What is the greatest debut album by an Australian band? Daddy Who? Daddy Cool!? The Saints? Radio Birdman's Radios Appear? Delta Goodrem?! It doesn't really matter. But, the one debut record I really wanted to celebrate when I was writing the 'Welcome Strangers' series for Rhythms magazine was the Loved Ones' 1967 effort Magic Box. Like Jane Russell it's moody and magnificent. It's also not technically a debut album rather a collection of singles from the time. But what songs. What I love is they were a concept band, seemingly accidentally. They were called the Loved Ones and nine tracks on the record had 'love' in the title. Alright. I can dig it. Anyway, I tracked guitarist Rob Lovett down, working at RMIT University, and he was quite happy to open up about the delights of Magic Box. If you're interested in delving further the full interview comes after this piece.

The anguished howl of Gerry Humphrys is moody, distinctive, and original. A wild voice perfectly matching the brooding angst of the Loved Ones. Over an 18-month period the band released a handful of singles that rank as some of Australia's best including 'The Loved One', 'Everlovin' Man' and 'Sad Dark Eyes' that were eventually collected on one album called Magic Box.

The cover art of Magic Box is a kaleidoscope of colours and fitted in well with the psychedelia of 1967. But it's stretching a long bow to call the Loved Ones psychedelic. They didn't really fit comfortably into any of the genres of the time. The music's not really psychedelic, garage, or folk-rock. The main ingredient for this was the way Humphrys singing defied categorisation.

Another explanation of the different sound was all five members were jazz heads. Humphrys, pianist Ian Clyne and bassist Kim Lynch played with the Red Onions Jazz Band. The remainding two - drummer Gavin Anderson and guitarist Rob Lovett - were with the Wild Cherries before Clyne convinced them on a new direction. At the same time Clyne organised a recording session at W&G - where the Seekers had recorded their first material. The way Rob Lovett remembers it the band panicked before their first session. "We went through our play list which was all R&B covers and selected a couple, one we worked on for a long time was a John Lee Hooker song but none of it sounded good."

A decision was made to try and write an original.

"I'd been playing with the sound of 3 chords on a 9 beat pattern and wondered what it would sound like with a 2 beat drum pattern running behind it," Lovett explains. "So when Gerry asked if anyone had anything I nervously mentioned it. I'd been interested in the big chord music by the Who's Pete Townsend and when Gerry said, "What's the melody?" I mumbled the idea was that he 'sort of rave…you know, no melody.' To my relief he took this on board. Ian came up with the bass line and the lead guitar line. He played guitar as well as piano and played guitar far better than I did. Then Gerry said that it was going along ok but it needed a chorus, a real sing-along, and just wrote down the most obvious lines he could think of."

"Oh baby I love you so/I need you now/I want you bad/I can't go on…"

Despite the obvious hooks the song still didn't capture Ian Clyne's imagination. He took a punt and decided to bring a friend who played organ at the Winston Charles nightclub to the recording session. "We only had 3 hours and we decided to warm up by doing Blueberry Hill," Lovett says. "Then we tackled the one we'd made up. The organist said that while he liked it he thought we should put some hand claps in so the audience didn't get lost. In those days most people were brought up on easy listenin' music - C&W, very straightforward. In the end, the hand claps were more dominant than the 2-beat pattern so the whole thing sounded a bit like a crazy waltz. As it turned out the organist was absolutely right. It would never have made it without his suggestion and the way he played. He really gave it some atmosphere and suspenseful excitement - building up on the first chord sequence till it burst out into the second and Gerry screamed out his 'Yonder she's walking.' It's so crazy. I mean, who says 'yonder' any more. Gerry was good like that. He didn't give a shit if it made sense as long as it was easy to sing and with his rough voice it didn't sound dorky."

The band called the song 'The Loved One' and it became the band's debut single (backed with This is Love) and their most famous song (later covered by INXS, twice). Released in May, 1966 it made #15 in Melbourne and #2 in Sydney. When it came time for a follow-up single the band still hadn't written anything.

