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After much
soul-searching, crossing out and listening, I seem to have 50
worthy candidates for a USA psych pop hall of infamy. This is
more of a consensus list than the UK one [Top 50], and
it's annotated with
my ramblings and those of others. There are also some I chucked
in out of left field. I hope it creates even further discussion
around this fascinating period and that it inspires folks to
maybe try some things they haven't heard before - it has for me. - Tony Dale,
(owner, Australian record label, Camera Obscura)
NOTE: Quotes
from fellow collectors on several of my discussion lists are used
with their permission. I am deeply indebted to their expertise in
helping identify some of the more esoteric selections. I've also added some of
my own comments, which are identified with this
font/color.
- The Vinyl Junkie
Aorta - Aorta
(Columbia 1969)
The arresting
(!) and implacably arcane cover wouldn't be out of place housing
a SPK release, but the forbidding gatefold gives way to a some
really fine orchestrated pop-psych, done in a late-breaking style
reminiscent of the Canterbury bands. In reality, they came from
Chicago. Plenty of organ-guitar inter-dynamics pointing in the
direction of the incipient progressive rock movement, but is
still focussed on short structured songs. "What's in my
Mind's Eye" is a real standout. My 5th edition Goldmine
Guide says this should go for around $30. Yeah, right.
Keep an eye out.
Ars Nova - Ars
Nova (Elektra 1968)
The classical
pretentions on this one may get up folks' noses, but this is a
mighty fine piece of baroquely psychedelic folk-rock, with the
songs interspersed with nifty little classical interludes. Given
that 60s psychedelic pop was rock's "baroque" movement,
they were quite astutely mining the claim. Most Valuable Track is
probably the finely layered "March of the Mad Duke's
Circus", and silliest moment is their reading of Beethoven's
"Zarathustra". Somehow Astor in Australia were made to
release this, so I've got that version, beautifully pressed and
housed in a cool laminated flipback sleeve. That cover definitely
causes "Bohemian Rhapsody" flashbacks for me though.
Autosalvage - Autosalvage
(RCA Victor 1968)
This is a
real sleeping angel of an album about which few people seem to
give a shit and I'm not sure why. New Yorker's Thomas Donaher and
Darius Davenport must have known that they would only make one
record, because they obviously poured their souls into this one.
At the time, commercially, they would have been completely
defeated by their own skill and intelligence, which is why we
should appreciate it now. The level of musical dexterity is
fantastic without being flashy, and the compositions are angular,
driving and incredibly precisely wrought. Lend an ear to
"Land of their Dreams" and "Parahighway" to
see what I mean. As far as I know, this can still be had for
below $50, and possibly below $20, but nothing lasts forever.
Baroques - Baroques
(Chess 1967)
Intriguingly
on the Chess label, this is a signature US psych-pop album with
barely a dull moment. According to "Fuzz, Acid and
Flowers" they were originally Canadian but moved to
Milwaukee. "A Musical Tribute to the Oscar Mayer Weiner
Wagon" is pretty wild, and probably what they are remembered
for the most. As far as getting your mitts on one, Karl Ikola
wrote this in August, 2000:
"I
was just spinning side one of this last night! A definite
add to the list. I have a lot of baggage attached to this LP,
though, as I bought a sealed one for $15.00 13 years ago (after
looking for two years), it was heat-warped to hell, and I kept
waiting to replace it cheaply, all the while watching the price
slowly go up. I started calling dealers every time I saw it
listed...first $30, then $40...it was always gone. I
refused to pay $60, then it kept going up...I ended up having to
shell out $90 for a stereo copy (definitely sounds better than
the mono, the warped one of which I still have) a full 12 years
after I had received the warped one. It plays great, though
it does have some light visual scuffs which still bug me when I
look at 'em...ah perfection...the ever elusive."
Beach Boys - Smile
(Capitol 1966)
I suppose that the
idea of this album is what makes the list rather than the
actuality, because it famously never came out in the form
intended by then-mad creator Brian Wilson. But something like
what was intended can be assembled from the Meccano set of
various bootlegs, the "Good Vibrations" box set, and
the "Smiley Smile" album. In August, 2000, Doug Pearson
wrote:
"I
spent several hours this weekend putting together a 40-minute
'SMILE' CD-R, with all the tracks "properly" edited so
that it sounds and flows like a real album, not just a collection
of fragmentary outtakes (as every Smile bootleg I've ever heard
does). 90% of the source material from it came from the
"Good Vibrations" box set, with only "The Old
Master Painter", "Child Is Father To The Man" and
"The Elements" coming from boot sources."
Beau Brummels
- Triangle (Warner Bros
1967)
Pinnacle work
from this under-rated San Francisco group who weren't really
served by the smallish Autumn records, or the behemoth of Warner
Bros. They finally go to make the album they wanted in
"Triangle", after being forced by WB to do an album of
covers of hits of the day. As Kevin Moist pointed out, you could
have some fun compiling the dream BB album from
"Triangle" and the best of the Autumn singles
("You Tell Me Why", "Don't Talk to
Strangers", etc). And another quote from Mr Ikola:
"I
can also agree on the Beau Brummels 'Triangle' LP being near the
top. A fave for over 15 years, I segued BB's cover of Merl
Travis' "Nine Pound Hammer" with the 13th Floor
Elevators "Roller Coaster" on a radio show in Ann
Arbor back in April '86, and it worked like a charm! Just
saw some original BB's members play live with Cyril Jordan
the other night -- fun show, too bad Ron Elliot didn't stick
around to join the action on stage, though!"
Brain Police - Brain Police (K. B.
Artists 1968)
There seemed
to be a fair bit of support for this one to go on the list, so
I'll bypass my slight reservations and include it for consensus
purposes. Intriguing curio of a scene in transition from psych
pop to acid rock, or bone fide classic, you'll have to decide for
yourself in you can track down one of the reissues. The
Rockadelic LP pops up from time-to-time on Ebay, and Twisted
Village sometimes have it also, usually for upwards of $40. There
is also a CD reissue on Normal.
Byrds - Younger
Than Yesterday (Columbia 1967)
Guess I don't
need to say too much about this one. Along wit "Eight Miles
High", I guess this is the Byrds most lysergic endeavor. The
Crosby stuff on this one kills me - stuff like
"Renaissance Fair" and "Everyone's Been
Burned". Like the Beau Brummels, their next turn would be in
the country-ish direction. I guess a lot of bands were following
each other through the next barrier around this time, as the pop
music world reach critical mass and burst out in all directions.
Chocolate
Watch Band - The Inner Mystique
(Tower 1968)
This record
typifies everything the was done right in pop-psych on the US
side of the pond. They had the foundations, transitioning from
garage to the cosmos through various permutations of garage,
R&B, punkish psychedelia, then to full-blown
eastern-influenced art-psych concept where the band didn't even
necessarily have to turn up to the studio to be cool. Famously,
it is widely believed that the band didn't even play on the first
side! It might matter in some genres, but psych-pop is a domain
where "the studio is the greatest instrument", and this
one illustrates that pretty well, I think.
