Shamanistic ritual and thunderous freakouts from the anarchic masters of British underground rock.
To mark the death of Steve Broughton at the age of 72 yesterday, here’s a collection of breathtakingly brilliant performances by the Edgar Broughton Band of their seminal classic Out Demons, Out – on vinyl a fascinatingly hypnotic reinterpretation of The Fugs’ Exorcising the Demons Out of the Pentagon, but live a thunderous spaced ritual that takes on occult power and thunders away as a free-form anarchic racket – only fitting for a band that emerged from the Notting Hill scene in the late 1960s and quickly became Britain’s most banned group, leaving a stream of chaos and destruction in their wake.
Steve Broughton was, on and off, a member of the band from the formation in 1968 to the final break in 2010. He’s bashing away on the drums here, going seamlessly from the tribal summoning of the early part of the song to the psychedelic freak out that follows. This is one of the greatest tracks of all time in any version – but the live edition is something else. If there is an afterlife, Steve will presumably be banishing demons left, right and centre right now.
If you are unfamiliar with The Edgar Broughton Band, think of this as an introduction and do more exploration immediately – it’s one of the most remarkable forgotten catalogues of music in history.
Live in Hyde Park:
Live and the BBC:
Live in Hamburg:
And here’s the studio version:
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