This is the history of JANUS, born as a progressive rock band made up of English musicians in Krefeld in Germany in 1970, retired broke and unknown in 1973, despite being signed to the prestigious EMI "Harvest" label, alongside such bands as Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, and Edgar Broughton...
...The original band were COLIN ORR (Guitar/Keyboards), ROY YATES (Classical Guitar), BRUNO LORD (Vocals), DEREK HYETT (Vocals), MICK PEBERDY (Bass) and KEITH BONTHRONE (Drums). Style was truly original, and it has been said that JANUS were the originators of the genre that became "acoustic rock". That probably misses the fact, that like the name, the band had two very distinct, schizophrenic, sides. Capable of soft, beautiful melodies, they also cranked out some megadecibel material, which a few years later would have had them tagged as a punk band. Signed to EMI Harvest in 1970, in 1971 they recorded the classic "Gravedigger" album. Remarkably, the whole album, including mixing was put together in 24 hours of studio time...
...For two years, the band lived in Holland, partied on - making the "summer of love" a 36 month event - and managed very few live appearances...
...At the tail of 1973 JANUS came to England, and managed to perform to one or two appreciative university audiences, before becoming the only band in history to be thrown out of the Cavern Club in Liverpool (too heavy.... read loud). By 1974 it was time to call it a day, so that was the first end of Janus...