"I
only have "Inner Mystique" (released here in Australia
by Raven in 1981 - Raven's first record) and it is a fantastic
Psych record - first song an instrumental with flute and sitar.
Not sure when this one came out in their history but it is great.
There are also covers of Kinks ("I'm Not Like Everybody
Else") and Dylan ("Baby Blue" - with flute solo it
sounds like with very Jaggeresque vocals). I used to have another
one which was more poppy/commercial (from recollection reminded
me of Partridge Family - but I'm probably way off!) but much
dirtier/guitar than the Alarm Clock." - Nic Dalton
Colours - Colours
(Dot, 1968)
Any
snickering at the English spelling of the band's name rapidly
evaporates when they orchestrate a masterwork in the opening
track "Bad Day at Black Rock, Baby". I use the word
orchestrate advisedly, as this really is one of the best examples
of that particular strand of US psych (of which more later). I
had a friend bring around his original of this last night so I
could hear it again, and it really is quite a grand album, with
consistency throughout. Another outstanding track is
"Brother Lou's Love Colony", and there are some welcome
Eastern tinges here and there as well. And (again) no one seems
to give a shit about it, so it can be readily picked up for a
song it seems. Apparently their second album is to be avoided.
Country Joe
& the Fish - Electric Music for the Mind
and Body (Vanguard 1967)
The
space-borne Eastern beauty of "Grace" is one of my
favourite 60s moments, and there are plenty of others on here.
I'll let Phil take up the torch.
"Rightly
revered by one and all as a classic of the genre; radically
witty, politically acute, druggy pop underlined by the
unforgettable guitar work of Barry Melton." Phil McMullen,
Editor, Ptolemaic Terrascope
The David - Another
Day, Another Lifetime (VMC 1967)
Totally
gob-smacking orchestral mind riot possessed of an almost
"Arabian Nights" decadence. No real weak links on the
album, and the title track should be enough to sell most people.
Apparently Another Day, Another Lifetime was largely the
vision of band member Warren Hansen, and you can really see a the
hollow burning eyes of a total obsessive peering out of this
Aladdin's cave. Too much going on for it really to have been a
success, I guess, plus I'm not sure what resources the label VMC
had. I'd love to hear the singles, especially "People Saying
People Seeing" done earlier than the album on 20th Century
Fox. Maybe there is a reissue with this on it?
Faine
Jade Introspection: A Faine Jade
Recital (RSVP 1968)
Plenty of
baggage on this one. From me:
"Combines
an excellent pop sensibility with more than usually interesting
lyrics (even when or maybe because of being terminally dated in
some cases). "Cold Winter Sun Symphony in D Major" is a
standout here, a classically plaintive nasally sike pop vocal
carrying a memorable (maybe even stolen but I could never place
it) tune. The very west-coast epic "On the Inside There's A
Middle" is nicely dramatic/atmospheric psych-into-prog in a
way the Moffs would later make their own twenty years
later."
A counter case from Jim
Powers:
"I
got a copy of that when it first came out, and wasn't very
impressed, which of course, prompts a relisten. I think it fell
victim to a puffily purple press release that boldly states that
it "picks up where Sgt. Pepper left off" or something
like that."
Want an original?
"The
clerks at a local store here gave me a funny look the other week
when I told them that the sealed copy of Faine Jade's
'Introspection' LP on RSVP was a bargain at the $150 they sold it
for, the irony being that the person buying it might very well
not open it, and it may pass along the food chain for awhile,
where someone might actually crack the seal and play it at some
point. To me, a record isn't real until the seal is cracked, and
yes, I was bummed that I missed out on that opportunity, despite
the fact that I have very little extra cash, and have the Psycho
LP version *and* the legit CD version of that alb. I probably
wouldn't have sold it, thought I'm sure it's worth at least $500
sealed. Oh well, twould've been nice to have at least *touched*
the thing." Karl Ikola (7/98)
Fallen Angels
- It's a Long Way Down
(Roulette 1968)
Another
killer LP with a lot of fans.
"Going
far beyond their 1st lp, this is striking slab o' wax.
Fuzz-psych, folk-psych, and Kinks-style music hall numbers all
rub shoulders in seamless fashion. The title track is a great wry
look at defining success on your own terms, while "Something
New You Can Hide In" is a close US cousin to Pink Floyd's
"Remember A Day". The downer closing track "I'll
Drive You From My Mind" is a personal statement on a
deteriorating relationship (as are a few other tracks) that
brings the melancholia hinted at in the rest of the lp to a
foreboding close. An LP this varied and artistically solid is
rare and a joy to listen to again and again." - John Stanton
"I've got to second John's nomination here. The band's first
one is okay, but its follow-up (w/ truly great bad trip cover
art) is a deep and solid listening experience. Even though the
songs are short they blend together into a gloomily enriching
whole far better than most "concept albums." - Byron Coley
Merrill
Fankhauser and HMS Bounty - Things
(Shamley 1968)
I reckon this
one is a lot stronger than the Fapardokly album (I guess you
could even consider it a second Fapardokly album, with the
continuation of Merrill Fankhauser and Bill Dodd from that
previous outfit). I didn't get it immediately, being a bit put
off by what I thought was an intolerable level of wetness, but
now I have seen the light - inundate me baby. The songs are
gossamer thin trip-wires of incalculable tensile strength, likely
to cut your head off as you sail blithely along. I like
Fankhauser's Mu stuff even better, so the stuff on here that
points in the direction of that later project work are favorite,
like "A Visit With Ashiya", but some of the jangle pop
retaining MF's surf origins is pretty key, too.
Fifty Foot
Hose - Cauldron
(Limelight 1969)
Endlessly
fascinating and utterly essential. Sure it's psych pop! Or just
over the boundary fence making strange warbling noises. Some
thoughts:
"Electronically
oscillating echoplexed audio generators topped off with
crystalline vocal tinkering from the delightfully named Nancy
Blossom. Cool." - Phil McMullen (12/97)
"For
sheer "where the fuck did that drop from" alienness,
"Cauldron" takes some beating, and its fusion of
avant-classical leanings and head music has probably taken
decades to make sense." - Tony Dale (12/97;
it seemed weirder to me then than it does now)
"I
name-checked the Fifty Foot Hose [in a Goldmine article on
Ultra-Lounge] as "quasi-lounge" music (citing their
cover of "God Bless The Child") and Sun Ra
"Supersonic Jazz" as having "exotica-like
textures" in an attempt to play with some young trendoid
lounge lizard wanna-be's minds. Interviewing Cork for the Fifty
Foot Hose piece, he was amused, as the proud owner of a special
edition faux leopard-skin Capitol Ultra Lounge comp." - Jim Powers
(3/98)
Food - Forever
is a Dream (Columbia 1969)
Magical and
densely arranged album from one-shot Chicago outfit. Vocals and
orchestration swirl and tilt and build ziggurats in your mind.