"We found ourselves still looking for some inspiration the night before the session," Lovett admits. "About 1am I came up with the chord progressions and rhythm that became 'Everlovin Man'. Gerry had me play it over and over again while he sang in a low voice this melody. He always went for the tonic, or 'root note' of the chord which is why they sounded so strong. The feel again was on a 4/4 beat, and had this waltzy triplets feel behind it so it was actually a 6/8 or 12/4 or something. Although I didn't realise it till now, when you think about it, it's the 'Waltzing Matilda' beat. How Aussie can you get?"

Humphrys penned the lyrics while Ian Clyne arranged the tune. The singer suggested Clyne start the song with a classical style piano introduction. The quaint baroque opening, the bizarre quiet to scream vocal melody and solid backing make it sound unlike anything before or since. Put out in July '66, it went #2 in Melbourne (staying in the charts for 19 weeks) and #9 in Sydney.

Not long after the release of 'Everlovin' Man', Ian Clyne was sacked from the band - a decision Rob Lovett still regrets.

"We had a falling out between Ian and the rest of us," Lovett admits. "Nothing really that Ian did, except he did get sick of being the only one to do any of the promotional or organising work. We were all kids, and if anyone would do it, the rest stood back. As a result, Ian was cast into the position of being the nagging parent, and became more in tune with our manager than the rest of us. Without going through the details, it came messily down to his being fired and this was something that the rest of us got to really regret. We showed how much of a mistake this was when 25 years later Kim and I brought Gerry back from England for a reunion tour, and all of us wanted Ian to be there."

Clyne's replacement Treva Richards came on board as the band was trying to come up with their third single. It was late '66 and they holed up in Adelaide for two weeks for the opening of Big Daddy's disco. Their spare time was spent listening to Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde album over and over. The result was 'Sad Dark Eyes' an inspired combination of surging music coloured by Lovett's 12-string guitar, Dylanesque lyrics and Humphrys' neurotic wail.

"Gerry had at that time only heard Dylan's popular tracks - never listened to his albums fully, and at this time he sort of forced to listen to them in detail," Lovett explains. "I think this was combined with a fair amount of grass, and he therefore got to like the experience. When we were back in Melbourne we had to do a third recording session and, again, we went through the formula, as it had become, of me doing a sequence of chords and rhythms that appealed to Gerry and he, after playing around with melody, coming up with the lyrics. Gerry had these words just waiting for a song. He had the lines about rings, gypsy faces, Spanish lace and the sad dark eyes and they were very Dylan-ish."

Two of Australia's greatest musical innovators - Nick Cave and Ed Kuepper - paid tribute to song with covers in the early 90s.

'The Loved One', 'Everlovin' Man' and 'Sad Dark Eyes' are the bonafide classics off Magic Box but the strength of the record is other original tracks like the swelling pop of 'A Love Like Ours', the vastly underrated baroque style 'Love Song', the title track and the gothic 'Loverly Car'. The only clunkers are the covers - 'Blueberry Hill', 'Shake, Rattle and Roll', and Muddy Waters 'I Want You to Love Me'.

"I got so used to our version of Blueberry Hill that I got a complete surprise when I heard the original again and realised how we'd buggered it up," Lovett laughs.

The album was released in late 1967 just before the band broke up.

"The split was a non-event," Lovett says. "We had been in Perth for two weeks on what felt like a very long tour. A miserable tour by the end. It started off so well. We were mobbed at the airport and smuggled off in the caterer's van. We had people who spotted us and chased the cars that whisked us off, waving their autograph books in vain. We did TV, we did radio, we did concerts, we did a trip round Albany, Kalgoorlie and other places on the way - one-nighters - but the record company, W&G, hadn't thought to put any records in the shops. Anyway, at the end of the tour the promoters disappeared. I can't remember if we even had our tickets home. We got back to Melbourne broke and completely dispirited. People tell me our last gig was at Opus (Ormond Hall in Prahran) but I have to say I haven't any recollection of it."

