Recorded 30 January 1971 – Oak single RGJ718
No relation to the late 60’s CBS/MGM group of the same name, this particular Factory were based around the talents of the Qunta brothers – Andy on lead vocals and acoustic twelve string guitar and Tony on lead guitar and electric violin, supported by a rhythm section of Geoff ‘Jaffa’ Peckham (bass) and Laurie Cooksey (drums). Andy and Tony had previously visited R.G.Jones, the owner of Oak Records, in October 1968 and March 1969 as prime movers in a school band called Perfect Turkey, who recorded an Oak acetate coupling ‘Stones’ and ‘Perfect Turkey Blues’. Factory recorded four songs – ‘Time Machine’, ‘Castle On The Hill’, ‘Mr. Jones’ (no relation) and ‘Road Sweeper Joe’ – in a three hour session on 30 January 1971, with the first two tracks issued as a single that sold out its limited pressing of 99 copies within a few weeks. With its science fiction-derived lyrics,prototipe heavy metal sound and harsh,metallic vocal (an extraordinary performance from Andy Qunta), ‘Time Machine’ eerily predicted David Bowie’s forthcoming album ‘The Man Who Sold The World’, although the opening chords were surely borrowed from Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Green Manalishi’. During their lifespan, Factory attracted considerable interest within the music industry: their live performances were attended by such luminaries as Mickie Most, Robin Gibb, former Hendrix drummer Mitch Mitchell and Roger Daltrey, who was sufficiently impressed to invite the band to record at his home studio. By the time Factory shut down in 1976, Geoff Peckham had been replaced by Steve Kinch, who joined the Quntas in a new band called Head On. When this project fell by the wayside of 1979, Kinch and Andy Qunta played with Hazel O’ Connor before the bassist joined Manfred Mann’s Earthband in 1985. Tony Qunta has been a session guitarist since 1982, although he still finds time to lead a band called High Level Drive, whilst brother Andy had a six year spell with Australian group Icehouse, co-writing their hit single ‘Crazy’ and John Farnham’s anthemic ‘You’re The Voice’. One of Factory’s final gigs, incidentally, had featured a support set by a bunch malcontents bearing the unlikely name of the Sex Pistols. Within a matter of months, punk would seek to reverse the excesses of the progressive rock dinosaurs, signalling a return to three minute pop songs and more intimate live venues as well as a comprehensive demystification of the musical process. With punk inspiring media outrage to match coverage of the Stones’ emergence, ellied to the obvious generic antecedents provided by mid-1960’s R&B and garage bands, it genuinely appeared that, however fleetingly, the musical wheel had turned full circle.
Phil Gill …”With its science fiction-derived lyrics,prototipe heavy metal sound and harsh,metallic vocal (an extraordinary performance from Andy Qunta)…”. What great write-up – he’s right.
Glenn Piper… Oh the memories 🙂
Andy Qunta… Not sure what that “harsh metallic vocal” was all about! Maybe I was just trying to make up for the fact that I wasn’t playing an instrument, and wanted as much “air time” as poss!
Robert Blackham… Hi, am I right in thinking that Andy Qunta, Tony(or Mendy?)Qunta and Dick Bloom were Epsom College’s Velvet Hush band in 1969? “Broken Heart” and “Lover Please” were the songs on their Oak single. Bob Blackham (Epsom 67-72).
Geoff Peckham… I thought your band was called Perfect Turkey at Epsom, Andy and Tony?
Andy Qunta… We were originally Perfect Turkey, but we changed it to Velvet Hush later on.. Hi, Robert Blackham! How do you know about such things? And by the way, do you by any chance have a copy of Broken Heart/Lover Please? The latter is on the double album, Best of Oak Records, but none of us have a copy of Broken Heart, and haven’t heard it in decades!
Hey I was looking over that ninebattles.com site you contribute to, and did a search for Shirley Collins but there doesn’t appear to be anything there. Maybe she’s not considered ‘rock’ enough, but she WAS from Hastings apparently and her legacy is simply HUGE. I really didn’t know much about her until a few years ago when I got a “Folk Box” on Topic from overseas–it’s a box set of the best Brit/Celt Folk from about the 50s until the late 90s. She had a few cuts with Davey Johnston (sp?) and Ashley Hutchings (who she was married to for a while) and I thought her voice sounded a bit “off”. But then I got some Ashley comps and the more I listened the more I was fascinated.
Then I found out about “Anthems in Eden” and her using David Munrow’s Early Music Consort, and I had to have it since I’ve been collecting whatever I can from his short career. 30 seconds into listening to this CD (it’s part of “The Harvest Years” 2 CD set, and budget priced) I realized this was going to be something special. And apparently it was. This was one of those albums like the first Velvet Underground LP where it may have only sold X many copies but everyone who bought it went out and formed a band. In Fairport Conventions case, it was one of the main influences that pushed them into creating “Liege and Lief”–their 4th album that really put Brit folk and early music influenced rock and roll, on the map for the first time. (“Anthems” is extra cool for me personally since it contains absolutely NO guitar at all. May be the only “ most influential-to-rock-n-roll “ album to make that distinction.)
I was even more surprised to find Shirley was a girlfriend of Alan Lomax when he lived in “exile” in the UK during his suspected “Commie” phase. When he was allowed back over here without hassle from the FBI, she accompanied him on his recording trips for the Atlantic series of LPs called “Sounds of The South”–which among a great many other things, discovered such artists like Mississippi Fred McDowell. These albums also were hugely influential. You can kind of sense what he did in the opening scenes of that movie “Cadillac Records” where the guy playing Lomax records Muddy Waters outside Muddy’s shack down in Mississippi from the trunk of a car. I don’t think anyone played Shirley in that scene, but then she was part of a trip Lomax took around 10 years after Lomax and his father discovered Muddy.
She may never win any Rock and Roll Hall of Fame recognition (nor will Jackie DeShannon, another rant of mine, so Shirley’s in good company) but as Hastings Sussex musical notables go, I would venture to bet Shirley’s got a huge history to rival no one else.
Will Cornell….Love the hurdy gurdy in the midsection of this tune. One of the cuts that finally pushed me into buying one myself…..
Will Cornell on Fairport Convention….Fairport were performing in the early 70s at some college campus here in the USA….doing their big beat version of some 16thCentury tune like “Matty Groves” ….some a-hole in the crowd kept yelling “Boogie” and “Play some rock n Roll!” and Richard Thompson stopped everything and walked up to the mic and said: “This IS Rock N Roll….British Rock N Roll!”
Will Cornell…the new Blowzabella CD “Strange News” contains not one but two cuts that update songs contained on Shirley Collins’ “Anthems In Eden”, so her influence (esp that LP) continues uninterrupted!