The title track is especially amazing, and the guitars get pretty
fired up in places too. I first heard this last year on the fine
Ascension reissue, and was blown away by it (much more so than
the coincident Common People reish). Perhaps apocryphally, the
story goes that the Australian branch of the copyright-owning
major Sony licensed this release to Sydney mavericks Ascension
without reference to their US masters, causing them to get rather
incensed (and pepperminted). Ouch.
Freak Scene - Psychedelic
Psoul (Columbia 1967)
I read
somewhere (maybe "Fuzz, Acid and Howlers") that this
record was main "rubbish", and certainly it isn't going
to be everyone's cup of tea. But Rusty Evan's distorted mirror
really seems to reflect the pranksterism inherent in the drug
culture of of the time (at least to this distant observer), and
its equal measures of idiocy and profundity vaporise in the
listeners passage though that mirror. For every daft period piece
there is an awesome slab of psych-pop like "A Million Grains
of Sand", Rose of Smiling Faces", Butterfly
Dream", "My Rainbow Life" or "Red roses Will
Weep". I've got an original on loan - don't know if this
ever got done on CD.
Gandalf - Gandalf
(Capitol 1969)
Legendary and
sweetly mind-bending soft-psych rarity, now pretty readily
available on boots and legit reissues. While light on original
material (either actually or via studio decree) this album has
great fun taking other peoples songs and tossing them into an
interstellar wormhole to see where they come out, and in what
form. Some great Tim Hardin covers, and the fine "Can You
Travel In the Dark Alone".
"I
know some people don't like the Gandalf LP, first time I heard it
I wasn't floored, but by the 3rd or 4th listen, it was an all
time favorite for me. Very structured, sure, but has that
"crystalline beauty" that I was mentioning
before." Karl
Ikola
Golden Dawn - Power
Plant (International Artists 1967)
Is it true that they were
actually called the Power Plant and a mix-up by the IA honchos
led to the album being pressed with band as title and title as
band or something? Even the cover art seems to suggest this, and
I remember seeing an ex-band member being quoted as saying such.
Certainly one of the top handful of releases on IA, up there with Easter Everywhere and Parable of
Arable Land.
"Overshadowed
by the 13th Floor Elevators (contemporaries of theirs) their LP
is a masterpiece of fine lyrical interplay and instrumental
weirdness, psychedelia personified." - Phil McMullen,
Editor, Ptolemaic Terrascope
(12/97)
HP
Lovecraft - I (Mercury
1967)
There was a
60s Aussie pop icon called Ronnie Burns who hit the skids for a
while back after he did his Vietnam time. He hit the bottle, and
I guess sold a lot of stuff including his record collection. You
can tell his records when they occasionally show up in the
endless circulation of vinyl artefacts through people's lives and
out again into stores. Each one has a little ink stamp impression
of his name in a mildly italicized font. A while back, I stumbled
across Ronnie's ex-copy of this baby. It's almost operatic in
effect, quite high in style compared to most of its
contemporaries in a way that foreshadows prog but avoids most of
the excesses. I think "The White Ship" clinches it's
classic status for me - I suppose I'mm not alone in that view
since the track gets name-checked a lot. Thanks, Ronnie! By the
way, he's OK these days and tearing up the cabaret circuit.
"Distinctively
sombre choral vocal harmonies supplemented by hallucinogenic
keyboard and guitar feedback" - Phil McMullen
(12/97)
Jefferson
Airplane - After Bathing at Baxters
(RCA 1968)
One of my
favourite 60s objects I own is a nifty Australian picture sleeve
EP from the late sixties containing four tracks, "White
Rabbit" and "Plastic Fantastic Lover" on one side,
and "Watch Her Ride" and "Martha" - a fine
sampler of selections from both "Surrealistic Pillow"
and "After Bathing at Baxters", and the choice of which
side to play first is never easy. The evolution represented
within these four tracks is striking, as is the progression
between the two albums. As brilliant as "Surrealistic
Pillow" is, "Baxters" has left it light years
astern - just a microdot in the rear view mirror. Kantner wrote
the bulk of it, including the classics "The Ballad of You
and Me and Pooneil", "Watch Her Ride" and
"Martha". Casady and Kaukonen contribute the extended
"Spare Chaynge", pointing the direction to the future
and stuff like Hot Tuna. But the most bent-out-of-shape moments
belong to Slick and her James Joyce tribute "Rejoyce"
and the crowning psych-pop of "Two Heads", possibly my
favourite 'Plane track. Have some fun creating a new Desert
Island version of this album by replacing the standard version of
"Pooneil" with the 12 minute freakazoid take from the
"Loves You" box set, and the stellar single version of
"Martha" from the same source.
"The
Airplane's most overtly "psychedelic" album, with
feedback, odd instrumentation, aural collages, all mixing with a
collection of songs that range from psuedo-eastern exploration to
pure pop. This record shows why Grace Slick was such an amazing
vocalist." - Brendan Quinn, guitarist, Abunai! (12/97)
"This is kind of embarrassing, but Jefferson Airplane's
"After Bathing at Baxters" and Dr John the Night
Tripper have only recently floated through my transom. I suppose,
suffering through Jefferson Starship during high school kept me
from digging into the Airplane. Even though I liked
"Somebody To Love" "White Rabbit" and
"Volunteers" when I heard them on the radio, I figured
that they were essentially a pop band. I had no idea they had the
capability of making a record like "After Bathing...."
- Mark
Arm, guitarist, Mudhoney/Monkeywrench (12/97)
"The pinnacle of the Airplane's entire output and of West
Coast acid rock in general. Easily amongst my personal top five
albums of this type." - Phil McMullen
(12/97)
"Sure the strings are like rubber serpents and the neck of
the guitar bends all over the shop, but you soon get the hang of
it Mr. Kantner, and you can make some really excellent sounds,
though the audience doesn't always agree. I wonder if anyone was
actually tripping on "After Bathing At Baxters" - Rustic Rod
Goodway, guitarist, Ethereal Counterbalance (10/99)
Call me old-fashioned,
but Surrealistic Pillow was always the one for me. I find this one a bit too
"out there" to fully appreciate after all these years. I don't think
it holds up as well as SP.
KAK - KAK
(Epic 1969)
I'm sure this
album would look around bemused at the rest of this list,
intrigued at being in its company and wondering if it shouldn't
be on a different list entirely. In fact I see it's subtle and
precisely rendered acid rock is a dimensional doorway to another
compendium of 1969-1971 US stuff I have been assembling for my
own amusement - a bridge between this 50 records and the next. It
has its weaknesses and generic qualities but these may be 20:20
geezer-vision brought on by the subsequent proliferation of this
kind of material in the early 70s. If you are tempted to
underrate it, listen at the simple but transcending beauty of
Patten's guitar motif
on "Golgotha", or the warmth lent to "Lemonaide
Kid" by delicate splashes of sitar and tabla.
