Andrew McCulloch

Andrew McCulloch is an enigma. He has a very low profile on the internet and in the media, hence information on his early life is very sketchy. What we know is that he was born in Bournemouth on 19^th November 1945 and that he probably spent a period of his childhood and early teens residing in Hong Kong and Hiroshima, Japan. When he returned to England, Andrew played drums in The Indigos with future Web guitarist John Eaton, before taking a job at John Dickenson’s Pinewood Motel in Ferndown, where he met Greg Lake. The trio of Dickenson on keyboards, Lake on guitar, and Andrew on drums formed Shy Limbs in 1968 under the watchful eye of local promoter and manger Carroll Hardingham.

They secured a deal with CBS and recorded two Dickenson penned songs in October at Lansdowne Studios in Holland Park, London. The A side, “Reputation”, was a heavily phased organ epic similar in mood to Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale”, while the flip, “Love”, was a driving slab of psychedelia with punchy bass provided by Malcolm Bracher from Lake’s former band The Shame and distinctive guitar lines from another studio guest, Robert Fripp. In all honesty, the record should have been flipped, as “Love” is by far the superior track. For reasons unknown, the release date was pushed back to May 1969, by which time Greg Lake had already flown the nest and moved to London to join The Gods. The remaining members threw a launch party back at Dickenson’s motel in Ferndown for music writers and critics in a failed attempt to push the record into the charts, but it was all in vain as it only just scraped into the lower reaches of the top one hundred. To plug the gap left by Lake, the remaining members brought in Tony Sword on bass and vocals from Teak and the Smokey, along with former Soundtracks guitarist Alan Barry. The quartet released a follow up single, “Lady in Black”, in November 1969, also on CBS. The heavily orchestrated ballad was arranged by Ian Simpson but, yet again, what was supposed to be the better song was eclipsed by the catchier “Trick or Two” hidden away on the B side. Another flop hastened the band’s demise.

Shy Limbs in 1968, Left to Right: Andrew McCulloch, Greg Lake &  John Dickenson below (Photograph discogs.com).

The demise of Shy Limbs spurred Andrew into trying his luck in London, where he rented a room from Keith Emerson of ELP in Drayton Gardens, Chelsea. He scouted around for work and picked up a session with Manfred Mann’s Chapter Three, appearing on one track, “It’s Good to be Alive”, on their second album, Manfred Mann Chapter 3: Volume Two. His next port of call appeared to be a plum job on paper, as he stepped into the large shoes vacated by Michael Giles in King Crimson after a recommendation from his landlord, Emerson. The rhythm section of Andrew and bassist Gordon Haskell set to work trying to make sense of the arrangements presented to them by Robert Fripp intended for Crimson’s third album Lizard. Working in isolation for almost three months, the pair painstakingly laboured on numerous rhythm and time changes slotted together mathematically by Fripp with no idea how the finished pieces would sound. When the time came to record their parts, the frustration continued, as Fripp and Sinfield agonised and dithered for twelve hours over a suitable drum sound. According to the forthright Haskell, “at the end of the day the drums still sounded like shite”.

King Crimson, Left to Right: Mel Collins, Pete Sinfield, Robert Fripp, Andrew & Gordon Haskell (Photograph dgmlive.com).

Despite its difficult and lengthy gestation, the free jazz / rock stew of Lizard finally found its way into the shops in time for Christmas 1970. The album didn’t perform as well as the previous two Crimson albums and stalled at number twenty-nine in the UK charts. This was mostly put down to the experimental jazz / rock / classical mishmash, which was a complete change in musical direction. Over the years Fripp has been critical of the album, at one time calling it “unlistenable”. In the new year, the band shifted into rehearsal mode to prepare for a pre-arranged tour of America. However, the initial run through of old material didn’t go well, as Haskell and Fripp clashed over the lack of opportunity for Gordon to introduce some of his own compositions into the set-list. He also encountered difficulties with several songs, as they were out of his vocal range. When Fripp suggested he could channel his voice through an effects machine to remedy the problem, it proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back and Gordon quit. Andrew followed shortly after.

