Were there other bands doing psych inspired stuff at the time – especially playing live?
In ’67 we were probably the only band in Australia. I mean that sounds stupid but the Easybeats had gone. The Loved Ones were on the verge of splitting up and they were kind of jazz inspired anyway. Other bands like the Valentines and the Zoot hadn’t really emerged yet. For about a year there we had it on our own. There were other bands around, of course. But there was nobody really doing much then. The Twilights were around and they were doing some psychedelia in their own way. But they prided themselves on sounding exactly like the Beatles and they did and they were fantastic in that regard but it cost them originality because they were too derivative. The Groop were around but they’d established a different sort of sound. We were the only real what you might say cutting edge band at the time. Can you tell us about Mick Bower and his nervous breakdown. It must’ve been a real blow to the band because he’d written all those great songs including ‘Undecided’, ‘Buried & Dead’, ‘Wars or t