- The Album Cover -
The shot on the cover of Magic Box is the last incarnation of the band just prior to splitting in late 1967. Gavin Anderson (red suit), Gerry Humphrys (hat, pink shirt & acid tie), Rob Lovett (yellow suit & matching glasses), Treva Richards (brown jacket) and Danny De Lacy (American guitarist - sitting with pink shirt).

"The photo was taken over 2 days a week apart by Gerry's neighbour," explains Rob Lovett. "He devised the entire thing. He took shots of us on one day in various poses, selected one and then built the background to suit the pose - a cardboard cutout into which we had to fit one week later. I am wearing the yellow suit that survived for three weeks. After a week in Sydney trying to keep the damn thing clean it was ceremonially trashed during a 12 hour psychedelic train trip back to Melbourne."

When I interviewed Rob Lovett I had a whole host of questions I was dying to ask but he went through the story of the band at his own pace. Very humble despite the fact that, in a very short space of time, he had helped create some of the most dynamic music ever produced in this country. Singer Gerry Humphrys has a reputation of being quite a character and I wanted to find out about that. I still haven't seen the documentary about his life (I can't even remember the title, unfortunately) which I definitely must track down. I wanted to find out about some of the underrated songs on the album - things like 'Love Song', 'A Love Like Ours' and 'The Loverly Car'. Also, artists like Ed Kuepper, Nick Cave and INXS have covered the band's songs and I wanted to know how Rob felt about that. Plus did I really did see pianist Ian Clyne as a contestant on 'Sale of the Century' when I was a kid? Maybe another time. What I did find out about the Loved Ones was very intriguing. The fact they only ever did a handful of recording sessions and everything they recorded was collected on Magic Box was astounding...

It seems the Loved Ones were a bunch of jazzheads who switched to playing R&B in the mid-60s. Is that how you formed?
The Loved Ones originally comprised three of the Red Onions Jazz Band. These were Gerry, Kim and Ian. I knew Ian through my brother who was studying at Monash with him. Gavin Anderson, who became our drummer, was also at Monash. Ian was a great organiser, both musically and in other ways. He was the organiser of the switch for the three from jazz to R&B. This was partly because he liked R&B and partly because jazz was no longer hip. The R&B we are talking about derived as much from the folk music movement as from blues, and hardly at all from the pop charts. We were all listening to folk/blues albums specially imported from the US. You couldn't get any blues in the shops in Australia - only from the US.

Were you playing jazz too?
I was working with the Wild Cherries, and we were playing seven nights a week at the Fat Black Pussycat which had been, until then, a modern jazz club. Even modern jazz wasn't doing well, but we had Kevin Murphy, one of the craziest, and possibly the best, jazz drummers. Because of this we were sort of 'legit' at the FBP. People used to listen to Kevin solo for up to 10 minutes and want more.

Who was the driving force in the early days?
Ian put the band together, and really did all the setting up. One day he said he'd been to see Jack Varney at W&G and arranged a session. W&G recorded the Seekers, The Red Onions, and many other jazz and jazz/folk related acts. Gerry asked, 'who does Jack think is coming?' Ian chuckled and said, 'he didn't ask.' They got a real shock when we turned up - a six person line-up playing electric instruments. But we were allowed to go ahead on the basis that nothing else was booked. We had 3 hours.

What were you planning on recording? Did you have any material written?
We went through our play list which was all R&B covers and selected a couple. One we worked on for a long time was a John Lee Hooker song - I can't remember which one - but none of it sounded good. I think that we were a 'head' band more than a 'feel' band by which I mean we thought
about our music, and planned it, but there was not much in the way of making you want dance for example. The John Lee Hooker stuff is completely 'feel' music. We were very much in the tradition of the English bands whose music was struggling to do one thing and failing, but at the same time, accidentally almost, coming up with something original. Even later, look at UB40 who came up with their own sound while trying to be a reggae band in the Jamaican style. The one exception at that time, I believe, was the Rolling Stones who were both a great cover band at first, and then capable of a huge range of original material. They could do the soft folksy 'As Tears Go By' and still managed to be good at feel material. Just think of 'Keep on Walkin' and even did good country/ rock like 'Down Home Girl'.

