I have an EGVO bootleg LP that I purchased via Midnight Records in NYC in the late '90s that has what purports to be their BBC Session from January 27, 1968. The track listing is as follows:

Side 1
All Along The Watchtower
Mary Jane
Something Else
Short interview with Brian Matthew
Flames

Side 2
Mother Writes
Flames (Acetate)
Flames (Acetate cleaned sound)

Assuming the date of this BBC session is indeed correct, it's a strong possibility that their version of "All Along The Watchtower" would have been based on The Nashville Teens' version, which was issued as a 45 at roughly the same time.

I think I saw that at Twisted Village (a picture of the band playing chess on the cover?) but I never picked it up. And Stuart, I agree the Velvet Opera album is less solid. Some good stuff on it though. Still a worthy purchase. And that Spark single is a good one. I think there's involvement by David MacTavish of Tintern Abbey on those two songs.

With so much online and forums like this nowadays, I haven't felt the need to update my Vernon books, particularly as they are expensive and postage to Aust. is huge.

Exactly Greg, that's why I was in two minds about buying the new 2 volume TOD to start with and once Amazon ballsed up the order I decided not to bother anyway. I must say removing the last edition of Fuzz Acid and Flowers from the shelf is an awkward enough effort given its size let alone using it! Nice to feel its sheer mass and weight though!

PM

Hi, Received mine in the post this morning and fortunately both volumes were in the carton. I have the previous two editions as well so I can do some comparisons later if you wish. Really noticeable are the updates on re-issues and compilations, for example the entry for the Kinks stretches to almost five pages. Have found the following, though;

"Jimmy Campbell now lives in Liverpool and continues to write songs."

There were errors in the previous volume, too, but Campbell died back in 2007, so somebody stuffed up.

Overall, the updates are up to very recent. Jackie Lomax's entry has noted his death, also mentions the album released posthumously ( "Against All Odds"). The Heavy Jelly entry mentions the recent cd issue on Angel Air too. The number of pages has increased from 978 in the 2006 edition ("Revisited") to 2120 in this monster.

And, Mr WW, the postage from Amazon.uk to Australia was GBP8.48, I thought that was very reasonable for the weight of the two books.

Thanks for that Andy, it prompted me to look again. I have just ordered a copy of the the new 2 vol edtion from Speedyhen on Ebay. Anyone in UK still considering buying this new edition, get it here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tapestry-of-Delights-Expanded-Two-Volume-Edition-The-Ultimate-Guide-to-UK-Roc-/191387163979?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2c8f905d4b

Just £39.40 post free! That's only £4 more than the last single volume edition!

AS VJ says in his introduction there's bound to be errors and omissions etc. in a work of this size. I think a lot of that stems from a lack of updates over successive editions so they built up somewhat and not all have been amended. Nonetheless for the price it now is, it's definitely worth having. It's currently £68 on Amazon, with a lot of market place sellers offering it at just £41 and my pre-order that Amazon cocked up was £52, so just as well I got the refund and saved another £12 plus change!

PM

Thanks for that Andy. That is cheap, in fact cheaper than the usual postage cost of an lp.

Just received the 2 volumes, they are (literally!) pretty heavy! I hate to think what a two volume Fuzz Acid and Flowers would weigh in at! Even though everything is so easily available at the click of a button on the internet these days, it's nice to know there are people who care enough to still produce the physical volumes. Though I am rather bemused at the lengthy inclusion of Shirley Bassey in such a tome!

PM

Hi

Seeing the comment on the inclusion of Shirley I'd just like to clarify the scope of the book.

It is explained in the book’s foreword, but the scope of this book is much broader than UK psych and prog alone. Whilst the book covers both psych and prog in much detail, it also sets out to cover all UK-based pop and rock artists (other than soul or reggae artists) who released vinyl between 1963 and 1976 and who are likely to be of interest to record collectors. This means that as well as psych and prog acts, artists releasing mainstream rock & pop, beat, R&B, folk, folk-rock, jazz-rock and glam-rock are all covered too. The scope of the book is much wider than the ‘Fuzz, Acid and Flowers’ book, that focuses on the US. This is because the UK is a much smaller country and had far less acts in this era than the US so I am able to include more genres. There is just a relatively short list at the end of the book of artists who recorded between 1963 and 1976 who are not included. These are mostly artists’ whose heyday was in the early sixties but who continued to record after 1963.

So the book aims to document almost all UK artists who recorded between 1963 and 1976 that are likely to be of interest to record collectors. It starts with the emergence of beat and ends at the emergence of punk. The early punk acts are not included as they were covered in my 2001 publication ‘Up Yours!’

There is also a hardback edition of the book limited to 600 numbered copies.
(ISBN: 978-1-899855-20-9).

I hope this info will be of some use to you.

All the best

Vernon