Had the breaks been a little better, The Fox might now be
spoken of in the same breath as Small Faces, The Creation, The Move, The
Action, Traffic, and the other mod and/or psych bands they resemble. Alas, the
Brighton quintet only made one album, because as frontman Steve Brayne relates
in the liner notes of a vinyl reissue of the For Fox Sake LP, their management “poached” Black Sabbath and
decided to put all of its eggs in that gloomy basket. Timing might have
something to do with The Fox’s failure since their mid-sixties sound was so out
of step the times when they released their one and only LP in 1970.
That The Fox is all but forgotten is a drag, but there’s
nothing draggy about For Fox Sake.
For lovers of the brand of fresh-faced British rock that the rains of Sabbath
and Zeppelin washed away, this album is a revelation. Almost every song is a
gem, inviting comparison to the works of more famous artists but offering
enough originality to make it essential in its own right. You’d be hard pressed
to find a song by a white band that used reggae off beats earlier than “As She
Walks Away”, which also resembles Larks’
Tongue-era King Crimson three years ahead of schedule. Had Hendrix experimented with circus music, he may have been able to lay claim to the sound of the epic “Madame Magical”, but since he didn’t, he can’t. Most other tracks don’t strive for such uniqueness, but so who cares when For Fox Sake supplies the best Action (“Secondhand Love”), Creation (“Lovely Day”), and Small Faces (“Man in a Fast Car”) songs of 1970? Only the inchoate
jam “Goodtime Music” is not up to snuff.
Sommor Records’ vinyl reissue of For Fox Sake affords this project some belated attention. The very
cool album cover art is nicely reproduced. Sound is a bit flat and distorted,
though that’s may be more a consequence of the album’s original lo-fi production
than the digital mastering. The LP-sized booklet with Brayne’s notes and
several band photos is a nice bonus. But great songs by a great band that
almost nobody has heard are all the incentive necessary to hunt down For Fox Sake.
