Children of Tomorrow, Yesterday
A forgotten BBC documentary on an obscure British band bobs to the surface
Greetings, Jagged Time Lapsers!
I’m crunched right now on a couple of major deadlines, so this entry will be shorter than usual. But I wanted to pass along a most interesting (and deeply obscure) BBC music documentary that recently resurfaced on YouTube, one which I think many of my readers might dig.
First shown on British television in September 1969, the BBC TV documentary A Year in the Life follows the Mike Stuart Span from the summer of 1968 to the summer of 1969, observing the Brighton-based rock quartet as they try to gain some traction in the UK music industry — or at least get to a place where they’re earning more than a handful of pounds a night.
I first encountered the Mike Stuart Span in 1993 via the compilation Electric Sugarcube Flashbacks, a hugely important collection for me where I also discovered the likes of such British psych and freakbeat faves as The Marmalade’s “I See the Rain,” Gary Walker and The Rain’s “The View” and The Fleur De Lys’ “Gong with a Luminous Nose”. I had never heard of the Mike Stuart Span before, but their February 1968 single “Children of Tomorrow” immediately stunned me. A powerful, guitar-driven anthem, the song ominously contrasts a yearning for England’s mythical fairytale past (a popular topic in British psychedelia) with a deep sense of dread for what the future may hold. It has been a favorite of mine since first listen.
The single (backed with “Concerto of Thoughts”) was only released in a 500-copy run on a tiny label — original copies now change hands for upwards of $600 — but it made enough noise at the time to earn the band a brief cameo in the Italian sex comedy Better a Widow, a support slot on a UK tour with Cream, and a May 1968 session for John Peel’s Top Gear show on BBC Radio 1, the latter of which attracted the attention of documentary filmmaker Paul Watson. A Year in the Life resulted.
Unfortunately, Watson’s film makes no mention of “Children of Tomorrow” or any of the band’s other recordings going back to late 1966. Perhaps for dramatic purposes, the documentary mispresents the Mike Stuart Span as newcomers, opening with the band (now billed as “The Span”) purportedly preparing for “its first big concert” — a June 21, 1968 at Brighton Dome, where the foursome are third on the bill to Scott Walker and The Herd.
Also unfortunately, it’s clear from the first few minutes of the documentary that The Span have now opted to head in a much poppier and less interesting musical direction — presumably at the behest of manager Mike Clayton, a local impresario who has big plans for the group but precious little in the way of music-biz savvy. (The scene in which Clayton dopily nods his affirmation as a booking agency straight-up tells him that they’re going to be taking a larger-than-standard cut for their services would have been sack-worthy in itself, though this 2016 Louder Than War interview with Span vocalist Stuart Hobday reveals even greater ineptitude on the part of the manager.)
A Year in the Life resembles something of a proto-This Is Spinal Tap — complete with some great Tap-like quotes as “I’d like to stick my guitar right up his throat!” and “I have… a stamp collection!” — albeit entirely non-fictional. I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to mention here that things don’t work out particularly well for the band; they do get a brief reprieve from the abyss when Elektra Records signs them to a deal in the US, though it’s under the stipulation that they change their name to the more progressive-sounding Leviathan. (We do catch a sweet glimpse of the band recording “Remember the Times,” one of my favorite Span/Leviathan tracks and another guitar showcase for the underrated Brian Bennett.)
By the time A Year in the Life aired, however, Leviathan had packed it in. The version of the documentary that recently popped up on YouTube also features a “20 years on” discussion with the filmmaker and some of the band members, which — much like the original doc — is both depressing and hilarious. I mean, laugh at the flowery late-sixties fashions all you like, but I’d take them any day over the more conservative styles of the late-eighties…
On that note, A Year in the Life also serves as a marvelous time capsule, one which vividly captures the look and feel of vintage late-sixties Brighton, the grubby smarminess of the late-sixties UK music industry, and that brief, eye-popping moment in time where Mustard Green and Red-Orange were apparently considered a winning fashion combination.
The Span themselves come off as talented, congenial lads who are unfortunately far more willing to play the pop game than stick to an original musical vision that might set them sufficiently apart from their contemporaries. Still, you have to commend them for giving their dreams of stardom a serious shot, and for leaving us with some great music in the process. Thank you, gents — and thanks as well to the BBC for pulling this out of their archives for us to enjoy!
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As good as "Children of Tomorrow" is, it has somewhat eclipsed their first two, major label singles from November '66 and June '67. The B sides of both, "Still Nights" and "Invitation", are great soul dancers with horns and organ. In fact if I had to save only one of their tracks for posterity, it would probably be "Still Nights"!
Maybe if they had gotten better management....