Australia's greatest acid drop? For me, it's the Masters Apprentices' 'Living in a Child's Dream'. I love Russell Morris letting his phased freak flag fly on 'The Real Thing' but, as Masters lead singer Jim Keays points out, that song wasn't released till 1969. Two years too late - an acid flashback if you will. 'Living in a Child's Dream' was released as single in August, 1967 at the very height of psychedelia.

Then, in early '68, Astor Records released a 4-track EP called Masters Apprentices Vol. 2. The unimaginative title did nothing to trumpet the fact that it contained the most inspired slices of psychedelia ever produced in Australia. Vol. 2 comprised of four tracks including 'Living in a Child's Dream' and and the follow up hit single 'Elevator Driver', the Yardbirds styled 'Tired of Just Wandering' and the flower punk anti-Vietnam classic 'Wars or Hands of Time'. But the band never released a full length psychedelic album. I was intrigued. Why didn't the Masters Apprentices put out the great psychedelic album they were, obviously, very capable of nailing?

The beauty of Melbourne is it isn't that big. Jim Keays, lead singer for Masters, was easy to track down. He was enthusiastic. I was enthusiastic. A perfect mix. The simple truth is, for me - the Masters Apprentices were an amazing band. From their garage days through their psych period and their later hard rock with prog tendancies they were an inspired unit. Anyway, I was wrote this piece for Rhythms magazine where I had started a 'Welcome Strangers' column dealing with the rare stories of great Australian albums. The magazine later mutated it into a 'Classic Albums' type thing, which they still do, but I was more interested in a more off beat approach. Anyway, here's what I found out...the full Jim Keays interview follows this piece...

During the northern hemisphere's fabled 1967 'Summer of Love', the Masters Apprentices produced a slice of world class psychedelia.

Australian psychedelia only came on in small doses. Many of our best acid drops were restricted to 7" single releases rather than albums even for successful acts like the Masters Apprentices. Lead singer Jim Keays concedes Vol. 2 should have been a full-blown psychedelic album. However, the LP got lost in a summer haze of sex, drugs, heavy touring, sackings and nervous breakdowns.

"That EP should've been an album no doubt about it," says Keays. "I regret that we didn't record more and we should've recorded more. From '67 to '69 we only recorded singles. There should be an album between the first one (recorded in 1966) and Masterpiece (which surfaced in 1970). But it was just so difficult. Nobody was recording much at all in Australia. If you look at Australia's history very few bands had albums out. They had singles and EPs. Very few had albums and they didn't have them until late in their career. If you weren't on the road you were broke. We were on the road 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year. You just didn't have time to write the songs let alone record them. So it was a very difficult period."

The Masters Apprentices made their debut with a rush of pure, primal energy when they unleashed 'Undecided' in 1966. Made up on the spot at Adelaide's Pepper Studio, it's a wild garage rock single full of nasty guitar, buzzsaw drumming and the feral yelpings of Keays. The b-side 'Wars or Hands of Time', later included on Vol. 2, was similarly spirited and both have been rightly hailed as prime power pop cuts. The creative force behind both songs was guitarist Mick Bower.

"Mick Bower was the spirit of the band," Keays admits. "When we went into the (ARIA) Hall of Fame a couple of years ago I made special mention of Mick because it was Mick Bower's band. When I joined they were already together. Mick had formed it, Mick was the songwriter, Mick was the driving force."

Bower was also the mastermind behind the band's first foray into psychedelia - 'Living in a Child's Dream'.

"Mick Bower wrote that as a totally innocent song and it just pre-empted the acid era," Keays explains. "It was written just before the Summer of Love or whatever you'd like to call it when the psychedelic period was born. But because of the nature of the lyrics and the way it was people thought it was an acid inspired song. But it actually wasn't. I said to Mick 'this isn't us, this isn't us. We want things like 'Buried and Dead' and 'Undecided' and those sort of songs...this is too wimpy mate. I don't know if I can sing it.' He just kept on going - 'it'll be alright, it'll be alright.' So I sang it and look what happened."

'Living in a Child's Dream' was backed with Bower's 'Tired of Just Wandering' and lays claim to being Australia's greatest psychedelic single - a sunny, seemingly acid drenched gem with a nagging undertow. It hit the charts in August 1967 at the height of the acid era and was dubbed Australia's "Song of the Year". It was also Bower's last contributions to the band. Shortly following the success of 'Living in a Child's Dream' he suffered an extreme nervous breakdown forcing him to quit.

