This Wheel's On Fire/Reflections Of My Life/Teach Me How To Fly/You've Got Me Thinking
Best known for their 1971 hit version of "This Wheel's On Fire", Sydney
band Flake is remembered by those who saw them as one of the most
accomplished and versatile ensembles of the period, capable of
performing the latest pop hits or the music of Jefferson Airplane with
equal assurance. Flake came to prominence at a time of change, both in
Australia and internationally, as "pop" was diversifying into distinct
new genres like heavy rock and progressive rock. As a result, their
repertoire covered an extraordinarily wide of contemporary styles, from
melodic pop, through blues, soul and R&B to psychedelia, 'prog' and
heavy rock.
The group began in late 1968 when drummer Wayne
Thomas quit Sydney band Plastic Tears to form his own group. He
recruited four other players he knew -- singer Geoff Gray and bassist
Laurie Sinclair (ex The Eli) and organist Rob Toth and guitarist Lindsay
Askew (ex The Seen). The new band rehearsed solidly for three months
but Laurie Sinclair was forced to drop out before their first gig due to
the fact that his father died, his house burned down, he split up with
his girlfriend and he had been called up for the Army -- all in the
space of one week!
Thomas called in Plastic Tears bassist Mick
Gaul to replace Sinclair, and the new lineup was completed when Wayne's
friend Steve Williams introduced the band to singer Sharon Sims. She had
done some guest spots with Steve's band The Good Intents and he was
hoping to further her career by getting her a spot in the new group.
Needless to say, Sharon's scorching soul voice blew them away and she
joined in time for their first official gig at Shrublands Hall in
Marrickville on 14 November 1968. The band's name had been decided only
three weeks earlier, and it was taken from the classic 1968 Small Faces
LP Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. It was not, as is sometimes claimed, inspired
by the well-known brand of chocolate bar of the same name (which in
fact did not hit the Australian market until about a year later).
Flake
quickly rose to prominence in Sydney was at its peak, both musically
and in popularity during 1969-70. They entered the 1969 2UW "Bands To
Watch" competition, and defeated forty other local groups to take out
first place, beating runners-up Daisy Roots by just one point. They
moved through several different booking agencies including Dal Myles'
agency and Harry Widmer's Cordon Bleu, finally signing with Peter
Conyngham's Nova agency (largely due to the fact that Geoff Gray landed a
job there), where they joined a stable of acts that included
Blackfeather, ....
There were several changes of personnel
during 1969. Mick Gaul left the band and was replaced by Denis Moore
(recently returned from the USA) who was known to Thomas from his time
with Sydney band Him & The Others. Not long after, Lindsay Askew and
Rob Toth both left due to the difficulties of balancing work and band
committments -- all the members somehow managed to hold down day-jobs --
and Toth subsequently joined Samael Lilith.
Askew and Toth were
replaced by Dave Allen (flute, sax) and Ross Jeffries (guitar), both
from Fred Karniss Army, but Jeffries was not 'in synch' with Flake's
style and bowed out after a few rehearsals. Through Denis Moore, the
band recruited guitarist John Russell (ex Amber). Next to leave was
Sharon Sims, who had been lured away to another band, so Thomas
'pinched' another member from Fred Karniss, singer Denise Caines.
Not
long after Denise joined Sharon Sims returned after her other venture
went 'belly-up'. After some negotiation it was decided to expand the
group to seven-piece. Fortunately Denise and Sharon got on well, and
their distinctive but complementary vocal styles enabled Flake to tackle
an even broader range of material. Now boasting a unique three-voice
frontline, Flake was capable of tackling a remarkable breadth of
material --Sharon's soulful voice was ideal for classics like "River
Deep, Mountain High" and "Respect", while Denise excelled on songs like
Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit" and Flake was
of the only Sydney band at the time that could pump out note-perfect
renditions of this and other challenging like Traffic, Spooky Tooth,
Jethro Tull, The Moody Blues, Rotary Connection, Vanilla Fudge and Deep
Purple.