"Underrated
band with superb lead guitar work from Dehner C. Patten
(invariably overshadowed by vocalist/guitarist Gary Yoder), a
minor masterpiece of minor-key psychedelia" - Phil McMullen
(12/97)
"The group was a short lived - six months, 12 gigs - animal
that came into being after Paul Whaley had left Oxford Circle to
join forces with Dickie Peterson (ex-Group "B", another
Sacto area group) and Leigh Stephens to form Blue Cheer. The Kak
LP is a classic, and definitely belongs in the top something or
other, 'though I still prefer the pummel and frenzy of the
Circle." - Karl Ikola (12/97)
Kaleidoscope - Side Trips (Epic 1967)
Has one of
the great covers of the time and is one of the most genuinely
innovative psych pieces of any time. At times this pan-ethnic
bunch of LA Troubadours seem like they could have just as easily
come from the Hashish dens of Turkey of Afghanistan as the West
Coast psych scene, the happy coincidence of which was probably
the only reason they got to foist their strangeness on us at all.
Hell, they could have just as easily come from space. Lindley and
Feldthouse's multi-dextrous work on both Eastern and Western folk
instruments. "Egyptian Gardens" and the stellar
"Keep You Mind Open" amp up the Orientalism, and their
cover of the Appalachian folk standard "O Death" gets a
regular airing around here as well. Mind-altering psych pop like
If the Night" and "Pulsating Dream" is scattered
through the bazaar to make a sublimely well-rounded totality. A
tessaract with multi-generic faces collapses and protrudes only
26 minutes into this dimension to tantalize us. And the equally
staggering A Beacon From Mars could equally well be
here....
Lazy Smoke - Corridor
of Faces (Onyx 1967)
Sunflower pop
of the highest calibre from a Northern MA band that I know little
about. I guess this is pretty rare, but well worth trying to find
a reissue of. Stuff like "Under Skies" is liable to
reduce one to an idiotic grin appearing out of a rainbow puddle.
It doesn't seem fair - not only wonderful song writing, but
exquisite extended guitar passages as well. I don't know of
current reissue status - but it's presumably available like most
things seem to be these days.
Left Banke - Walk
Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina (Smash 1967)
This is music
that is hallucinogenic in effect rather than overt style,
mostly. Exquisite chamber instrumentation and swirling
harmonies render pianist and composer Michael Brown's pop vision
with timeless perfection. I love the way it's titled leaving you
in no doubt that both hit singles are on the record, much like
the Merry-Go-Round album. Trippiest track if you need it is
probably the final track "Lazy Day", given its buzzing
garage-psych guitar, but "Barterers and Their Wives"
goes close. Their most psych moments weren't on any albums as I
recall - The single "Ivy Ivy" and "Men Are
Building Sand", which appears on the "There's Gonna Be
a Storm" compilation. Mr. Ikola put it as well as anyone has
to my knowledge:
"I
think I favor the "pop" component in a pop/psych
dichotomy, because there are many freaky psychy LPs out there,
but combining that with arranging and songwriting puts purely
"pop/psych" records into a different space, at least to
my ears. And I agree that for many of these, the Brit influence
is fairly strong. I was going to post something the other day
about "perfectly constructed crystalline pop" being
psych by default, because of it's structure being so close to
nature, snow flakes, leaves on trees, etc. Even pure pop like
Left Banke makes me think psych/pop more than Fifty Foot Hose,
which I consider a pure experimental/psych LP, even if it does
show some song craft." Karl Ikola (6/01)
Lemon Pipers - Green Tambourine (Buddah
1968)
Awesomely
bald-faced bubble-psych that somehow seems to get under your skin
in spite of everything. The singles are on the first side,
including the pretty good band-written one "Turn Around and
Take A Look", but it's the second side that is of real
interest, containing some fine takes on the Kinks/Small Faces
style of brit-psych ("Blueberry Blue" and "The
Shoemaker of Leatherwear Square"), and two lengthy
banned-penned tracks. "Fifty Year Void" is an
entertaining band work out showing they could perhaps spit out
the gum if they had the chance, and "Through With You"
is a bloody great, shameless hijacking of the raga rock template
for their own ends. Clearly, no one told them "Eight Miles
High" is something you just don't fuck with, because here it
is - partially decoded and twisted to their own ends, from
propulsive bass currents to modal guitar twang to nods in the
direction of improv jazz structure. Much as I hate to admit it -
it works for me.
The Listening
- The Listening
(Vanguard 1968)
Haven't heard this for
an age and don't have a copy of it, but I remember it being
really good, with great guitar work by Peter Malick (apparently
only 16 at the time). It got listed in the recent brainstorming
session as one to look out for, and the only person I've received
comments from on it is Rick Haney, who although his copy is in
storage offered:
"One
thing that sticks out most in my mind about LISTENING is it's a
really good example of the ultimate "mary jane" record.
Rather than an out and out wild psychedelic lp. It just has a
kind of laid-back hazy stoner sort of mood. It also throws out a
shadow of what will later be termed prog. Also maybe similar to
Aorta, but prettier."
Love - Forever
Changes (Elektra 1967)
Yeah, we're probably
all sick of hearing what a masterpiece it is, but that doesn't
alter the fact that it IS a masterpiece. Desert Island disc
material for me in that I can't imagine a situation where I
couldn't just throw it on an dig it. Most will be painfully
overexposed to this one so there is no need to really discuss it,
but I read something the other day about "Forever
Changes" that I found really interesting, and that is it was
recorded in only 65 hours. Sure that was probably a lot at the
time, but to create a work of such baroque detail in what was
probably less than two weeks from go-to-whoa seems
incomprehensible now, when months of time are spent airbrushing
steaming piles of crap into unchallenging mass-market dross.
Phil's famous contrary
position: "Am I the only one who
prefers Four Sail to Forever
Changes? Phil McMullen
(12/97)
"Phil,
I know you and Bevis have gone on record as preferring "Four
Sail" to Love's previous output, and I can certainly
understand that considering the predilection." Byron Coley
(12/97)
Mandrake
Memorial - Puzzle (Poppy
1970)
Possibly the
most recent record in this exercise, but a worthy contender
that's had a lot of support on here. Haven't heard it in a while
and I can't find my copy, but I remember it as an excellent
psych-into-prog concept album with a certain quasi-religious
high-mindedness about it. must've been the times. Did the
purported Shel Talmy produced acoustic album that has some of the
Puzzle tracks on it ever appear in any form? There is meant to be
an acetate at least.
