Spooky Tooth ~ England

Spooky Two (1969)

As mentioned on the first post, I found this album on cassette at a garage sale of all things. The tape was sitting on Side 2, so we'll start there.

Fun to hear B3, as I've only known that song from Judas Priest's cover of it some nine years later. I've heard it dozens of times, so the original seems so tame in comparison. But one can see why they covered the song, as it's riff heavy. And it's not like the Priest had a Hammond organ, so there is some distinction.

Otherwise, I'm not getting too much out of this title. It reminds me of the lost year of 1970 albums coming out of North America. It's proto that I guess lol. A mix of blues rock, gospel, and mild psych. B1 is a good psych tune, and I recognize A1 from some radio airplay years ago. A4 has some decent guitar jamming. The rest doesn't go anywhere for me. I prefer the other two titles below, and by some margin.

A&M (MC). 80s pressing.

10/15/26 (review)   

Ceremony (1969)

If you read the below review first, this didn't quite go as planned. I still haven't heard my cassette of Spooky Two, but I found this LP at the Denver record show last week for a couple of bucks, and I fast tracked it to the front of the listening line.

Ceremony is the album they did with musique concrete legend Pierre Henry. It's more integrated than the Deep Purple Concerto album I just reviewed, but not by a whole lot. Spooky Tooth performs a mostly heavy blues rock that can get pretty freaky in places. This is Spooky Tooth at its best, and we hear this sound mostly on A1, B2, and B3. Some really great guitar jams. The music apparently was written for a Christian mass of some sort. The lyrics are heavily Christian, like a record coming from that genre. I wasn't aware Henry was so much of the faith. I'm rather certain Spooky Tooth were not, and they tried to disassociate themselves from top billing here. The album had potential to be a proto Krautrock classic. Imagine Pierre Henry pulling a Klaus Schulze, and the instrumentation lets loose for the duration. But it's way too ordinary for that, and blues rock is the end conclusion. An interesting album, though not something I need to keep. It did inspire me, however, to create a page for the band.

A&M (LP). Later 70s pressing.

4/18/26 (review)

It's All About (1968) 

Spooky Tooth is another one of those bands that I've known about for most of my record collecting life but never actually heard. Found a nice pink Island copy up in Denver. It wasn't cheap but it was a really good deal, and it's hard to pass on these early UK pressings. I would describe the music as a type of psychedelic soul. From the latter comes the passionate crooning. From the former is the period sounds and instrumentation. Nothing really blew me away here, but I found it a pleasant listen throughout. Also I came to learn that one of the album's best tracks 'Too Much of Nothing' is only on these early pressings. It was swapped out with something apparently lame on the subsequent A&M releases. I've been told their second album is much better. I have it on cassette of all things, so I'll get to it eventually unless I find the LP first. At that point I might build out a page for them. 

Ownership: 1970 Island (LP). Pink "i" label. Acquired in 2025.

4/29/25 (review)

4/18/26 (new entry)