"Mick Bower was an inspired songwriter but he was too sensitive for life on the road," Keays explains. "I'm guessing that's what it was - I'm pretty sure that's what it was. He just wasn't cut out for that sort of lifestyle. He was sort of quiet and shy and introspective and we were living a life that was just so full on. Women, drugs, 24-hours a day, 7 days a week - life was a huge party and that was it. Mick wasn't that type of guy. He never complained and he never showed any signs of it but what it must've been building up and building up and building up in him until he just exploded one day. He went nuts and I don't know if you've seen anybody have a nervous breakdown but it's a frightening experience. He went mad. Right there on the spot. Frothing at the mouth - the whole thing. It was a horrible sight. When we eventually got him to the doctor he said, 'look this guy will never play again' and he didn't."

The irony is Bower's lyrics in 'Living in a Child's Dream' were about returning to the carefree days of his youth. Away from the pressures of adulthood and being a rock musician. "He was probably sub-consciously feeling that and writing it in his lyrics," Keays says. "I wish it didn't happen the way it did - you can't really do that - but I wish he'd stayed with us and kept writing because he would've come up with some magnificent songs. He was a rare bird in that he could write all the music, all words and melody himself. He didn't really need anybody else."

A mystique now surrounds Bower in a similar fashion to Moby Grape's Skip Spence; Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett and the 13th Floor Elevators' Roky Erickson. These days he lives a quiet life in Adelaide. "I do speak to him and for all intents and purposes he's a normal guy again but for a number of years there it was touch and go."

When the Masters lost Bower they lost their one songwriter. With 'Living in a Child's Dream' high in the charts Astor were desperate for another single to capitalise on the success. "'Living in a Child's Dream' was a huge hit obviously and Astor Records was screaming for another song, 'quick we want another song to cash in on this...this is big," Keays remembers. "We didn't have anything because we'd lost our songwriter. I wasn't writing at the time because Mick had taken up that mantle and nobody else bothered to write because he was doing such a fine job. But when he left we were stuck. When it came to looking for a song rather than go for some American or English thing I thought we should stick with an Australian song. In retrospect I think that was a wise move. It was unheard of to go with an Australian songwriter in those days there wasn't too many of them. Usually people picked covers of American hits."

The Masters approached Brian Cadd from The Groop who sent them a tape of a song called 'Silver People'. The band re-arranged it, re-named it 'Elevator Driver' and worked on a psychedelic approach to the song. While more self consciously acid inspired, 'Elevator Driver' has also proved an enduring hit.

However, by the time the track reached the charts Keays was the only original member left in the band. Over a period of two years some 10 musicians had passed through the ranks all of which had left or been sacked. "By that time the whole complexion of the band had changed," Keays says.

Later in '68 Keays and new guitarist Doug Ford wrote a Donovan-inspired flower pop song called 'Brigette' that proved Keays was also capable of mining a rich psychedelic vein. However, when the band got it together to record their second album they'd moved onto a heavier, progressive rock style. It meant that the rich period of '67 and '68 never appeared on an album. "We were one of the very few bands to record psychedelia in Australia and I'm proud of that but I regret not being able to do an album in that period."

- THREE YEARS IN THE LIFE OF MASTERS APPRENTICES -

1966 - Astor decide to release 'Undecided' (an original by Bower written in 5 minutes to fill up the tape) as a single. It goes top 10 and the band move to Melbourne. The Masters become nationwide stars.
1967 - They are heralded as the country's No.1 psychadelic band with a wild stage act, state of the art light shows and outlandish costumes. 'Living In A Child's Dream' is named Australian Song of the Year. Mick Bower leaves due to ill health and is replaced by Rick Harrison and then Peter Tilbrook.
1968 - Summers and Hopgood depart in January. Doug Ford takes over on the guitar and Colin Burgess on the drums. Two months later Gavin Webb is forced to leave with stomach ulcers. 'Elevator Driver' was charting. Peter Tilbrook moved onto the bass with Jim trying rhythm guitar. Glenn Wheatley joins playing the bass in June. Tilbrook briefly returns to rhythm before leaving. 'But One Day' was released as a contractual single for Astor before the band moved to EMI.

