The Galileo 7

Featuring the songs of Alan Crockford, a former member of the Prisoners, the Galileo 7 combine the flash of freakbeat with the solid power of mod, add a dash of swirling psychedelia, and deliver their songs with a sprightly garage rock-inspired energy. They worked steadily through the 2010s cranking out music for a variety of labels, honing their craft at a rapid pace before arriving at their rightful home of Damaged Goods for a pair of albums, 2017's Tear Your Minds Wide Open and 2019's There Is Only Now. While personal problems and the global pandemic put a crimp in their recording schedule, 2024's You Me and Reality confirmed nothing would stop their paisley-patterned musical agenda. After what already amounted to a long and productive career in music, first as bassist in seminal Medway psych-mod band the Prisoners, then in hard mod group the Solarflares, Alan Crockford began writing songs for the first time when he was playing in the punk-pop band the Stabilisers. The tunes he penned didn't quite fit the group's sound, so he ended up saving most of them for later. When he left the Stabilisers in 2009, he got serious about fronting a band for the first time in his career. Switching over to guitar, he enlisted the help of keyboardist Viv Bonsels, bassist Paul Moss, and drummer Russ Baxter to bring his freakbeat- and mod-inspired songs to life. They recorded the basic tracks in a mate's print shop after hours, heading next to Crockford and Bonsels' basement to add overdubs. The Galileo 7's first release was Test Flight, an EP they put out on their own Fools Paradise imprint. Their debut full-length, Are We Having Fun Yet?, was released in 2010 by the Italian label Teen Sound. The band's harmonies and pleasantly trippy sounds were a far cry from the beefy sound of Crockford's previous groups, and had much in common with the paisley underground bands of the '80s. Their second long-player was recorded the same way, but they opted for a slightly rougher sound. New bassist Mole (who also played with the like-minded band the Embrooks) released the album, Staring at the Sound, on his State Records label in 2013. The same lineup reconvened for the next LP, this time adding Mellotron to the mix and a little bit of prog to their sound. False Memory Lane was issued in 2014 on Fools Paradise. Following the release of a couple singles (2015's "One Lie at a Time" and 2016's "Cruel Bird"), the Galileo 7 recorded a live album, Live-O-Graphic, in an hour-long session with their new lineup featuring Mole's switch to drums and Paul Moss' return to the bass position. This incarnation of the group signed with Damaged Goods and, still working the same way, recorded and released two albums (2017's Tear Your Minds Wide Open and 2019's There Is Only Now) that cemented their place among the top tier of freakbeat-mod-psych revival bands in the 2010s. After recording an album of covers of some of their favorite songs from the '60s on Decayed, which came out in 2020 on the Fools Paradise label, the band found themselves unable to rehearse or play shows due to the COVID-19 lockdowns in England. The group figured out a workable way to record remotely and undertook a project revisiting songs from Staring at the Sound. Titled Listening to the Colours, the six-song EP was released by Spinout Nuggets in late 2021. When COVID-19 restrictions eased enough for the band to return to business as usual, they began playing live again and went back to work on the album they'd been recording when lockdown put the project on pause. You Me and Reality was released by Damaged Goods in February 2024.
© Tim Sendra /TiVo