Mellotronists

>
>  > One of these days I may be able to see what everyone else sees in the
>  > Moodies in general or Pinder in particular.

Well, it was THAT sound; supposedly on early Melly powered gigs, 
audiences were looking into the wings to try and spot the hidden 
string section! (it was 1966 after all, and we were all much more 
naive then).
Then in the summer of love, when everything was truly cosmic (man), 
the Moodies managed to typify the vibe of, like really getting down 
with the UNIVERSE, and getting away from the heavy shit of the 
straights who weren't tuned in and turned on, like, wow, heavy shit, 
man... (continues for four hours).
I'll admit it- I bought Moodies albums! I still have them (vinyl, 
natch) and for the time they were very influential on my cranium. And 
Mr. Pinder always hinted at having had a glimpse of something more 
-probably under the influence of something or other- that made you 
listen very hard to his lyrics and decide that there as more to life 
than every day humdrum stuff.
I never did the drugs myself, coming across too many acid casualties 
with fried brains in the music world.
So Mike Pinder for many voiced the spiritual questioning that many 
folks in the late 60s -and ever since -felt within themselves. Mind 
you, Graeme Edge took the piss out of him by going through the exact 
same spiritual changes -but exactly a month behind Mike (he told me 
so himself).
Anyway, it's a lot more worthy than songs about 'White Riots' sung by 
punks who are really as much middle class ponces as the rest of us.
And the Moodies are still in existence and gigging, unlike all the 
'futures of rock' that were supposed to supplant them.
If ya wanna grow old gracefully, join a Cosmic Rock band........or a prog one.

Dave.