Sugarbush Records – who recently released Trent Miller’s Time Between Us on vinyl – are now set to bring us the lost Help Yourself album Help Yourself 5. These were the Helps’ final studio recordings from 1973 which never surfaced back in the day as the band broke up soon after, though not before Rick Griffin had been had been commissioned to design a sleeve.
Help Yourself were part of the Liberty/United Artists cohort of the early 70s and shared management with Brinsley Schwartz and Ernie Graham. Influenced by West Coast sounds like Quicksilver Messenger Service they had a marvellous if under-appreciated guitarist in Richard Treece along with an excellent song-writer in Malcolm Morley.
Following the reappearance of three of the tracks on a Ptolemaic Terrascope cover-mount in 2000 the band decided to address unfinished business and in 2004 a CD version was released on Hux Records. It’s now out of print and goes for silly money. Thus it’s great to see this release, though it won’t be around for long as a good half the run has already been snapped up on pre-order.
The album comprises eleven songs; eight date from the Chipping Norton sessions in 1973, the final three were completed in 2002/3. Sean Tyla guests on three tracks and Deke Leonard provides the guitar solo on ‘Light Your Way’.
Order here – quickly
Bucketfull Of Brains 