T2 were an English progressive rock band, best known for their 1970 album, It'll All Work Out in Boomland. It is generally regarded as an excellent album. T2 evolved from an earlier band, Neon Pearl, which was led by their drummer, Pete Dunton. Dunton was by 1968 a member of Please, which also included fellow Neon Pearl member Bernard Jinks. When that band broke up in 1969, due to Dunton's joining Gun alongside Adrian Gurvitz, Jinks became a member of Bulldog Breed.
Founded in London, England in 1970 (a spin-off from "Please") - Disbanded in 1972 - Reformed from 1992 to 1997
T2 was a progressive rock trio that attempted to take the Jimi Hendrix Experience/Cream sound a step further, which was quite possibly the intelligent thing to do back in 1970. Despite their relative youth, lead vocalist/drummer Peter Dunton, bassist Bernard Jinks and 17-year old guitar prodigy Keith Cross brought to T2 a fair bit of experience as former members of a variety of psychedelic rock bands such as Please, Gun and Bulldog Breed. Basing their sound on blues/jazz influenced hard rock with a loose almost improvised feel, and topping it off with the melancholic vocals of Dunton and brass-heavy orchestration, T2 crafted an album that is unique in the annals of progressive rock ... and then disappeared!
At the point at which they released "It'll All Work Out In Boomland" (the album upon which the T2 legend largely rests) T2 was sitting pretty. They were signed to the influential Decca Records label and enjoyed a strong reputatation as a live band, playing at the Isle Of Wight festival alongside Hendrix. Unfortunately, after the release of the album, internal tensions led to the departure of Cross, leaving a second album unfinished in the vaults. After initially attempting to continue with guitarist Mike Foster, the group called it quits in 1972. That same year Cross released Bored Civillians, an album he recorded with one Peter Ross as Cross and Ross, but little was heard of any of them for a couple of decades.
The re-issue of "It'll All Work Out In Boomland" under German label SPM/WorldWide had the startling effect of prompting a T2 reunion. Dunton, Jinks and Moore (crucially Cross was not present) were the featured musicians on "Second Bite", and T2 enjoyed a surprising second run, following it up with "Waiting For The Band" (1993) and "On The Frontline" (1994), although by the time of "Waiting For The Band", Jinks had left and Moore had shifted to bass to accomodate new guitarist Ray Lee.
The T2 revival didn't last, but it helped make possible the release of the nearly completed tracks that had been intended for T2's second album. Titled "Fantasy" (although it's also known simply as "T2"), this album is a companion one to "It'll All Work Out In Boomland", boasting the same line-up and a similar sound, even if most of its tracks have a distinct unpolished feel.
Most recently, Dunton was to be found playing in psychedelic revivalist band Sun Dial. He drummed on their 2002 release "Zen For Sale", and Sun Dial frontman Gary Ramon has even released pre-T2 works by Bulldog Breed, Neon Pearl and Please
J.L.T. : https://youtu.be/CMiDwp6zibk :
Discography:
1970: It'll All Work Out in Boomland
1992: Second Bite
1993: Waiting For The Band
1994: On The Front Line
1997: Fantasy (aka T2 or 1970) - demos recorded in 1970
2012: 1971-1972 - demos recorded during the eponymous period
Source: Wikipedia and prog. archives
No comments:
Post a Comment