tomorrow

Tomorrow (previously known as The In Crowd and before that as Four Plus One) were a 1960s psychedelic rock band. Despite critical acclaim and support from DJ John Peel who featured them on his "Perfumed Garden" radio show, the band was not a great success in commercial terms. They were among the first psychedelic bands in England along with Pink Floyd and Soft Machine. Tomorrow recorded the first ever John Peel show session on BBC Radio 1 on 21 September 1967.

History

Film director Michelangelo Antonioni intended to feature the band in his 1966 film Blowup, but instead used The Yardbirds. However Tomorrow did appear in the 'Swinging London' film Smashing Time under the name of The Snarks. John "Junior" Wood was ill and was replaced by John Pearce, a clothes dealer. Again their music was not used in the film. The rock group sounds used in the film are by Skip Bifferty.

The band released two singles, one of which, "My White Bicycle" was later covered by heavy rock act Nazareth, and as a novelty record by 'Neil the Hippy' (Nigel Planer) of The Young Ones TV series. According to drummer John 'Twink' Alder, the song was actually inspired by the Dutch Provos, an anarchist group in Amsterdam which reportedly instituted a community bicycle program: they had white bicycles in Amsterdam and they used to leave them around the town. And if you were going somewhere and you needed to use a bike, you'd just take the bike and you'd go somewhere and just leave it. Whoever needed the bikes would take them and leave them when they were done.^[1].

Tomorrow's September 1967 single "Revolution" was likely the primary inspiration for the John Lennon song Revolution which was released a year later.^{[citation needed]} Tomorrow's lyric "Have your own little revolution, NOW!" sounds like it prompted Lennon's response "You say you want a revolution."^{[citation needed]} Though Tomorrow's song was not a hit the group was well known to insiders of the London music scene. Frank Zappa met the group on his first trip to England in 1967 and praised Steve Howe's guitar solo on the song Claramount Lake. Zappa later chose to play Claramount Lake during a radio guest DJ appearance in the 1980's.

Tomorrow singer Keith West is perhaps better known as a participant in Mark Wirtz's Teenage Opera project that gave him a solo hit single "Excerpt from a Teenage Opera (Grocer Jack)" and brief commercial success. Guitarist Steve Howe later joined progressive rock band Yes, whilst Twink joined The Pretty Things on their concept album, S.F. Sorrow, before forming The Pink Fairies.

Band members

• Steve Howe: electric and acoustic guitars
• Keith West: vocals
• John "Junior" Wood: bass guitar
• John 'Twink' Alder: drums

Discography

• "My White Bicycle" / "Claramount Lake" (single, Parlophone R5597, May 1967)
• "Revolution" (Hopkins/Howe) / "Three Jolly Little Dwarves" (single, Parlophone R5627, September 1967)
• Tomorrow (album, Parlophone 1968)
• 50 Minute Technicolor Dream (album, RPM 184, 1998)

References

1. ^ Tomorrow

External links

• BBC John Peel - Tomorrow
• 1999 Interview with Steve Howe, talking about his days with Tomorrow

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