Track Listing

1. Money Man
2. Jeremy Carabine
3. When She Comes To Stay
4. Guru
5. Come Around
6. Time Track
7. Gas Board Underdog
8. Inside The Secret
9. Orange Lace
10. Planting Bad Seeds
11. Yours For At Least
12. Follow The Path Of The Stars
13. Prince Of Germany The First
14. Clearway
15. Man In Black
16. On Love
17. Cover Girl
18. Happy Land
19. Around And Around
20. Hobbit
21. Man In Black
22. Once
23. Aged Aged Man
24. Higher Than The Clouds
25. Lion And The Unicorn
26. Disappointing Day
27. Money Man
28. I Don't Understand It
29. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
30. In The Morning
31. Follow The Path Of The Stars
32. When She Comes To Stay
33. I Keep Singing The Same Old Song - Heavy Jelly
34. Blue - Heavy Jelly
35. I Am The Noise In Your Head - Griffin (2)
36. Don't You Know - Griffin (2)
37. What A Day It's Been - Griffin (2)
38. Shine - Griffin (2)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #140604 in Music
• Released on: 2003-03-31
• Number of discs: 2

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Voyage!
Skip Bifferty have more myths and tittle-tattle surrounding them than the Sphinx. One of the most enthralling gems in the history of UK Psyche, these guys were plugged by John Peel and endorsed by the likes of Keith Moon. Enshrouded with mystery and celebrated by the local rock quagmire, Skip Bifferty may have had their priorities off beam and spent too much time frolicking around than in the studio. As a result, "The Story of Skip Bifferty" is their only official release.

A record as alluring and versatile as their personalities, this record is truly wonderful. From beautiful, heartfelt ballads such as "Come Around", through awesome psyche-outs like "Gas Board Under Dog" and "Guru" to introspective eccentricities like "Follow the Path of the Stars". The 2nd disk is hardly worth mentioning, encompassing various radio edits and live takes that smack of mediocrity. The only redeeming quality is "I Keep Singing That Same Old Song", an incredible, powerful song the guys recorded later on under the name of "Heavy Jelly", demonstrating again that Bifferty's career is beset with curiosities.

All in all, an absolutely wonderful album and a *must* for any Psyche Rock aficionado.

Precursors of the Blockheads
I heard this band on John Peels Top Gear back in the last gasp of the sixties and somehow they got stuck in my memory (along with the Eclectic, Bonzo Dog Band, Gun, Bridget St.John, The Liverpool Scene etc). There's some nice stuff here , especially the singles, but the live tracks on disk 2 are of appalling quality. I taped Radio 1 live sessions on 2 track tapes in those days and I'm sure they sounded a lot better than this. Sadly, I lent my reel to reel and the tapes to a college friend when she was sick and I never saw them again. So all those Pink Floyd sessions etc have gone forever. Therefore I'm grateful even to hear the awefully thin recordings on Disk 2.
I'm even more pleased for the Heavy Jelly track, "I Keep Singing That Same Old Song" , which is slightly different from the version on the Island sampler Good Enough To Eat.
Amazing to hear that this band became the Loving Awareness group beloved of Radio Caroline and even more amazing that they metamorphosed into Ian Dury's backing band! Little did I know then that I actually saw Skip Bifferty perform, albeit as the phenomenal Blockheads, at Hemel Hempstead on the Young Ones tour (1978?). One of the best concerts I've been to.

A lost Britpsykke treasure
Just to reiterate on the swell reviews below - this is worth the admission price for the inclusion of the whole original album and contemporary singles alone. Up there as one of the dozen very best UK popsike albums of '67 / '68 - really, it's that good ! Not to be overlooked.