Hitler

'I Would Enter Your Mind' c/w 'I Am Aghast' c/w 'Child Slaves'

Released 22^nd March 1968.

Marmalade Records Marmalade 598902

Danny Calvert (vocals, spinet), ‘Sticks’ Foster (lead guitar, singing bowl), Kevin LeRoy (autoharp, gong, vocals), Sheila Lyndhurst (castanets, dancing, lead kazoo), Spanzy Bluteau (backing vocals, bagpipes, gong)

"I know what you’re going to ask!" laughs Kevin LeRoy, now a sixty-six year old lollipop man. "Why on earth would anyone in their right mind call their band Hitler!"

One of the later signings to Giorgio Gomelsky’s Marmalade label (other artists included The Feeling Hands and Tiffany Spellman’s Nice), Hitler were a rather folk-influenced, jazz psychedelic combo, whose dancer, Sheila Lyndhurst, gained some notoriety for her rhythmic kazoo playing and on-stage intercourse with Spanzy Bluteau.

‘I Would Enter Your Mind’, a swimmy, gong-heavy, nasal affair, was typical of the Hitler’s output and the single was unusual for having two b-sides (although ‘Child Slaves’, a castanet and gong piece, was only thirteen seconds long).

The record label felt they had a hit on their hands and it was only when radio stations started to feel uncomfortable with the band’s name that Hitler’s problems began.

"We saw it as a pure name" says LeRoy. "Also, the swastika, which we used on our uniforms and drum kit, is a symbol that goes back to Neolithic times and isn’t necessarily connected to the Nazi party, which none of us were members of. At least not in those days. We saw it as a white hot emblem of ferocious, burning purity that was unconnected to anything in the real world. Black is white and white is black. Also, no-one else had used it – it’s not as easy as you think trying to think up a group name!"

At the time of the single’s release, vocalist Danny Calvert explained Hitler’s choice of name to Trudy Bean-Cameltoe of Girl Trend magazine: "People have to look at Hitler’s other qualities – he was a vegetarian, he had a girlfriend, he had a dog and he made the trains run on time. Now I have all of those qualities and no-one calls me an insane dictator!"

Unfortunately, a national newspaper picked up on this article and ran it as a front page story with the headline ‘I LOVE HITLER, CLAIMS INSANE DICTATOR OF POP’.

It was unfortunate that the band’s first album was released the following week and had a large flaming swastika on the cover and the word ‘HITLER’ emblazoned across the centre in letters made from skulls.

Record shops refused to stock the band’s product, their contract was cancelled and several attempts were made on Calvert’s life. LeRoy, although only twenty-two, immediately became a lollipop man, a job he has held ever since. "Today when kids ask me what I did when I was young, I just shout out ‘Hitler!’ And they think I’m mad. It’s great!"