Merry-Go-Round
- You're a Very Lovely Woman/Live
(A&M 1967)
This is an LP
of peerless British Invasion pop from master tunesmith Emitt
Rhodes and compadres. "Live", "Time Will Show the
Wiser" (famously covered by Fairport Convention on their
first LP) and "You're a Very Lovely Woman" are among
the most crystal-perfect pop of the period, and are very
reminiscent of the mid-period Zombies stuff, and of course pretty
Beatlesque as well. Personally I have no trouble getting past the
Macartney worship, since I don't really hear it as strongly as
some must, but a consumer alert should be issued for those
sensitive to such things. Psych touches are low-key with the
occasional flash of backwards guitar and plenty of vocal swirl
being used in support of the material rather than as an end in
itself. Like a lot of things these days, theoretically not
particularly rare but just try and find a nice copy for under
US$30. Rhodes went on to a solo career of diminishing returns,
but the first few solo records are as good as the Merry-Go-Round,
if not better.
Millennium -
Begin
(Columbia 1968)
This and the
Sagittarius LP represent the majestic twin-pinnacles of American
soft-psych, and they form part of the thesis that now places
producers Curt Boettcher and Gary Usher along side Phil Spector,
Brian Wilson and David Axelrod in the studio wizardry stakes. In
the sense that "Begin" is about producer as
megalomaniac auteur and the individual musician's identities are
subsumed in the strata of sound, we're close to bubblegum
territory, but we're also far removed from the lyrical
infantilism of that particular pop-stream - very little
oral-fixation
here. Significant chemical experimentation by Boettcher is
evident by oblique production touches throughout, like the
strange jungle sounds in "To Claudia on Thursday", and
the bursts of percussion, fuzz guitar and Spanish horns on
"The Know it All." Elsewhere "Begin" plays
out like some easy-listening sessions where everyone's drinks got
spiked. Play it a hundred times and different reflections are
apparent in it's hall-of-mirrors. I contend that the finest
moment on here, the lengthy "Karmic Dream Sequence #1",
is also the finest 60s US psych-pop recording of all.
The brilliant Sundazed three
CD set Magic Time allows the forensic examination of how
Boettcher got from Assocation-style soft-rock to these dizzy
heights, and is definitely the archival achievement of the year
so far. Originals will vanish from the scene from this point on
probably.
Moby Grape
- Moby Grape (Columbia
1967)
Speaking of
perfect West Coast pop, does it get any better than "Sitting By the
Window"? The band was a victim of major label cluelessness
at the time, but we can love them unconditionally now. No one
better to write about this one that Kevin Moist, who's carrier
pigeon just landed with this note:
"It's
near impossible at this point to come up with something original
to say about the first MG album, so I'm not really gonna try.
Definitely a second-generation San Fran band, the Grape shared
much in common with the Haight-Ashbury's various other musical
denizens, from folk-derived harmony singing and acid-rock guitars
to an eclectic musical mix that stirred together a rich broth of
as many American musical forms as could possibly fit -- folk,
rock, blues, jazz, country, all bubbling together in the rootsy
psychedelic stew. Notable differences from many other SF groups,
though, were the nearly frantic churning intensity of the
playing, and the short catchy highly-structured songs that tried
to contain it, making LA's Buffalo Springfield perhaps an even
closer comparison. Also like the Springfield, MG had a reputation
as a hellaciously flash live band, a side never totally captured
in the studio. In Grape's case this has been exacerbated by a
variety of unhelpful mixes that have marred this album over the
years (worst of all on the 2CD Legacy box from a few years back
that also includes unnecessary and annoying studio chatter and
false starts programmed right into the original LP! no respect at
all...), often based around tinny and pinched stereo
(over)separation that totally vitiates any power the studio
recordings might possess -- all of which leads me to continue to
hold that the best possible (/only proper) way to hear this album
is to scare up an original mono copy (which sound and look
[middle finger intact] great!) and play it really freaky loud
while wearing at least one article of clothing made of buckskin
and guzzling serious quantities of red wine. No foolin', try it
once and see if you don't feel like a whole new head..." (Kevin Moist, 7/01)
Hmmm, did anyone tape their
VH-1 "Where are they now"? special or did I dream about
that happening?
Monkees - Head
(Colgems 1968)
While Kevin's on a roll, I'll let him tell you
about his favourite Monkees LP, although personally I have
trouble deciding between this, "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn
and Jones Ltd" or "The Birds, the Bees...".
Perhaps a compilation is the answer.
"Head
is maybe not fully eligible for inclusion here due to its
film-accompanying status, but it's long seemed to me that the LP
holds up as a significant brain-trip all on its own... and since
the movie remains cinematic psychedelia's finest hour, I'd say it
belongs here as much as anything. The music is of course sike-pop
nonpareil, nowhere better than the opening duo: the luscious
Procol/"Strawberry Fields" submersive sweep of
"The Porpoise Song" diving directly into Mike Nesmith's
mighty Texan acid-garage "Circle Sky" (try it after the
13th Floor Elevators song of your choice), continuing through all
the film's major tunes in order of their appearance, all tied
together by a crazy disorienting sonic collage of movie dialogue
and efx. One thing that might be lost here is the extent to which
all the songs revolve around the film's central thematic motifs
(and in spite of its surface jumble, the movie is as symbolically
meticulous as any ever made, from the circular structure to the
mass-manufactured black boxes full of Monkees to the godlike
manipulations of Victor Mature [as RCA Victor, which owned the
group's contract at the time]... maybe one day Chris and I will
finally get around to writing that annotated concordance [a la
the historical notes that accompany the Divine Comedy -- which
it's an incredibly worthwhile surrealist experience to compare Head
to at length...]), but that's fine with me really in light of the
opportunity to do my own belly dance during "Can You Dig
It" (photos of which are available upon request to anyone
who can show proof of a stout constitution...)." KM 7/01
From the vault:
"Hey.
Stop rolling those eyes. I was an unbeliever once. I
thought that the Monkees were only good for entertaining
prepubescent baby boomers for a long time, and then i finally saw
"Head". It is the simultaneous annihilation and
rebirth of the pre-fab 4, at once completely innocent and
unknowing and utterly drowning in the realization of what it
is. And it's a pretty fine listen, too. Only a band in the
position that the Monkees were in could make this and get away
with it. I may not be wild about the rest of their
catalogue, but this one merits recognition." - Matthew Maxwell
1997.
I discount this as a
soundtrack and not a true Monkees LP, although all of the tracks are theirs.
It's too disjointed to bear repeat listens. The debut always held a special
place in my heart as the first LP I ever bought - and they've never been as
psychedelic as on Nesmith's "Sweet Young Thing," shamelessly ripped
off by Loop for the title track to Heaven's End.