So how did the debut single 'The Loved One' come about? Was that done at that first session?
Well, I had been playing these three chords on a 9 beat pattern and wondered what it would sound like with a 2 beat drum pattern running behind it, so when Gerry asked if anyone had anything I nervously mentioned it and Ian said, 'well, how does it go?' So I played it and got Gavin to do the 2-beat pattern. I had been interested in the big chord music by the Who's Pete Townsend and when Gerry asked, 'what's the melody?" I mumbled that the idea was that he 'sort of rave...sort of - you know, no melody...' To my relief he took this on board, but said he'd need another sequence because there wasn't enough in this one. I think, 'it's a bit boring' was how he, tactfully, put it. So I came up with the second one. 'That's more like it, I can work with that.' Ian came up with the bass line and the lead guitar line. He played guitar as well as piano, in fact he played guitar far better than I did. Then Gerry said that it was going along ok but it needed a chorus, a real sing-along, and just wrote down the most obvious lines he could think of. Ian asked how it would go and he sang it while Ian worked out the chords. The only trouble was my chord pattern ended up with an Emajor but started out with a Cmajor. 'Easy' said Ian, 'we just do a bar of F to bring it into the C'. Because of the way I tuned I had to translate all that down by 2 tones. It still didn't have enough for Ian, and on the night before recording he went to the Winston Charles nightclub and had a long talk to the organist.

It sounds like he was going to the Oracle of Delphi to ask how to make the song work.
Yeah, the organist said he liked it but he thought we should put some hand-claps in so the audience didn't get lost. In those days most people were brought up with 'easy listenin' music - C&W, very straightforward. In the end, the hand-claps were more dominant than the 2-beat pattern so the whole thing sounded a bit like a crazy waltz. As it turned out the organist was absolutely right. It would never have made it without his suggestion and the way he played. He really gave it some atmosphere and suspenseful excitement - building up on the first chord sequence till it burst out into the second and Gerry screamed out his, 'Yonder she's walking'.

Like some Shakespearian actor.
It's so crazy. I mean, who says 'yonder' any more. But Gerry was good like that. He didn't give a shit if it made sense as long as it was easy to sing and with his rough voice it didn't sound dorky. And the second line - 'she kerms my way'. 'Comes' doesn't make it, so say 'kerms'. It's a bit like the dyslectic artist Tim Jones who once said when someone argued that 'barnarner' doesn't spell 'banana' - "what does it spell then?"

How did you come to call the song 'The Loved One'?
We had only recently called ourselves The Loved Ones which we had come to by someone suggesting that we skim through some book titles. It had worked for The Groop who named themselves after the book, a 60's icon, The Group. When Lindsay, the engineer, asked what he should write on the tape, we didn't have a title, so he simply wrote on it 'The Loved One' which is the actual name of the Evelyn Waugh book. No one ever thought to change it.

You were playing a 12-string guitar but it didn't sound anything like the Byrds. How was that?
The 12-string guitar I had bought was from Mick Lewis, who's shop is the only one left of the four or five music shops that used to be part of
Russell St (in the city of Melbourne). It was an Italian Eko guitar, a big body instrument tuned to the C below the E to which guitars are normally tuned. That's 2 full tones lower. I loved its rich tones, especially the E major formation which became a Cmajor and had plenty of open strings to give it that big sound.

