Right away, the influences are clear but impeccable: classic British pop, psychedelia, and glam la the Beatles, early Pink Floyd, the Kinks, David Bowie, T. Rex. Yeah, well, that's the music I grew up with, so I guess it's just gonna come out, says Spiv U: K singer and guitarist Sham Morris. I just write these songs, and they could be [done in any style], really. But they come out with this sound, and that's also because they're being shaped by the rest of the band. The rest of the band is bassist Tom Newton (like Morris, an English expatriate), guitarist John Gullo, and drummer Chris Morgan. The four came together in 2004 as SPIV (spiv is Brit slang for a shady character who lives by his wits; the U: K part was added later and since then have stood out on the upstate scene like a sequined, paisley thumb, thanks to their specialized-perhaps esoteric, to some-approach. Live, the band is known for it's eye-dazzling stage presentation, which includes trippy, multi-colored lighting and mind-bendingly surreal film projections. The former front man of glammy '80s pop act One the Juggler (with whom he went by the name Rokko), Morris immigrated to the Woodstock area in 1987 after working with one of it's best-known residents, the late Mick Ronson. The two met when the ex-David Bowie guitar player produced One the Juggler's last album, 1985's Some Strange Fashion (RCA), and became fast friends, eventually playing together in a duo and a quartet with two other prominent locals, bassist Tony Levin and drummer Jerry Marotta. Morris ultimately returned Ronson's studio favors by producing and writing songs for the guitarist's final recording, 1994's Heaven and Hull (Spitfire Records), which features guest vocals by Bowie, the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde, John Mellencamp, Ian Hunter, and Def Leppard's Joe Elliot. [Ronson] died of liver cancer before the album was finished, so it was a very bittersweet time, recalls Morris, who also played with Psychedelic Furs guitarist John Ashton and former X-Ray Spex/Classix Nouveaux drummer B.P. Hurding in the short-lived in Pink Thing. Besides being an incredible musician, Mick was a really wonderful guy and a great friend. I still miss him. As SPIV the foursome debuted with 2005's Gigantic Inflation of the Ego (self-released, like the band's other CDs), it's rawest, most guitar-heavy set, and added the U: K for the 2008 follow-up, So Far Machine, which puts a stronger accent on the group's lysergic leanings (the latter disc was reviewed in the July-August 2008 issue of Roll). The band's third release, Sir Reginald Dreamsequence, betrays it's bemusingly evocative title by offering up yet another dose of timeless toy-town psych via We Go Underground, Dear Mr. Grey, Henrietta Shopping Cart, and other bursts of radiant Day-Glo pop. While Morgan is known locally for his work with Woodstock's Creative Music Studio and New York's Swollen Monkeys, Queens native Gullo may also be familiar to many, as the front man of much-missed punk cover band the Relatives. Playing in that band was fun but it was also very personal, because that music was such a big part of my life, says Gullo, an active participant of Manhattan's late '70s/early '80s scene and, in the obscure No Excuse, and a one-time bandmate of blues-rock guitarist Poppa Chubby. Quietly Falling to Pieces is Spiv U: K's fourth album to date, recorded in their studio 'The Palace Of Materialized Dreams' in Woodstock NY. The album has a warm and trippy feel that is both old school and refreshingly new. Imagine a completely modern band that generates an arsenal hinting of early '70s Bowie, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles while folding in it's own blend of psychedelia, and you'll have it just about right. Peter Aaron - Roll Magazine.
