SLICING THROUGH THE STATIC (Ian Canty)

This new twofer compiles the work undertaken by Leeds Mod-ish band The Outer Limits during their four year lifespan, including their single for Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate imprint. The Limits featured Jeff "Yellow River" Christie.
   Led by the multi-talented Jeff Christie, The Outer Limits emerged in 1965 in Leeds, Yorkshire. Jeff and the other future members of the group, Stan Drogie, Gerry Smith and Gerry Leyton, were part of the generation that grew up with Rock & Roll. By the dawn of the 1960s, they were keen to have a go themselves. The Shadows were the template many followed at the time and a young Jeff even enjoyed a quick chat with Hank Marvin when they were in town for a gig.
   Buoyed by this meet with Hank, Jeff was joined by two Leeds Uni students called Geoff and either Gerry Smith or Leyton (it's not quite clear in the liner notes) in forming his first outfit called 3G's+1.    The students would soon leave, but this grouping would eventually develop into The Outer Limits. Taking their name from the famous US TV series, the band initially picked up on R&B as a style they could appropriate successfully and early on based their set around the Blues.
   They set about playing the jumping joints of the North like Manchester's Twisted Wheel and the famous Cavern, as well as trips down south to feature on bills at The Marquee. The Outer Limits soon shifted towards a more Soul-influenced sound and in doing so they made the acquaintance of many future stars, including Joe Cocker and Elton John.

   On the first recordings present on Just One More Chance, The Outer Limits have a big brassy sound that is a little like Zoot Money's Big Roll Band. The catchy opening salvo When The Work Is Through found Jeff and Co again having a brush with Leeds University, as it was a one-sided released tied to the students' Rag week. Then come 14 previously unreleased items, beginning with the stylistically similar My Baby Loves Me.
   Anna is a more organ-driven track and on the Just One More Chance demo they show they are really coming together, as Jeff's composition is given a sensitive but powerful backing on a very satisfying slice of Mod Soul. The Deram single take is also included near the end of this disc.    Misery is tied to a marching beat not unlike the one on The Kinks' Dead End Street and a tuneful Sweet Freedom later even got the thumbs up from no less than Jimi Hendrix.
   Great Train Robbery, a more laidback offering, crops up here in both as a demo and its 1968 Instant 45 version, with the "music box" intro and the cool feel to Time Stands Still working to form a classy Pop offering. The drama of Chinatown unfolds another aspect of The Outer Limits, they really were an inventive combo. Help Me Please, the flipside of the Deram single, is a real up-tempo dancefloor gem and the bright Instant 45 cut of Great Train Robbery ends this part of Just One More Chance.
   Disc two of this set basically replicates the first platter on the Angel Air 2008 release Outer Limits/Floored Masters Past Imperfect, bar a few numbers that were already heard on disc one.    Despite five years elapsing since the heist that made Ronnie Biggs' name, the BBC wouldn't play The Outer Limits' 1968 Immediate/Instant single Great Train Robbery and that effectively ended the band's career.
   The Immediate Records version starts off with gunfire, but it's a hugely likeable Pop Sike nugget and unlucky to find itself banned, as it certainly possessed all the qualities to crossover towards mass appeal. It was backed by Jimi's fav Sweet Freedom, which gets a lively workout. We then travel back to the group's earlier demos for the bulk of this disc.
   Stop, the first of these recordings, sports a profound Beatles influence. For me it doesn't quite click though. I preferred the more purposeful drive of Any Day Now and Listen's overall freshness. This section finds The Outer Limits more in a straight 60s Pop mode than anything else, which mostly lacks the punch of the material on the first disc.
   But at least they do it reasonably well on the scathingly-titled Epitaph For A Non Entity and Man In The Middle Of Nowhere. Dancing Water uses a soaring vocal line well, with a sweeping Run For Cover coming over as pretty damn neat. The jerky rhythmed Tomorrow Night ties up this compilation.
   After The Outer Limits folded, Jeff Christie fronted his own eponymous band that had a massive hit single worldwide with Yellow River in 1970. On Just One More Chance, there is a fine late 60s LP among the two CDs included. The first platter I found to be far superior to the second. It seemed to me that The Outer Limits lost a bit of what was great about them by trying to tailor their compositions towards something more accessible and that I feel hampers the second disc.
   Nevertheless there is enough good stuff here to suggest that, given a bit of luck, they may well have cracked it. In the liner notes you get the full SP from Jeff Christie himself, as well as a thorough band history which charts The Outer Limits' progress from the local club scene to the ill-fated Immediate 45.
    Just One More Chance depicts a band torn between their early fire and a chase for the mainstream, with the numbers where a balance is struck being the stars of the show.

