John's Children

• Genre: Mod
• Hometown: Leatherhead
• John's Children Website

About

John's Children were a superb, often sloppy brand of English freakbeat and art-school theatrics who looked good in white and whose reputation among scooter kids and Psychedelic fans has grown steadily over the years. Footnoted in the proper annals due to Marc Bolan's four-month stint in the band in 1967, they were capable of putting out sloppy art-pop and psychedelic R&B that could easily be ranked alongside that of the Who or the Creation. Tracks such as "Desdemona" and "Jagged Time Lapse" were spiked with an energy that not even a handful of black beauties could stir up. Occasionally viewed as less than apt performers due to producer Simon Napier-Bell's insistence that the band's Orgasm album be spliced together with the crowd screams culled from the soundtrack of A Hard Day's Night, John's Children's catalog has endured thanks to labels such as Bam Caruso and Cherry Red. Their body of work is caught somewhere between brilliant and beguiling.

- Jon Pruett