UFO 1

UFO were formed in London in 1968. Their first choice of name, Hocus Pocus, gave way to one borrowed from the city's UFO Club, and singer Phil Mogg, guitarist Mick Bolton, bassist Pete Way and drummer Andy Parker signed with the independent Beacon Records. Derek Abrahams, who wrote the note on the back of the sleeve, recalls being called in by Beacon's label manager, Noel Moore, to hear a promising new group; his note gives the members' ages at the time as 20 for Bolton, 19 for Way and Mogg, and 18 for Parker. The labels name Guy Fletcher and Doug Flett as producers and Milton Samuel as executive producer. Seven of the ten songs come from the band: Way wrote "Follow You Home" and "Evil", Bolton wrote "Treacle People", and four more are credited to UFO as a group. The covers are Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody", "(Come Away) Melinda" by Fred Hellerman and Fran Minkoff, and Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love", stretched here to 7:48. The record opens with "Unidentified Flying Object" and catches UFO in their first incarnation, counted among the early space-rock bands, well before Michael Schenker came on board. Beacon released the album in October 1970. With little money behind it, it barely sold in Britain, and it did even less in the United States, where Motown's Rare Earth imprint issued it the following year. Japan, though, took to the new band, and so to a lesser degree did Germany, where Decca put the album out under licence and the single "Boogie" entered the chart on 22 February 1971, climbing to No. 30. UFO kept to this early course as far as a live album in 1971; after it, Bolton left.