Quasar One and the strange tale of Sheffield’s Ramases
Behind every bear there is a story. Just ask Werner Herzog in Grizzly Man.
But, as Bears of Sheffield prepares to go wild across the city later this month let’s just paws – and bring you the strange tale behind the illustration on Quasar One, designed by celebrated local artist Tom Newell.
Behind Newell’s captivating illustrated 10-foot bear, one of the 60 giant sculpted beasts that will appear across the city from July 12, is a story that involves a Sheffield air-conditioning heating engineer who believed he was the reincarnation of Egyptian pharaoh Ramases and his singing partner and wife Selket (also known as Felixstowe 1957 prom queen Dorothy Laflin).
It is also a story that encompasses a record mogul who knew how to spot a hit, a sadly indifferent record-buying public and significant cameos from 1970s chart-toppers 10CC and acclaimed actor Peter Stomare (best known for feeding William H Macy into a woodchip machine in the original Fargo film).
Quasar One the bear is named after the song of the same name written by one Kimberley Barrington Frost, born in Sheffield during the late 1930s. Now young Barry was the only child of musical parents – his mother played piano to silent movies in the local theatre, and his father was a tenor. Young Ram grew up singing and playing guitar from an early age.
Barrington was drafted into the RAF, and eventually became an army gym instructor. After completing his service, he met and married Dorothy, the aforementioned carnival queen of Felixstowe. The couple settled in London, where he worked as a jazz singer by night and an HVAC installer by day, while Dorothy waited tables. His employer offered him the opportunity to open a branch in Edinburgh, Scotland, but then went bankrupt shortly after so the Frosts stayed in Scotland and built up their own successful HVAC business in Glasgow.
So far, so 1960s. But that’s where Sheffield, and its obvious quirky influence, came to the fore. It’s not entirely known why Barrington ditched his steady job in air-conditioning but, in 1966, around the time he bought his Roman Villa styled house which he named Hadrian in Westwick Crescent, Beauchief, he began dressing in silk robes and going by the name Ramases.
Clearly, these were heady times for the bungalow-dwelling folks of Beauchief. There are stories that a now shaven-headed Frost may have swerved towards this new direction when, driving to install an HVAC for a client, he had a vision that he was the Pharaoh’s reincarnation, and he must take up the Pharaoh’s ecological message in a musical career. It isn’t known if the original Ramases also recorded primitive space folk rock anthems, but who hasn’t used that excuse to get out of work in all honesty? “Sorry, I can’t attend that meeting, I am the reincarnation of Ramases.”
Ram released his first single with Selket, Crazy One, backed with Mind’s Eye, in 1968. It failed to chart, but the Mind’s Eye itself was very much a part of Tom Newell’s design more than 50 years later.
During the lockdown, you could see Tom, whose artwork is all across the city on slipmats, stickers and scenes, putting the finishing touches to the eye, in a little studio next to Bear Tree Records.
Back to Ramases. Several early singles (recorded with his wife, whom he renamed Selket or Seleka) failed to make any impact, and it looked like, much like Tutankhamen, the rich grooves would be buried without a trace for millennia.
Symptomatic of this likely lack of success was the title of Crazy One, brilliantly sung by Sel, which had always been meant as Quasar One but was renamed somewhere down the line.
But then, in 1971, Harvey Lisberg became involved in Ramases’ story. Manchester-born Lisberg had rocketed to fame by signing Herman’s Hermits in 1963 as well as the Mindbenders, after Wayne Fontana’s departure. He became closely involved in Stockport’s Strawberry Studios in 1968 and started working with a young band called Hotlegs – back when blokes could call themselves by such names.
Lisberg heard the Ramases sound, fell in love with its expansive psychedelic vision and groove-based folk-ragas, and enlisted Hotlegs to work as the backing group. Hotlegs would soon become 10CC and chalk up hit after hit at the studios where Buzzcocks, Joy Division and the Smiths would later record, but back in the early 70s they were road-testing their sound with compositions called Neanderthal Man and working with artists like Doctor Father. No, me neither.
Ramases would make the short-hop from Sheffield across the Pennines to Stockport to record with Gouldman, Stewart and Creme.
The result was the wigged out chanting of Space Hymns, housed, as it was the early 1970s, in the most expansive artwork Yes illustrator Roger Dean was ever allowed to produce, with a 6-panel fold out cover depicting a church steeple (St George’s Church, Stockport) lifting off into the cosmos. On the other side in infrared colour Ramases and Selket were shown holding aloft strands of wheat in a Demeter-like pose from the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Trying saying that in a Sheffield accent.
