2. LoveForever Changes
I remember having a cheap reissue I bought in Our Price. I’d probably seen something in the NME because it was around the time of The Teardrop Explodes and The Bunnymen, and they made lots of references to it. It was a known psychedelic classic. It’s probably an album that’s featured many times in Baker’s Dozens, but I just couldn’t ignore it. It’s one of the records you listen to again and again and again, where you know every little drum beat and guitar stop, where the track stops abruptly in ‘A House Is Not A Motel’. Where you learn where your record’s scratched on one of the tracks and it jumps a bit. There are incredible string and horn arrangements, and a juxtaposition between the vocals which are sometimes really paranoid and weird and this beautiful LA sunshine pop backing. It’s the whole idea of this band called ‘Love’, but with a very dark underbelly. This album is peerless, really.
In your book you recall being introduced to Arthur Lee after you drunkenly offered The Seeds’ Sky Saxon a cheque for £500 at a show they were both playing.
I think he did get the money eventually, but initially it was signed to his superhero name rather than his real name [Richard Marsh]. But yeah, Arthur Lee was a kind of towering figure, very tall, but he also seemed very gentle. I was quite surprised that this was the guy that had been in jail for firearms offenses and stuff like that. I almost got to produce him. There was talk of it in the 2000s for a recording of this track ‘Feathered Fish’. Lots of people warned me not to do it because he was a bit of a challenge, but I do like a challenge. I really wanted to do it but it just seemed to fizzle out.