When it comes to talking about the Masters Apprentices, Jim Keays is not short of a word. As mentioned, Jim was quite happy to do this interview. However, it's obvious that he's more used to talking about the latter incarnation of the band. The line-up that featured guitarist Doug Ford, drummer Colin Burgess and bass player Glenn Wheatley. That's probably not a surprise. It was the most stable line-up, had the most success, lived in England together, recorded at Abbey Road and had charted with tunes that Keays co-wrote including 'Turn Up Your Radio', 'Because I Love You' and 'Think About Tomorrow Today'. Still, it was the psychedelic Masters that I wanted to find out about...

I'm wanting to find out what happened to the Masters Apprentices' lost psychedelic album. There was a two year period, maybe more, between the first album being recorded (1966) and the second in 1969?

What happened was we lost our songwriter Mick Bower and all of the band, really. That first band that recorded the first album were all gone by the time we recorded the second album. I was the only one left. So that changed the whole complexion of the band. The other thing you've got to be mindful of is that music changed a lot in that period too. Nowadays there's no real rapid change. In the 60s it was changing all of the time. New bands coming out. New sounds. It was R&B then psychedelia then progressive rock. Those sorts of things were happening at a fast rate in those days. You were evolving all of the time because music was new and fresh and young and evolving.

The second album is called Masterpiece. Was it, indeed, a masterpiece?

The second album was a shambles really. For lots of reasons. We were just finding our feet with the new line-up (Wheatley, Ford & Burgess). There were lots of changes musically. The album was recorded over the period of a year of just the odd day here and there so there was no coherence to it. The first album we just went in and recorded because we weren't big then. We were just a little band and we had time to go in there and do it all. That changed also because when we went to England we took all that time to do Choice Cuts and that's why that was a good album. Masterpiece was a shocking album. Terrible."

The EP Vol. 2 which came out in early 1968 could have been a full blown psychedelic album. Why wasn't it?

And it should have been. We were under recorded in that period and it was because we were on the road seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year. You just didn't have time to write the songs let alone record them. So it was a very difficult period and if you look at Australia's history very few bands had albums out. They had singles and EPs. Very few had albums and they didn't have them until late in their career. Like the Twilights for example - Once Upon a Twilight didn't come out until about 1969 or 1970 and yet they'd been going all those years. The Zoot didn't get an album out. The Valentines didn't get an album out at all. A lot of those bands didn't get the opportunity to record an album and yet they were going for three or four or five years.

This must've been a distinctly Australian phenomenon because in the UK and US bands were pumping out two or three albums a year.

There was no money in Australia. That was the problem. We had a small population and so you had to keep working. If we came off the road we were broke. We were broke even when we were on the road. In England they were making enough money to be able to come off the road and concentrate on writing for a couple of weeks. In the studio for a couple of weeks and bung out an album. Whereas here we couldn't afford to do that - nobody did it. I regret that we didn't record more and we should've recorded more. From '67 to '69 we only recorded singles. There should be an album between the first one and Masterpiece. As I say nobody was recording much at all in Australia. It was already an industry overseas but here it was still just a hobby.

But you were able to record 'Living in a Child's Dream' at the height of the psychedelic movement.

We didn't even realise it at the time. We were just making music that we thought would work for us. Take "Living in a Child's Dream" as a classic example. That was written totally innocently. Mick Bower wrote that as a totally innocent song and it just pre-empted the acid era. It was written just before the Summer of Love or whatever you'd like to call it when the psychedelic period was born. It was written just before that and written in all innocence. But, because of the nature of the lyrics and the way it was, people thought it was an acid inspired song. But it actually wasn't. In the case of "Living in a Child's Dream" it was totally innocent and wasn't written as a psychedelic song but it turned out that way in history. Whereas on the other hand "Elevator Driver" was a psychedelic song and still sounds like that today. It just became our style for a while there. We just adopted that style. At the time we weren't aware that it was going to be hailed as great psychedelia. It was just a style we were going through at the time. We were one of the very few bands to record psychedelia in Australia. You might call "The Real Thing" by Russell Morris psychedelia but that didn't happen till 1969 so that was two years after the Summer of Love. He didn't score many points for coming up with something like that at the time. It was easy to do it afterwards.

Were there other bands doing psych inspired stuff at the time - especially playing live?

In '67 we were probably the only band in Australia. I mean that sounds stupid but the Easybeats had gone. The Loved Ones were on the verge of splitting up and they were kind of jazz inspired anyway. Other bands like the Valentines and the Zoot hadn't really emerged yet. For about a year there we had it on our own. There were other bands around, of course. But there was nobody really doing much then. The Twilights were around and they were doing some psychedelia in their own way. But they prided themselves on sounding exactly like the Beatles and they did and they were fantastic in that regard but it cost them originality because they were too derivative. The Groop were around but they'd established a different sort of sound. We were the only real what you might say cutting edge band at the time.

