The Outer Limits were from Leeds. Active over 1965 to 1968, the soul-tinged mod-poppers didn’t chart, but their two regular singles are now pricey collector’s items. There was also, before the orthodox 45s, a track on a Leeds University charity fund-raising single.
It’s likely pop fans received their widest exposure to The Outer Limits when they were billed on a November/December 1967 package tour with big-draw acts The Amen Corner, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Move and The Pink Floyd. The Eire Apparent and The Nice were also booked. Back then, a band with The Outer Limits’ status would have been given a ten or so minute slot in which to showcase themselves: enough time to squeeze in two, perhaps three, songs.
Taken together, the records and the package tour meant The Outer Limits left a pop-cultural imprint. Albeit one which is slight. Their songwriter and prime mover Jeff Christie would, though, leave more of a mark. After leaving the band, he passed though the unrecorded Epics and the Move-backed The Acid Gallery – one single from them in 1969, the amazing “Dance Round the Maypole” – and then formed the self-referencing Christie. Glory arrived with 1970’s monster international hit “Yellow River.” Jeff Christie wrote it.
Nothing on The Outer Limits double-CD set Just One More Chance: Anthology 1965-1968, hints at the bouncy, bubblegum-ish, nagging “Yellow River.” If such an intimation was present, it would surely be evident as there is a whopping 36 tracks spread across the discs. What’s collected includes what was issued, with a few song repeats due to the inclusion of alternate demo versions. The bulk is studio demos, mostly recorded at Huddersfield’s RadioCraft, an independent studio in the back of musical equipment shop (this is where what became the Orange brand of amplifiers was invented). There’s more than enough to get a sense of what this band was about. Jeff Christie wrote every one of these songs.
Alongside Jay & The Americans-esque slices of light soul-pop like “But Not For me” and “Time Stands Still” is “Misery,” which borrows its structure from The Kinks’ “Dead End Street.” Then, there’s the Bee Gees-inclined “Mr. Magee's Incredible Banjo Band.” The driving, grand “Any Day Now” sounds like it could have been a hit had, say, The Marmalade recorded it. “See it my Way” is more twee but, again, it has potential chart-bound-sound written all over it. Despite a few weak specimens, the songs are mostly great. The singing – especially the harmonies – is great. The playing is great. But it is hard to detect a specific identity.
All of which was enough to attract the Deram label, which issued The Outer Limits debut single in April 1967. It doubtless helped the band’s route to vinyl that their booking agent Dru Harvey worked for the well-connected Harvey Block management agency. The twinkly Deram A-side “Just One More Chance” was lovely and, unsurprisingly, had an element of soul in its light, flowery harmony pop totality. Despite pirate radio play, it was not a hit.
Deram did not pursue their relationship with The Outer Limits. The link-in with the label became a one-off. In spite of the setback, Christie and co plugged on and, thanks to now being with high-profile booking agent Tito Burns, they appeared on the late 1967 Pink Floyd, Hendrix and so forth tour. The next move was Burns bringing them to the attention of former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who plucked them up for his fast-sinking Immediate label. Christie’s song “Great Train Robbery” was recorded as their next single. However, Immediate pressed demo copies only in April 1968. The record did not reach shops. In the end, six months on, a different mix of “Great Train Robbery” appeared as an October 1968 single on Oldham’s low-profile Immediate subsidiary label Instant. This scheduling lack of judgment wrecked any chances of The Outer Limits attracting sales. The band was in limbo until the single was out. “The Great Train Robbery’s” status as a fine song is borne out by The Searchers having recorded a version as a potential single. In another blow, this was not released.
After this, Jeff Christie left The Other Limits. A band with the same name issued an energetic, freaky version of “(I'm Not) Your Stepping Stone” in 1974, but this, most probably, was not the band Christie had been in. By this point, he was four years on from the success of “Yellow River”.
It’s tempting to see The Outer Limits as a footnote; a Sixties band who issued some poor-selling singles which due to their quality inevitably ended up as costly collector’s items. A band for cultists then. But there was more. Major British music industry figures Tito Burns and Andrew Loog Oldham saw something in them. And, as the exhaustive Just One More Chance: Anthology 1965-1968 demonstrates, there was indeed something more. The Outer Limits had tons of great songs. Nonetheless, this – when taken with the stop-start nature of their progress and the lack of distinctiveness – wasn’t enough to propel them into the top rank. Nevertheless, fans of high-class Sixties British pop will want this thoroughly enjoyable double CD.
- Next week: Chiswick Records 1975-1982 - Seven Years At 45 RPM. Triple-LP, 50th-anniversary celebration of the great British independent label
- More reissue reviews on theartsdesk
- Kieron Tyler’s website
