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Den: That's a good name for a band...
Bad News by Bad News © 2004 Parlophone Records Ltd.
Humble Pumpkin
By Andrew Burns Origin: My partner is a vegetarian and this leads us to occasionally discuss the relative merits of various vegetables. During one such discussion this phrase struck my ear as a good name for a band… Humble Pumpkin’s most famous son is, of course, Thomas Cape, but before he achieved Rock Legend status as one half of the inestimable Cape and Hogan he was the songwriting creative soul of these Californian psychedelic trail blazers… Tom Cape and his cousins Andy and Dennis Croft along with their school friend Mickey Miles formed Humble Pumpkin in the Croft’s garage in the summer of ‘64. At first they were covering, mimicking the surf groups that were all over the local radio at that time, but they learned and evolved quickly. Driven by Cape’s rapidly maturing songwriting they were soon honing a much more grownup, authentic style. Their first single, “Shining Water” was a minor hit locally, but it did well enough and generated enough interest that “She Was Mine”, the follow up was picked up nationally and that was really the start of their rise to stardom. A first album followed quickly- “Pumpkin Pie” was really more of the same: psychedelic, wailing guitars under achingly poetic, enigmatic lyrics. The second album, “Humble Pie” arrived before the end of ‘65 but even in this short time there was a stylistic evolution. With the adulation this evolution brought came the excesses of the Rock Star lifestyle. All four of them embraced this, but it was Cape in particular who took to indulging his inner demons with the greatest abandon. It was in the period after the release of Humble Pie, in the hurricane of success that swirled around the band after that album that Cape first came into contact with D. Beau Harrison. This was before the Montana Compound and the horror associated with that place, before the Collective’s bizarre breeding programme. Indeed at that time Harrison and his Collective, such as it then was, used Cape’s Hollywood hills mansion as their base of operations for much of 1966. Harrison’s influence on Cape was fast and tight and they began writing together during that period. The other 3 members of Humble Pumpkin were not happy with this level of influence on Cape as a person, but most importantly as a songwriter. Harrison is credited as co-writer on all but 3 of the tracks on the third album “There’s Always Room For Pie” and neither the Crofts nor Miles were happy at the lyrical direction those songs took- playful enigma had made way for faintly threatening nonsense. It is rumoured that the royalties that were paid to Harrison for his hand in writing There’s Always Room For Pie are what bought his now infamous Montana property. Harrison’s influence on that final album did not help relationships within the band, but in the end it was Cape’s high handed, prima donna-ish attitude to his friends and band mates that finally ended Humble Pumpkin. You can read more about Cape and Hogan here: http://mongoliansheep.weebly.com/blog/cape-and-hogan1379328
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AuthorAndrew Burns really should know better and has so many more important things to be doing than writing this drivel. Please offer him no encouragement either via social media or through the contact page Archives
September 2017
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