“Only the stoner fuzz intro was played on the show. I spoke about dreamy ambient passages, a variety of tones and textures… I wasn’t invited back”: Captain Sensible tried and failed to tell the world about Egg

In 2018 The Damned guitarist Captain Sensible told Prog about his failed attempt to tell the world about psychedelic Canterbury experimentalists Egg – and confirmed he still loved their three albums.

---

“Back in the 1980s I participated in a Radio 4 show with Paul Gambaccini, where my fellow panellists extolled the virtues of their favourite musical pieces. A smattering of posh jazz and something orchestral later it was Egg’s turn to shine – except the backroom idiot cued A Visit To Newport Hospital right from the start!

They played a one-minute clip of my favourite track, but only the mind-bending stoner fuzz intro was aired. After that, enthusing about sumptuous melody and time signature wizardry was always going to fall on deaf ears.

On and on I droned about the dreamy ambient passages, the fusing of pop, jazz and rock, the spectacular variety of tones and textures from nothing more than a transistor organ and a couple of effects pedals… I wasn’t invited back.

I first experienced the joys of Egg at a school chum’s in the early 70s. His parents had one of those new-fangled stereogram affairs – a rare commodity at a time when most records were pressed in mono.

When his folks weren’t about we’d wrestle the speakers out and position our heads between them for a trip into a psychedelic universe that was a million miles away from lessons and homework.

Analysis of the lyrics indicated that Dave Stewart, Mont Campbell and Clive Brooks were living the alternative lifestyle that we aspired to – if only we didn’t have to wear these damn school uniforms.

Dave had a good laugh when I told him all that when we met in a recording studio a decade later. He’d had the big hits with Barbara Gaskin by then; mighty pop arrangements showing he’d lost none of his creative skills.

I remember trying to persuade him to get the Farfisa organ and fuzz units out and do some gigs playing that beautiful meandering Egg material again. I’d be first in the queue for tickets if it happens.

Their albums – Egg, The Polite Force and The Civil Surface – contain vast symphonic soundscapes that merge effortlessly from Bach to Hendrix in a couple of crotchets, despite having been recorded by a trio. Many would assume the fuzz-drenched keyboard riffs come from a guitar, but there are none. He’s a clever bloke, is that Dave Stewart.”

Contributing to Prog since the very first issue, writer and broadcaster Natasha Scharf was the magazine’s News Editor before she took up her current role of Deputy Editor, and has interviewed some of the best-known acts in the progressive music world from ELP, Yes and Marillion to Nightwish, Dream Theater and TesseracT. Starting young, she set up her first music fanzine in the late 80s and became a regular contributor to local newspapers and magazines over the next decade. The 00s would see her running the dark music magazine, Meltdown, as well as contributing to Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Terrorizer and Artrocker. Author of music subculture books The Art Of Gothic and Worldwide Gothic, she’s since written album sleeve notes for Cherry Red, and also co-wrote Tarja Turunen’s memoirs, Singing In My Blood. Beyond the written word, Natasha has spent several decades as a club DJ, spinning tunes at aftershow parties for Metallica, Motörhead and Nine Inch Nails. She’s currently the only member of the Prog team to have appeared on the magazine’s cover.