Flake now started looking for a record deal. They had
preliminary discussions with EMI, who lined up the renowned David Mackay
as producer, but EMI's offer was for two Singles, with the recording of
an album dependent on both Singles being hits. At this point
independent producer Martin Erdman made them a better offer -- he would
sing them to his Du Monde label for two Singles, plus an album,
providing Flake had reasonable success with at least one of the Singles.
In early 1970 Flake went to Erdman's World of Sound studio at
Ramsgate. The tracks they recorded were the Jackie Lomax song, "You've
Got Me Thinking" as the A-side, with as the flip. Unfortunately,
although Sydney radio programmers liked the band, they didn't like the
song, so Wayne Thomas (who had chosen the A-side) then approached 2UW
programmer Gary Jaegear for help. 2UW had rejected the A-side -- but not
the B-side, Dylan's "This Wheel's On Fire" -- so Jaegar generously
slipped "This Wheel's On Fire" onto the 2UW playlist.
Fortunately
for Flake, the single came out at the start of the Radio Ban, which
began in May 1970. While this controversial six-month dispute between
commercial radio and record companies raged, many major label recordings
-- particularly UK hits released or distributed by EMI-- were banned
from commercial radio, giving independent labels like Du Monde, Fable,
Sparmac and Image unprecedented access to commercial radio playlists.
Before
long it was picked up by 2SM and then by stations in other cities. It
definitely became a major national hit, although sources differ about
exact chart placings. According to Wayne Thomas' History of Flake, it
made the Top 5 nationally and stayed on the Go-Set chart for 18 weeks
and charts reproduced in the CD-ROM of Martin Erdman's Du Monde
compilation confirm his report that it went to #1 in the Sydney Daily
Mirror chart and #2 in the 2SM chart, and that it made the Top 30 on 5AD
Adelaide. Ian McFarlane's Encyclopedia entry on Flake says that it went
Top 5 in Sydney (#4, July) and reached #20 nationally, whereas Martin
Erdman asserts that it "reached ... No 7 nationally". Vernon Joyson
claims that it spent 25 weeks on the chart. Martin Erdman also reports
that the single was originally released by Festival with an orange
label, but this was interrupted by the Radio Ban, so Erdman's own World
Of Sound company took over pressing and distribution, with Singles
released with both gold and orange labels. The single also won the 1970
2SM Australian Talent Award.
In the wake of the single's success
Flake toured extensively up and down the east coast, all the while
balancing their music career with their day jobs. Inevitably the strain
began to tell and the first to leave was Dave Allen. His replacement was
Billy Taylor (ex Purple Vision), who took over on rhythm guitar aas
well as adding an extra voice to the band's already powerful vocal
lineup. Taylor soon became close friends with singer Geoff Gray and the
band's roadie Paul Berry, and they soon moved into a flat together.
During this period Flake recorded a performance of a song from their
repertiore, "Midnight Train", for the ABC's GTK pop show, but it is not
yet known whether this still survives in the archives.
The band
went back into the studio to record their second single, a cover of
"Reflections of My Life". The original recording by UK band Marmalade
had been another victim of the Radio Ban. It featured a fine guitar solo
by Taylor, with John Russell playing autoharp in background, and the
overdubbed orchestral arrangment was performed by the Rocky Thomas
Orchestra.
Denise Caines left the group in late 1970, so Billy
Taylor recruited former Purple Vision singer Shauna Jensen, who added
her own superb voice to the mix and became fast friends with Sims.
Caines' departure was followed by that of Denis Moore, and to replace
him Billy Taylor brought in another old friend, bassist Greg Higgs, also
an excellent singer with a strong vocal resemblance to Paul McCartney.
As Wayne Thomas recalls, this version of Flake (Sims, Gray, Russell,
Taylor, Higgs and Thomas) was the band's most commercially successful
phase and the lineup that most people remember, and it was during this
period that the gorup played its first concerts in Melbourne.
