Sweet Illusion - S/T (197?)

An appropriate starting point for this blog, this band's name pretty much sums up why I'm writing this right now. I'd been picking up similar records every now and then for some time, when this little gem appeared to me at a car boot sale in Battersea. Its exemplary blend of innocence and strained humour, with the faint tang of thwarted ambition, was just the catalyst I needed.

With my copy's untarnished and - unusually swish for this genre - fully laminated cover, this LP would appear to fail one of the blog's primary criteria, the band's autograph and dedication, but hold on, what's happening on that label. Ray, Paul, Clive, Allan and Terry wish us well with varying degrees of legibility.

The band's nominative determinism may not be all that it seems though. Sweet Illusion bucked the trend many of their peers had collectively set by actually making it to a second album, Radio Time, and a third, Two Sides, which I'll get to in a later post. Such levels of aspiration and achievement almost preclude the band for inclusion, but it is heartening to see that this anomalous near-career wasn't sullied by anything approaching musical development. Four years on, and the Saturday night, cruise ship party vibe is intact.

So ladies and gentlemen, I give you Sweet Illusion, direct from the Marden Village Hall.

BOOS AND JEERS

Sweet Illusion - S/T
Sir Records STEREO LP 111/ DTS 007

SIDE 1
1. Beautiful Sunday Medley
2. Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
3. If
4. A House Is Not a Home
5. Top of the World
6. Shang a Lang

SIDE 2
1. Mamas & Papas Medley
2. Stoned in Love With You
3. Ticket to Ride
4. I Believe
5. Y Viva Espana
6. Whole Lotta Shaking

Firstly thanks for buying this album...we hope that you enjoy it and that you will tell your friends about it...if you don't enjoy it we hope you have no friends to tell.

The album was recorded over two days at the Elizabethan Barn, Tunbridge Wells, and all the boos and jeers were carefully removed at D.T. Studios in Maidstone afterwards. The 12 tracks selected are some of the numbers we are most requested to play and the ones our mums like hearing most of all.

We have enjoyed playing to audiences from Claridges in Mayfair to the Marden Village Hall. We get a lot of laughs from entertaining you and ourselves and we hope that you will get a lot of enjoyment out of this record, that you will still keep coming to see us and most of all will help and encourage us as so many of you have done for so long.

Ray Charsley - lead guitar, vocals, handclapping and bum notes
Paul Washington - rhythm guitar, vocals, tambourine, silly voices and no money
Clive Sayer - bass guitar, vocals, bird noises and large appetite (fatty)
Allan Jiggens - drums. vocals, rude noises and v.c
Terry Brown - piano, electric piano, vocals, duck call and smelly feet

RECORDING ENGINEER Dave (let's have a swift half) Tewes D.T.S. Maidstone, Kent
PRODUCED BY Sweet Illusion (our thanks to Pinky and Perky for inspiration)