Music Emporium
- Music Emporium
(Sentinel 1969)
If it weren't
for the primacy of Casey Cosby's neo-classical keyboards over
Dave Padwin's acid guitar leads, this rare-as-fuck LP would be
close to the top of my West-Coast tree, in fact what am I talking
about, it probably is anyway. This is wonderful stuff, with
Carolyn Lee's velvet vocals really hitting the spot, especially
on track like "Gentle Thursday" where she sounds like
Vashti Bunyan with electric backing. Aside from that,
probably the best tracks would be the side openers. Side one
starts with the single (yeah, right) "Nam Myo Renge
Kyo" which contains some devotional chanting moves that get
the incense eddying around the room nicely, and side two kicks
off with the outstanding "Winds Have Changed" which has
a similarly ecumenical aesthetic. Both are very nicely suited to
your ideal compilation tape of the field. Things get a little
more "out" on tracks like "Catatonic
Variations" (great name for a record label, that) and the
most progressive moment - "Cage". I bet they would have
been pretty interesting to see live, and the band contained the
totally female rhythm section of Carolyn Lee and Dora Wahl - I
can't think of any others at that time offhand. Any footage would
be priceless, I have no doubt. As for reissues, the recent
Sundazed CD and LP versions are recommended as being the only
ones taken from master tapes and they are fully authorized by the
band. Both also include "bonus" instrumentals; the CD
has two or three more than the LP.
Neighb'rhood
Childr'n - Neighb'rhood Childr'n
(Acta 1968)
Sometimes
being first off the blocks in a particular genre isn't as
important as what you do with its tenets. Out-of-towners
Neighb'rhood Childr'n came into SF in the summer-of-love soaked
up all of its influences and reframed them beautifully in this
increasingly hard to find jewel. Sure the organ moves are copped
from Ray Manzarek, the band dynamic is pure Airplane and Dyan
Hoffman's delivery draws heavily on Grace Slick's, but the end
result has lasting value due to strong material and convincing
performances. The eerie title track is a great place to fall in
love with Hoffman's work as she turns into a titanium star maiden
before your eyes. "Hobbit's Dream" is nice floating
West coast folk-psych which has one looking forward to Dec 26th
mightily, and it is nicely fucked over by the deranged acid
meltdown of "Chocolate Angel". Favourite though is
"Patterns", which is up there with United States of
America's "Garden of Earthly Delights" in the sinuous
psych-pop aural-erotica stakes. In fact the whole second side is
an especially attention-worthy fairground ride (quite literally
in the case of "Happy Child"). The bonus tracks on the
Sundazed reissue are especially meritorious, including a ruthless
de(con)struction of "Can't Buy Me Love" which turns the
song's inherent inanity into a blunt instrument for the delivery
of head wounds, and my all-time favourite version of "Louie
Louie", eschewing the classic snotty R&B reading in
favour of some dreamlike fuzz-swirl with twin minor key
male/female vox.
From the vault:
"Underrated
gem of an album with much tripped-out spacey instrumentation,
albeit produced very crudely, fronted by wildly crystalline
vocals from the lovely Mrs. Dyan Hoffman (anyone ever noticed how
her left hand and ring finger was carefully hidden in every
contemporary photo?!)" - Phil McMullen
12/97
Sagittarius -
The
Present Tense (Columbia 1968)
See the
comments on Millennium, which apply to this one also to a large
extent, but there is nothing on here of the magnitude of
"Karmic Dream Sequence #1". Boettcher is again in
cahoots with Gary Usher here, and lots of insanely cheerful
sunshine pop ensues. The album would have been stronger with the
full version of the Wilsonesque swirl-piece single "My World
Fell Down" included, but the original's music concrete
interlude was savagely edited for the LP version. You can restore
it yourself from either the Nuggets box or the Sundazed reissue,
and you can also have fun interspersing some of the
Eastern-influenced b-sides like "Virgo",
"Libra" and "Pisces" through your custom CD-R
- great fun.
Seeds - Future
(GNP 1967)
A wondrous
orgy of flower-power silliness with many pleasures inside its
elaborate packaging and grooves, not least of which is the
opportunity to contemplate so much record company money being
profligately pissed up against the wall in pursuit of its
questionable aims (also a pleasure with the Usher/Boettcher
stuff, although perhaps the aims there seem more sensible in
retrospect). I really like the dialectic between Saxon's residual
garage-punk vocal snottiness and the dippily nonsensical
flower-child lyrical sentiments - for some reason it worlds
really well, especially on the great sitar-psych of "Travel
With Your Mind". "Flower Lady and Her Assistant"
is nicely orchestrated with looping piano, harp and overall
Middle Eastern bazaar ambience, and you don't need me to tell you
that "A Thousand Shadows" is a classic, albeit owing a
fair deal to the Thirteen Floor Elevators stylistically. Yeah,
Saxon's one-dimensional muse is definitely over-extended on
"Future", surrounded by all the Pepperist trappings -
harps, sitars, tubas, cellos and various effects - but it works
at least half of the time, and ends with a bang via the menacing
psychoses of "Six Dreams" and "Falling."
Del Shannon - The
Further Adventures of Charles Westover
(Liberty 1968)
Del Shannon?
What the f*ck? What were they thinking? Anyway, I'm glad that
someone brought this one up as it's an oddity I'd always wanted
to investigate, and it the list recommendation gave me an excuse
to pick up the only available reissue that I could find, on the
UK label BGO. After a relatively straight opening track,
"Charles Westover" gets progressively more baroquely
psychedelic. By the third track "Silver Birch" one
knows one is in the presence of some strange transformation, as
Shannon's pristine and detached vocals are augmented by a
swooning brass section going down like the Titanic to some watery
destination. "I Think I Love You" is probably one of
most psychedelic things on the record in production terms, with
wild orchestrations going head-to-head with various woven guitar
and sitar lines around the brassy, hollow sheen of the
multi-layered vocals. "Colour Flashing Hair" takes a
fair stab at folk-psych territory, before hitting the British
Invasion fairground directly with a bursting flower psych chorus
a la the Move or something. The single "Gemini" is
similarly epic in execution, and it's a string-lover's wet dream
by this point. The vocals sound like they were recorded in an
aircraft hangar. "Magical Music Box" is extraordinary -
a brightly-painted spinning top of harpsichord and violins
straight out of prime UK toy-town pop. The record is crowned by
the really-quite-demented exotica of "New Orleans (Mardi
Gras)", which has everything but the kitchen sink thrown in
to its 5 minutes and 19 seconds. Yeah, this is plastic explosive
detonating in a flower shop, and one of my favourite records to
come out of this exercise. Even though it was probably just
chasing the Sgt. Pepper ambulance it seems to hold up pretty well.
Silver Apples
- Silver Apples (Kapp
1968)
Both Silver
Apples records still have the power to stop people in their
tracks. The debut can represent the pair of them. I bow before
The machine Simeon's queasy pitch-shifting oscillations, the man
Simeon's quaveringly edgy vocal bleatings, and Danny Taylor's
tribal drum patterns. Bootlegged, name-checked, cult-worshipped,
shabbily appropriated, the music on this record and its follow-up
Contact is nonetheless peerless. Amid the strangeness, the
core catchiness of songs like "Oscillations",
"Seagreen Serenades" and "Lovefingers" make
it clear that this is pop music, albeit hijacked by Morton
Subotnick and the late Delia Derbyshire.
