Thursday, December 12, 2024

Come to the Sabbat – Black Widow, knockers and organs

Black Widow – Sabbat Days, The Complete Anthology 1969-1972

It’s perhaps appropriate that the typeface on the cover of this exhaustive boxset covering the career of the notorious Leicester band makes the title look at first glance like it says, “Sabbat Dads”. Predicting both the impossible-to-decipher Satan-obsessed death metal band logos of decades hence, as well as the odd juxtaposition of human sacrifice and blokes in a church hall, it inadvertently perfectly encapsulates all that was joyous and odd about the band. What was going on in the Midlands that would drive seemingly normal youngsters to embrace the devil and (along with Chicago band, Coven) ignite the fuse that would perhaps most evidently link rock music with Satanism forever more?

The story of Black Widow is very similar to countless British bands of the time – name changes, line-up rehauls, flip-flopping between image and style and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The band was originally called Pesky Gee, a name which still manages to date them less than their Christian names: the duo of singers Kay Garrett and Basil Francis; Chris Dredge (guitar), Clive Jones (sax, flute), Alan Hornsby (brass), Bob Bond (bass) and Clive Box (drums, percussion). Some way away from the Black Widow formula, they were a soul-blues-jazz-rock band who would catch your attention in a pub or club if they were playing for free but offered little unique to convince you to hand over hard cash.

The band were even saddled with the wrong name when a misunderstanding with a Pye executive led to them being labelled on their debut album as ‘Pesky Gee!’. The intention was that the album was to be called ‘Exclamation Mark’, with the phone call going along the lines of, “Please don’t get it wrong, it’s Pesky Gee and ‘Exclamation Mark'”. On such madness is greatness often built…but not here. The band had already splintered – Kip Trevor (lead vocals, guitar, harmonica) replacing
Francis as the band saw psychedelia as the way forward.

As was common at the time, Pesky Gee! stepped forward with a debut single written by another band – ‘Where is My Mind’ by Vanilla Fudge. There’s a certain irony that they covered a band well-known for covering songs by others. The public showed no interest and Keith Dredge and Alan Hornsby left, to be replaced Jim Gannon (guitar, vibraphone, vocals) and Jess ‘Zoot’ Taylor (organ, piano). The Pesky Gee! LP followed shortly after in June 1969, filled largely with cover versions of varying standards – Donovan‘s ‘Season of the Witch’ is a shadow of the original, though does grow on you somewhat; the version of Janis Joplin’s ‘Piece of My Heart’ is perfunctory and a run through Steppenwolf‘s ‘Born to be Wild’ is oddly jolly and jaunty, a bit like they drafted in The Electric Mayhem Band and asked for extra skronk. An original copy of the LP can now set you back about £200, which is around what it made in sales back in the day. They were dropped, obv.

The metamorphosis into Black Widow feels oddly matter-of-fact. The mastermind was Box who had spotted a national obsession with Dennis Wheatley novels, News of the World outcries as to the dabblings of Aleister Crowley and occultist Alex Sanders (“The most powerful witch in Britain!”), and the success of Black Sabbath. The transformation was swift, cheap and, thankfully, led to a much greater emphasis on writing their own material. Alas, Garrett could not stay for the fun, marriage and real life getting in the way, despite having recorded a whole demo of their projected first release. In typical Cherry Red/Grapefruit fashion, this disc is presented in its entirety,  giving us a delicious peek at the whole Black Widow debut in a different form.

Make no mistake, Black Widow’s ‘Sacrifice’ album is very good indeed. Bookended by the sprawling, atmospheric epics ‘In Ancient Days’ and the title track, the organ and flute combo works as powerfully as Iommi‘s riffing across the Midlands, and Box’s rippling drums are top-drawer. The fact it veers away from overt doom to sometimes frenetic revelry and intense noodling I suspect more accurately reflects to day-to-day drudge of a British Satanist’s life. Punctuated by arcane spicy language, the odd tit and some dressing up, it is, after all, a belief system like any other and is not a 24-hour riot.

