Worth the equivalent of the national debt of a small third world country in its original vinyl format, Fire’s The Magic Shoemaker enjoyed a gilt-edged reputation as a psych artefact par excellence, until whispers started going round to the effect that it wasn’t nearly as essential as its legend suggested.
Well, this is the backlash to that backlash. For sure, its 1970 release date makes it a perilously late entry in the psych canon, and you’ll be sorely disappointed if you come in search of sitars and phasing. Mindset is everything, however, and “a fairytale narrated to a group of young children” is as definitive as it gets when considering English “garden variety” psych.
A Hounslow-based trio led by future Strawb Dave Lambert, Fire cemented their popsike credentials in 1968 with the succinctly perfect Father’s Name Is Dad single, included here as one of four bonus tracks. The Magic Shoemaker itself finds them summoning the antic spirit of Happiness Stan-era Small Faces (Reason For Everything) and the exhilarating rush of Sell Out-era Who (Flies Like A Bird). Lambert’s excitable, edge-of-his- range vocals are a giddy revelation throughout: he positively nuts those top notes.
Charming whimsy put across with swaggering Mod concision: what’s not to like?
