52: THE MISUNDERSTOOD
Children Of The Sun/ I Unseen
(Fontana, 1969)

THE woods, and the cities, are full of the bones of groups who deserved a better shot at posterity - but off the top of my head, I can't think of a more deserving case than The Misunderstood.

In the first instance, The Misunderstood were a typical American garage band from Riverside, California, if a smarter and stranger one than most. Their "big break" came when a certain English DJ called John Ravenscroft (later to be known and justly revered as John Peel) saw them performing at the opening of a shopping mall of all things, and couldn't believe what he was seeing or hearing.

It wasn't just that they had a maniacal, thudding drive which out-dragged The Yardbirds at their fullest stretch. They also had a unique secret weapon in the shape of lap steel guitarist Glenn Ross Campbell, who fed his instrument through a primitive early fuzz box to create a howling barrage of sound unlike anything anyone had ever heard in 1965.

As The Misunderstood left the makeshift stage with their instruments feeding back and their first-of-its-kind light show casting a lurid glow over the faces of the stupefied audience, Peel figured (not unreasonably) that the band would have a devastating impact on the world scene if he could only get them over to London and secure a record deal for these avant garde renegades...

The rest, sadly, isn't history. Penury, lack of publicity and the draft did for them within months, with the result that the first incarnation of this mighty band was dead in the water by early 1967.

Children Of The Sun was recorded in 1966 but not released until February 1969, by which time its feral, questing, proto-psych thrust was out of keeping with the prevailing mood.

That needn't bother us now, of course: It stands up today as one of the most jaw-dropping, wild and warped singles of all time. It brims with brave new world excitement and crackling electrical overload - a shattering, elemental, life-changing achievement.

If only, if only. As Glenn Ross Campbell wisely notes: "Nobody knew we existed! The people that heard us couldn't overlook us. We were too different."