Well, Skin Alley was certainly a surprise to me. The band’s name, coupled with the rather striking monochrome artwork of a copper sticking his tongue out, certainly evokes the image of a punk band like the Sex Pistols. But when I learned that the band’s first album was recorded in 1969, I knew it couldn’t possibly be punk, which was still half a decade away. So what was this thing?
The group was formed roughly a year earlier and played a rather precarious blend of blues, psychedelia and jazz whilst gigging heavily. When they secured a record deal with Clearwater Productions (who also housed High Tide, another raucous surprise to me), their live set was crystallised in the studio to become their eponymous debut album, sporting the afore-mentioned cheeky PC on the front. The music is surprisingly downbeat and gloomy, with lyrics mainly alluding to failed relationships; track titles such as Living in Sin, Mother, Please Help Your Child and All Alone tell you all you need to know. Only the final track (Going Down the) Highway lightens the mood slightly, although the feeble organ and saxophone still bring a hint of doom.
Tell Me is perhaps the most ‘complete’ song on this album, the others mainly consisting of loose verses combined with jams, and some without even the pretence of verses at all. The band must have agreed that Tell Me was the best song on the record, as they recorded an excellent harder version of it to be released as a single, also included in this collection. I genuinely prefer this arrangement to the original. The extended instrumental Marsha shows that the band can manage their time signatures, swinging in ⅝ the whole way. This track is probably the most representative of what was to come.
Later that year, the group would travel to the West Sussex coast to form ideas for a follow-up album, dutifully called To Pagham and Beyond. The orange album cover appears a bit nonsensical at first, but I like to think that the wavy green bit at the bottom symbolises the white cliffs… although, when I checked, there are no cliffs in Pagham, just low-lying coastline. This is easily the highlight of the set, where the band really lock into a style of music that suits them well.
Still blurring the lines between blues and jazz, Skin Alley presented six longer cuts of highly improvisational music that took playing with a particular riff to its limit. Normally, I’m not a fan of pointless, excessive noodling, but the foursome turn it into an art form. Perhaps I was in just the right mood to hear on the first listen, exhausted as I was moving my life from one country to another by transatlantic plane, but I was absolutely ready for this noodly music that soothed the soul. The band somehow made each improvisation feel meaningful, and the minutes-long journeys feel worthwhile.
Among the original tunes was one that seemed surprisingly familiar: Walking in the Park by Graham Bond, which had been recorded the previous year more energetically by Colosseum as the opener to their debut album. Skin Alley’s version is decent and provides a more relaxing alternative to the Colosseum version, but I’m more fond of the original songs like Take Me to Your Leader’s Daughter or The Queen of Bad Intentions, which both have more interesting musical and lyrical themes.
Surprisingly, however, my favourite music from the set came from the bonus tracks. The band had recorded a soundtrack for a docudrama about the German supermodel Veruschka, but the film was never completed, and the recordings lay in a vault for years. Originally released in 2013, the Stop Veruschka! tracks now sit on discs one and two as bonus tracks. My favourite is the instrumental Russian Boogaloo, which begins with a rather square folk theme before switching to a blistering guitar solo. After switching back to the folk theme, we get another solo on the sax with a more laid-back arrangement. I was absolutely grooving to this stuff. Somehow, it has the best elements of prog and non-prog all at once.
The band recorded an album for Trident but then signed with Transatlantic, meaning they would lose another album’s worth of material (which sadly was not recovered, as the masters have been lost). Fortunately, some of these tracks were reworked for Two Quid Deal?, the band’s third studio album, featuring a grotesque Mickey Mouse lookalike on the cover – hardly Roger Dean.
Fortunately, the quality of the music was not reflected in the quality of the artwork, with at least two of the songs – Nick’s Seven and Bad Words and Evil People – showing the band grooving in 7/8. In more common 4/4 time, So Many People is utterly infectious with cool vocalisations between each verse and a breakdown in the instrumental. On the whole, the third album isn’t quite as strong as To Pagham and Beyond, but it’s still decent. The album closes with Sun Music, originally intended for Stop Veruschka!, before the bonus tracks feature yet another version of the song, dubbed the ‘Glastonbury Fayre Version’. I was getting quite fed up of the ‘na na na’s by the end.
Nothing could have prepared me for what would come next… well, except for the egregious score that the band’s fourth album Skintight received on ProgArchives: a miserable 1.3 out of 5. Actually, it was a pretty good warning, and I wasn’t too shocked when I put on what was essentially a country album, inspired by the good ol’ US of A. The band had been stateside, liked what they heard and tried to copy it. According to the late Krzysztof-Henryk Juszkiewicz in a 2021 interview:
This is the album that is most hated by ‘prog rock’ aficionados. Throughout the existence of Skin Alley, we were never particularly aware that we were part of any trend or “movement” in the musical world. It so happened that after Two Quid Deal? was released by Stax in the USA, and we did a live performance of it in Memphis, we found that we had a lot of admiration for the natural way American musicians just expressed themselves through their music making. Hence, our songwriting became more influenced by their less-complicated approach to their music.
