Listen: Just What You Want – Just What You'll Get / John's Children
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Listen: Desdemona / John's Children
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Listen: Smashed! Blocked! / John's Children
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Listen: Come And Play With Me In The Garden / John's Children
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Listen: Go-Go Girl / John's Children
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True story: In the early 80’s, I did a weekly 2 radio hour show called Import/Export for the mainstream rock station in Rochester, WCMF. It was tucked away at midnight on Tuesdays, and in today’s market it’d be deemed as a ’specialty show’, where all the bands/records that are left of center and on the way up, get a weekly spin. It was loads of fun.
When the station decided to leave the building they’d been housed in since the 60’s to a much smaller location, their massive record library needed to be eliminated due to space restrictions. Oddly, instead of inviting the staff to help thin it out (take whatever you want – we’re about to toss it anyways), give it away to the needy, or super serve their listeners with a free for all, they instead chose to rent a dumpster and fill it daily until the massive library was eliminated. How nice of them.
On that particular Tuesday, I left the station somewhere around 3am, as I’d always stay awhile and visit with Roger McCall, who was my co-host and did the normal overnight shift that followed. I just couldn’t resist having a look into that dumpster. I must tell you, the area and parking lot were a touch daunting anyways. Being in a very quiet part of town, and not the nicest either, I always made a quick dash to the car.
In fact, I vividly remember getting in, starting it and just staring at the dumpster heaving with records – the junkie in me came out. Suddenly of equal concern was getting caught. Seriously. There was a security camera affixed to the entrance area to allow the dj’s a look at who rang the bell before buzzing them in – and there had been a stern directive that no one was to pilfer through the discarded records. Nonetheless, I got out of the car, approached the dumpster, opened the heavy lid, and the very top album, I swear, was ORGASM by John’s Children.
Now if you’re a collector, you are well aware that this is a very, very valuable record. In 1967, it was pressed up promotionally, a result of their one and only US single ‘Smashed Blocked’ becoming a hit on the west coast, even a Top 10 in LA – as well a ‘Bubbling Under The Hot 100′ Billboard item (#102). Needless to say, the album title caused more resistance than it was worth and White Whale, the label, cancelled it’s release – hence it’s collectibility to this day.
I was purely convinced it was a set up – I was as critical and lippy of that station’s shit playlist then as I am of current US radio’s charts now. But fuck it – I wasn’t leaving this baby behind. By the time I arrived home, I was comforted in realizing there wasn’t a person at the station, other than Roger, with a thread of knowledge about credible music, not to mention something so obscure, and hence would never have known to place this album top of the heap to frame me. I slept soundly that night.
A few years ago, Vicki Wickham rang and asked if I’d like to join her and Simon Napier-Bell, one time manager of John’s Children, and later Marc Bolan who was in the band’s lineup, for a lunch. Vicki is the best at these things – she’s fed my record habit for ages and is always looking out for me. It was a quite fun hour – Simon, in New York for a few days, was only too happy to talk about his time with the band, providing I buy lunch, which I did. But sadly he informed me that when leaving the UK for Thailand, he tossed ‘boxes’ of 7″ singles by John’s Children as well as Marc Bolan ‘A’ labels. It was a pretty sobering moment.
