Comus

Origins

Comus began with two guitarists, Roger Wootton and Glenn Goring, who met at Ravensbourne College of Art in Bromley, Kent. The band's own history says they were both 17 and playing folk clubs and the Arts Lab in Beckenham, where they met its organizer, David Bowie. Colin Pearson was the first recruit on violin, Andy Hellaby was approached at the Arts Lab, and Bobbie Watson, 16, joined after someone overheard her harmonizing. A flute player answered a Melody Maker advertisement and was replaced by Rob Young. Sources differ on the year the band formed: the band says 1967 for the meeting, MusicBrainz 1968 and Wikipedia 1969.

The name comes from Milton's masque Comus, itself named for the Greek god. By early 1970 the classic line-up was complete and the manager, Chris Youle, was booking college dates. They auditioned to score Lindsay Shonteff's film Permissive, where Wootton is said to have cut his finger during "Drip Drip" and kept playing. They supported Bowie at the Purcell Rooms in the Royal Festival Hall, which Wikipedia places in 1969 and the band in June 1970, and Youle then secured a deal with Pye's Dawn label.

First Utterance

First Utterance was recorded in November and December 1970 at Pye Studios in London, produced by Barry Murray with Geoff Calver (spelled Jeff in some sources) engineering. Bobbie Seagroatt, as she is now, told the Vinyl Press in 2018 that the band were totally inexperienced at recording, and that Murray, used to rock bands, wanted bass and drums first. Wootton recalls recording mainly live with overdubs, while Pearson thinks tracking live would have been a far more accurate reproduction of the live sound and credits Calver with effectively taking over as producer. Wootton drew the cover in ballpoint pen and Goring painted the centerfold.

It came out on Dawn in 1971, with "Diana" issued as a single, and did not break through. The first pressing sold out and was never repressed, Pearson says; early biographies blamed a postal strike, which Wikipedia notes is unexplained. The NME called it a highly unusual but fascinating sound, and The Wire later put it on its 1998 list of 100 Records That Set the World on Fire, describing folk rock at its most delirious, devilish and dynamic. FACT ranked it 22nd among albums of the 1970s in 2014.

Rob Young left in July 1971 and the bassoonist Lindsay Cooper replaced him. Youle left for Polydor in Germany, the band broke up in 1972, and a second album pitched to Pye as the Malgaard Suite was never recorded. In 1974 Wootton, Hellaby and Watson with new players made To Keep From Crying for the newly formed Virgin label, which sold badly. Former members also scored Shonteff's films, including Big Zapper, Zapper's Blade of Vengeance and Spy Story.

The return

In 2005 the first album and the later material came out as the collection Song to Comus, and Youle reunited the original members that summer. In spring 2007 Goring was emailed by the Swedish promoter Stefan Dimle, linked to Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth; Young declined and Jon Seagroatt took his place. The first live return was at the Melloboat Festival in Sweden on March 9, 2008, later issued as East of Sweden. They played their first UK show in 37 years at the Equinox Festival at Conway Hall in London on June 13, 2009, and released Out of the Coma in 2012, with a live 1972 version of "The Malgaard Suite" among its tracks.

Setlist.fm holds 43 setlists, from 1970 to a show at Chateau Neuf in Oslo on May 23, 2015, with the Marquee Club in London the most frequent venue. Akerfeldt named Opeth's 1998 album My Arms, Your Hearse after a line in "Drip Drip". Lindsay Cooper went on to Henry Cow, and Pearson later worked as a producer, including Alphaville's "Forever Young".