The Aquarian Age-10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box / Good Wizzard Meets Naughty Wizzard (1968)

Rating: 9 out of 10

Band Lineup:

Twink [John Alder]-drums, vocals

John “Junior” Wood-bass

Nicky Hopkins-piano

Clem Cattini-drums

Mark Wirtz-keyboards

Track Listing:

A-Side

10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box (Alder/Wood)

B-Side

Good Wizzard Meets Naughty Wizzard (Alder/Wood/Wirtz)

The Aquarian Age was a band formed by Twink and Junior in the wake of their former band, Tomorrow’s, dissolution. They released only one single, but it is a British psychedelic classic. The A-side features the magnificent “10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box,” which Twink would later re-record for his 1970 solo album, Think Pink. This original version of “10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box” features a much harsher attack on their former band mate, Keith West, with a chorus of “How do you do? It’s not nice to see you. Nice to have seen you. Goodbye,” which was removed from Twink’s later solo version, and the song moves at a much faster pace than Twink’s slow, spacey solo version. The contradictions in each line of the lyrics are great, as is the instrumentation and array of weird sounds (notice the violin solo) in the background. The B-side is a fun novelty piece of nonsense entitled “Good Wizzard Meets Naughty Wizzard,” which tells the story of a good wizard who meets a naughty wizard and attempts to blot out his mischief by turning him good. However, his spell backfires and he turns the naughty wizard into a frog. After forgetting how to reverse the spell for a while, the good wizard is able to eventually return the naughty wizard to his original state. The naughty wizard promptly turns the good wizard into a lizard and the song ends. This is a fun B-side, and Twink is clearly enjoying himself as he uses different voices for the two characters. This is a fun single and a great example of the many facets of British psychedelia. For those who are interested in these songs, they are available as bonus tracks on the remastered version of Tomorrow’s album, Tomorrow.

Links to the songs (unfortunately I only have one for the A-side):

10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box