a brief history ...

Eager to try a different approach from their respective previous efforts, they adopted each other's influences, traded record collections and smoked, drank and got high together in the rehearsal studios ran by two of the band members. The local sound at that time was very much indie-guitar "Fall-esque", so Poisoned Electrick Head's spiky riffs, lush synthscapes and jerky time - changes were greeted with derision by their musical peers when first unveiled. Local audiences however re-acted more positively, mainly due to the epileptic theatrical performances of the Poisoned Electrick Head's frontman whose thrash-punk apprenticeship has equipped him with a delivery that was far from shy. Manic would be a more fitting description.

They soon became a popular attraction on the local circuit, with the other band members engaging in outlandish behaviour and ludicrous outfits, spurred on by the audience's desire to be entertained. A friend of the band offered to act as manager whose enthusiasm surmounted in-experience resulting in some out-of-town gigs including a support slot with "Here & Now" in Liverpool. This gig introduced them to both the Space Agency - (psychedelic promoters of some note) and the Liverpool festival-squat scene which consisted of bands and individuals with similar musical influences and ideas to their own.

Poisoned Electrick Head were no longer alone. Their "Scouse" contemporaries introduced them to the free-festival scene, a network of underground events attracting thousands of new-age travellers and disenchanted drop-outs. It was a culture that Poisoned Electrick Head slotted into nicely. The word-of-mouth gatherings would feature one or more travelling stages, sound systems and lightshows, which bands would locate on arrival at the site (an often hazardous task in itself) announcing their presence and tenuously securing an appearance sometime between set-up and the inevitable police eviction.

It was at these events that Poisoned Electrick Head honed their sound and theatrical stage show, secure in the knowledge that everyone in the audience was in an altered state and therefore eager to be bombarded by sonic strangeness and devilish masks. Through the meeting of the other bands and tripped - out punters, gigs were arranged in other people's home towns and Poisoned Electrick Head soon found themselves with a national circuit of venues to visit after the festival season.

By now they had been joined by a second frontman, an equally frenetic performer and using the first-prize money from a "Battle of the Bands" competition in Bradford, released their first album on their own label in 1992. The band's guitarist was also an accomplished graphic artist and had been responsible for creating detailed and disturbing gig posters and merchandise and therefore designed the sleeve of the new album. The back cover featured another of his creations - a set of skull-faced cybernetic helmets which he had sculpted from clay and moulded in fibreglass resin. They were designed to be worn on stage and this became Poisoned Electrick Head's new more 'corporate image'.

The album's release came a month after the infamous "Castlemorton" free-festival which Poisoned Electick Head attended along with 25,000 others and managed to perform on the main stage before the authorities closed in and effectively killed the free-festival movement forever. Exposure at this event possibly contributed to Poisoned Electrick Head's album making a brief appearance at No.19 in the Indie Album Charts on the week of its release.

The band's non-stop gigging regime brought -them to the attention of Brian Hallin, Manager of "The Wedding Present" (amongst others) who was looking to acquire a 'new-age traveller' band. The national music press had ironically picked up on the Phenomena as the latest big thing with bands like "Ozric Tentacles" and "Back to the Planet" receiving major-label attention. Hallin signed a management agreement with Poisoned Electrick Head and set about raising the band's profile. A support slot with "Back to the Planet" (who had recently been signed by EMI) was procured, possibly because the "Planets" had a say in who supported them and the two bands had encountered each other several times on the festival circuit. The 21-date tour was successful but gruelling, with band members taking times at sleeping rough in bushes and car-parks rather than face the inadequate confines of the tour-van.

Upon returning Poisoned Electrick Head set about recording their third album (a second release "Umistakeably Rainbow Trout" had been on cassette only available via mail order and through their fan-club "Electrick Moose") while management searched for a label to release it, eventually signing a one-album and single deal with Abstract Records, the former home of "New Model Army".

In the spring of 1994 the single "Out of Order" was released and charted at No. 1 in the "indie" charts, and was followed by the release of the album "The Big Eye Am" which made the top 30 (26). It was accompanied by a national headlining tour of the UK for which Poisoned Electrick Head had wisely invested in a converted 52 - seater coach, thus avoiding the spartan conditions endured on the "Planet tour". The tour was fairly well received, but sparsely attended in some areas of the country, highlighting the need for more publicity and higher press profile.

Brian Hallin followed up with an appearance at the "Planet Pul Festival" in June in Holland. Poisoned Electrick Head had visited Holland the year before and played some small venues and a Dutch squat "demolition" party, which ended in band and audience being doused with vats of human excrement - truly the night the shit hit the fan! Upon returning from Holland Poisoned Electrick Head began work on new material for the next album, lack of activity from the management being explained as "difficult to promote without new product".

At this point fate intervened with a call from long-estranged "Space Agency", who were making in-roads into Europe with "Gong" and "Here & Now". One of their contracts, a promoter in Italy had brought Poisoned Electrick Head's first album (which had secured Italian distribution through trippy-label "Mystic Stones") initially because he liked the sleeve, and was eager to get the band over. Thus the band found themselves with a six-date tour of Italy, taking in Rome, Milan and Venice in the autumn of'94.

Their elated return to England was greeted with pressure for a new album from Hallin. The band's increasing frustration with the way "The Big Eye Am" had been handled and the ever decreasing efforts of Manager and agent led to a termination of the management deal in mid '95 with the band's agent soon following suit.