Grotto
At Last

A uncompromisingly afro psych-rock testament.
Christening themselves War Head Constriction, the trio started playing shows, flaunting a gutsy, dark proto-metal sound that refracted Black Sabbath and Deep Purple through an afro-rhythmic prism. In no time, the group was snapped up by the progressive record label Afrodisia and they cut a single, ‘Graceful Bird’ b/w ‘Shower of Stone,’ released in early 1973. Alas, the War Head gleeful discordance might have been a tad too progressive for the commercial audience; the record died on the vine, precipitating a crack-up within the group. War Head Constriction managed to play their biggest show, opening up for Fela & the Afrika 70 at the National Stadium, Lagos before calling it quits. Still, there was no time to mourn the old group, as new ones were constantly forming at St. Gregory’s.
“At Greg’s I started jamming with Soga Benson, my cousin Skid, and Ben Bruce,” Amenechi says. “We all just used to jam, write, explore and perform where we could.”
“Martin and I were kind of rivals since he was in KC and I was in Greg’s,” Benson remembers. “But when Martin came to Greg’s, we became very, very close.”
Soga Benson
(lead guitar, vocals)
Benson kept pursuing the hobby and remained busy as a guitar for hire, joining Ofege for their second and third albums in 1975 and 1977. Yet, his main group Grotto had still not yet been in a recording studio until EMI Records—the premier label for afro-rock—took an active interest in 1977.
“Odion Iruoje was the A&R manager at EMI at the time,” Benson says, “and he auditioned us, liked he material and signed us.”

“I remember the Grotto audition, they were a bit cocky, St Gregs boys, they had some material that they thought was great but I felt otherwise. Grotto was a rock group but we needed to get them somewhere original. That was the challenge, not to sound like Ofege or some British rock group, but for them to sound like their authentic self. I was into youth bands at the time; I felt they offered something fresh. Most pros were into reggae, which I hated (not as a genre but in the way it was aped) and youth bands allowed me to experiment; I gave them something and they in turn gave me something, which I could take to the next project. They made me in a way. EMI Nigeria did not really get the emergence of the youth market, they thought I was fooling around with kids’ bands”.

Mr Odion Iruoje
(Resident A&R exec/Producer, EMI Nigeria)