Shauna
Jensen only perrfomed with Flake for about three months with Flake, but
she did appear on the B-side of "Reflections of My Life", singing the
lead vocal on Flake's cover of the Rotary Connection classic "Teach Me
How To Fly" (also sucessfully recorded by Jeff St John) which had been
part of Flake's live set for more than two years. The new single
performed well and gained strong airplay;, charting in the Top 30
nationally and peaking at #11 in Sydney in January 1971.
Although
there was now a strong demand for an album, Erdman decided to release
another single first, to launch his new Violet's Holiday label. Flake
were given four songs by the renowned songwriting team of Vanda &
Young, and they chose one of these, "Life Is Getting Better", as their
next single, which again featured an orcdestral arrangment by Rocky
Thomas' orchestra. It did very well in Sydney, where it reached #12 in
mid-1971.
The band's fourth single "Under The Silent Tree"
(sourced from a little-known UK band called Honeybus and written by Ray
Kane/Cane) featured scorching soul harmonies by Sharon, Geoff and Greg
and a powerhouse solo by Taylor, and although it was musically the
group's strongest single yet, many pop stations considered it a little
too "heavy" and it didn't get much airplay, although it did manage to
get to #26 on Adelaide's 5AD.
Flake's only LP How's Your Mother?
was finally released on Erdman's Violet's Holiday label in December
1971, although the double pressures of touring and maintaining day jobs
gave the band little time to record, so there was not much new material
and the album was filled out by tracks from the earlier Singles.
Aided
by their friends, singer and lyricist Gary Paige and guitarist Hubert
Williams. The LP's lavish gatefold sleeve was Sporting a 'trippy' cover
design, the album featured lighter pop-soul material on Side 1, with
Side 2 featuring the band's heavier and more psychedelic side,
highlighted by the epic 12-minute track "Violet Jam" (the second part of
which was the Vanda-Young track "Quick Reaction"). Like many
independent LP releases that came out during this transitional period
(e.g. Galadriel, Melissa, McPhee) the Flake LP had no commercial success
at all and it has become a rare collector's item. Just before the album
came out Billy Taylor left the group and he was replaced by Mick Meehan
(ex Cinnamon). The album track "Under The Silent Tree" was released as
the group's fourth single and it did moderately well, reaching #35 in
Sydney in November 1971.
Flake continued to be a popular
attraction through 1972 but they released only one more single, "Where
Are You" (Dec. 1972), which did not chart. The A-side was co-written by
members of the band with lyricist Gary Paige (who also sang on the
recording); the string arrangment by Rocky Thomas was overdubbed at
Festival Studios. Paige, a prolific and very successful songwriter, has
collaborated with many notable Australian and international composers,
and he is probably best known for the pop-soul classic "Heading In The
Right Direction" (co-written with Russell Dunlop) which was famously
recorded by Renee Geyer.
Sharon Sims recorded her first and only
solo single "To Be The One You Love", which came out in February 1973.
Recorded at ATA Studios in Sydney, it was co-produced by Martin Erdman
and Richard Batchens and engineered by the great Bruce Brown with the
orchestral arrangement (again by Rocky Thomas) featuring Terry Wilkinson
on grand piano. According to erdman, the song was an English version of
the theme from an Italian movie called Venetian Anonymous.
By
the end of the 1972 Flake had split up, with Wayne Thomas going on to to
form a new band, Mr Madness, which was effectively a reunion of most of
the original Flake -- Lindsay Askew, Mick Gaul and Rob Toth -- plus Roy
Ritchie on guitar.
In early 1973 a new Flake lineup was formed
by Billy Taylor and John Russell, with Ted Atkinson (bass) and Jim
Penson (drums, ex Blackfeather, but by mid-year the lineup had changed
to include two other former Blackfeather members, bassist Warren Ward
(ex Flying Circus) and singer Neale Johns. This new Flake recorded one
hard-rock single, "Scotch On The Rocks", which was released on
Festival's Infinity imprint in February 1974. This last version of the
group broke up at the end of '74, with Taylor subsequently joining Neale
Johns in a new formation of Blackfeather in 1975.
(Milesago)
