McGough & McGear rerelease

McGough & McGear

McGough & McGear is a very rare original 1968 13-track LP on the Parlophone label, from two of the Scaffold guys, Roger McGough and Mike McCartney. Mike used McGear as artist surname, because he didn’t want to cash in on his big brother’s name and fame.

This pop psych classic features uncredited contributions from big brother Paul, Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding, Graham Nash, Dave Mason, Andy Roberts, Jane Asher, John Mayall among others.

The album was produced by Paul McCartney, and mixed poetry, comedy and some solid pop-psychedelic rock. McGough usually took the lead on the parts with spoken word poetry, which featured some pretty decent wordplay, while McGear was featured on the rock songs. This type of thing was pretty popular back in swingin’ Sixties England; if you like the Bonzo Dog Band you’ll like the McGough and McGear stuff. The album was mainly recorded in the summer of 1967 and slated for release on the Beatles new Apple label, but that didn’t happen.

The album was rereleased on vinyl and CD in 1989, but all editions are scarce and highly collectable. It is sought after by both Beatles and Hendrix collectors. Until now, because here comes the re-re-release on CD. So in hindsight, I should have sold my CD copy last year…