The Tea Set

Why did they name themselves The Tea Set? Was it prosaically, because the group used to rehearse in a tea room in the basement of London Polytechnic in Regent Street where they were studying in the early 1960s? Or was it suggestively, because 'tea' was a hip word for marijuana at the time? 

It could have been either, or both, or neither. But for a few months from late 1964 until mid-1965, that's what this collective of architecture and art students called their rhythm and blues band. They'd tried out a few other names, like Meggadeaths, the Screaming Abdabs, and Spectrum Five, but the Tea Set suited for a while, as they got their first musical engagements, then moved onto the London gig circuit and even made their first foray into the recording studio, laying down tracks that remained unreleased for fifty years. 

Virtually nobody at the time knew of the Tea Set, outside a couple of hundred London gig goers. And hardly anybody remembers them now. That's because in late 1965 they figured they needed one more change of name in their pursuit of a more idiosyncratic identity, and the one they opted for was The Pink Floyd Sound.

The Tea Set (Stanhope Gardens, Crouch End, 1965)

Let's rewind. Nicholas Mason, Richard Wright and Roger Waters met in 1962 after enrolling to study architecture at London Polytechnic, and along with fellow classmates Rado Klose (a friend of Waters from their Cambridge boyhood), Clive Metcalf and Keith Noble, they decided to form a band (as students do). Richard remained a member even when he transferred from the Polytechnic to London College of Music. Wright's girlfriend Juliette Gale would sometimes sing with them, mostly covers of popular tunes from the nascent beat and blues scenes.

Some time in 1964, Metcalf and Noble split away to form another band, and in early 1965 Roger 'Syd' Barrett (another school friend of Waters from Cambridge), who had recently come down to London to study at Camberwell College of Arts, stepped in to join the Tea Set. That recoding session, arranged by a friend of Richard Wright, took place at a studio in West Hamstead in February or May (accounts differ) and shortly afterwards the five-piece Tea Set became the resident band at the Countdown Club in Kensington.

The Tea Set on stage (location unknown, 1965)

Two more things were to change during 1965. The first was that Rado Klose, on the advice of his parents and tutors, quit the band to concentrate full time on his studies, at which point Barrett became the front man of the group. The other was that the Tea Set found themselves at a gig where another group, also calling themselves the Tea Set, was playing. It was at that point that Barrett, apparently spontaneously, decreed that they should start calling themselves after a couple of American blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Their days of living on egg and chips and cigarettes were almost over. Setting their controls for the heart of the sun, global fame beckoned for The Pink Floyd Sound, later elided to simply Pink Floyd.

No poem this week. It's been far too exciting a Saturday, with the Seasiders beating top of the table Huddersfield in a passionate and pulsating five goal thriller. 

Instead, as a musical bonus, here's a song from that first ever studio recording made by the band who would eventually become Pink Floyd. Those Tea Set recordings weren't released until fifty years later when, in November 2015, Pink Floyd issued them on an EP '1965: Their First Recordings'. It's a Syd Barret composition. Click on the song title to listen to: Lucy Leave.

Thanks for listening and reading, S ;-)