The Smoke
– The Smoke
(Sidewalk 1968)
I haven't
heard this one in recent memory, don't have a copy, and couldn't
readily find a reissue, but it had serious support from the list
so it got included. I'd love for someone to write a capsule
review of it, but in the meantime here is what Fuzz Acid and
Flowers on-line has to say about it:
"This
West Coast band's excellent Sidewalk album was co-produced by
Michael Lloyd, who wrote most of the songs, and Kim Fowley. An
album of mild psychedelia it contains a fair degree of
orchestration and was probably influenced by The Beatles'
Sergeant Pepper LP, released the previous Summer. Some tracks,
like "Fogbound" and "Umbrella," had
considerable commercial potential, others, like "Song Thru'
Perception" are notable for their crispy, clear vocals and
"October Country" for some beautiful string
arrangements."
Steve
Miller Band – Sailor
(Capitol 1968)
Although
aspects of the first side of "Children of the Future"
hit that purple psychedelic summer vibe to a greater extent than
the surface of "Sailor", the second SMB album is
probably the band’s most perfect creation. It’s easy to
find (I think) and I recently got a first UK pressing of it. Up
until this find I hadn't given any of the SMB records much kudos,
but "Sailor" in its original early analog form wow is
all I can say. It’s almost too well produced, with Glyn
Johns’ knob-twiddling work giving the whole thing an alien
sheen, from the fog-horns on the opening instrumental "Song
for our Ancestors" to the paradigm-setting west-coast FM
sound of "Living into the USA," to genuine psych-pop
like "Quicksilver Girl." I guess "Gangster of
Love" pointed in the direction he would go with "The
Joker" and stuff like that.
Have to agree with your first
statement. CotF is the one to own - I find this quite dull in retrospect.
Strawberry
Alarm Clock - Incense and Peppermints
(Uni 1967)
Almost as
pre-fabricated as the bubblegum bands but not quite as they did
actually exist, record and put singles out in earlier
incarnations prior to jumping on the flower psych jalopy. I guess
this is in here for the way they capture some kind of mainstream
consensus view of what a psych-pop band should look and sound
like, plus they did do some killer paisley tunes, like the title
track of this one. Tracks like "Birds In My Tree,"
"Humming Happy" and "The Worlds On Fire" took
things away from the emptiness than lurked at the perimeter, that
latter being an eight minute epic of lysergia incarnate.
"Wake Up It’s Tomorrow" was pretty cool too as I
recall, and I think it contained the stuff from the "Psych
Out" movie, including "Pretty Song."
Summerhill
– Summerhill
(Tetragrammaton 1968)
This LA
band’s only and underrated album possibly failed to find an
audience because it never settles on any particular style, plus I
assume that Tetragrammaton were pretty underground, despite
having Deep Purple’s Book of Taliesyn on the roster.
In many ways this is an archetypal head album, lighting up on
every style from orchestral flower-psych, through experimental
psych pop and folk rock to heavier stuff. Along the way it even
manages to touch on cosmic country with "Last Day" (a
bizarre choice for the album’s single). What brings the
crafty song-writing of leads Larry Hickman and Alan Parker to
life is the fine orchestral arrangements by David Blumberg, and
the sympathetic production of Dave Briggs, who I guess is the
Neil Young collaborator. "Soft Voice" opens nicely with
some California Dreamtime moves, killer vocals and billowing
orchestration recalling the Food LP a bit. The LP deserves a
place on this list for no other reason than the "Friday
Morning’s Paper," which is a magically psychedelic
concoction of staggering drums, veiled vocals, drugged strings
and raga guitars belonging on any compilation of this sort.
"Bring Me Around" engages in some neat
psych-soul-Hendrix riff-crunch and doesn't outstay its welcome at
2:20. I mentioned "The Last Day," which floats along
nicely on some helium and steel guitar from Poco’s Rusty
Young, and is about as ethereal as country gets I guess. Side one
concludes with the possibly Boettcher-influenced psychedelic
folk-rock of "Follow Us," which would fit nicely on the
Millennium or Sagittarius LPs. Another essential compilation
track. I leave you to dig up a copy and discover the second side
yourself while it is sill relatively obtainable! Reissue status
unknown by me.
Third Rail
- Id Music (Epic 1967)
This
one’s a studio concoction with a bubble-psych vibe and a
couple of killer tracks, especially the singles "Run, Run,
Run" which was on the original "Nuggets," and
"Boppa Do Down Down." Perhaps not an essential piece of
the puzzle in LP terms, but it is a smile-inducer, and
representative of a certain type of theoretically disposable
studio pop that never seems to really get disposed of in
people’s minds, thankfully. More thoughts are welcomed.
13th Floor
Elevators - Easter Everywhere
(IA 1967)
I guess we
could argue all day about the best Elevators album, but I think
this one is the most perfect as psychedelia, as opposed to garage
rock of Psychedelic Sounds of… or the sporadically
brilliant but dubiously produced Bull of the Woods. I
think the key to the pyramid is the daring (for its day) extended
trip of "Slip Inside This House" which probably suffers
from over-familiarity and we burn our neurons out on it and go
looking for alternatives but always return to it like a dog
homing in on its psychedelic salad in the backyard. The clarity
of the production is like second sight, the vocals cut like a
diamond drill and the lyrics leave indelible trails of
phosphorescence in the mind. "She Lives," "Slide
Machine," "Dust" also all amaze.
A plug for the first:
"I
don't have time for a real explication, nor am I a new voice, but
I just had to dispense with the obvious and say that I feel that
the Thirteenth Floor Elevators' 1966 debut LP "Psychedelic
Sounds" is my hands down pick for #1. The follow-up
"Easter Everywhere" may be more overtly psych overall,
but the depths of soul evident in the debut are still so richly
filled with an hypnotic 'n' spine-tingling blast-off life-odyssey
paradox that I'd like to be buried with my original white label
promo mono copy right across my chest" - Karl Ikola 12/97
A plug for the third:
"If
I was forced at gunpoint to choose just one - it'd be Bull of the Woods. I can't prove or necessarily even explain why it's the
best (for me) but it's probably the most listened-to album of my
adult life. Horns? Yeah, horns on an Elevators album. Couldn't
possibly work, but of course it does. La-la-las? Yes, don't sweat
it. The best Marvel comic reference in rock music in "Dear
Dr. Doom" - a man and his guitar having an unnatural rapport
with reverb. The eeriest music I've ever heard (I can't imagine
anyone here is going to try and push some "illbient" on
me), especially given everything that's happened since it was
recorded; in "May the Circle Remain"... the lyrics?
Wouldn't ever want to see them written or hear them spoken, but
in context they push so many mental buttons that I didn't even
know I had, I could get paranoid about it. There was a stretch of
about 4 months in early 1996 when I had to hear this album at
least once every day. Am I like the only one?" - Eric Arn 12/97
I guess the only
conclusion one could make is to buy all of them, although I'm leaning towards
the debut.