Did you have a producer looking after you when you recorded?
You have to be kidding. You obviously haven't spoken to anyone else who recorded in the 60's - or, at least, not at W&G. We had an engineer who put microphones in the room and said helpful things like, 'that's the way it sounds - you change it' to questions like, 'can you make the guitar sound a bit sharper?' Or whatever. I don't think he was a producer. There was someone who was his apprentice who changed tapes. Can't think of anyone else. Oh, there was Jack Varney, who dropped by a couple of times and said things like, 'everything going ok?' like the vicar dropping in on a youth club.

'The Loved One' has become an Australian classic, imbedded in the DNA. Did people embrace it straight away.
Not at all. It sat around for a long time. The radio stations wouldn't play it. GoSet magazine - the most influential rag at the time, wouldn't write about us. Actually, that's not entirely true. The magazine was run in a most anarchic way. when hiring staff, Tony Schauble and Philip Fraser were mostly concerned whether a) they had their own transport, transport that could be borrowed by the managing editors, and b) that they didn't need to be paid every week. As a result, while we were scorned by the two leading writers, Lily and Ian 'Molly' Meldrum, we had a couple of articles by writers who actually listened to music. The thing that launched us was 'Kommotion' - a TV show on each week night. It was where Denise Drysdale, Ronnie Burns, and many others got their start. Without that we may have never got off the ground. We did an audition, along with about a hundred other bands and actor/ dancers in a church hall in Dandenong Road, Windsor. It's one of the ocassions that sticks forever in the mind.

Were you playing live a lot at the time?
We'd been playing the Thumping Tum, the Mad Hatter etc. and then Ian, again, got us into a regular situation with Peter MacKennal who managed a discotheque in High St Prahran, The Garrison. The other regular band, on the other nights, was the Jackson Kings. They were named after a song "From a Jack to a King . . ." This also became the venue for our practice sessions. These were fairly disorganised sorts of things. Gavin developed the ability to fall asleep sitting on
a banquette with his back against a wall - deeply asleep. These practices were often filled with arguments about what we could play as opposed to what we might like to play. Ian's plan, in which he succeeded, was to have the band managed by Peter MacKennal. Peter later became one of the founders of The Australian Management & Booking Organisation, AMBO, at the time the largest of its type dealing with bands.

'The Loved One' ended up charting while the follow up 'Everlovin' Man' did much better. That song still sounds very original. How did it come about?
As 'The Loved One' took its time heading up the charts, we had to come up with a follow-up song. Naturally we found ourselves still looking for inspiration the night before the recording session and, at about 1am, I came up with the chord progressions and rhythm which became 'Everlovin Man'. Gerry had me play it over and over again while he sang his melody in a low voice. He always went for the tonic, or 'root note' of the chord which is why they sounded so strong. The
feel again was on a 4/4 beat, and had this waltzy triplets feel behind it so it was actually a 6/8 or 12/4 or something. Although I didn't realise it till now, when you think about it, it's the 'Waltzing Matilda' beat. How Aussie can you get?

Gerry Humphrys' vocal is wild. A frenzy. And the baroque opening, too, is a great hook.
Ian, again, organised it all to make it work, including making up the bass lines and, at Gerry's request, doing a classical style piano introduction.
I remember Gerry sort of singing how it might go. Again Gerry came up with the chorus and he and Ian worked out the chords to the chorus. The melodies and words are completely Gerry's and the musical parts were shared between Ian and myself. Ian also wrote 'This is Love'. A couple of the other songs we recorded at this time were bastardised blues songs. One, in a 3/4 time, was 'Much More Than Love'. I had never heard a 3/4 blues before. I liked it because it was all chords and no-one expected you to come up with one of those dinky little solos that people did in those days. Hundreds of notes, but saying nothing. Instead, Gerry did a mouth organ solo.

