RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Following his ground-breaking 1836 essay, Nature, he gave a speech entitled “The American Scholar” in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence”. (More from Wikipedia)
Long before Andy Colquhoun joined up, the Deviants were one of the leading “underground rock” bands; their 1967 album Ptooff! is a classic in that little known genre. The band sprang up in the British psychedelic melange that spawned Pink Floyd, Tomorrow, Hawkwind and several other like-minded bands; the epicenter for the scene was the UFO Club (pronounced “oo-foe” in an interview of Mick Farren at the club that is on one of their CD’s). The Deviants’ music is a dense stew of proto-punk, psychedelia and blues rock, with percussion and voice loops and screaming and a host of other effects. The album cover on Ptooff! is also a treat, with a water-color science-fiction scene and a remarkable collection of quotes, including a corruption of a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that appears on the back cover: “When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake!!”
(August 2011)
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I can still remember the incredible joy I felt when I first found this remarkable album by the Deviants called Ptooff! that I knew only by reputation. The cover is a comic-book style science-fiction scene with two quotes in “balloons”; one of them – “When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake!!” – was adapted from a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. What a wonderful subject this album cover would have made for a painting by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein!
(March 2014/1)