Can you tell us about Mick Bower and his nervous breakdown. It must've been a real blow to the band because he'd written all those great songs including 'Undecided', 'Buried & Dead', 'Wars or the Hands of Time', 'Tired of Just Wandering' and 'Living in a Child's Dream'.

Mick Bower was an inspired songwriter but he was too sensitive for life on the road. I'm guessing that's what it was - I'm pretty sure that's what it was. He just wasn't cut out for that sort of lifestyle. He was sort of quiet and shy and introspective and we were living a life that was just so full on. Women, drugs, 24-hours a day, 7 days a week - life was a huge party and that was it. Mick wasn't that type of guy. But he never complained and he never showed any signs of it but what it must've been doing was building up and building up and building up in him until he just exploded one day. He went nuts and I don't know if you've seen anybody have a nervous breakdown but it's a frightening experience. He went mad. Right there on the spot. Frothing at the mouth - the whole thing. It was a horrible sight. When we eventually got him to the doctor he said, "look this guy will never play again" and he didn't.

Have you spoken to him recently?

No not recently although I do speak to him. He's a normal guy who lives a very quiet life in Adelaide and for all intents and purposes he's a normal guy again but for a number of years there it was touch and go.

Can you tell us about 'Wars or Hands of Time'... Bomp magazine in America voted it and 'Undecided' in the top 5 power pop songs of all time.

It was inspired by the Vietnam War, of course, and the call up thing that was going on at the time. At the time I didn't really like the song that much. I thought it stopped and started too much. It's got that introduction that's got nothing to do with the rest of the song and then it goes back into that introduction at the end which seems like it's glued on. I thought it was a little bit stop/start and I didn't really like it but Mick had written it and we went and recorded it and I thought "ok". It went on the "b" side of 'Undecided' actually. But, now, I listen to it and I go 'this is fantastic. I love this song.' It's got that real eccentuated tremolo in it which was a hallmark of the 60s sound. But I love that song now but at that time it wasn't one of the songs I really took to and neither was 'Living in a Child's Dream'. I said to Mick 'this isn't us, this isn't us. We want things like "Buried and Dead" and "Undecided" and those sort of songs...this is too wimpy mate. I don't know if I can sing it.' He just kept on going - 'it'll be alright, it'll be alright.'So I sang it and look what happened. You never can tell. Sometimes you can tell. Sometimes you can't. With "Living in a Child's Dream" I couldn't tell or "Wars or Hands of Time". I couldn't tell either of those were going to be great songs. There were others later on in the career like "Turn Up Your Radio" that I knew as I soon as we wrote that this is gonna be a hit. No doubt.

Does it feel strange that you'll always be linked with Mick Bower because of those songs?

When we went into the (ARIA) Hall of Fame a couple of years ago I made special mention of Mick because he really ... it was Mick Bower's band. When I joined they were already together. Mick had formed it, Mick was the songwriter, Mick was the driving force in the band. It was his band. You can virtually say I stole it from him in as much I inherited it because the rest all fell away. He was the actual spirit of the band. I've never denied that and I never will. He got us off the ground and if it wasn't for Mick Bower I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. We wouldn't have done what we did because he launched us. He took us out into the stratosphere with those first three songs. So I'll never deny Mick's input and would never want to - he's such a great songwriter.

Mick Bower's last track before the nervous breakdown was 'Living in a Childs Dream'. It's interesting because the lyrics of that song are a cry out for simplier times.

He was probably sub-consciously feeling that and writing it in his lyrics. I wish it didn't happen the way it did - you can't really do that - but I wish he'd stayed with us and kept writing because he would've come up with some magnificent songs.

Can you tell us about "Tired of Just Wandering Around"

That was just written as a "b" side. That was never expected to be anything more than just an album track. The same with "But One Day" and "Hot Gully Wind". They're all great songs and I love them all now but at the time I saw them as also rans. Just sort of filler for the rest of the album. But they're more than filler they're great songs in their own right. "Poor Boy" was probably the first recording we ever did and we made it up on the spot. The same with "Undecided". "Buried and Dead" I love yet it was never the hit that "Undecided" was. It's probably my favourite from this whole Complete Recordings 1965-1968 album. I don't know why it's just got something I like.

