A band that never quite made it big, A british band of pyschedelic modders named, John’s Children, once Out-Whoed The Who, had a song and album banned, and faked a live album, here is the quick story!
Chris Townson met a guitarist named Geoff McClelland and lied saying that he knew how to play the drums then proceeded to bash away at the drums in order to join a small band, soon enough at a gig, the singer ran off stage chasing somebody so Chris’s friend Andy Ellison jumped up and started improvising what were almost lyrics. After a bassist quit, they met John Hewlett. They liked his look and that they were all of a same height so in the end it didn’t matter that he lied about having helpful connections or that he couldn’t play bass. This band became known as The Silence because of how loud they were.
One day while they were supposed to be doing something productive, Chris and John went on an adventure to Southern France where Chris was arrested, naturally, and as his buddy John is looking for help, Yardbirds producer Simon Napier-Bell met him and was intrigued by the disheveled lad. As he later drank and befriended the band he apparently witnessed them perform at.. a.. hotel’s swimming pool? And the singer sang from the high dive them plunged in with cabled microphone in hand and drummer kicked his set into the pool.
Multiple sources claim that the producer called the band the worst he’d ever seen but that he agreed to manage them anyway, changing their name to “John’s Children” to reflect the terrible bassist so that the band would never sack such a treasured asset.
He also convinced the lads to dress properly in all white so that the audience would be more shocked when the show turned to inevitable mayhem.
Their first single was recorded with mostly session musicians with only Andy Ellison actually appearing and after the single cracked the top 100 in the US, the small US label that screwed over The Turtles, White Whale, requested an album’s worth of material. They figured they could trick Americans into thinking people actually liked this band by adding the obnoxious sounds of screaming girls stolen from The Beatles “A Hard Days Night” movie.
They called the album “Orgasm” to express how exciting the album was and had a happy looking young lady on the cover. The album and cover were banned in the U.S. due to objections by a group called Daughters of The American Revolution. It would eventually be released with a new cover in 1970 after the lads had already broken up and they never even offered it to their home country.
February of ‘67 they released another single, half of which is played by session players while the B-Side features Jeff Beck letting loose with the group and I was hoping at this point there would finally be something to recommend here but it is largely just a bad rip off of “I Can’t Explain” by The Who and Jeff Beck doesn’t do anything spectacular worth going out of your way for.
At this point it had been decided that their guitarist, Geoff McClelland didn’t fit with the rest of the band after his departure, their manager Simon decided to add another of his artists to the band’s line up, singer/songwriter, Marc Bolan.
They switched record labels and were put on tour with their biggest influence, The Who in Germany in April of 1967. It didn’t last long though as John’s Children had attempted to take the extremity of The Who’s antics up a notch. Not only had they purchased the loudest equipment possible but they also enjoyed doing stuff like having pretend fights between each other on stage with blood capsules, viciously ripping apart pillows and Marc Bolan even hit his guitar with a heavy chain. The crowd got rowdy, wanted to pick fights with the band and eventually there was a riot and the band had to ditch their equipment to escape with their lives.
They were sent home after that but in May when Keith Moon’s own crazy assault on his drum kit sent him to the hospital, Chris Townson was brought in to replace him for the rest of the tour.
That same May they would record a single with two songs by Marc Bolan but they were unhappy with how it sounded and in the end only a few dozen copies were printed, making it a highly sought after rarity.
May 19th was the last performance with Marc Bolan but they did experience some local success at this time with a single he wrote called “Desdemona.” It had originally been banned by the B.B.C. for containing the lyric “Lift up your skirt and fly” but they re-recorded the vocals using the substituted line, “Why do you have to Lie.”
Fast fowarding things
They posed nude with flower power, the drummer decided he’s the guitarist at one point, then him and the bassist eventually come to blows. A dude named Trevor White was going to come jam with them but they broke up before he was able to
Simon Napier-Bell tries another Keith Relf style solo artist attempt with Andy Ellison and they record some singles between December 67 and May 1968.
John Hewlett managed the group when Trevor White and Chris Townson created a new band called The Jook with Ian Hampton. They recorded some Glam rock singles and disbanded in 1974. John Hewlett also managed the band Sparks at this time which Trevor White and Ian Hampton joined.
Ex-Sparks Bassist Martin Gordon joins Andy Ellison and Chris Townson to create a band called Jet. And I’m very much enjoying this Sparks flavored album while writing this script. Chris Townson suffered an injury and only played one live show with Jet before ultimately taking a step back from music.
This band would evolve into Radio Stars which included Trevor White and released two studio albums in the late ‘70s. And though Andy was still crazy on stage and the audience was enjoying it, the band must have not made enough money and eventually had to call it quits.
In the 90’s new variations of John’s Children would get together with Andy and Chris along with Boz Boorer from Polecats and Morrissey fame.
They re-recorded a Marc Bolan original as well as two new tracks for an EP in 1999. Then with Martin Gordon, Trevor White and Jet and Radio Stars member Ian Macleod they did a small tour in the year 2000 to celebrate a re-release of the Jet album and they recorded a live album released in 2001 using all three band names.
Unfortunately, Chris Townson passed away in 2008 but the band had sporadically recorded since 1999 and they released a new studio album in 2011, titled “Black and White.”
I just came across this band and scripted this video in the same day so I’m not necessarily a fan of them at this point but I was pretty intrigued by a good amount of this, thought the story had some interesting tid-bits and I’ll perhaps listen to some of these bands at times.
Hope you enjoyed this video! If so, please let me know in the comments and let me know what you think about this and if you have more info on this band or something else interesting, please comment below for everyone to read!
Be sure to like this video if you haven’t already, consider subscribing and be sure not to miss this interesting video right here. Have a happy listening session!
Sean's Music Hunt 
Leave a comment