It boggles the mind that Juszkiewicz puts the band’s sharp transition down to ‘not being aware of not being part of a movement’; most bands don’t completely change the way they sound in less than a year. Imagine if Metallica suddenly put out an album of EDM.
To the band’s credit, the music is played well and shows an iota of creativity more than most of the bland country music you hear, but make no mistake, there is really nothing salvageable on this album, save perhaps the final Instermental which forgoes the crooning of the previous tunes. If this album was excluded from the set, there would be no value lost, but at least this collection can claim to be ‘complete’.
Fortunately, the band were prevented from making any more dreadful music as the record company lost confidence in them. Thus ends the story of this intriguing little band. Esoteric’s clamshell packaging does a respectable job of reproducing the artwork from each original album, and there are plenty more pictures and press clippings inside. Mark Powell’s essay is insightful and informative, a great introduction to the group, although Juszkiewicz’s surname is misspelled throughout. While the final album is a complete dud, the strength of the first three albums (plus the bonus Stop Veruschka! sessions) is enough of a reason to give this collection a punt.
TRACK LISTING
DISC ONE: Skin Alley
01. Living in Sin (4:42)
02. Tell Me (4:40)
03. Mother, Please Help Your Child (4:12)
04. Marsha (7:19)
05. Country Aire (2:17)
06. All Alone (8:14)
07. Night Time (5:33)
08. Concerto Grosso (Take Heed) (0:31)
09. (Going Down the) Highway (4:21)
~ Bonus tracks:
10. Better Be Blind (B-side of single) (3:03)
11. Tell Me (single version) (3:59)
– Stop Veruschka!, Pt. 1
12. Shower Music (3:35)
13. Sofa, Taxi and Sand Themes (5:11)
14. Cemetery Scene (4:41)
15. First Drug Scene (5:15)
Time – 67:24
DISC TWO: To Pagham and Beyond
01. Big Brother is Watching You (6:48)
02. Take Me to Your Leader’s Daughter (8:47)
03. Walking in the Park (6:42)
04. The Queen of Bad Intentions (6:48)
05. Sweaty Betty (8:05)
06. Easy to Lie (5:20)
~ Bonus tracks:
– Stop Veruschka!, Pt. 2
07. Russian Boogaloo (4:10)
08. Skin Valley Serenade (5:31)
09. Sun Music (5:27)
10. Bird Music (4:17)
11. Snow Music (2:32)
Time – 64:22
DISC THREE: Two Quid Deal?
01. Nick’s Seven (5:04)
02. So Many People (6:01)
03. Bad Words and Evil People (5:18)
04. Graveyard Shuffle (4:45)
05. So Glad (5:25)
06. A Final Coat (5:09)
07. Skin Valley Serenade (3:45)
08. The Demagogue (4:57)
09. Sun Music (5:03)
~ Bonus tracks:
10. You Got Me Danglin’ (A-side of single) (3:21)
11. Sun Music (‘Glastonbury Fayre’ version) (4:50)
Time – 53:32
DISC FOUR: Skintight
01. If I Only Had Time (3:56)
02. At a Quarter to One (2:56)
03. How Long? (3:34)
04. Surprise Awakening (4:19)
05. Broken Eggs (4:11)
06. Maverick Woman Blues (4:02)
07. The Heap Turns Human (3:59)
08. What Good Does It Do? (5:07)
09. Mr. Heavy (3:31)
10. Instermental (3:49)
~ Bonus tracks:
11. In the Midnight Hour (A-side of single) (2:32)
12. Broken Eggs (single version) (4:36)
Time – 46:27
Total Time – 3:51:42
MUSICIANS
Krzysztof-Henryk Juszkiewicz – Organ, Piano, Mellotron, Vocals, Hammond Organ, Trumpet, Accordion, Backing Vocals
Bob James – Guitar, Alto & Baritone Saxophone, Flute, Vocals
Thomas Crimble – Bass, Mellotron, Vocals, Harmonica (Disc 1, tracks 1-11; Disc 2, tracks 1,2 & 4-6)
Giles “Alvin” Pope – Drums, Congas, Timpani (Disc 1, tracks 1-11; Disc 2, tracks 1-6)
Nick Graham – Vocals, Bass, Flute, Electric Piano, ARP Synthesiser, Mouth Organ (Disc 1, tracks 12-15; Disc 2, tracks 3 and 7-11; Discs 3 & 4)
Tony Knight – Drums, Percussion (Disc 1, tracks 12-15; Disc 2, tracks 7-11; Discs 3 & 4)
~ With:
Bud Parkes – Trumpets, Flugelhorns (Disc 4)
Martin Drover – Trumpets, Flugelhorns (Disc 4)
Phil Kenzie – Tenor Sax (Disc 4)
Geoff Driscoll – Tenor Sax (Disc 4)
Dave Coxhill – Baritone Sax (Disc 4)
ADDITIONAL INFO
Record Label: Cherry Red Records | Esoteric Recordings
Catalogue#: ECLEC 42912
Country of Origin: UK
Date of Release: 27th June 2025
LINKS
Skin Alley – Info at Cherry Red Records
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