Lizard 1970

To help pay the rent, Andrew accepted a short tour of Italy with Kingdom Come, an experimental avant-garde acid rock outfit fronted by the slightly unhinged Arthur Brown. Brown’s main claim to fame was the surprise number one hit “Fire”, which he promoted by wearing a burning kitchen colander on his head doused with petrol. The story goes that at the 1968 ‘Windsor Jazz Festival’, Bournemouth’s own Zoot Money reluctantly threw his pint of beer over Arthur’s head when petrol overflowed from his blazing helmet, causing his hair to burst into flames. Nothing that dramatic happened while Kingdom Come were in Italy, as Arthur had moved on from the dodgy flaming headgear to using elaborate props and leaving the stage for innumerable costume changes. The gigs passed without incident, but the music and Brown’s antics were not to Andrew’s liking, and on his return to England, he left the band.

Fields circa 1970, Left to Right: Graham Field, Andrew McCulloch & Alan Barry (Photograph discogs.com).

Rare Bird, purveyors of keyboard driven progressive rock, scored a top thirty hit with “Sympathy” in the spring of 1970. They splintered barely a couple of months later when they were offered a new contract designed to keep the band poor and their management rich. Disillusioned, their organist, Graham Field, considered returning to his original profession of teaching, but Robert Fripp convinced him to give music one last shot. In a charitable act, considering the predicament of his own band (King Crimson had just suffered an acrimonious split after recording Lizard) Fripp recommended his recently departed drummer McCulloch as a good foil to build a new group around. In turn, Andrew endorsed a friend from Bournemouth, Alan Barry, who had been in The Dowlands and The Soundtracks and Andrew’s former band, Shy Limbs. Barry was primarily a guitar player, but Field convinced him to switch to bass, which Barry did, although he still added guitar flourishes on a double neck Gibson strung for both contingencies.

Immediately, the three musicians gelled and began working on a self-titled debut album for CBS at I.B.C. Studios in London under the name of Fields. They concocted a composite of differing styles ranging from straight ahead rock to folk, fused with classical influences borrowed from themes by Bach and Stravinsky. A review in the Melody Maker highlighted the fragmented nature of the recording; “Showcases the faults that accompany bands going straight into the studios without having played their material onstage. Musically it’s superb, but it’s bitty and there’s little consistency between numbers”. While the Disc and Music Echo contradicted this view with a more upbeat, “This sounds like a band who’ll be as good live as on record.” The album sold particularly well across the channel in mainland Europe, which resulted in the band mostly working the club and festival circuits of Scandinavia, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Spain.

Fields 1972, Left to Right: Alan Barry, Graham Fields & Andrew McCulloch (Photograph pinterest.it).

When Barry left to pursue a solo career, Frank Farrell from Supertramp joined in time to record their second album, but it fell foul of a reorganisation within CBS. A mass cull in the London office and an unceremonious dumping of several British acts, including Fields, left the band high and dry. The resulting tapes gathered dust for decades until the specialist reissue label Esoteric finally unearthed them and released Contrasts – Urban Roar to Country Peace in 2015. Recorded at CBS Studios in 1972, the eight tracks that they had completed plus three demos, demonstrate a robust transformation in dynamics with the addition of Farrell. In between albums, Field had left London to live in a small village in Buckinghamshire, which resulted in a shift lyrically from an urban setting to a more pastoral slant. Hugely disappointed, Fields couldn’t survive the abrupt and brutal nature of their dismissal and went their separate ways. Graham Field left the vagaries of the rock scene behind him and moved into television, where he composed themes for Miss Marple and the Maureen Lipman sitcom Agony. In the eighties, he reverted to his birth name of Graham Stansfield and moved back to his native Dorset (he was born in Beaminster). He accepted a job at the Poole Arts Centre, latterly the Lighthouse, where he worked for twenty-seven years as a music, events and literature programmer. He retired in November 2011 and died in 2018, aged seventy-seven.

