Tomorrow was one of the three “underground” acts to play Joe Boyd’s UFO Club in London of 1966-67. The best known, then and now, of course, is Pink Floyd. Next is line was the prog-jazz outfit Soft Machine. Both of those bands found their places in rock history.

Tomorrow was another matter. Today, those who know of the the band generally do so for one of two reasons:

1. Steve Howe of Yes Fame was the group’s brilliant young guitarist;
2. The single “My White Bicycle,” beloved by many over the years but bought by few at the time. Despite its head-spinning charms, the song failed to even chart.

A few myths did attach themselves to the song over the years.

Howe and others have been known to call it the first British psychedelic single, although the Yardbirds’ “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” predated “Bicycle” by seven months.

The song’s breathtaking backward/double-tracked/phased guitar work wasn’t unique to the band, either — although it certainly could be argued that Tomorrow was among the first rock acts to use the technique and make it pleasurably musical.

“It had been done by the Beatles or the Byrds or somebody … everybody (in rock circles) had touched it,” Howe recalled years later. (George Harrison used backward guitar on “I’m Only Sleeping” the summer before.)

A rock folk tale says the “White Bicycle” refers to LSD father Albert Hoffman’s famed two-wheel trip, but alas that one doesn’t stand up, either. The song was inspired by a Dutch socialist scheme of the day in which hundreds of white bicycles were strewn about Amsterdam for the use of one and all.

Vocalist Keith West, who co-wrote the song (as Keith Hopkins), makes the most of his joyride. After a brief psychedelic intro, the guitar digs into the hook. The band quickly adopts a pumping beat and West sings:

Riding all around the streets
Four o’clock and they’re all asleep
I’m not tired and it’s so late
Moving fast everything looks great

My white bicycle
(My white bicycle) …

“(The main guitar theme) is like a droning sitar sound,” drummer John “Twink” Alder recalls. “We were listening to Ravi Shankar and Gabor Zarbo at the time. So our influences were Indian mainly. Steve may have picked up on that … or he may have just pulled it out of the air.”

Howe credits producer Mark Wirtz for leading him into double-tracking: “I’m suddenly playing and then he says to me, “Let’s play it again,” and I said, “Didn’t you like that?” He said, “That’s great, let’s do it again double-track,” and I kind of went wow. … The way that all got edited was I think quite mystifying to us at first.”

How could so good a song — one with hooks, novelty, ace musicianship and a terrific beat — be simply ignored? Competition probably explains a lot. 1967 was no time for the almost-great. The song came out two months after Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” mind-fucked the pop world, for example.

Perhaps some of that Beatle magic rubbed off on Tomorrow and its signature song. The Beatles were neighbors at Abbey Road Studios, working on “Sgt. Pepper.” The liner notes to a reissue of Tomorrow’s only album says the Fabs were even present during the mixing. There’s a great rumor in there, somewhere …

Side notes: In 1999, EMI rereleased the “Tomorrow” album. The remastered recording, done from the original tapes, includes a stereo version of “My White Bicycle,” a first. … “My White Bicycle” came out as a single while the band was still recording the album. … Tomorrow disbanded as singer West found fame with producer Wirtz’s concept LP “Excerpt From a Teenage Opera.” Howe joined Yes in 1970. … Club guru turned producer Joe Boyd remembered the song. He wrote a book called “White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s.” … Steve Howe revived the number as the final number of his “Pulling Strings” solo tour and album. … The persistence of “My White Bicycle” can be attributed in part to its inclusion on compilation sets such as “Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968.”

Procol Harum, of course, is the English band best known for the haunting 1967 hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale” (iTunes), one of the most popular songs in rock history. Their first two albums proved hugely influential, inspiring Queen, Pete Townshend, the Band as well as the genres of prog rock and (to some extent) heavy metal.

The Dukes of Stratosphear, on the other hand, were influenced by pretty much anyone of note in Britain’s 1960s psychedelic scene. The fictional band dropped their cover story in the liner notes to the resissues of their two CDs and are now fully identified as members of the 1980s band XTC — not that the XTC side project was ever much of a secret. The two reissues of recordings from 1985 and 1987 comprise the totality of the Dukes output.

Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and “Shine on Brightly” are leaving for the U.S. coasts this week as part of the 40 Years reissue series from Britain’s Fly/Salvo labels. Those albums, plus “A Salty Dog” and “Home,” have been available in Europe since April and May.

The new version of the oft-changed debut album can be identified by its shocking pink (Italian) version of the cover. All of the reissues are marked with “40 Years” labels on the covers. Some online retailers have made a mess of the proper CD release dates and song listings of these albums, so make sure you’re getting the new ones.

Procol Harum leader Gary Brooker and lyricist Keith Reid helped the record label with the reissues, while Brooker curated the generous bonus tracks for these albums. “Procol Harum” includes the group’s two initial singles, “Whiter Shade of Pale” and “Homburg,” which weren’t on the original album (typical of the times, see the Beatles).

"Shine on Brightly" was among the group’s best albums, tight and mysterious. Guitarist Robin Trower had joined the band at this point (his best work would come on the “Broken Barricades” LP, also set for rerelease on Salvo. The “Shine on Brightly” cover, unfortunately, is not the one U.S. audiences remember from back in the day (the psychedelic green art with the mannequin and the piano).

The Procol Harum reissues come from the original masters and return production elements of the sound that haven’t been heard on previous digital versions. Early reviews rave about the audio but point out that the albums are in the original mono. Some of the bonus tracks are in stereo.

The unreleased “Understandably Blue” song on the debut album’s bonus tracks is another draw for fans and collectors.

The Procol Harum CDs are said to include online bonus materials, a la Blu-ray Live, although the label’s web site refers to a lack of content so far.

The Dukes of Stratosphear reissues also come from the original analogue tapes. Group members Dave Gregory, Colin Moulding and Andy Partridge wrote individual liner notes that are informative and typically odd. The sound seems more wide open and detailed than on the previous CD release, a compilation called “Chips from the Chocolate Fireball” from 2001.

The original Dukes record, “25 O’Clock,” was an EP with six songs. The follow-up work, “Psonic Psunspot,” was a full album. Neither has been released individually on CD until now. A healthy serving of alternate versions and demos fills out both CDs, released by Ape Records.

“25 O’Clock is named after the bogus group’s best song, while ““Psonic Psunspot”
is a more realized project. “Psunspot” songs derive from obvious influences (Electric Prunes, the Kinks, early Pink Floyd, Brian Wilson, the Beatles). It leans on the whimsical side of the psychedelic genre — think “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” not “Tomorrow Never Knows” — “See Emily Play,” not “Echoes.”

The vibe would carry over to XTC’s masterpiece, “Skylarking” (iTunes), produced by Todd Rundgren.

Partridge, XTC’s leader, noted with a big wink: “The Dukes were the band we all wanted to be in when we were at school. Purple, giggling, fuzztone, liquid and arriving. If you want to know where those cheap charlatans the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Byrds, the Hollies and the Beach Boys stole their ideas from, well just listen to this and weep.”

The somewhat reclusive bandleader Andy Partridge did a long interview with the Chicago Tribune’s Mark Caro that’s worth a read for any XTC/Dukes fan. He has this to say about psychedelic music:

“I think a lot of the allure of that psychedelic thing and specifically psychedelic singles was that kind of compact magic, all these effects that people hadn’t heard before and everybody looking for new ways of mashing up conventional sounds in the studio. And of course these days you’d just lean on a button, and there it is; it’s all sampled and pre-screwed-up for you. But then you really would have to play an electric saw at the bottom of a well and then have that spun in backwards and stuff like that.”

Of the two Dukes records, Partridge says: “To me they just look like the next XTC records. Because ‘Skylarking,’ which happened between the two Dukes releases, is like the missing Dukes album, or vice versa. ‘Psonic Psunspot’ is the missing XTC album after ‘Skylarking.’ There’s no barrier.”

“Skylarking,” produced by Rundgren in infamously stormy recording sessions, no doubt will find a place on the Top 50 Psychedelic Albums list, along with “Psunspot.”

Both new Dukes CDs feature the promo videos for each album’s single. The packaging is sublime, bringing to mind small hardcover books printed with great care. All collectors editions should look so good.