How did "Elevator Driver" come about? It was written by Brian Cadd.

What happened there was Mick Bower had just left. After 'Living in a Childs Dream' Mick Bower had his nervous breakdown and left. That was a huge hit obviously and Astor Records was screaming for another song, 'quick we want another song to cash in on this...this is big.' We didn't have anything because we'd lost our songwriter. I wasn't writing at the time because Mick had taken up that mantle and nobody else bothered to write because he was doing such a fine job. But when he left we were stuck. We had just got a manager at the time called Tony Dickstein who use to manage the Groop. He was still quite friendly with the Groop - in particular Brian Cadd - and when it came to looking for a song and we didn't have any. Rather than go for some American or English thing I thought we should stick with an Australian song. In retrospect I think that was a wise move. It was unheard of to go with an Australian songwriter in those days there wasn't too many of them. Usually people picked covers of American hits. But I insisted that we get an Australian song and through Tony Dickstein we approached Brian Cadd. Brian sent us a tape of a song called "Silver People". I thought it had potential. So we played it to the band and we all, sort of, worked on it and it took a while and we basically changed it all around. Called it a different name - "Elevator Driver". We worked on the arrangement and worked on the psychedelic approach to it because it was a straight forward piano song. He'd written it on piano so we had to adapt it to a guitar based song. We made it our own. It wasn't like he gave us a song and we copied it. We got the nucleus of what he gave us and made it our own.

What about 'Theme for a Social Climber' - the b-side to the 'Elevator Driver' single?
I've never been attracted to that song. Look they just dredged that one up because we didn't have a "b" side. The first album had been bleed of every decent track.

'Brigette' was interesting in that it showed you could still write in the psychedelic vein.
'Brigette'was the first Ford/Keays composition. In fact it was the very, very, very first. We hadn't even experimented with anything else. That was the very first song we sat down and wrote together. Usually you find there's a few misses before you get one that we're happy with. That was sort of a more Donovan-inspired song. I was listening to "Mellow Yellow" and "Sunshine Superman". Donovan and Simon & Garfunkel. I just wanted to get away from what we'd been doing but it's mildly psychedelic funnily enough. In 1968 it was still the tail ends of the psychedelic thing in it. More like a Beatles song in it.

What about 'Four Years of Five'?
Peter Tilbrook, who was in the band, had been plugging and plugging and plugging away saying 'look I'm writing songs and I want one of my songs on ... so in the end we relented and said, 'alright Peter I'll co-write a song with you and put it on the b-side and he was very happy with that and that was "Four Years of Five". It's not all that flash.

The 'Merry Go Round'/'Linda Linda' single was released in early 1969. They could be the most pop thing you ever did. 'Linda Linda' sounds like a Monkees track.
"Merry Go Round" showed the future direction of the band. When the Astor band started we were an underground blues band who were thrust into pop. As time wore on we were more and more aware that we had to have radio hits to sustain ourselves. That was the first thing we did for EMI, i think. We wanted to move on from Astor. Astor did nothing for the band. Wouldn't promote things like 'Brigette. Wouldn't even do a poster for it.

You're the one constant throughout the Masters career. Which era do you rate the best?

In the eyes of the public there's two Masters Apprentices. The Adelaide band that recorded for Astor and then later the Glenn Wheatley/Doug Ford who recorded for EMI and they were two totally different types of bands really. Most people like the latter version that did "Because I Love You" and "5:10 Man" which were bigger hits. But the real affinicados they love the Astor band.

Why do you think that is?

Because we were more a garage/punk band. We had that seminal sound that appeals to some people. Then you get some people who like all the obvious hit sort of songs. Me I'm split down the middle. I can see why people like the early band because the songs were so primal. And I can see why people like the later band because songs like "Because I Love You" and "Turn Up the Radio" ended up being classics. There's argument for both camps but that's what gave us our strength because we did span such a long time and go through all those changes and survive them that's what made it stick. If we'd broken up at the end of the Astor period we probably wouldn't have stuck.

TOP 10 OZ ACID DROPS

Masters Apprentices - Living in a Child's Dream
Russell Morris - The Real Thing
Easybeats - Peculiar Hole in the Sky
The Twilights - Blue Roundabout
Bee Gees - Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You
The Inside Looking Out - Long Live Sivananda
The James Taylor Move - And I Heard the Fire Sing
The Wright of Waye - Sun God
Masters Apprentices - Elevator Driver
The Twilights - Take Action

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