Two hundred copies of each cassette were sold through Freakbeat Magazine's mail order, The Freak Emporium, and soon Porcupine Tree became known as a mysterious new act amongst the then UK underground psychedelic music scene.
By this point, Porcupine Tree was entirely a solo project, with Stocks having amicably moved on to other activities.Īlong with the A Psychedelic Psauna compilation, which featured the Porcupine Tree track "Linton Samuel Dawson", the newly formed Delerium label, formed by Freakbeat editors Richard Allen and Ivor Trueman offered to reissue the cassettes Tarquin's Seaweed Farm and The Nostalgia Factory. Later in 1990, Wilson released a second full-length Porcupine Tree cassette called The Nostalgia Factory, which further expanded Porcupine Tree's underground fanbase, although at this point the band was still carrying on the charade of being 1970s rock legends. It was composed of nine at-the-time-unreleased tracks, as a preview for the upcoming second album. The EP remains an extremely rare, collectible piece. In 1990 he released The Love, Death & Mussolini E.P., issued in a very limited run of 10 copies. In the meantime Wilson had continued to work on new material. Allen would also become the band's manager, press agent and promoter up until 2004, his role in marketing the band's image decreasing after The Sky Moves Sideways album. Several months later Allen invited Wilson to contribute a track to the double LP A Psychedelic Psauna that was being put together to launch the new Delerium label. Whilst he disliked some of the material he gave much of it a positive review. Allen reviewed the tape in both magazines. Nick Saloman, the cult UK guitarist better known as The Bevis Frond, had suggested that he send one to Richard Allen, a writer for the UK counter-cultural magazine Encyclopaedia Psychedelica and co-editor of the UK psychedelic garage rock magazine Freakbeat. Wilson sent out copies of Tarquin's Seaweed Farm to several people he felt would be interested in the recordings. Still showing the spirit of his joke, Wilson included an 8-page inlay which further revealed the hoaxed Porcupine Tree backstory, including references to fictitious band members such as Sir Tarquin Underspoon and Timothy Tadpole-Jones. Wilson created an 80-minute-long cassette titled Tarquin's Seaweed Farm under the name of Porcupine Tree. However, by 1989 he began to consider some of the Porcupine Tree music as potentially marketable. Although Stocks provided a few passages of treated vocals and experimental guitar playing, his role in the project was mostly offering occasional ideas, with the bulk of the material being written, recorded, played and sung by Wilson.Īt this point, Porcupine Tree was little more than a joke and a private amusement, as Wilson was concentrating on his other project, No-Man, an endeavour with UK based singer and songwriter Tim Bowness. As soon as he had put aside enough money to buy his own studio equipment, Wilson obliged this creation with several hours of music to provide "evidence" of its existence. The two fabricated a detailed back-story including information on alleged band members and album titles, as well as a "colourful" history which purportedly included events such as a meeting at a 1970s rock festival and several trips in and out of prison. Partially inspired by the psychedelic/progressive bands of the 1970s, such as Pink Floyd, that had dominated the music scene during their youth, the two decided to form a fictional legendary rock band named The Porcupine Tree. Porcupine Tree originated in 1987 as a collaborative hoax project by Steven Wilson and Malcolm Stocks.
Porcupine Tree - Full Discography (1989 - 2012)