To me, the Loved Ones come across a concept band. Nine of the songs featured on Magic Box had love in the title. Was that planned?
It wasn't planned. We never recorded an LP, just a series of singles that were later compiled into it, so there was no thematic influence. It was a slack mixup that led to the naming of "The Loved One". As to the rest, they just reflected Gerry's lyrics. As an entertainer, he took the most direct route to connecting with people, and that's to talk about relationships. We weren't exactly political. That came later when people started to realise how unjust and crazy our involvement was in Vietnam. Until then most people who were political were doing it to make a personal reputation as "Campus Whizkids". We even did a party for the Liberal Party at Portsea, and Gerry's wife Claire danced with and charmed, and was charmed by, Sir Harold (Holt, Prime Minister of Australia at the time). We were there as the eccentric touch, and "for the young ones". I think a lot of them were disappointed that we didn't play the Twist.

While 'The Loved One' took a while to catch on, 'Everlovin Man' was an instant success.
At the time we brought out 'Everlovin' Man' we still had 'The Loved One' in the top ten and also an EP that W&G decided to bring out, without asking, which featured everything we had recorded to date - four songs including 'This is Love' and 'Blueberry Hill' - which we did as a test-run when we recorded 'The Loved One'. So, this was also in the charts and we ended up with the three records in the top ten at the same time. We always suffered from appalling timing. We brought out 'Everlovin' Man' practically the same day as the Beatles released "I am the Walrus". We always got knocked off by the Beatles. 'Everlovin' Man' was No 2. Meanwhile, 'The Loved One' had taken so long to be accepted that it sold steadily over a long period and never achieved the number 1 spot. One thing that we learned very early on from Stan Rofe was this. He said, 'I will play any Australian recording as long as it's not longer than 2 minutes 10 seconds' and he was true to his word. He was the most supportive DJ in Melbourne. He did have his
favourites, and why not, but he would still play the others. We always aimed for 2.10.

It's interesting you mention 'Blueberry Hill' as a test run because on the Magic Box LP it's the cover songs which are the weakest.
We did that as a warm up. It was a song that the Red Onions had done many times. Gavin and I sort of knew the song as we'd heard the Fats Domino version before many times on radio, so we had the gist of it. But I got so used to our version of 'Blueberry Hill' that I got a complete surprise when I heard the original again and realised how we'd buggered it up.

You've painted Ian Clyne as the both the push and pull of the band. Why did he leave?
There was a falling out between Ian and the rest of us. Nothing really that Ian did, except he did get sick of being the only one to do any of the promotional or organising work. We were all kids, and if anyone would do it, the rest stood back. As a result, Ian was cast into the position of being the nagging 'parent', and became more in tune with our manager than the rest of us. Without going through the details, it came messily down to his being fired and this was something that the rest of us came to really regret. We showed how much of a mistake this was when 25 years later Kim and I brought Gerry back from England for a reunion tour, and all of us wanted Ian to be there. Nothing against Treva, but the core group was Gerry, Ian, Kim, Gavin and myself. Gavin couldn't allow himself enough time to do the tour, but did make it to our launch as a way of seeing us all, and Treva was big hearted enough to come and see us when we played in Adelaide, as did Danny DeLacy when we played in Sydney, so we all got together in the end.

Can you tell us about my favourite Loved Ones track - 'Sad Dark Eyes'. It seems to have a heavy Bob Dylan influence?
Well, you picked the Dylan thing. We'd been playing in Adelaide for two weeks, there for the opening of the "Big Daddy's" Disco. We stayed in digs - that is, as paid-for guests in a house. The house was occupied by two students and we, as a group, became good friends with them and their other friends. Gerry had, at that time, only heard Dylan's popular tracks - never listened to his albums fully, and at this time he was forced to listen to them in detail. I think this was combined with a fair amount of grass, and he therefore got to like the experience. When we were back in Melbourne we had to do a third recording session and, again, we went through the formula, as it had become, of me doing a sequence of chords and rhythms that appealed to Gerry and he, after playing around with melody, coming up with the lyrics. This was a matter of endlessly playing the sequence - over and over. Gavin usually fell asleep sitting in a chair. He could sleep anywhere.Gerry also got Treva to play the intro - sort of sang it to him. Gerry had these words just waiting for a song. He had the lines about rings, gypsy faces and Spanish lace and the sad dark eyes and yes, they were very Dylan-ish. I really liked it all. It had drama, structure and, at the time, with my very limited guitar ability ...I never really liked the fiddly little strings and much preferred bass ... picking out strings from a chord was much better for me than playing any kind of fake solo like people used to do in those days. You know, two verses then someone goes a little crazy on the guitar for 30 seconds or so, then you go back for another verse, chorus, and fade. I also liked the big 12 string sound which was a bit unusual and we hadn't used it since 'The Loved One' so it meant, for me, another chance to get it off its leaning place. I couldn't afford guitar stands.

