The psychedelic* band Tractor was formed in 1966 by two young men from Rochdale, physical teacher Jim Milne and painter Steve Clayton. In 1970 they recorded a demo and sent it to Dandelion Records, which was a company owned by Radio 1 D.J. John Peel and Clive Selwood. Peel listened to the demo and thought it was a hoax: It couldn´t be possible that the best demo he had ever heard was recorded by only two people in a bedroom in Rochdale. Peel and Selwood immediately signed the band and released their first album, A CANDLE FOR JUDITH, as THE WAY WE LIVE in January 1971.
In 1972 STONY GLORY, a three-track maxi-single, was released. Commercial success didn´t come though, and Selwood suggested that they´d change to a more earthly name. John Peel suggested TRACTOR.
TRACTOR it was.
From then on they recorded music on many different occasions and for many different record companies, like Polydor and Roach Records to name a few. During the early eighties blind keyboard player Tony Crabtree joined the band but was fired after a few years because of an argument with Jim Milne. So the real THE WAY WE LIVE/TRACTOR line-up is:
JIM MILNE
Lead guitar, 6 string acoustics,
12 string electric, rhythm, lead
vocals & backing vocals.
STEVE CLAYTON
Drums, tambourine, marraccas,
hand drums, bongos, piano,
flute & snake charmer.
DISCOGRAPHY:
A CANDLE FOR JUDITH / LP / 1971 (as THE WAY WE LIVE)
STONY GLORY / MAXI-SINGLE / 1972 (as THE WAY WE LIVE)
TRACTOR / LP / 1972
WE THREE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN / DEMO / 1973
ROLL THE DICE / SINGLE / 1975
NO MORE ROCK´N´ROLL /SINGLE / 1977
AVERAGE MAN´S HERO / SINGLE / 1980 (featuring TONY CRABTREE)
WORST ENEMIES / LP / 1991 (BOOTLEG)
* Psychedelic (,saike'delik) adj
...do not produce a predictable sequence of events, but brings to the fore whatever is latent within the subconscious.