Two singles were released from this album in 1971. First out was Ballroom backed by Muddy Water (Phillips 6113 001). Once again there was a typing error as it seems that Ramases never wrote a song titled Ballroom, but one called Balloon which eventually appeared on Space Hymns. The next single had Jesus Come Back backed with Hello Mister.
Space Hymns was released on the Vertigo label (6360 046) in 1971, and is a rather strange sounding album for the label that was, at the time, putting out records by the likes of Black Sabbath and Manfred Man’s Earth Band.
It includes the stunning and atmospheric Life Child, with flutes, bells, whistles and gently hypnotic guitar – it could almost be incidental music for Aguirre Wrath of God – before it turns into a fuzz and wah-wah behemoth. Vocally, Ramases himself is very much in a 70s vibe, with his line “I see your sun is coming down, I see your wreckage on the ground.” It’s hardly I’m Not In Love, despite being played by the same combo of musicians.
Hello Mister has a proper campfire vibe – “I just came from somewhere, can’t quite remember from where” certainly speaks of a certain hopeful alienation.
Quasar One itself again builds slowly – one of the weirdest love songs you could ever hear. Molecular Delusions is very odd indeed, but Balloon, with its hypnotic “Don’t burst your bubble” refrain, has pop hit written all over it. Honestly!
Less convincing, but absolutely as compelling, is You’re The Only One Joe, which uses the direct quote from Midnight Cowboy’s haunting dream sequence. This was the early 1970s, after all.
The album created a certain amount of hype within rock circles especially in England and Germany with its quasi-religious mysticism. See, we do have things in common!
There was no doubt that Ramases was predicted for a great future, even a tour with the Moody Blues, but there are very sketchy details of whether he toured the clubs of Yorkshire and beyond to consolidate the success of Space Hymns, or the considerable budget invested in it.
Instead, he retreated to Felixstowe (not a place renowned for its swinging pop scene or its abundance of bluff singing Yorkshiremen thinking they are the reincarnation of an ancient pharaoh). A second album, Glass Top Coffin, was released into the Bay City Rollers void in 1975, but this was one pyramid scheme that was failing to pay off.
Ramases himself was very disappointed with the cover of Glass Top Coffin. The original intention was to have a cut out showing a man falling backwards into space into the Horsehead nebula but the record company had other ideas. The songs were great, but Ram’s moment had passed.
The album did not sell well. A third album, to be titled Sky Lark or The Sky Lark, got as far as cassette demos, but Ramases became increasingly despondent and on 2 December 1976, aged 42, he took his own life.
A sad coda, and one of the last traces to his native Sheffield, was the sale of Hadrian, his Roman-themed split-level villa at the end of a cul-de-sac in Beauchief.
Listed for private sale in Derbyshire Life in 1976 through local agents Crapper & Haigh, with its magnificent lounge and views onto the local Golf Course, it was the last publicity associated with Barrington for nearly 40 years.
But all good Egyptian pharoahs, even pretend ones with a background in central heating, have a habit of reincarnating, right?
In 2014 actor (and Ramases fan) Peter Stormare collected together all of his surviving recordings, both released and unreleased, and compiled them into a six-disc boxed set. Selket herself was interviewed as part of the release. Watch a great video with Sel on You Tube here.
Original copies of Space Hymns go for up to £50 on Discogs and much more on Ebay. And now, thousands of Sheffielders will stand up close to a giant bear inspired by an air conditioning expert with a hotline to ancient Egypt and the psych-prog musical interface of the early 1970s.
Today, as Tom Newell prepares to wheel out Quasar One as part of the Bears of Sheffield, Ramases’ bungalow stands much altered at the end of Westwick Crescent. I take a drive down there but none of the residents recall a bald-headed Egyptian pharaoh living in their midst. Forget ancient Egypt, even the 1970s is a long time ago. I take a trip to Record Collector in Broomhill, but another Barry, the esteemed Barry Everard, is off today and he’s the only one who’d know. No, he doesn’t do emails. So, I phone my mate Keith, who is a fountain of knowledge on all things prog. He’s heard of Ramases, for sure, but it’s not as good as Amon Duul, but then what is?
I suggest Keith thinks again. Ramases may have flickered only briefly, but put Life Child or Balloon on today and be transported back to a time when you could legitimately claim to be a re-incarnation of an Egyptian God, write some far-out and spiritually sample-able tunes and take some high-profile people along for the ride. Now that’s a story that bears repeating.
Pictures of Tom Newell/Quasar One courtesy of Dave Johnson (check out Steel City Snapper on Instagram)