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ARTSDESK.COM (Kieron Tyler)

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 formed the self-referencing Christie. Glory arrived with 1970's monster international hit Yellow River.
   Nothing on The Outer Limits double-CD set Just One More Chance: Anthology 1965-1968, hints at the bouncy, bubblegum-ish sound.
   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 (right), 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.
   It's tempting to see The Outer Limits as a footnote; a 60s 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.

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MODCULTURE (David Walker)

A band that has cropped up on the occasional Mod compilation, but hasn't, as far as I know, had their own collection. Until now. This is a two-CD set from the lesser-known Leeds Mod band containing their entire output.
   You might know them from another oddity, which I've mentioned in the past. The Outer Limits - Death Of A Pop Group, which you can watch on YouTube. It's a documentary covering the breakup of the band and features interviews, footage and a lot of footage of Mods in the late '60s in Leeds. That's right, the 1960s Mod scene didn't die in 1964.
   Anyway, back to this collection, which includes their rare, sought after pop soul singles When The Work Is Through and Just One More Chance (released by Deram) plus freakbeat flip Help Me Please and the psychedelic pop gem Great Train Robbery, recorded for Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label in 1968.
   In addition, there are 14 previously unreleased demos from the vaults of The Outer Limits' singer songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist Jeff Christie who has compiled this set. There's also When The Work Is Through originally issued on an impossibly rare 1965 Leeds Students Charity Rag flexidisc. 36 tracks in total, plus an interview with Jeff Christie in the booklet notes by Mojo magazine's Lois Wilson.

What could have been: The Outer Limits' Great Train Robbery

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ALLMUSIC (Fred Thomas)

Leeds group the Outer Limits were active during the height of the British Invasion, touring and striving for greatness during a four-year span between 1965 and 1968 before going their separate ways.
   In their time, the Outer Limits toured with Jimi Hendrix, played gigs opening for the Who, and released just three singles as they moved from blues- and skiffle-influenced sounds to mod and freakbeat inclinations, and got into mildly psychedelic chamber pop in their final days.
   Just One More Chance: The Anthology 1965-1968 offers an in-depth profile of this obscure band, with 37 studio tracks, demo recordings, alternate versions, and the like.
   Their earliest tunes show an affinity for the Northern soul phenomenon happening in the mid-'60s, with songs like My Baby Loves Me and the band's first single, When the Work Is Through, ,incorporating horn sections and powerful, danceable rhythms along with pop affectations like group harmonies and snappy melodies.
   They mirror the Kinks on the moody garage pop of Misery and tip their hat to both Motown and the Beatles on She Said.
   The Outer Limits transitioned from Merseybeat-informed styles to freakbeat and mod-pop numbers like the jumpy party-starter Help Me Please and their organ-driven 1967 single Just One More Chance.
   Over a dozen previously unreleased demos offer a sense of how much the band were experimenting with their sound. Someday Somehow is jaunty piano pop, and the demo version of Great Train Robbery is a stripped-down preview of the intricate orchestral chamber pop version that would appear on their final single.
   The Outer Limits were a hardworking and creatively tireless group during their brief run. Hearing them change with the times over the course of these unreleased tracks and rarities helps trace the evolution between the scant few official songs they released in their time and paints a clearer picture of a fascinating group operating in the shadows of a pop music renaissance.