Greenslade Left to Right: Andrew McCulloch, Dave Greenslade, Dave Lawson & Tony Reeves (Photograph progressiverockcentral.com).

As for Andrew, he joined two former Colosseum refugees, organist Dave Greenslade and bassist Tony Reeves, plus ex Samurai and Web keyboard man Dave Lawson in the newly formed Greenslade. Something of a minor supergroup, they rehearsed in Stanmore Village hall, a suburb of north west London close to Harrow where Dave Greenslade lived. Andrew was happy with his lot, as he was now in a band where he could develop his style and add his own personal touches to songs and arrangements from scratch and not be expected to play parts that were presented to him. When the quartet were finally happy with their new repertoire, they travelled to Germany, where they made their live debut in November 1972 at the Zoom Club in Frankfurt.

The band signed with the major label Warner Brothers and released the self-produced Greenslade in February 1973. Recorded in Morgan Studios, the album showcased the band’s two pronged keyboard attack to good effect with Lawson on piano and synthesiser adding frills and melody, while Greenslade waded in with muscular bluesy organ and washes of mellotron. Tony Reeves busy bass lines more than made up for the lack of guitar, and Andrew’s precise drum patterns held the whole thing together. The seven mainly instrumental pieces demonstrated an elaborate blend of jazzy, progressive rock compositions, laced with sweeping symphonic passages. The only downside being Lawson’s strained, slightly out of tune vocals.

Ten months later, they repeated the formula with fans’ favourite Bedside Manners Are Extra. Amongst the six extended pieces was the instrumental “Drum Folk”, which highlighted Andy’s considerable drumming skills. To promote the record, the band appeared on the Old Grey Whistle Test performing the title track and “Pilgrim’s Progress” and recorded two live shows, Sound of the 70s’ and In Concert, for BBC radio. They also undertook a successful UK tour supporting Rory Gallagher. At the time, Dave Greenslade expressed surprise that they were lumped into the progressive rock category along with ELP, Genesis and Yes, with whom he believes they had nothing in common. An odd statement considering their complex compositions displayed classical and jazz overtones which epitomised the genre and their records were housed in Roger Dean sleeves, the go to artist for any self-respecting seventies progressive rock band. It’s no small wonder the comparisons were made.

Not being a composer, Andy was only drawing money from record sales and live shows. In downtime between tours, he tried his hand at building a set of flight cases for his drum kit. They turned out well and some of his drummer mates asked if he could make some for them. Seeing an opportunity to make some extra cash to supplement his income, he started up a side business called Bulldog Cases, which helped keep him afloat during the Greenslade years.

The third album, Spyglass Guest, was their most successful, climbing to thirty-four in the album charts. To broaden the sound palette they utilised Colosseum’s former guitarist Dave ‘Clem’ Clempson on the strange, Zappaesque “Little Red Fry Up” and the melodic “Siam Seesaw”, which also featured Andy Roberts on acoustic guitar. The violin on “Joi De Vivre” came courtesy of Graham Smith from the Scottish folk rock band String Driven Thing. Shortly after the album’s release, Tony Reeves left to pursue production work and was replaced by Martin Briley, a well-respected session player who worked extensively with George Martin. One incongruous gig that took place around this time happened on 20^th July at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, when they were supported by a band making their debut appearance called Motörhead. How Lemmy’s gang of greasy noiseniks went down with a Greenslade audience, I can’t imagine.

