Ptooff!

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!!"