The Gun

Emerging in the closing years of the 1960s, this high-octane British threesome carried an unusual lineage: Paul Curtis, later known as Paul Gurvitz, and his sibling Adrian Curtis, subsequently Adrian Gurvitz, were the sons of Sam Curtis, the flamboyant and irreverent road manager for the Kinks. Together with drummer Louie Farrell they coalesced at a moment when distinctions between straightforward pop and more ambitious progressive forms remained fiercely contested. The group appeared on John Peel’s influential BBC program Top Gear and scored a potent 1968 single success with the propulsive, riff-driven “Race with the Devil,” a track whose style bore an uncanny resemblance to Moby Grape’s “Can’t Be So Bad.” Misjudging their standing in the singles market, they stumbled with the frenetic follow-up “Drives You Mad”; when “Hobo” likewise failed to register, their prospects on the charts evaporated. CBS attempted to reposition them as counterculture icons through campaigns declaring “the revolutionaries are on CBS,” yet the band never secured a foothold as consistent album sellers. Once Gun disbanded, the Gurvitz brothers launched Three Man Army; after completing three albums they joined forces with Ginger Baker to create the Baker Gurvitz Army. Adrian Gurvitz later returned to the upper reaches of the U.K. singles chart in 1982 with the unexpected Top Ten entry “Classic.”