Their swansong, Time and Tide, spawned two singles, “Catalan” and the instrumental “Gangsters”, which became the theme tune to a gritty BBC television edition of Play for Today. The one-off drama became a hit with viewers and won a commission for a full-blown series running for two seasons. The final series featured a version of the song with lyrics written by Dave Greenslade and sung by Chris Farlowe. At the end of 1975 Lawson was feeling the pinch, as the band was not making enough money to replace his ageing equipment or to pay the rent. He played his final gig at Barberella’s in Birmingham in December and was replaced by Colin Towns. The new recruit barely had time to bed in when the band split due to managerial difficulties. Over the years, there have been several reunions with Dave Greenslade being the mainstay, although Andrew McCulloch has been conspicuous by his absence. Despite being a strictly second division progressive rock outfit, they have a loyal following, especially in Europe and Japan, that has stayed the distance throughout their many reformations.

Greenslade proved to be Andy’s last professional band before his retirement from the music business, although he guested on a few insignificant sessions. During the seventies he appeared on former Cockney Rebel, Duncan MacKay’s, second solo album Score and on Private Parts and Pieces 2: Back to the Pavilion, a mish-mash of songs and instrumental pieces intended for various unrealised projects by the ex-Genesis guitarist Anthony Phillips. He also worked with Peter Gabriel for a while, knocking ideas about with a number of different musicians, but the sessions came to nothing and Gabriel moved on to work with a mainly American band.

His final recording occurred in 1980 on the misguided classical / rock crossover album Opus One. Back in the day some bright record company spark thought it was a good idea to take a well-known orchestra, in this case the London Philharmonic, stir in a gaggle of rock musicians, add a couple of choirs and blend on a collection of songs from the sixties. The hodgepodge of disparate musicians tackled pop classics such as “Jumping Jack Flash”, “All You Need is Love”, “Blowing in the Wind”, “I Can See for Miles” and “Good Vibrations” just to see what might come out of the mincer. The end result was neither fish nor fowl, too raucous for a classical audience, too tame and wishy-washy for a rock crowd. The marketing boys at Phillips got over the conundrum by aiming the record at the audiophile, a geek with an overpriced amp, deck and speaker set up, a questionable taste in music and loads of spare dosh to spend on tosh like this. The sleeve notes summed up their strategy thus, “This record is a true test of the domestic audio system; wide dynamics and frequency range; subtle treble presence and resolution of transient sounds in the music; superb stereo placement and a sense of space” before throwing down the gauntlet “Is your Hi-Fi good enough?” I say, “Is the music good enough for my Hi-Fi?”

In 1980, Andy followed his passion for sailing by enrolling as a RYA Yacht-master instructor with the Southern Sailing School on the Solent and skippered yachts around Cyprus and Antigua in the summer months. Apparently, sailing had been in his family for generations and his father was a marine engineer. He now lives in London and spends his winters specialising in one-to-one theory tuition, and in the summer follows the sun to the Greek islands, where he charters, teaches and skippers his own vessel.

A technically gifted drummer, Andy lives in the shadow of his predecessor in King Crimson, Michael Giles, but a listen to his work with Fields and Greenslade, especially the recording of “Drum Folk” from The Birthday Album – Live Switzerland in 1974 CD released in 2016, gives an insight into his undoubted power and technique. For an overall retrospective of Greenslade, try 2019’s Greenslade: Sundance – A Collection 1973 – 1975 on the Esoteric label.

Andrew McCulloch Discography

Shy Limbs Singles:

Reputation c/w Love: CBS (4190) 1969

Reputation c/w Love: CBS (4190) 1969 German release picture sleeve

Reputation c/w Love: CBS (4190) 1969 Italian release picture sleeve

Lady in Black c/w Trick or Two: CBS (4624) 1969

Compilations featuring Shy Limbs:

Perfumed Garden: Psycho (PSYCHO 6) 1983 “Reputation”

Circus Days 3: Strange Things Are Happening (STZ 5006) 1991 “Reputation” & “Love”

Love, Poetry and Revolution: Grapefruit (CRSEGBOX025) 2013 “Love”