It seems the band were absolutely flying. All the singles had been successes. Why the split?
The split was a non-event. We had been in Perth for two weeks on what felt like a very long tour. And it was a miserable tour by the end. It started off so well. We were mobbed at the airport and had to be smuggled off in the caterer's van. We had people, even so, who spotted us and chased the cars that whisked us off, waving their autograph books in vain. We did tele, we did radio, we did concerts, we did a trip round Albany, Kalgoorlie and about three other places on the way - one-nighters- but the record company, W&G, hadn't thought to put any records in the shops, so 'Sad Dark Eyes' didn't even chart. Our fans were complaining to us that they couldn't get it. That had been the story all over Australia and probably explains why 'Sad Dark Eyes' never achieved good sales figures. W&G had been too busy with their Christmas records to press them. I never really understood their priorities. When it finally became available people had stopped asking and, because it hadn't been selling, radio stations took it off their play-lists - so it was forgotten. Anyway, at the end of the tour the promoters disappeared. I can't remember if we even had our tickets home. We got back to Melbourne broke. The booking company had taken its commission directly from our bank account as we were responsible for collecting the money and we were completely dispirited. We had about 2 more gigs lined up and we told Peter not to bother booking any more. People tell me our last gig was at Opus (Ormond Hall in Prahran) but I have to say I haven't any recollection of it.

The Loved Ones had a short, sharp, shiny career. It's a shame the band couldn't keep it together.
As I said before, Ian Clyne was the person who put the group together, and he had gone due to machinations that never should have happened, and then Kim had had to resign for personal reasons and it became apparent just how much the spirit of the band had disappeared and you could see that it's more than musical ability that holds these things together. Kim was a large part of the group. He was the style-meister. He did our graphics, and he did a lot of socialising and the sort of promoting with journo's that none of the rest of could. With the spirit largely gone this was the last straw and I went on to form the Virgil Brothers to make some money, which we did, and Gerry went on to have a band he could control (Gerry and the Joy Band)). He always loved being with wild characters like Kim and he got that in Alan Mittelman and he got to work with Ross Hannaford, both of whom he'd always admired. In those days you only played with one band. These days there would have been no need to disband, we could have done the occassional gig and we could each have played with other bands - but there you go.

The Magic Box cover shot is a kaleidoscope of colours and fits nicely into the psychedelic era. But it would be stretching a very long bow to call the Loved Ones a psychedelic band?
The photo was taken over two days a week apart by Gerry's neighbour. He devised the entire thing. He took shots of us on one day in various poses, selected one and then built the background to suit the pose - a cardboard cutout into which we had to fit one week later. At the time we were a bit psychedelic actually. Gavin Anderson is wearing the red suit, I'm wearing the yellow. My suit survived for 3 weeks. After a week in Sydney trying to keep the damn thing clean it was ceremonially trashed during a 12 hour psychedelic train trip back to Melbourne. Gerry is in the hat. I am writing without a copy of the album to refer to and I can't remember what Treva and Danny were wearing. Danny had a sort of droopy look. Usually Treva wore a brown fur coat every waking moment and was smoking. He had perfected the ability to roll a cigarette in his left hand so he could continue playing piano with his right. He was was very much a right hand tinkly player which had made a big difference to the music as Ian Clyne is a bit dominant with his left and a very structured player.

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