Sam Gopal

Sam Gopal (also called Sam Gopal's Dream) were an underground British psychedelic rock band. The band was named after its founder, Sam Gopal, born in Malaysia. From the age of seven, he played tabla, a northern Indian percussion instrument, which replaced drums in the band.The first line-up was Sam Gopal on tabla, Mick Hutchinson on guitar, Pete Sears on bass guitar and keys, and later towards the end, Andy Clark on organ and vocals. On 28 April 1967, the band performed at The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, a UK Underground event organised by the International Times at Alexandra Palace. Other performing bands included Pink Floyd, The Pretty Things, Savoy Brown, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Soft Machine and The Move. Sam Gopal's Dream played at the UFO Club (their first show), The Electric Garden in Covent Garden (later to become Middle Earth), The Roundhouse, and Happening 44. They later played the Christmas on Earth Show at Olympia in London with Traffic, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. Jimi Hendrix later sat in with the original Sam Gopal's Dream at London's Speakeasy Club. Andy Clark later joined on organ and keyboards and they soon changed their name to Vamp with the addition of Viv Prince on drums, and released a single called, "Floatin" on Atlantic. After the original Sam Gopal Dream band broke up in 1968, Sears went on to session work and formed his own band Giant, while Hutchinson and Clark recorded three albums as 'Clark-Hutchinson'. Sam formed a new line-up which included vocalist-guitarist 'Ian Willis' (better known as Lemmy), Roger D'Elia and Phil Duke. The album Escalator was recorded in late 1968 and released in March 1969. Lemmy went on to be the bassist of Hawkwind and, in 1975, the founder, singer and bassist of Motörhead. Roger D’Elia (who was grandson of the actress Mary Clare) later turned up in a mid-1970s band called Glider, which included Twink (ex-The Fairies), Andy Colquhoun and Chas McKay. A further line-up of the band featured Alan Mark, Mox Gowland, Mickey Waller (also known as Mickey Finn) and Freddie Gandy (ex-The Fairies).Sam Gopal self released another album Father Mucker in 1999 (GPS CD 001, Munchen, Germany). Songs from that album were recorded in 1990 (many with Andy Clark) but not mixed and overdubbed until 1999, in which year he recorded one more song for the album. Sam Gopal have another six albums recorded with professional musicians and mastered but they are still unreleased. On Father Mucker Sam Gopal showed on expanded tablas how blues can be played on tablas. Father Mucker, musically and production-wise, is much better than Escalator, according to some critics and fans, which is not strange because Lemmy said he wrote Escalator in one night.