hypersongs

Flash

The London progressive rock band that the guitarist Peter Banks formed in 1971 after leaving Yes, with Colin Carter, Ray Bennett and Mike Hough, and whose second album In the Can opens with "Lifetime".

After Yes

Flash formed in London in August 1971, or late 1971 according to another account. Chris Welch wrote about Peter Banks in Melody Maker in 1971, Colin Carter read it and invited him to form a band. The line-up was Banks on guitar, Carter on vocals, Ray Bennett on bass and Mike Hough on drums. Bennett had been in The Original Breed and Gun and was told of the group by Bill Bruford. Banks played a Gibson ES-335 on all the Flash albums. Tony Kaye of Yes is credited on the debut, but Carter says he was brought in for a few rehearsals just before the recording and was never really in the band.

They entered the studio in November 1971 and played a first gig on January 14, 1972. The debut, Flash (Sovereign, a Capitol subsidiary), was recorded at De Lane Lea with Martin Birch as engineer, mixed at Abbey Road, with a Hipgnosis cover, and reached number 33 on the Billboard 200; "Small Beginnings" reached number 29 on the Hot 100. They toured North America and Europe, opening for Genesis, Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper and later touring with Beck, Bogert and Appice, and played a week at the Whisky a Go Go. On January 21, 1973 they played the Cow Town Ballroom in Kansas City on a double bill with the Byrds, later issued as In Public (2013).

In the Can and after

In the Can came out in November 1972 (some sources swap its year with Out of Our Hands) and reached number 121; Out of Our Hands (1973, billed Flash featuring England's Peter Banks) reached 135. Capitol dropped the band, which disbanded in November 1973 during a US tour in Albuquerque. Banks recorded The Two Sides of Peter Banks at night while with Flash by day, and later made Empire (1976) with Bennett; Carter, Hough and Al Greenwood made Storm. Psychosync (1997, from a 1973 WLIR radio broadcast and two Midnight Special performances) came out on Voiceprint, Bennett and Carter played as Flash at Baja Prog in 2005, there was a reunion at ProgDay in Chapel Hill on September 4, 2010, and Flash Featuring Ray Bennett and Colin Carter appeared on Cleopatra in 2013.

Banks died on March 7, 2013, aged 65, while working on In Public, and Carter on January 10, 2025, aged 76. Banks has been called the architect of progressive music, and Spin suggested after his death that Flash gave a glimpse of where Yes might have gone had he stayed. Reviews were favorable but the label that they sound too much like Yes stuck.

Albums

  • In the Can 1972 · Sovereign

    Their second album: five songs, no keyboardist, with Louie Austin and John Acock as engineers.

Songs

  • Lifetime In the Can · 1972

    The opening track of In the Can, which Spin pointed readers to when Peter Banks died.

Sources

  1. Flash (band), Wikipedia
  2. Peter Banks, Wikipedia
  3. The Flash story, Perfect Sound Forever
  4. Bands You Should Know: Flash, Vintage Rock