Stackridge on the road:

     Meanwhile the band and their manager, Mike Tobin, moved to London and Stackridge started to obtain bookings outside of their local area. In January 1971, ‘Melody Maker’ described the Stackridge sound as "classically influenced in parts". Tobin trudged round the record companies and after seeing a concert at the Victoria Rooms, Bristol, MCA’s David Howells signed the band. The band’s first album, imaginatively titled "Stackridge" was released in August 1971 and unleashed such bizarre characters as Percy the Penguin, Dora the Female Explorer, Marzo Plod and the monster Slark on an unsuspecting record-buying public. However, despite being well received on a major tour supporting Wishbone Ash, album sales were disappointing.

     James felt that the "bizarre, rustic and rural" Crun Walter could be the "missing ingredient" and persuaded the others to have him back. Stackridge toured extensively and with Mutter as the manic frontman, the band made a virtue out of their stage eccentricities. Dances, and props such as dustbinlids (for banging together) and rhubarb stalks (for "thrashing") became part of the repertoire and dedicated fans turned up at concerts with their own lids and rhubarb. Stackridge appeared at numerous festivals. Notably, they opened the very first Glastonbury Festival and played manfully on through the rain in the quagmire that was Bickershaw, in May 1972, where they performed with "style, aplomb and good music", according to ‘NME’.

     The band went into the studios in August 1972 to record their second album, named after the delicately beautiful track - "Friendliness".

    Crun’s recollections throw further light on the ethos of the band:

   "Compared to Bowie, Black Sabbath and Supertramp, who were popular at the time, we must  have looked a bit odd. I think we were very conscious of being the antithesis of whatever was fashionable. Instead of stack-heeled boots, we wore Clark’s sandals and slippers.

   "Rather than write about spacemen and ravers of uncertain gender, we penned ditties about cows and psychoanalysis. We shunned most of the things to do with showbiz and spent the  time we should have been out partying and having orgies with reckless groupies, listening to Radio 4 and playing quizzes.

   "Friendliness" is the album that probably catches the spirit of the original Stackridge more than  any other. A set of children’s favourites with attitude, a compendium of tuneful melodies, performed without the excesses of our contemporaries."