recalls Peters. . . . Around the same time . . . The Brood changed their somewhat dated name to the more contemporary sounding Turquoise.
liner notes to the CD comp Turquoise: The Further Adventures of Flossie Fillett: The Collected Recordings 1966-1969
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