The music was certainly strong enough to stand up on its own hairy hind legs (as evidenced by a thoroughly respectable number 32 chart position) but Box was keen that the band lived and breathed what they preached…at least to some extent. And lo’, the dressing-up was accompanied by a surprising amount of nudity in their live shows, a spot of sacrifice and a dab of crimson.

Choreographed by members of Leicester’s Phoenix Theatre Company, a typical Black Widow show climaxed around the female demon Astaroth, portrayed by a young naked girl who, after having simulated sex with Kip Trevor, was mock-sacrificed at the end of every performance. The character of Lady Astaroth was occasionally played by Maxine, the wife of Alex Sanders, who headed a Notting Hill-based coven that was occasionally attended by Dave and Toni Arthur, pre-Play School and Play Away, obviously. Sanders, it must be said, was not shy about courting a bit of attention and so revelled in his role as ‘special advisor on matters Satanic’, especially as the Sunday papers gleefully reported on anything from his shadowy meetings to popping down the corner shop.

The nudity is still surprising (this was still only 1970, after all) though the cover to any Wheatley novel (or other pulp Devil-worship paperback) was essentially the same – a huge draw for the gentleman seeking cheap thrills but unlikely to spook the horses. Of course, those who were spooked worked for the national newspapers, driving yet more men to frantic masturbation at the thought of what could possibly be going on in these debauched live spectacles. Also in tow were the Christian fundamentalists, also possibly masturbating as how outraged they could potentially be. Fewer in number were any actual devil worshippers because…well,  it’s quite a commitment, isn’t it?

As Alex Sanders’ own media machine hit full thrust, the tabloid interest in anything vaguely sacrificial also peaked, with undercover reporters taking pictures of one teenage girl in her altogether who allegedly fainted as a result of the traumatic experience. Given the performance intimated she whipped Kip until he bled and was then raped and murdered, fainting seems a good deal. But there eventually came a turning of the tide. They were banned from entering America for a tour, largely due to the recent Manson murders weighing heavy on many minds (though Black Sabbath was allowed in). Naked girls were becoming harder to come by and, with artistic integrity at the heart of all things Widow, schisms appeared in the band.

Kip Trevor and Jim Gannon favoured ditching the theatrics, whilst Jones and Box were all for more on-stage antics. The latter not only outvoted but booted out, replaced by future *deep breath* Showaddywaddy drummer Romeo Challenger with Geoff Griffith arriving on bass. The second LP, self-titled and released in late 1970, features a pre-Queen Roy Thomas Baker on engineering duties and is unsurprisingly less focused on black magic and heavier on serious twiddling on fretboards and keyboards.

It’s not quite as bad as some reviews make out, though, in the same breath, it’s rather unremarkable and certainly doesn’t give you what you could easily find elsewhere – the safe ensemble jamming of Spooky Tooth; the harmonies of Crosby Stills & Nash; elements of The Zombies and Blue Öyster Cult and, in the wild card of the LP, ‘Wait Until Tomorrow’, a far rockier piece redolent of Neil Young and Crazy Horse‘s heavier stuff. There’s both too much going on, yet, oddly, not enough. There were simply too many band members and not enough good ideas, and the record-buying public didn’t even buy it in case there was a nude girl on the inner sleeve. Gannon left in a huff, taking his songwriting skills with him, with guitarist John Culley joining in his place.

Heroically, with no demand whatsoever, they released ‘Black Widow III’ in 1971, the six tracks offering you a clue as to how long they are. The musicianship, especially the drums and organ is great but the set reeks of 1971 prog. Lyrical drivel, tracks divided into slow-fast-slow-slow-zzzz sequences, blaaarping sax (for some reason the recording of the sax, or maybe just the playing, never recovers from the first album), it’s all very aubergine bathroom suite. A planned ‘Black Widow IV’ didn’t appear until decades later, a cobbled-together effort with an emphasis on the cobbles.

Of course, all the ropey stuff is included and bravo for that. Each disc is given a sprinkling of bonus tracks, live tracks, demos, a lovely box, beautiful mini replicas of the original releases, copious (and excellent sleeve notes and pics) and no fewer than five versions of ‘Come to the Sabbat’ and four of ‘Sacrifice’. A chaotic, ridiculous and sometimes excellent career stunningly presented.

Daz Lawrence 

Buy the box here

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