Tomorrow

As the In Crowd, a London-based mid-60s soul band, bassist John "Junior" Wood and singer Keith West (born Keith Alan Hopkins) found middling success, but after teaming with ex-Syndicats guitarist Steve Howe and drummer John "Twink" Alder, the quartet rebranded themselves as Tomorrow and launched straight into the popular psychedelia of 1967. Highly regarded as a live act, they had the honors of performing the first-ever radio session for BBC's DJ John Peel, although they missed out as the house band in Michelangelo Antonioni's cult film Blow Up (to The Yardbirds). Released in May 1967, their classic single "My White Bicycle" b/w "Claramount Lake" stalled on the charts, and a second single, "Revolution" b/w "Three Jolly Little Dwarfs," released in September, fared no better. This left a tenuous relationship with EMI and their debut album, recorded in the spring, missed out of the psychedelic boom of 1967. West and friend Ken Burgess composed most of the album, although it also contained a spirited cover of The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever." "Now Your Time Has Come" gives an early clue to Howe's talent, unique more for referencing the influence of Chet Atkins than the then-typical blues roots of most British guitarists. West had scored a No. 2 single with EMI producer Mark Wirtz's "Excerpts from a Teenage Opera" the previous July. His solo success put unreasonable pressure on the band, and shortly after their appearance at the Christmas on Earth Continued concert in December 1967 at London's Roundhouse, Tomorrow broke up. Twink would join The Pretty Things, while Howe would meander in Bodast for the next year, before eventually defining prog rock guitar with Yes.