Try A Little Sunshine: Grapefruit (CRSEGBOX047) 2018 “Reputation”

Jon Savage’s 1969-1971: Rock Dreams On 45: ACE (CDTOP 2 1559) 2019 “Reputation”

Acid Drops, Spacedust and Flying Saucers: EMI (535 0782) 2001 “Reputation”

We Can Fly 2: Past and Present (PAPRCD 2037) 2021 “Trick Or Two”

King Crimson Album:

Lizard: Island (ILPS 9141) 1970

 Fields Single:

A Friend of Mine c/w Three Minstrels: CBS (CBS 7555) 1971

A Friend of Mine c/w Three Minstrels: CBS (CBS 7555) 1971 French release picture sleeve

A Friend of Mine c/w Three Minstrels: CBS (CBS 7555) 1971 German release picture sleeve

A Friend of Mine c/w Three Minstrels: CBS (CBS 7555) 1971 Dutch release picture sleeve

A Friend of Mine c/w Three Minstrels: CBS (BA 461372) 1971 New Zealand release

 Fields Albums:

Fields: CBS (CBS 69009) 1971

Contrasts – Urban Roar to Country Peace: Esoteric (ECLEC2488) 2015 Belated release of their shelved second album

Fields: Esoteric (ECLEC 2207) 2010 CD with 2 bonus tracks

 Greenslade Singles:

Temple Song c/w An English Western: Warner Bros (K 16264) 1973

Catalan c/w Animal Farm: Warner Bros (K 16584) 1975

Gangsters c/w Rubber Face Lonely Eyes: Warner Bros (K 16828) 1976

 Greenslade Albums:

Greenslade: Warner Bros (K 46207) 1973

Bedside Manners Are Extra: Warner Bros (K6259) 1973

Spyglass Guest: Warner Bros (K 56055) 1974

Time and Tide: Warner Bros (K 56126) 1975

Greenslade Live: Mystic Records (MYS CD 139) 1999 Recorded between 1973 & 1975

Greenslade & Bedside Manners Are Extra: Edsel (EDSD 2097) 2011 2 for 1 CD

Spyglass Guest & Time and Tide: Edsel (EDSD 2098) 2011 2 for 1 CD

Live in Stockholm – March 10^th 1975: Purple Pyramid (CLP 0974) 2013

The Birthday Album – Live Switzerland in 1974: Angel Air (SJPCD 491) 2016

Greenslade: Esoteric (PECLEC 22645) 2018 Double CD with 7 BBC live recordings from 1973

Bedside Manners Are Extra: Esoteric (PECLEC 22654) 2018 CD with 3 BBC live recordings plus a DVD containing a promo film and 2 Old Grey Whistle Test performances

Spyglass Guest: Esoteric (PECLEC 22647) 2018 Double CD with 8 BBC live recordings from 1974

Time and Tide: Esoteric (PECLEC 22660) 2019 Double CD with 7 live recordings from a concert taped in Stockholm, Sweden in 1975

Greenslade: Sundance – A Collection 1973 – 1975: Esoteric Records (PECLEC2697) 2019 A fifteen track retrospective

 Compilation Album Featuring Greenslade:

High In The Morning · British Progressive Pop Sounds Of 1973: Grapefruit (CRSEGBOX117) 2022 “Temple Song”

 Andrew McCulloch Albums as a Guest:

Manfred Mann Chapter 3: Manfred Mann Chapter 3: Volume Two: Vertigo (6360 012) 1970

Lanzon and Husband: Nostalgia: Bradley’s Records (BRADL 1007) 1975

Duncan McKay: Score: EMI (EMC 3168) 1977

Anthony Phillips: Private Parts and Pieces 2: Back to the Pavilion: PVC Records (PVC 7913) 1980

Ray Bennett: Angels and Ghosts: Voiceprint (VP237CD) 2001

The London Philharmonic Orchestra: Opus One: Phillips (6308 317) 1980