Ultimate
Spinach – Ultimate Spinach
(MGM 1968)
Kevin Moist
kindly undertook the scribing for this one:
"In
addition to crystallizing the "Bosstown Sound" of the
late 60s (if indeed such a beast exists), the Spinach also
epitomize a ludicrous side of the whole acid-rock experience that
is both thoroughly dated and, in the Spinach's case, far enough
over the top to make such dating not really matter. Like a number
of east coast bands of the time, US seemed to be attempting a
synthesis of certain aspects of both West Coast and Brit-psych
sounds; thus the obvious and very well-played Airplane and CJ
F-ish borrows are worked into a more uptight pop-song-based style
often based in UK-ish proto-prog pseud-classical structures and
suchlike. None of which schematic description gets at the dope-y
giggles on hand, especially in the (unintentionally?) hilarious
lyrics: album opens with a male voice portentously intoning
"Mindless cretins grope through idiosyncrasy", and
indeed most of the tunes work some kind of put-down angle,
generally in the "everybody in society is a complete dolt
because I took some acid" mould. Everything reaches an apex
with the classic "Ballad of a Hip Death Goddess", a
great minor-chord stretched-out drone with scaly acid guitar
soloing and chilled/chilling vocals that all transcend their
contextual whatever fairly handily. There's a lot more of this
approach on the second Spinach album Behold and See, which I
actually tend to favor overall, but since that heads off in a
more explicitly acid-rock direction, we'll leave this little gem
as the lone leaf in the tossed pop-sike salad.
(Note:
It's worth mentioning that you probably DO NOT wanna buy the Big
Beat CD reissue of the first US album. In addition to dreadful
sound [piercing, like icepicks in the eardrums], an entire track
is left off the CD [!], not to mention those liner
notes...)"
United
States of America – United States of
America (Columbia 1968)
One might
question the classification of this record as psych-pop, but I
listen to its riot of experimentation and wonder why more
psych-pop isn't this visionary. Joseph Byrd's academic rigor and
familiarity with the classical avant-garde no doubt provided the
direction, and the use of electronics was in the Vanguard for
popular music, but it's probably Dorothy Moskowitz's angelic
vocals on tracks like "Garden of Earthly Delights" that
most people are going to remember. There are surely a few
clunkers on the record, but the aforementioned track, "Cloud
Song" and "The American Metaphysical Circus" are
classics, the latter being one of the few successful American
attempts to react to the Sgt. Pepper phenomenon. Like the Silver
Apples and Fifty Foot Hose records, the world went
"huh?" at the time and "right on!" 25 years
later.
Various
Artists - Fifth Annual Pipedream
(SF Sound 196?)
Excerpts from
an email conversation in August 2000:
Rick
Haney:
"A comp featuring It's a Beautiful Day, Tripsichord, and
most notably Indian Puddin' & Pipe... and maybe someone else,
I can't remember. Anyway, this is a very fuzzed out heavy pop
psych blaster in a very "San Francisco" (name of the
label) arty psychy cover!! A monster."
Peter
Sjoblom: "Hmmm....
I'm, told that most of what's on that album is by "someone
else" as the bands are not quite what they're said they are.
At least not It's A Beautiful Day. According to apocryphal
legend, their contributions are by a temporary constellation
assembled by producer and manager Matthew Katz. Which doesn't
obscure the musical qualities the slightest. No matter who
actually plays, it's a great album; the IABD tracks stand up very
well against anything by the real group."
Karl
Ikola: "A
total favourite of mine. I'm so glad I've got a mint copy of this
(color cover version). Re: Peter's question about the IABD
tracks. I believe both the IABD tracks on this comp were on their
first single, and that the phoney IABD line-up was concocted by
M. Katz later, could be wrong, though, I suppose."
John Berg: "I'm
pretty sure the It's A Beautiful Day cuts are "the real
thing", as are the Tripsichord numbers, albeit by an earlier
permutation of the band than the lot that cut the LP. But Indian
Puddin' And Pipe is more of a mystery. Please, can anybody out
there help with details on who these guys were? I do know that
Matthew Katz had several versions of this band in circulation. I
presume the recorded version is the original lot based in the Bay
area, but up here in the Northwest he also had at least two other
bands going out under that name. As you may know, Katz expanded
beyond the Bay area and set up a second "San Francisco
Sound" operation in Seattle.
Version
#1:
He first took a local band
called "Blues Interchange" and renamed them
"Indian Puddin' And Pipe" for a series of NW gigs -
this band included Jeff Simmons on bass and keys, Phil Kirby on
lead guitar, drummer Al Malosky and second guitarist Peter Larson
(later replaced by Burt Wallace, ex-Jack Horner & The
Plumbs.) After parting ways with Katz, these guys became
"Easy Chair" (named after one of Simmon's songs). They
released a one-sided 12"album sold in tiny quantities at
Seattle head shops, meaning that today it is one of those
big-dollar rarities. Frank Zappa then took the band under his
wing and took them down to LA, where they dig a lot of rehearsing
and hanging out, playing just 1 actual gig and eventually
disintegrating while waiting for Zappa to fulfill his promises to
them. Simmons of course joined the Mothers for gigs and some
recordings before moving back to Seattle, where he continues to
play and record -- including occasional gigs with several of his
Easy Chair mates.
Version
#2: When
the Simmons lot bolted, Katz signed on another Seattle group,
West Coast Natural Gas, and they went out as "Indian Puddin'
And Pipe" for some more gigs. (The rest of their story is
told on one of the websites out there, can't recall which....)
Several of those guys are also still around in the NW -- the
recent opening of Paul Allen's EMP is causing a lot of NW
musicians from the '60s to resurface. Many have carried on with
music, albeit in many ways and places, a few evidence the
excesses of the era, and a number have developed very successful
alternate careers."
I guess out of all of
that, the exact make up of the I,P&P line-up that recorded
the tracks for Fifth Annual Pipedream remains a mystery.
Whatever happened to the First-Fourth Annual Pipedreams?
West Coast
Pop Art Experimental Band – Part One
(Reprise 1967)
They were
never a great band in my view, but nonetheless WCPAEBs major
label debut contains some very fine psych-pop and much
strangeness besides. OK, so maybe it doesn't have "Smell of
Incense" (that's on "Part Two"), but
"Transparent Day" has a killer tune and sky harmonies,
"I Won't Hurt You" pulsates psychoactively,
"Shifting Sands" has some beautifully modulated
space-guitar and "Will You Walk With Me" wobbles with
edgy introspection. In fact, an air of hazy neurosis can be
detected in the peripheral vision of most tracks, and it bubbles
to the surface on the gibbering insanity of their cover of
Zappa’s "Help I'm a Rock". Reading the sleeve
notes of the Sundazed reissue, much of this can be put down to
the tension between the aims of the original band and those of
millionaire dilettante blow-in Bob Markley, who was seemed to be
basically there to shake a tambourine and hit on chicks, but
controlled the money and deals and therefore the artistic
direction. Maybe it all worked out for the best.
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